I ended my last with this:
“All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
When I try I usually fail at first, then again & again. I don’t like to give up. It’s a compulsion. I was going to write in praise of failure—clearly an absurd endeavour, in this world where “success” is the big lure, usually measured in money & fame, even among the so-called spiritual ones, preachers & so on. Perhaps especially them. Appropriately enough, my attempt to write some sparkling prose about failure has itself failed.
Paradoxically, my ‘guru’ never had to make any effort. Essentially he inherited a racket and made something of it among hippies in the West, peddling an age-old meditation technique and profiting from the concept of bhakti yoga. His personal role was to give talks scorning the local false gods (“name & fame”, materialism, rational thought), in favour of himself—a living breathing false god. His disciples’ role was to meditate daily and support his mission. I mention this as an example of my own failure and misdirected effort.
All the same, there is a mysterious connection between effort and grace, even misguided effort, if you are prepared for the long haul. Prayer and dedication, to whatever real or imaginary recipient, are kinds of such effort. My mistakes are my own, I blame no one else. But those thirty years were not entirely barren. When I came to my senses, realized I am my own master, I discovered Infinity in a different kind of meditation: wayfaring in the open air. And that is what has inspired this blog for the last ten years, however wavering my focus.
You know you are getting old (and not just older) when your world starts to shrink. There are things you can’t do so easily; or you cannot do so much in a day. But then on the other hand, you may have more time to do it. You can afford wasted effort. And you forget things. I’m glad I kept a kind of journal for ten years. This is it, an aide-mémoire amongst other things
You get old, but you may have gained a little wisdom, even some practical common sense, if you can find it within you. Perhaps I rely too much on Karleen—but that’s marriage, it has its own kinds of teamwork. I’ve watched myself in recent weeks fail again and again through misdirected effort. One example has been trying to make a backup copy of A Wayfarer’s Notes. It’s easy enough to create a backup in XML (which is some kind of markup language) but I found it impossible to import it back to a different Blogspot blog, as it’s so big. Apparently you have to write a script that splits the XML file (22 megabytes in this case) into smaller chunks. Knowing nothing about scripts, I’ve been dabbling with software that does the splitting for you. It took days to work out how to operate the software, & discover that the free trial versions didn’t work. I was on the point of paying to download the full version, and claim a refund if it came to the worst. I tried to buy it, but got a dead link. They responded to my query with: “Our online store went down. Will advise when it is up.” I have enough sense not to buy software from a company which can’t keep its own website working.
The old compulsion took over—hating to give up, even after I’d forgotten why I wanted a copy of the blog. After more fiddling, more complications, I discovered that I could upload the entire thing on to WordPress, despite its warnings that I can’t (15mb limit). So here it is, intact with original text, pictures and comments. Now it can be shaped into more than a blog. As if it were a block of marble which can be carved. Like Michelangelo, I see shapes in it never before seen, which can be liberated by chipping away.
I think it looks better than Blogger, already. What do you think?
a wayfarer’s notes 
Vincent, your new blog looks great—love the new header! I’ve recently migrated to WordPress myself (https://bfspath.com/) . I must say that you have had me rather confused the last month or so with all of your switching back & forth, but I assume that this will be your permanent home from now on. ~Brian
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O Brian, I was half hoping no one would get here yet! I just comprehensively updated the above post. Glad you like it. Yes, if no regular reader has problems with this site, I’ll block comments on the other after a while.
Now I shall go to see yours. (and answer your email tomorrow)
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Looks nice. At the moment I’m looking at it on a mobile browser. I’ll have to check it out on my main computer.
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Yes, it’s full of nice features, like “related posts”—how does it work that out, I wonder; and the ability to edit anyone’s comment, which I wouldn’t do unless requested by the commenter. And—as I’ve just noticed—puts in “smart quotes” & curly apostrophes.
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Great work on a great blog.
I’ve been thinking of migrating mine to WordPress. As with any software there is learning and time. My problem is finding the time.
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Thanks, Bill. As it turns out, migrating to WordPress is rather easy. Most of the trouble I had was with migrating to another Blogger site. Of course, there is learning and time involved in learning to use WordPress. But for your reference, this is how the migration part worked for me and in the end it took only a few minutes, after all the trials, errors and tribulations.
1. On Blogger, go to Design, Settings, Other, then hit the Backup Content button to save an .xml file to your computer.
2. On WordPress, open the page https://BILL'S SITE.wordpress.com/wp-admin/ (substituting your own new site name); then select these from the menu: Tools, Import, Blogger, Browse (choosing the .xml file from your backup of Blogger), Upload
At some point it points out that the file limit is 15mb, which isn’t actually true.
Then it tells you it’s done. This time it’s not lying.
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Just popping in … um, literary or philosophical conundrum – What is the difference between “giving up” and “giving in” ??
Sheesh, am I too old to figure out how to ‘redirect’ from me ye olde blogger site ? (nah, can do it).
[David, have combined your two comments into one, just to show I can! —Ed]
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Yes. Now I’ve had a better look at the full desktop site. I like how the layout kind of rearranges when you go from the main page to individual posts. Definitely not a feature i’ve seen in Blogger.
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I wonder about the inclusion of ads since you avoided that in your former blog. I am hoping that everything is falling into place.
With Appreciation,
ellie
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Yes, your blog looks much better, neater, better designed and I like the header and landscape. It’s like moving house, isn’t it, difficult at first but exciting and invigorating too. I also prefer WordPress to Blogger and have had a dormant WP blog-project fro quite a while, just haven’t got round to doing anything with it. By the way, the easiest and quickest way to back anything up (which one should do, in case of computer breakdowns etc.) is just to buy a good quality small external hard drive (there are many models, very cheap to very expensive, all with huge megabytes of digital storage space)) and then simply plug in your computer and upload your files to it.
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Well done! I’ve made it here, and it looks good. Will update my links forthwith!
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Thanks, Natalie & Michael. Yes, there is no going back to Blogger now.
As to the external hard drive, yes I have one for backing up from the internal hard drive. The issue was all about a usable backup of an entire blog.
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Vincent, yes, I realise that’s what you meant. What I thought was that if you saved all your past blog posts by copying them into an external hard drive, then moving them would simply involve pasting them in the right order.into your new WP blog. Does that make sense?
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not exactly . . . the simple way is export & import.
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Beautiful new home!
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Yes, isn’t it? “Home” is right. After ten years of restlessness on Blogspot, as if it were some kind of motel on the way to some other destination. I came to a sensible conclusion long ago and declared some “modest ambitions” but it didn’t stop me constantly thinking that the grass was greener somewhere else. Now I see that this is the place to remain.
E-books? Print? No need. This can be reached from any net-connected device. All I have to do now is make every post accessible and worth the visit. Bless WordPress for offering all this free, at the cost of a discreetly-placed ad.
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