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34 years old.

34 years after Keats was born, he was cold in his grave.

'A thing of beauty is a joy forever'

He started Endymion with that immortal phrase, and with it earned himself a place in the halls of the gods.  Immortal beyond the evolutionary dreams of a thousand SF writers, he will echo throughout the metaverse long after the last human's bones are fossils. 

I read his preface to Endymion yesterday, if I had not been in my sterile cubicle at work I think I may have wept. He knew death was waiting for him, that it would claim him before he ever finished the work to his satisfaction.  Perhaps that cold hand awaiting served to motivate him, as his consumption grew he knew how much time he had left.  Then why do AIDS patients not create greater things than those without the clock of mortality at hand? Perhaps they do, perhaps they just need time to reveal their greatness as time shaped the Sphinx into what it is today.

And what of the trivialities?  The moments that add up to my life? Today I walked into my chemist a moment after a skinny boy, I did not recognise him as Sly until he said hello. Was I wrong in ignoring his attempts to talk?  The easier thing for me is always to talk, so I feel somehow that I am doing the right thing when it is difficult for me to carry on from moment to moment.  I remember making eye contact with the chemist's assistant, throwing her a gaze as a drowning man throws a cry for rescue to the man on the shore. She knew not what was going on, but I am sure my gaze must have conveyed some token of my discomfort.

And work? No Keats-like monuments, all I have done lately is to create an app that converts bai files to csv files for FCS import, having great trouble getting Ultradata to provide the minimal support I need to test it.

The Butthole Surfers said it's better to regret something you did rather than something you didn't. True. How obvious to me now that I should have gone with MSF to Africa or wherever, followed my heart as they say, instead of staying here, grubbing out dollar after dollar just togo up mine and another's arm, only keeping the barest minimum to survive - repayments of debts, cheap veges etc. No new clothes, shoes, etc for me, these are what I am given for gifts.

Is it too late to turn around from an unloved unhappy 34 year old into an achieving 35 year old? Just requires decision and strength I guess. I know the easiest path to strength - removal of gabo. Three weeks into that course and I will be alone, but this time I know it will be for the best, an expression of the truth. Do I not sit here now at 1:53am due to being spurned once again, six years in a row now? Star Trek fans get laid more by attending bi-annual SF conventions dressed as Spock, I am sure.

Maybe Keats can help provide me the spur to my actions, the flame ot my fuse. I go to the couch.

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