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... my recent unexplained absence from the web.
Apparently you all seemed to feel I had died; which given my recent medical problems could well have be true; excepting that had I departed this veil of tears precipitously or otherwise, kindly rest assured Alan, my eldest son, would have apprised those that needed to know.
My 6-month hiatus from the internet, and in truth from all fixed communications (save for an unpublished cell-phone which Alan required I retain for 911 emergencies) was driven by my abhorrence for everything I was seeing and hearing near everywhere I went, either in the real World or the on-line one. It had gotten to the point that I hated to get out of bed and turn either the Radio or the Television on, or log-in on the internet. Everywhere I turned it seemed to be so much same old, same old, with nary an improvement in sight and frankly I had become very weary of it all that all I wanted to do was simply fade away.
Unfortunately my fading away was not going to be an option and my son and the other chap living with us both were going absolutely nuts not being connected (Cells and Laptops don't quite cut it if you're used to fixed landlines and full-featured PC's) and pressured me relentlessly until I acquiesced and made the call to get our DSL reconnected. The fixed land-line will return likely next month, December at the latest, I haven't quite decided.
Equally unfortunate is that I return to a World just as dissolute as that I left behind 6-months ago, and that apprently is not going to change anytime soon either.
I guess I'm going to have to beat feet and motor on regardless.
Warren C. E. Austin
The Gay Deceiver
Toronto, Canada
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
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Well, we did worry about you for a while. Brody and I did anyway  But we decided it takes a lot to kill you, and we'd probably smell the brimstone if you'd died. :twisted:
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Kitzyma
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Likes it here |
Registered: March 2012
Messages: 215
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"The Gay Deceiver wrote on Sun, 21 October 2012 02:22" Everywhere I turned it seemed to be so much same old, same old, with nary an improvement in sight and frankly I had become very weary of it all
--
For a long time I've felt much the same way. Indeed, from ancient writings it seem that many people have felt that way for as long as we have written records of how people felt. People deal with it in different ways. Some start projects and campaigns trying to improve things - it makes them feel better even if they realise deep down that there is little chance of succeeding. Some do as you have done and withdraw from the world. Some immerse themselves in fiction in movies, TV, stories, religion, etc. Some do as I have done and tried to stop caring whether the world goes to Hell or not. Of course, that last option is easier for those of us who don't have children.
Whichever way we choose to reduce the disappointments in life and decrease our concerns about the future, we can console ourselves with the thought that others have felt the same in the past, that the human race has suffered much worse things in the past, and that somehow, so far humans have survived. And, of course, on the scale of an infinite universe, it doesn't really matter whether we survive or not. Whatever importance we give it is purely localised and relative to ourselves.
So we can just plod on, trying as best we can to make our optimise our own little piece of life. All I can do for myself and those few I care about is to just plod on, trying to maximise happiness and minimise unhappiness.
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Warren, I hadn't noticed your absence, but I've been only a very occasional visitor here for several months until rather recently. Not just here ... I haven't updated my blog for a couple of months, either, and have allowed my membership of a couple of social sites to lapse.
I've had a few months of being very inward-focussed - heart problems diagnosed in August, which thankfully turned out to be less serious than at first thought (Cardiac Syndrome X rather than Coronary Heart Disease). This has seriously set back my lad (he was briefly sectioned under the Mental Health Act, because he got so scared at the thought of losing me), and I'm noticeably more disabled than I was. All of which has brought on a chronic low-grade depression ...
However ...
I'm living in profoundly depressing times in the UK. The Health Service, on which both the lad and I are very dependent, is being dismantled under our noses. Cuts in public spending are also affecting nearly every other aspect of our lives (from policing to transport), and the rhetoric coming from our government seems to equate the disabled with "scroungers". As I worked and paid serious taxes for thirty years, this annoys me rather!
So, while I'd like to withdraw into a cocoon, I simply can't. On my stronger days, I'm doing whatever I can to preserve a compassionate and caring society. It's an uphill struggle, but it's something I have to try to do - and that means staying in touch with what's going on.
I can't (and won't) separate the personal from the political, of course, and my current battle is over Drug Treatment Services. Briefly, we're moving from a "harm reduction" model (needle exchanges, keep addicts stable on heroin substitutes etc) to a "recovery" model (treatment agencies get paid according to the number of addicts they "cure"). So the more complex cases will effectively be thrown on the scrapheap as economically unviable. Fortunately, the lad in my life has very nearly finished his engagement with them (he will be off methadone next week, currently on 10ml, having worked his way down from 140ml over the past six months), but as I've started making waves over the Service I'll see it through. Similarly with the serious lack of communication between specialists that the dismemberment of the NHS is causing ... and other "causes" as well.
I totally understand the desire to disengage, and I wish I could. But I don't seem to be made that way!
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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I think we all have those periods. I have myself. It happens.
Welcome back, and I really hope you see enough to keep you happy you haven't kept isolated.
Besides, where's the fun in missing out on other's getting their just rewards?
raysstories.com
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