Worried

Sometimes I wished I didn't worry quite so much.

It seems to me that sometimes some people are able to breeze through life not worrying about... well, things really.  And I'm very envious of them.

Like the bloke on Bedford Railway Station this morning.  His trousers were very ruffled around his ankles.  That would worry me.  In fact, I worry that my trousers are too ruffled and I worry if they are half mast.

I worry that I'm putting on a bit of weight... and yet most people I see are bigger than me.  At least those of the same age.

And that's another thing.  I've suddenly released that I'm 46.  How did that happen?  It's a worry.

I worry if my 'phone doesn't ring or if it's ringing too much, I worry about what people think and if they don't think at all.  I worry about conflict (which I'm not good at, at all) but it really annoys me when someone throws a cigarette butt on the floor.

Enough already!

So, what's the secret of those people who seem to weave their way through life taking all these things in their stride.  I want some of that.

I bet there's a couple of things going on.

I bet firstly, I worry no more and no less than most people.  Everyone (or at least most people) have worries.  Secondly, I bet those people who seem more worry free worry just as much as everyone else.

The up shot of all that is, of course, that I shouldn't worry so much.

Care, there's a different kettle of fish.

Change the word 'worry' and replace it with 'care' and suddenly it doesn't seem so bad.  I do care about all those things, whether they were said tongue in cheek or not.  But I'd rather care than not.

Caring drives us to do the right things, to be better and think carefully about consequences when we decide on a course of action.  Caring is what differentiates one person from another.

For example, for better or for worse I do care what people think and feel.  That makes me think very carefully before saying or doing things that are going to impact on them.  It can a tricky path to steer and sometimes I think too much about others and not enough about me, but hey ho.

In fact, I think I might do a bit more thinking about others and see what effect it has.

Oh, and I might go on a proper diet, too.

London

As some of you know (because you gave some really good suggestions) I had a Lad and Dad weekend with my son last week.

He's 14 and loves his Xbox.

He also gets out and about with his mates and they do a fair amount of mucking about - which I think is great; just what boys should do, although I'm fairly pleased not to know all the detail of what he gets up to.  For example, a few months ago I asked how his Saturday had been.

'Alright,' he grunted. 'We found an old supermarket trolley in the woods and took it in terms to sit in it while the others pushed as fast they could.  Then we found a dart and tried to see who could throw it closest to someone else's foot without them flinching.'

Hmmm...

Anyway, it was with a certain amount of trepidation that I was facing the weekend.  Would he enjoy himself?  Would it just be a chore for him?  Would he be interested in stuff?

I needn't have worried.  We did so much... here it is in order.

We started with a Wetherspoon's breakfast to fortify ourselves for the day.  Then it was up Tower Bridge for the Tower Bridge Experience - including across the walkways 42 metres above the Thames!  Very interesting it was, too.

Then on to HMS Belfast, which was excellent, as well.  We spent 2 hours on the warship.

We took a tube 'up west' to Leicester Square where we bought tickets for a play.  (I thought Adam would want to see a show but he suggested we went to see Jeeves and Wooster... having seen a bit of it on the telly a couple of weeks ago).

From Leicester Square we went to Piccadilly Circus, across to Trafalgar Square, Downing Street, The Palace of Westminster.  We bought a sandwich and sunbathed on St James's Park, walked down the Mall to Buckingham Palace and back up Bird Cage Walk to Horsguards, back on to Whitehall and eventually to Leicester Square for a drink.

Then it was a steakhouse for dinner.  8oz sirloin turned up raw together with a very hot stone and we cooked it ourselves in different flavoured sauces.

Jeeves and Wooster, set in the 1920s and based on the P G Wodehouse characters, was very funny.  I wasn't sure Adam would enjoy it but he certainly seemed to and I know I did.

So back to the hotel for 11.30 - exhausted... or at least I was!

Thank you for all your suggestions... we couldn't do them all so we'll just have to go back for another go!

Time

I've been thinking about time recently.

Not in the usual, very practical way - as in 'OMG I don't have enough time to do everything' - but in more an abstract way.

I was thinking specifically about the way time fixes images in my mind.

The middle school I went to was called Roman Hill Middle School.  I started there in 1978, so this memory comes from either 1978 or 1979; 36 years ago.  And it's as clear today as when I was there.

It was school assembly and it was being taken by a teacher called Mr Wilkinson.  I was never in his form, nor did I have any lessons with him.  I don't think I ever interacted with him 1 to 1.  Mr Wilkinson told a story about a runner who didn't have a great running technique but was winning everything because he tried hard... or as Mr Wilkinson put it, 'He had guts.'

It was the usual moral stuff given out in school assemblies.

For some reason I thought about that assembly, as I have every so often in the intervening period, and consequently, Mr Wilkinson, too.  In my mind he is fixed at that point of time, 36 years ago.  Tweed jacket, patches on the elbows, comfortable shoes, permanent 5 O'Clock shadow, sandy coloured hair, about 50 years old.  I can even remember where I was sitting: about fifteen rows back from the front, slightly to the left hand side of the school hall.

It was with some shock that I realised Mr Wolkinson would now be 86, if he's still alive.

I thought about it some more and it's a common theme, this fixing a memory at a point in time.  I remember being introduced to a friend's girlfriend in 1986, it was the only time I ever met this girl and I never knew her name.  We were all 18 and her image is fixed in my memory at that point... she's now 46 years old.

It's not worrying me per se, because I don't worry about things like time passing; there's nothing I can do about it and there's lots of other things to worry about.

But it did remind me that time is not linear; seconds, minutes, hours and days are simply human constructs to help us make sense of the journey we're on.  Actually I can jump back in time 36 years instantly - that single point in time in school assembly is imprinted on my memory exactly how it was.

It also reminded me that it's very important to raise your head every so often to look around at the world.

These fixed point events must be important for some reason (the assembly about the runner with guts was pretty much the same as a hundred other assemblies I had to sit through and yet it it stuck)... but why are they important?

I think these fixed point in time memories serve a couple of purposes.  They give us reference points in our lives, like landmarks on a long drive.  They serve as reminders of where we've come from.

But I think they serve another purpose but I can't fathom what it is... or at least if I do know it's sub-conscious.  The assembly about the runner hasn't inspired me in my life, I don't think, and it didn't mean anything at the time, either.

It may be they remind us to lift our heads from the humdrum day to day which accounts for the vast majority of our time.  If we don't we run the danger of not noticing the important things that give us these reference points for everything else and are clearly important moments in time.

'Time is a companion on the journey.  It reminds us to cherish every moment on the way.'

Who came out with that philosophical pearl of wisdom?

It was Jean Luc Picard.  Who said Star Trek wasn't very cultural?