Such words are prone to make me lift my laptop and smash it to the ground. I don’t care what qualities you are looking for. I don’t know what your views are and I’m unlikely to find out.
I still get these aberrant moods when I think I might like to write another book. Or publish a few more irreverent articles in worthy trading magazines. Or write a column or two for the Financial Times.
I still get these deviant days when I believe that “society” and “people” and “engagement” are where it is at.
Yesterday was one such day. I cursorily looked up a few editors at dull periodicals and almost convinced myself to send them one of my usual off beat and ranting diatribes.
For that is what I have become. A “ranter”. A dealer in diatribe. A voice of vociferation. Harold Harangue, me. Tommy Tirade, Ronald Rhetoric.
Which is why I will stick to my silly little blog. It may be that no one reads the outpourings of an outraged soul but at least they are mine.
You see, the time has come for me to give up. To admit that this is a world into which I do not fit, nor ever have.
I wish the world well, and all its peoples. May they prosper and survive. May their happiness increase.
Lest these words sound the outpourings of a deluded and depressed mind, let me say urgently that they are not.
I am disillusioned not delusional. And while it is true that the Noonday Demon never truly lets me rest in peace, accedie has not been too much in evidence for some years.
Nothing I have to say would be of any interest to the Financial Times, since I am no longer a believer in the economic model to which they still subscribe. I believe in Gross National Happiness and don’t give a stuff about Gross National Product.
The Investors Chronicle (for whom I wrote the occasional article) and their readers are believers in the fundamental analysis of financial markets. They give credit even to charting and technical analytical hogwash. Not so me, I fear. And no one wants to be told they are peddling nonsense.
There is always the possibility that I am just plain wrong of course. That I, not them, am the madman. That they are the keeper; the arbiter of truth and financial goodness. And I, the inmate.
But I think not.
I am sitting in absolute silence, bar the cooing of a pigeon on a bright and dry and achingly beautiful summer’s morning. I am looking out on Tudor gables and fruit trees, grass and wild flowers.
I am going Down Deal for coffee and a haircut. And then to lie on the beach at Sandwich and imagine the generations of merchants coming and going down the long gone Wantsum Channel.
I have become a dreamer; a seeker of truth perhaps. A soul who yearns to fly above mere mortality to some more pleasant land. To Narnia perhaps; or Middle Earth. To see nyads and dryads and the spirits of streams; to parley with wizards and goblins, elves and pixies.
Well, perhaps I exaggerate but not by very much. The world is too beautiful for the Financial Times. The universe has more to offer.
So back to where we began. My prospective publishers can seek whatever qualities they choose. I am seeking rather different ones and so I think, alas, our paths are unlikely to cross.
Weltanschauung 
Definitely better off with the nyads and dryads… I confess I thought you were going to parsley with the wizards and goblins…
Oh and I give up, where is The Royal Hotel, I’m sure I’ve been there…
PS don’t give up!
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Deal, down on the Kent coast and a few miles from Dover. Nelson stayed there with Lady Hamilton when his fleet was moored in the downs. Highly recommended! Just had my cup of coffee there sitting outside on the seafront and achieved my cheap haircut (£13) just opposite!
Ah! Dear old Parsely!
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I’ve never been to Deal – it looks lovely! Oh yes and dear old Parsley – thank you!!
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I agree … don’t give up … Nolite te bastardes carborundorum!
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Love the quote. I must read the book. Thanks Ron. I think I have given up already – my heart just is not in it. Writing for “serious” publications that is.
I’m going to concentrate on enjoying myself!
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Monkeys can easily get their hands into the monkey hunter’s chained jar but can’t get them out while clasping the pretty baubles inside them. The monkeys that wont let go are captured.
Good luck!
Keith.
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So perhaps after a long and relatively profitable career I am finding it a struggle either way. Giving up or carrying on. Having spent much of the day paddling a kayak around the Kent Coast I think Ill try and keep my hand out of the money jar for a while.
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So perhaps after a long and relatively profitable career (EGO?) I am finding it a struggle either way. (THE STRUGGLE WONT STOP UNTIL YOU DO – Sufi truism) Giving up or carrying on.(NO CHOICE – heh, heh) Having spent much of the day paddling a kayak around the Kent Coast I think Ill try and keep my hand out of the money jar (THE JAR’S TRAPS ARE MORE THAN JUST MONEY) for a while. (“for a while”? LOL! YOU HAVE THE FREE WILL TO DETERMINE ‘TIME’?)
TIP 1: Avoid being goaded by personal, human distractions.
TIP 2: What you’re struggling against has all the time.
TIP 3: Your ‘struggle’ is classically ancient development. (Even Jung saw this).
Good luck.
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Keith
So in your advice (and in words easy for me to understand) what should one do?
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https://wp.me/p45A85-OE
There are several Bible reading apps reviewed at this site, one of which will help you read through the entire bible in a year or so. I haven’t used any of them so can’t recommend one but it seems to me after discerning your sense of the numinous and your sensitivity to the ancient history of the culture which helped form you and your environment, that reading this will take you into and out of the heart of your current struggle to your real self of unending contentment, humility and joy, if my experience is any thing to go by. You will never be the same again. Your own singular consciousness will envelop you as if nothing else ever existed. Your present life will drop away effortlessly with no abandonment of current duties and responsibilities. They will present no problems to your new perspectives.
No more mindless wallowing in endless directionless introspection, no more struggle as this perennial force is roused at last to envelop and reveal your true individuality where All Is Well. You’ll see.
Your quandary as expressed in your web posts has alerted me to think this particular exercise could be profoundly tailor made for you, as my very different way was for me.
Keith.
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Keith
Many thanks for your kind advice. I remember studying the Christian Bible in some detail back around 1992 with the aid of a bible commentary (I can not remember which). I remember feeling very let down by the Hebrew god at the time and turned to the extensive study of many other worthy religions and belief systems.
These include all the obvious candidates and I even dipped my toes into the ancient Greeks. My favorite discipline of choice turned out to be Zen Buddhism but I traveled there via the Tao, the Analects of Confucius and much else.
Sufi poetry also had a pleasant effect.
In the end I took great benefit from all of these and ended up by preference a Buddhist. But as you would know well the mystic experience as described by those who have witnessed it is invariant to the particular religion they follow. It is a universal experience.
This late in life, my butterfly mind and inquiring intellect will not allow me to linger too long on any particular area. There is so much to consume and possibly so little time left.
In between all of that I will try harder at my meditation and explore psychedelics.
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I’m no Xn but this strikes me as relevant in your case: Luke 9:60. The cost of discipleship!
PS. After a year of the Dhikr I gave you, Zeno the Stoic would have gone the way of the Oozlem bird you seem so intent on following … heh, heh.
Keith.
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Hee hee… yep I’m a self confessed oddball
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Or masochist?
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I think it is more a question of genetics and mindset. I really do not think I chose to be this way but equally I am unconvinced in the plasticity of the brain.
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However I agree that my quest is circular. pointless and without end. I am an Ouroboros. Perhaps one day I will break the circle.
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