This post was rescued from perpetual-lab.blogspot.com as made available on the Internet Archive, 13 years after it was written What is this life, if full of care, We have no time to stand and stare? (W. H Davies, “Leisure”.) Go to the ant, thou sluggard. Consider her ways and be wise. (Proverbs 6:6) I’ve gone… Continue reading A Cowardly Idle Fool
Category: blogs & blogging
Touched by the Printed Word
First published on Feb. 25th, 2009 I learned to read at my grandmother’s knee, at four years old. We used a Victorian primer, Reading without Tears: it proved itself worthy of the name and I worked through it in a few days, mostly on my own. I remember being frustrated with the word “parlour” near… Continue reading Touched by the Printed Word
Mr Lehane is Back
Years ago, DBA Lehane had a website of Short Short Stories, now defunct. I'm delighted to see it's back at https://dailymicrofictions.com/ Mr Lehane often visited Wayfarer's and over the years our exchange of comments is worthy of being disinterred from the sands of time, like this fellow: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look… Continue reading Mr Lehane is Back
Rooted here
I've never been constrained by any sense of what this site is supposed to be about. It's always arisen from the urge to write a post, in the context of this moment in space and time. The topics have been innumerable, but after all these years I've realized there's no need to index them, when… Continue reading Rooted here
How we got here, where we go next
I had pretty much done with A Wayfarer’s Notes, actually, didn’t feel loyalty to it any more, only a certain nostalgia, as when you pass a house where you once lived. You see it now owned by someone else, and realize that the fabric of the building, the bricks and mortar, are not what made… Continue reading How we got here, where we go next
The Exchange of Gifts
As Dr Johnson put it: Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully. Even a personal health scare, when you don’t really know what’s going on, does concentrate the mind to an extent, till you decide that it’s going to be all… Continue reading The Exchange of Gifts
Pastures New
I posted this when I decided to transfer from Blogger to WordPress on 15th November 2015
Grace & Effort
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… Continue reading Grace & Effort
Life and Art
Writing is not easy. The trouble is, I’m too full of ideas. They come in bunches and I don’t know quite what to do with them. My monkey-mind thinks they should be cut into neat shapes and sewn into a quilt for posterity, so I spend hours trying to fit them together like a jigsaw… Continue reading Life and Art
Tsundoku
I’m writing this for Rob, to celebrate the fact that we have known one another 42 years, and that he rang me the other evening, and it was good. When we have been in touch he has been generous, but we have also fallen out a few times. When I was in need he was… Continue reading Tsundoku
Inside Out
previously published only on Blogger Where is it, this book I long thought I would write some day, when I had the time? I have had that time in the last seven years, almost limitless in its horizon, though doled out in surprisingly small quantities each day. I used some of it to write this… Continue reading Inside Out
Elemental
I scribble ideas aimlessly, nothing wrong with that. But then I fall under the spell of supposing this will generate “creative writing”, whatever that may be; something from which value can be directly harvested. It’s better to think of it as rotten fruit, to be cast out and forgotten. Some time later we may discover… Continue reading Elemental
Sunday morning, late February
The morning is sunny and warm in the backyard. A noisy bee rejoices among the crocuses. Their purple petals open wide, greedy for the sun’s rays, exposing brilliant orange pollen and their kinship with crocus sativa, source of the dye saffron. More shyly than the extrovert bee, a delicate fly hovers silently just above the… Continue reading Sunday morning, late February
Preface to a book
I still haven’t given up on “the book of the blog”. When I do, this place can become “the blog of the book”, but don’t worry, it will be the same blog, going off in the same haphazard directions. In December last, I dashed off a Preface followed by a Preface Mark II", both of… Continue reading Preface to a book
Life-illusion
My last ended with these words: We make ourselves blind to the fact that our lives are not actually ruled by reason. They are ruled by pursuing whatever makes us feel all right. We then apply reason to tell ourselves that what makes us feel all right is “the truth”. This thought needs full explanation.… Continue reading Life-illusion
Blue Sea
It’s nearly three weeks since I last posted here, but it seems much longer. Have I been too busy? No. Has there been a lack of interesting things to write about? No. Have I been too lazy? No. I’ve drafted stuff every day on voice recorder, in my black notebook, in Word documents, or (best… Continue reading Blue Sea
To a nephew
Afam is my nephew by marriage, nearly 15, and goes to a good school where good money must be paid for the education provided. So I was asking him about that, and he told me his vocabulary had become somewhat depleted. He didn’t actually use the word “depleted”.. He explained that in earlier years he… Continue reading To a nephew
Unto the hills
“When I was someone else, that I am not now ...” continued. Let us assume that each one of us contains multiple personalities. Vincent exists in the written word, is not quite the same as his author, who inhabits other dimensions never written down. Vincent is several persons, separated by time-slices, spliced together into fragments… Continue reading Unto the hills
The mysterious impulse
"It would be idle to inquire why Mr Razumov has left this record behind him. It is inconceivable that he should have wished any human eye to see it. A mysterious impulse of human nature comes into play here. Putting aside Samuel Pepys, who has forced in this way the door of immortality, [we observe… Continue reading The mysterious impulse
Body consciousness
My body is an instrument, both scientific and musical. I use it to discover the world through the senses. Meanwhile, it vibrates with its own frequencies, for no other purpose but joy and sensuous pleasure. “Body consciousness” needs what Wikipedia calls “disambiguation”. In the media, which is to say in the lowest common denominator of… Continue reading Body consciousness
The senses
I ask myself why I don’t write here more often. Since January 2008, I’ve wanted to post something daily. What prevents? The biggest obstacle is some self-imposed rules, very constraining ones, so that however much I scribble, little emerges to see the light of day. The most important rule is to write from some kind… Continue reading The senses
The Faculty of Wonder
Faculty? I mean the university rather than the human kind. Well, both. Over at Hippocrates Got Lost, we were talking about hospital chaplains: ostensibly the conundrum of who should pay them. This has led to a discussion. We all agree that they help the patients get better, or give them palliative comfort. So this led… Continue reading The Faculty of Wonder
The persistence of selfhood
“You don’t know what you think until you speak.” Which is why I blog. And then there are the extempore comments scattered across cyberspace, wanton and unremembered: pigeons loosed but never coming home to roost for they are not of the homing variety. Or they are seeds broadcast, which engender new life in many a… Continue reading The persistence of selfhood
Being Ordinary
I'm at the internet café again. Perhaps I'll get connected at home soon. So I am going to write something fast. I will try to express something before my time runs out! (I mean before the time I have paid for runs out, not my life, though that applies too.) There have been some news… Continue reading Being Ordinary
Privacy, Fearlessness
Rediscovered from a copy of perpetual-lab.blogspot.com, now defunct Privacy, July 25th 2007 The essence of a blog, or so I’ve thought till now, is to speak openly to the entire world. Just as in a book, except that using book technology someone pays to enter the world within the covers. So why have I suddenly… Continue reading Privacy, Fearlessness
One thought fills immensity*
Every thought could fill a book. It’s the middle of the night now. My dream was so powerful and enigmatic that it woke me up marvelling. I was having a reunion with my first wife. We were laughing. Her face was radiant. We were very good friends. Why did we ever split up? Why did… Continue reading One thought fills immensity*
Self-doubt
“Self-doubt is what distinguishes man from the other animals.” What do you think of that? I wish I’d started an anthology of such pronouncements about 60 years ago, because I’ve been hearing them forever and sometimes made them up myself, as above. I expect someone has already done it and all you have to do… Continue reading Self-doubt
In the days of low sun
High Wycombe is centred on a narrow river valley running east and west and surrounded by hills whose ridges and valleys radiate like spokes of a wheel. This morning I drove down Hamilton Road, which offers the broadest vista of the town as you descend the hill. It was soon after dawn with a hard… Continue reading In the days of low sun
Zorba the Greek
I’m glad not to have yet seen the film of Zorba the Greek, for it is the book which speaks to me, as I savour a few pages for the first time each day. The film must be full of colour and atmosphere and dancing and dulcimer-playing, but Kazantzakis in the book covers spiritual search… Continue reading Zorba the Greek
New Age Beliefs?
A blogging friend lists 21 characteristic beliefs defining that rather journalistic label “New Age”. Her question is, “How many of these do you agree with?” My answers are in italic. The following are some common — though by no means universal — beliefs found among New Agers:* All humanity, indeed all life, everything in the… Continue reading New Age Beliefs?
a wayfarer’s notes 