A routine matter.

I think I may finally have divined the root of my lifelong ennui and general dislike of matters societal: it's routine.  The business of routine I mean, not it's straightforward, the divination.  I don't know why this didn't dawn on me sooner.  I hated routine as a child.  It's my first real memory if I'm honest.

You can see the problems this brings one.  Every part of modern life is subject to the jackboot of routine.  From nursery onwards, we're taught to operate within very narrow confines and constraints.  I railed against this development as a nipper.  Prior to going to nursery at the age of three, I spent my time at home with my mother, in an completely improvised and most enjoyable protracted playtime.  Why wouldn't I hate the agencies of routine, then?  They wrenched me from this joyous, ambling life and tried to force me to conform to their bourgeois version of reality.  In their joyless world, play was to be enjoyed in predetermined and regular bursts.  "Playtime's over, children."  "Whoa, hang on a sec, I'm really breaking new ground with this Lego sculpture; I can't stop now."  

I hated being told when and what to eat, when and what to play, when to come and when to go.  I assumed in my preschool naivete that everyone felt the same, but no - most people seemed to like strictures.

The problems continued into secondary education of course, intensified even.  I did find some succour at university.  I could sleep when I wanted and work when I wanted.  What these three years taught me is that I am very productive and very diligent when allowed to be.  I also wasn't beleaguered by chronic fatigue, as I was at school and am now.  The reason for this is not that I slept too much, in the usual lazy sitcom parody of studenthood, but that I was able to retire only when tired.  That meant I could sleep and rise 7 hours later, feeling rested.

Sleep, apart from this brief hiatus, has always been a problem for me.  The reason?  The notion that you must immediately go to bed adds unhelpful psychological pressure to the situation, which is guaranteed to ruin matters.  So even if you are tired, you'll struggle.  It's a bit like trying to have sex with a hectoring partner who continually shrieks "GET A HARD-ON.  QUICKLY NOW - I'M WAITING" as soon as you've pulled your socks off.  That's not going to help, believe me.  Nor, if you're reading this, is trying to slap some life in the offending organ whilst simultaneously tutting and rolling your eyes.

So, the theoretical solution to my ills is clear: shatter routine.  But how does a man with a square job, like me, do this?  Answers on a postcard please.  I do my best at the weekends; I wage a guerrilla war against routine.  I go out of my way not to have appointments in the dairy at the weekend, and this extends to not meeting friends in the pub.

Now, anyone who knows me even vaguely well will wrinkle the brow at this.  Normally, I adore the pub, and can think of no better environment in which to while away my hours, but on a Saturday night it's that enforced and carefully demarcated window thing again.  We'll meet at 9pm and stop at 11.30.  There's no scope for things to develop in an organic way.  There's no distant horizon to gaze at.  The whole enterprise lacks romance.

That's it I suppose - I'm a romantic.  I must remember to explain this to the missus when I get home.  "I'm too romantic, which is why I've resigned from my job."

How's the revision going? What revision? Is there an exam?

I've been asked to review a book for work; I say "been asked", but if you substitute the word "volunteered", you're closer to the truth, goddammit.  I thought it would be fun.  The book, Chris Froome's autobiography, is on a subject I love and am knowledgeable about.  And, even if I say so myself, I'm usually pretty good at distilling books and films down to their scanties.  I also read voraciously.  So what's the problem?

I'll tell you.  I feel under pressure.  If I didn't have a deadline, I've have read this tome in three or four days.  As it is, I've got a week.  And yet all I can do is cast furtive glances at it on my desk, and worry because the bookmark is too near the front cover for comfort.  Also, unless I forget how to read English overnight or pull a hamstring in my eyes, it's going to get read in due course.   I just need to relax.  I'm going to end up buying a CD of whale song because I've got to write 300 non-committal words by Tuesday week.

When the going gets tough.

Mustn't grumble

There's a chap who works in my office who habitually looks under so much pressure that the expression on his face alone is enough to give me fantom shooting pains up my arms.  He's very ruddy of jowl too and some 14 stones overweight.  

His job requires a lot of travel, and he's never without his trusty Samsonite wheeled suitcase by his side, least he be sent to South Georgia on business at a moment's notice.  It's like a faithful hound, this case.  It's even stands guard when he's at the urinal in the executive washroom.  I dread the day I see him without it, for fear it might have been run over or put down by the council for having attacked a Lollipop Lady, and he bursts into tears telling me.

The strange thing is that despite all the effing-about he's forced to do, and the manifest damage this is dishing out to his chassis and psychological well-being, he really appears to enjoy his job.  It just serves to illustrate the truth of the old adage that pain and pleasure are but two sides of the same coin.