"I Want To Move Forward, And I Want To Stand Still"

I've never had too much trouble with dreams and visions. But I've had plenty with making decisions. Sometimes this has led to bouts of doubt filled depression. After all, in a world of choices, and I am fortunate to be blessed with plenty of choice, which is the right one? Really. How do I know?

Even after having made a decision (of course I've made millions in reality) I am often uncommited to my choice. Based on a strange mixture of guilt and uncertainty. I want to do the right thing. For me, for the people I love, for the world I live in. It's a hard cross to bear.

Today I sat for a while trying to work out a way forward. Because indecisiveness, wavering, and uncertainty do not a happy bunny make. Trust me on that.

So I sat for a while. I stopped judging myself. And I had a revelation. It wasn't for anybody else. Just me. But now I've got a mantra to move forward. It's not  very elegant for somebody who loves to play with words. But it's just the job at this midlife crisis time of life (I'm 49 in a couple of weeks). I think I'm going to write a bit more about it on here. Help to work out how to use it properly.

So. Here is my new mantra.

Pick One Thing.

The line "I want to move forward, and I want to stand still" is from my song Have Your Cake And Eat It - September 12th 2012.

"Life Is Good"

So, this morning I was playing a song I'd written sometime last year called Life Is Good. And a few minutes later I rang our Daughter-in-Law in waiting (DIL for short) who was choosing the line for todays blog. And she chose the title line of that very song. Serendipity!

The irony is that  the next Fee Comes Fourth song (February 4th)  is  called Life Is Difficult. And irony upon irony, The DIL, inspired that one too! (Chuckle, chuckle). When she came down to stay for christmas she brought with her  a book called The Road Less Travelled by M. Scott Peck which I had read back in the day. And I was reminded of it's opening line, which is:

"Life is difficult".

And there we have it. The paradox. And who doesn't love a good paradox. I know I do. Life IS difficult. And the acceptance of that fact, which was largely the theme of Scott Peck's book, is actually one of the major steps we need to make in order to survive and hopefully thrive in our lives.

But that doesn't over ride the fact that:

"Life is good".

I doubt many people who are more than a few years into existence on planet earth would disagree with the "life is difficult" statement. Because each day contains many problems to which we have to find  solutions. And we either embrace that "difficulty" or we are overcome by it.

 But where is the good? Even if we put aside our subjective experience, the memories of painful times, and look at the Universe from an objective point of view, it would be easy to describe existence in very "un-good" terminology. The wider universe looks cold and lifeless. And our world, though full of life, is full of life which manages to exist by hunting, consuming, and causing pain to other life. What is good about any of that?

Perhaps it is what we choose to see.  Like on family holidays. We demand sunshine, because we deserve it. After all we live in THE WEST OF SCOTLAND. GIVE ME SUN! I NEED SUN! But then, it rains. Again.

And there we have the "difficult" bit. Ok, not major difficult, but still.

Good is usually very personal though.

Fortunately we've been able to bring our very own Good Detector with us for the last couple of, sometimes rainy, summer holidays. Because our eldest son Daniel, did a clever thing, and found himself a lovely girl who will  officially become part of our family in April. She's our very first daughter, with a first class honours degree in "Silver Linings and Finding the Goodness in Life". Welcome to the family Susanna. Life is good.


The line "Life is Good" is from my song of the same name (unreleased) and was chosen by Susanna Angus.


Fee Comes Fourth

"Would You Like My Last Polo And A Piece Of Advice"

Sweeties with holes in the middle are a marketing scam. But also...

Somebody probably said, or perhaps lots of somebodies, that as you get older you become more aware of everything you don't know which makes your increasing knowledge seem ever smaller. This is potentially a blessing or a curse.

It's a blessing, like most things, when we let it be. For instance,  what if you happened to be lost in space like Sandra Bullock and George Clooney in Gravity (a rare Hollywood blockbuster recommend from me). It could fill you with awe. Make you think of all the possibilities. It might actually help to keep your feet on the ground. Envelop you in a sense of perspective. Or it could lead to despair and a desire to give up.

Clooney's character, Matt Kowalski, is a seasoned space veteran who manages to be content, relaxed, philosophical, practical and alert...while floating around space stations tied on by , or cut free from, a piece of space string. And we watch Dr Ryan Stone, played by Bullock, learn all of these lessons out of necessity, during the most  incredibly challenging couple of  hours anyone could face, on the runaway roller coaster ride dealt her by fate, and her decision to go to work 375 miles above the earth.

To be honest, the amount of challenges she faces are stretching it a bit...you and I, and I suspect, the average astronaut, would have almost certainly succumbed at the first...but for once I was able to suspend disbelief. The film is a great metaphor for the life that can open up for us if we keep getting up each time we get knocked down. OK, our own choices won't ever seem so dramatic, but in a way, all the while, we either choose to live or choose to die.

And choosing to live does change the way we think. We see that happen to Ryan Stone. And in my own experience, it is a certain fact that my own mental health has improved the more I decide to get up after a kicking. The more I choose to get up.

We all have limits of course. And we all need help along the way. But we do have choices that no one else can make for us, and that can only help us become more firmly attached to the universe even as we float through it. Better that than spinning wildly around in  a death filled panic, or turning off the oxygen and giving up.



The line "Would you like my last polo, and a piece of advice" was chosen  by Joel Fee and is from my song You Know You're Alive.