These are just fleeting thoughts from the heartland of the UK's colonial dustbin somewhere beyond the wall of sleep. Odd bits of music and so-called worldly wisdom may creep in from time to time. Don't expect too much and you won't feel let down. As ever AI and old age are to blame. I'll just leave it there ...
The occasionally busy River Forth as seen from a rather high place. I've also been doing a lot of thinking in the odd gaps that have opened up this rather busy weekend, unfortunately that seems to get me nowhere. No thinking for me from now on, I'll just get on with things.
Although it's not been a particularly dry summer every so often you get one of those days/nights when, for no reason surplus wickerwork furniture just spontaneously combusts, as it were. There is no rational explanation so I have none to offer.
The impermanence of pleasure
"This most recent study inquired into the well being of 136,000 people worldwide and compared it to levels of income. It found, overall, that feelings of security and general satisfaction did increase with financial status. Money, however, could not lift its possessors to the next level, and was unable to provide enjoyment or pleasure on its own. The survey, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, examined large numbers of people from almost every culture on earth, and found much the same thing. The stereotype of the rich man who finds life savorless and without pleasure was not invented simply to keep the poor happy with their lot.
Opinions and this enormous survey, however, concentrate on status and on the moment of possession. Are we satisfied and filled with pleasure when we have what we came for? Some, looking at suburban cannibals and eager consumers, would say “yes”; the survey tends to say “not necessarily”. There is a significant question to be asked about enjoyment, which we ask ourselves all the time when embarked on an enterprise of pleasure. It’s rare that we can actually pin down the specific site of pleasure; the specific moment where what William Blake called “the lineaments of gratified desire” are at their clearest.
Take the teenager determined to buy an iPad, a woman setting out to get a new handbag, a prosperous businessman who wants to add to his collection of sports watches. The setting out with the happy intention of spending; the entering of the shop; the examination of the wares; the long decision; the handing over of the money; the moment when the ownership of handbag, watch or tablet is transferred; the gloating at home; the moment when the object is displayed to others. All these steps form a process in enjoyment, but almost all of them are redolent with anticipation or with retrospective glee. The moment where bliss is at its peak, as with other pleasures of the human animal, is over in a flash, and hardly exists at all. Everything else is foreplay and memory.
Composers have always known this simple, basic truth: pleasure is half anticipation and half blissful recollection, and hardly at all about the fulfillment of the promise. The great musical statements of ecstasy, such as Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde or Schubert’s first Suleika song, are literally all half crescendo and half languid recall. We look forward to pleasure; we look back on it. The moment of pleasure itself is over in a flash, and often rather questionable. The sulking child’s question, guaranteed to destroy any outing, “Are we having fun yet?” is an irrational one; because we are always looking forward to having fun, always knowing that we have had fun."
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Back to work today, for a few blissful hours (?) anyway. A farewell then to open roads, closed shops, abandoned petrol stations, forests of for sale signs, wooden cafes and a trail of cream coloured caravans and the motley crew of cycling youths that splatter across the common holiday experience. At times I'm not really sure quite what you are supposed to be doing on holiday; walking, eating, swimming, looking at things, visiting places but not ever taking anything in, waking up a little more tired in a strange bed, feeling that this must be doing good, in some way. I think that's it, some good is done but it can't quite be understood, measured or maintained but there are positive benefits in there, though not the feeling of being simply exploited inch by penny by the big bad operators, no not that. Who needs a 24hr 7 day swimming pool and sauna complex these days?
Always worth popping into Boleskin House for a cuppa tea, a digestive biscuit, a small bit of human sacrifice and the rites of passage ceremony to the upper seventh level of Thelema a strategic place in the universe of spheres that I've managed to maintain since 1971 or thereabouts.
The sun goes down behind the trees, across the loch, no fish for us tonight (that was a few nights ago!) but we have smoked sausage, Pringles and assorted muffins.
The petrified jaws of prehistoric whales stand guard against the forces of commercialism and rampant capitalism to protect the integrity of our highland home. They are not much good at preventing the sinister spread of the waltzing waters brain washing phenomenon unfortunately. I'm still experiencing some trauma and occasional flashbacks.
At a railway station the platform should always be about the same length as the longest train likely to use it. This design innovation allows safe embarkation and disembarkation for all passengers, this one is a good example. 
First generation apple breaks out from it's blossomy bed. There are more, they may become chutney one day or we may actually eat some raw.
We thought they were weeds and then they turned into flowers, always a nice surprise when that happens.
Duck type creatures swim away from a potential predator on the banks of the Forth.
Mylo, spending a few days with us on holiday whilst the grandchildren are away. Local dandelions form a tasty wee snack for the little fellow. Meanwhile the rain keeps on falling.
