Swimming or drowning...

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I’ve been trying to write today but nothing will come which is strange as when I am asleep my mind is so full of thoughts and themes. It’s become harder and harder to write anything in the last twelve months. It’s as if I no longer know what I think and even Trump just seems to be an inevitable joke that is being played on us all. There was a time when my words would have raged with him, but why should I bother. A few million flies can’t be wrong can they?

It’s cumulative isn’t it? These small shocks and defeats that seem to come from nowhere but were there in the shadows of age and experience all along. It’s been a confusing and bitter year with not much accomplished and what few answers I have found have been deep at the bottom of a bottle – many bottles actually. Too much change, too much loss, too much realisation of the inevitability and powerlessness that I feel at times.

I can’t remember the last time I picked up a pen or a brush other than to sweep the floor and I find myself wondering if it really matters. I’m not going to matter in a few years anyway and who will care for my words and scribbles? Oh, I still have the odd flash of insight but it’s so much easier to concentrate on the next drink, the next meal, the next episode on TV and thinking is so very hard: far, far too challenging, so best not to do it.

I pretend that it will all be different next year and that I will hit upon a great idea, build bridges, lose weight, smile more, try to be better, write and paint and think – but will I? Can I? I seem to be ‘enjoying’ myself far too much to be bothered. I’ll have to see and hope, but hope is found in pretty small measure at the moment. 

Maybe it’s the time of year.

There was a time where I saw contentment as apathy and I think I may have been right. In my laziness I have become apathetic to the world, content to just accept whatever will be. What can I do? I’m tired of being the king of lost causes, weary of fighting for nothing. It’s time maybe to take off my Canute crown and let the waves roll over me, get wet and swim or drown.

I have no idea where I would swim to though.