11.02.2024
My latest piece of non-fiction and analysis which I wrote today (In the series, 2024: Year of the Fight):
DIARY FOR TODAY:
We have become two warriors. Hardened, crafty. Wise in battle. Whatever anyone thinks of it, it is a war from two opposing camps, two different ways. The two warriors extend each other the sincerest of courtesies. It has become important to be courteous, to obey the forms. We have both danced and duelled with each other a few times before. Both of us know the dances, the courtesies, the forms and the shapes, the whys and the wherefores, the dancers, the dancing, the music, the beat. Both of us are wary, the wariness of the wounded. We watch each other out of the corners of our eyes, waiting for the first moment of the war or the first steps of the new peace. Peace has become unfamiliar, peculiar. There is no time for the dances. There are many bodies in the way of the dances. Still, the two warriors extend each other the sincerest of courtesies. It has become important to be courteous, to obey the forms. We have both danced and duelled with each other a few times before. Nothing is more familiar. Nothing is more uncertain. What is the nature of this new dance? I watch the other warrior to see what the moves are going to be. The other warrior watches me. The game has begun again, but what is the game now?
In the morning, I got up fairly early after managing to get some sleep in the night. So I managed to do meditation, chi building and weights. When you are doing that exercise, you can unleash the Tiger, all the aggression and power. The weights aren’t that heavy – maybe I need more. Because there is a lot inside. I also managed to get in breakfast although – like with the exercise which I cut short – I cheated – it wasn’t my usual, just a bowl of cornflakes and milk. But because I managed to get out fairly early, I could go into the park next to Canary Wharf station. I stood there and some woman came and stood next to me. There was a whole park. But, always, they come and stand right next to you all up in your space. Why? Because we are social animals perhaps. Because maybe she wanted to see what I was looking at in a case of visual envy. Maybe she was mindlessly and unconsciously following me as her guide into unfamiliar territory out of a sense of curiosity.
Someone at work bought me in a chocolate brownie which they had baked themselves. This is perhaps only the second time that someone has specifically bought me a present at work (although my best friend in all the places I work in loans me books I am interested in). It is my personality to remember gifts like that. Because it shows that someone has been thinking about you and wants to make you happy. It shows that they like you. I said it before, and I will say it again: Thank you. It really made my day. Particularly because some people know that I associate chocolate with love (because it simulates the hormones associated with love).
Book haul today:
– The Twentieth Century in Photographs (my PhD included the History of Photography)
– The History of the World in 100 Plants (for the Gardens)
diary of a lone man 