The Pursuit of Will Power

Good morning world!

This edition is beamed to you from a sleepy, drizzly, mild last Sunday in April in Scotland.

The locals have barely surfaced. The roads are quiet. The dogs, save those yapping, are napping. We'll just let those ones lie.

I would like to share my thoughts with you about will power; my wonderings, my questions, my confusion.

What is it and where does it come from? How does one generate more, if possible?

Oscar Wilde once said, "I can resist anything except temptation." But what does this mean? Is he saying it's okay to give in to cravings? Or is he just identifying that, like me, he has little will power? Or is he just making an amusing and clever comment, which starts off strong: "I can resist anything" and ends : "except temptation" which is of course the vehicle by which we are transported to what we want; a streetcar named Desire.

These days I find myself drifting along with a vague sense of impending doom. As if I'm in a rowing boat on a river heading for the top of a waterfall. I really should row. But it's just such a pleasant ride. The riverbanks are bustling with bunnies, the sun is sparkling on the water, the birds are singing, the fish are leaping over the prow. Ahh, it's so pleasant just to lie here with my feet up on the edge without a care in the world.

Wait, is that a faint splashing I can hear? Is that crashing crescendo getting louder? Hmf, it's still a long way off. I'll deal with that when it comes.

But hey, it's such a lovely ride. Sit here with me for a little while. Enjoy it.

Which brings me back to will power. How to get it? I could row if I wanted to, but I don't. 

The thought occurred to me not long ago that perhaps will power is a muscle, like physical power. You gain it by using it. And at the very least, things will get done in pursuit. If I install the loft ladder perhaps this will give me the strength to lay the insulation. If I force myself to dig the garden maybe I will gain the wherewithall to plant things. At the very least the loft ladder will be installed and the garden will be dug.

Then again there's the question of life. I was saddened recently to hear of the passing of Jerry Springer at 79. If someone so likeable, successful and famous can't cheat death, then what chance have the rest of us got? Sean Connery made it to 90. He definitely squeezed every last drop out of life.

So maybe the question shouldn't be : "Where does one get more willpower?" Perhaps it should be : "How can one live better?" And by better I mean longer, happier, and leaving the world a better place than how you found it.

But the irony is you really need willpower to live a longer, happier life which leaves the world a better place. Sitting on the sofa all day, every day, watching box sets and chowing down on mint Aeros is not going to cut it.

So, to summarize then. What have we learnt from this morning's musings? 

I guess, as with everything, it's balance. Balance the box sets and Aeros with jogging and carrots. Balance the lying in the boat trailing fingertips in the water with periods of frantic rowing. Balance the work with the joy.

Yin and yang, innit?

Yin without Yang is like Cheech without Chong

Maybe laziness is like fear. It's there to be overcome. It's not just about doing the things you want when you want. It's about wielding the savage sword of will power and smiting down your laziness with one fell swoop, thus washing the dishes and checking the tyre pressure of your car, not 'when you feel like it' but when it's appropriate.

As the winged goddess of victory once quoth, "Just do it." 

And as Larry the Cable Guy once quoth, "Git 'er done!"

Two Birds, One Dog

Another Sunday befalls us.

It occurs to me that if I take gardening gloves on my 7am walk with the dog and pick up a handful of garbage before each bin, and drop it in, my life on this earth is not entirely wasted.

A good feeling is born, which mingles with the dew and dawn, and makes the surrounding nature more aesthetically pleasing. Just a little each day, and oh, how much easier on the eyes is the undergrowth. 

A crushed Monster can gives way to new-born nettles. A plastic Golden Wonder wrapper makes way for baby trees. A rusting tin can from aeons before, somehow disgorged from the soil since yesterday, succumbs to human hand and creates a safe space for fresh, green, dew-drop laden blades of grass to reach for the carbon enriched air, and, by merely doing what it does, convert it, molecule by molecule, to oxygen.

What if we are just aliens on an alien planet with alien problems?

Overcrowding, pollution and over-consumption of food and raw materials. It must happen to every species in a confined space eventually.

But for the meanwhile, it truly feeds the soul to cast one's gaze around the nature-scape and find it litter-free, reminded not of humanity's foibles, but of Mother Earth's simple beauty.

Sunday Thoughts

Well, here I am sitting in the glorious sunshine in our back garden having a spot of brunch in a bid to fend off the ‘pre lunch energy crash’ that I’ve been experiencing a lot recently (probably due to the nightly Heinekens (I bought four cans for the slugs and drank three myself (these days the slugs in my garden have two choices: salt or beer; some of them wisely choose the beer))))

I haven’t done much gardening of late and I’m not sure why. They say, “Spend time not money on your <insert valuable thing here>” and I haven’t been doing much of that at all. Sunday mornings were traditionally my gardening time but to be honest I haven’t been bothered. I’ve planted the spuds but the brassica and legumes patches lie empty. I guess I could move the broad bean saplings to the outside now we’ve hopefully seen the last of the frost. Why has my gardening spirit deserted me? I still don’t really know what brassicas are, but I have a feeling I don’t like them. Are they the green leafy veg like kale and Brussels sprouts? Sounds like ideal food for slugs to enjoy with beer and salt.

I read an article in last week’s Times Magazine by Rachel Riley of Countdown fame (she’s now 35!) and she said some of the best advice she’d ever received was: Decide what would be a good outcome of a project and if you achieve that, be happy with it. She also wrote: Only concern yourself with what will be important in five years’ time.

Rachel Riley in 2011. Source : Wikipedia CC by 3.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

This got me to thinking. Where will I be in five years’ time? What will be important to us then?

Well, I’ll be 51. I can’t even relax enough to imagine what that will be like. Probably just be exactly the same as now, except hopefully we’ll be closer to paying off the mortgage. Too much time wasted on social media. Failed half-empty writing promises. Not enough money. Unachieved goals.

I remember in 2008 I wrote a five year plan and it involved becoming self sufficient. IE we’d own our own house, have our own homestay business. Teach English at home and tour people around Scotland. Sounded like a pretty good goal.

And to some extent we approached this. We had guests coming in with AirBnB and Homestay. We had a refreshing home. People came and went. They stayed in the spare room. We even had a lodger at one point. Admittedly the first night was always a bit nervy because we never knew if they’d kill us all in our sleep, but after that didn’t happen it was fine.

I mean we could grow more food, it’s just a case of me being arsed.

The dandelions are out in full force today, and so are daisies on the lawn. I’ve put fatballs in the bird feeder and the house sparrows are tweeting merrily. Currently no neighbours are playing radios or shouting at dogs. Things seem momentarily peaceful. In the distance someone’s mowing their lawn and dogs are barking their indifference at each other, but that’s at a distance so completely fine. No fitness company is shouting orders via a PA system at their clients, which even at a distance is insufferable. 

It seems I’ve become a cantankerous old man, which must have snuck up on me in the last five years...

So back to Rachel Riley. Where do I want to be in 2026, because there’s a fair to middling chance that it will come around eventually.

I don’t want to be 51 - that’s a start. That’s the main one.  I'd rather be 25.5. But that’s ridiculous. I’m going to be 51 whether I like it or not. The question is, what kind of 51-year-old do I want to be? 

Looking at people younger than me lamenting their age I always think, “Hmm, they should just be grateful for what they have.” So perhaps that’s how I should be. Grateful for what I have. I should be grateful for being 51 because five years after that I’ll be 56. More pain. More hardship. Further from the truth. Or closer, depending on how you look at it. 

Okay, can’t do anything about that, but I can presumably do something about my situation. Me and my books and my writing and my wedding videos and my car and my music. I want to be an ageing hippy, smoking dope and giving lectures. And my dog. I want to enjoy the twilight years of my life. 

I want to live in a small house near the sea in St Andrews, with a garden in a quiet place. 

And all I’d need to do that is £135 grand...

Better get writing!