clinging to the wreckage

  On the couch with an ancient copy of To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. The copy was given to me by a gentleman I met in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 2010 when I was visiting from England to see friends. He gave it to me the day before my birthday sixteen years ago, 7 September 2010, and he wrote a note on the inner sleeve, ‘To my friend across the pond.’ I cherish it. I say ‘ancient’, but this copy was printed in 1966, the same year that England last won the World Cup.   Literature is the archaeology of human suffering. We can excavate the traces of this suffering from within the pages of global works throughout millennia of literature. From cruelty, enslavement, war, racism, infidelity, ennui, family relationships, it is all there to see. The keys to happy living could be mapped out from these findings and yet we tend to repeat the same mistakes in endless cycles because we struggle to break away from tradition and ‘how it has always been.’ One of the saddest things in literature...

  Three years ago, on this day, I was in Europe. I did it right… I went for a work trip to France and then took vacation in France and Spain. This time last year, I was in Europe again, but I did it wrong. I took a vacation first in Spain, then France, and had to cut it short to work. This also meant that my vacation was spent thinking a little bit about work and my preparation for that as I had to present several times during the work period. Having learned from that mistake, in March this year I went again and really did it right. I worked from France, then took a vacation in France and Madrid and really was able to relax and enjoy the time.                     This year I have travelled less than most years in the last twenty years… that is because I am saving every penny I can to build an empire. The Empire of the Hermit. An Empire of solitude and peace and distance. One that recognizes th...

His face appearing on the screen is vomit inducing. His voice is an unbearable scratching of nails on the chalk board. His announcements could even raise a Buddhist Monk to a furious rage. Turning from this to look around at society… it seems there is sadness everywhere. I often think that much of this sadness is self-inflicted in the sense that expectation results in disappointment and, ultimately, sadness. For example, so many single people in their late thirties and early forties are so desperate for marriage and children that they will either race into something that is not suitable or they will remain alone and, instead of focusing on the positive things they can do, they wallow in pain and shame and misery because they were ‘left on the shelf.’ So many get married and have children and find it is worse than being alone. Then there are those who have purchased homes and are sad because it is a heavy burden. Added to this, people are commuting great distances in traffic to sit in a...

  There is a personality type… it’s a despicable one… that is the embodiment of ‘do as I say and not as I do.’ They will not tolerate other people doing the things that they themselves frequently do. For example, someone who comes and goes freely in and out of their office most days but then gets upset, angry, sarcastic, aggressive when someone else does the same thing. Or someone who always cancels meetings but becomes distrustful of others who cancel meetings. These patterns are interesting when you discover that hypocritical individuals tend to follow very specific patterns in life in terms of banking, shopping, voting, relationships, family values, treatment of animals and people whom they consider to be lesser than themselves, and laws. It’s a consistent and easily readable trend.                     Moving on… the apartment building has new ownership, and their first cleaning act was to ...

  The hangover’s grip starts to loosen as I sit beside the pool with headphones on listening to Sepultura’s “A Hora e a Vez do Cabelo Nascer”. Prior to venturing down to the pool, I had a large coca cola filled with ice and that as something of an elixir. When I first got to the pool, I submerged myself under water for a while and then read a few pages whilst in the water. I assumed I was alone only to look up and see a lady sitting on the other side of a little flower bed that juts out into the pool. I felt grateful that I had not been singing. A family arrived with children at that point and so I moved to one of the deck chairs beside the pool and put my noise cancelling headphones on. After a short while, however, the heat was too much so I left and returned to the safety of my apartment.             Insanity gripped me as the afternoon sauntered through waves of heat wrapped in tunnels of blinding bright light and I got ont...

  As soon as a crowd forms, I need to disappear.                     I cycled over to the Toyota Music Factory and had a frozen Margarita with the lovely Irma at Gloria’s. Contemplating my next step, I got sunburn whilst trying to decide… and eventually cycled over to The Ginger Man, my regular local pub. It was just one couple and me and it was wonderful. Then, like magic, groups and couples started to arrive in droves. I no longer felt at peace and so I went to the bar, paid, and left. And yet, after a few hours, I ventured back out to the night market at the music factory and the bar that is there, The Reservoir. It was spectacular. Live music, beautiful people, a pleasant atmosphere. Even so, I did not stay too long, of course. The crowd becomes overwhelming.                     The morning arrives, h...

  A walk in the woods at sunrise. Awakened by birdsong and tree branches swaying lightly in the breeze. It is 7am and the day is just about cool enough to walk now… later it will not be the same. Sauntering home to collapse into the pool, swim a few lengths... and the day stretches out before me in beautiful solitude. No plans. No commitments. I see a fascinating article, apparently Christians claim they are persecuted because Coca Cola won’t print ‘Jesus is King’ on a can. It makes me think back to last night at the bar with a couple of colleagues. They arrived more than one hour late and, upon arrival one asked what brand of Ginger Beer they had and how much sugar this brand contains. The server was astonished, said he had no idea, and my colleague settled on a diet coke with a slice of lemon and a glass of water ‘light on the ice’ haha. It’s another realm for some people.   After that, I watched a film called ‘The Invite’. It was a very bizarre film, but it did remind me of...

  Trying to describe a ‘pram’ to an American colleague… what’s the word? The thing you push a baby in. ‘A stroller’. Yes, a stroller. And the baby has a dummy. What’s a dummy? Hmm, the thing you give to a baby to calm it. ‘A pacifier?’ Ah, yes, a pacifier.   A weird conversation that I had yesterday that made me feel like I was speaking to someone who spoke a different language. In many other ways, Americans and English can be very similar. Today is one of those days I feel grateful to be where I am… in Texas. The heat can be insane, and then we have severe ice storms in winter, but, in general, the weather is good.                     I ventured out to Midori Sushi for lunch and had to struggle with guilt as the cat was under my car, asleep, and I had to wake her up to safely move her to another cool and shaded spot. The sushi was incredible, the atmosphere was great, and I even had a Sa...

  Increase the Pressure is an album by English punk band, Conflict. When I was 15 or 16 years old, I got hold of a copy on cassette, it had been recorded hundreds of times from cassette to cassette, and the sound quality was terrible. But I loved it. In the years that followed, I strived to find it on vinyl (this was before CD) but that album was impossible to find or to get hold of. This was 1988, 1989… there was no internet allowing us to simply jump online and purchase or stream an album. Today, at the age of 52, in 2026, I sit in my home office, working, and I am listening to Increase the Pressure after purchasing it from the iTunes store for $9.99. It still transports me to my youth, it is still an album that I love, and it astonishes me how simple and easy it was to obtain a digital copy.                     I am grateful to have grown up in the time before cell phones and mass interne...

  Today would have been my mother’s 78 th birthday. Sadly, she passed away just under three years ago after a lengthy period of trouble related to years of spinal surgery and, ultimately, damage to nerves that prevented her from walking. My only consolation is that I got to spend the last Christmas and New year of her life with her, and it was a happy time. We ate out, we drank wine, we laughed and we talked.  My mother inspired me throughout life with her kindness, compassion, generosity, vision, intelligence, and understanding of the human condition. She was extremely sensitive and suffered tremendously from the suffering of other people and animals, and she gave everything she had to give to provide my brother and I with the best possible life we could have. And it was a good one.  To this day, my father is benefitting from the financial decisions that my mother made and some of the foundations that she built, and, following her ways, I have also built significant pra...

  Three weeks until San Diego… another eagerly anticipated silent retreat to a city I dearly love. There is so much to see and do there, but I also want to spend a portion of time doing nothing else other than read books. I’d started contemplating renting a car and going to Hollywood to visit the Lemmy Lounge at the Rainbow Bar & Grill, but I think that will be saved for a separate trip.                     San Diego holds the beauty of the harbour, and the harbour cruise that I always do when I visit. Then there is Little Italy, Balboa Park, Ocean beach and, finally, on lazy days, or evenings after an eventful day, there is the Ketch Bar and Restaurant directly across the street from the hotel that I stay at, where one can sip a beer or a cocktail whilst watching the sun set over the sea. The scenery and the people are beautiful.          ...

  Complicated conversations cause complexities and anxieties throughout the day. Professional ones, not emotional or romantic. There is nothing wiser said than ‘pause, think, reflect’ before acting, before responding.’                   For peace, I turn to the current Eileen Chang novel that I am reading, Half a Lifelong Romance , and, as always, it is beautiful to read. I love the intricate detail that Chang fits into each passage… the protagonist arriving home to find her brother kicking a shuttlecock into the air and then seeing her sister talking on the phone in the hallway, and describing every detail of the clothing her sister is wearing, how she is moving and bumping against a telephone book, and even the sweat stain on her clothing caused by the hand of a dance partner.                   Aside from that, M...

Light gently pours into the inky black sky and a calm quiet Sunday morning forms with peace and a promise that the day is mine to do with as I please. In the realm of dream last night there was a beautiful woman who suggested we take the risk and simply enter into a relationship without consideration. I agreed. I was terrified. It was exciting. Waking, I am grateful to be alone, to be single, to have peace.                   The cat was asleep on the ledge beside the door this morning, as it so often is these days. I put a bowl of food down, as I do each morning, and she walked over to it, took a few sniffs, and casually walked away. It’s difficult to read a cat. Today’s bowl was also what I consider to be her favourite flavour… she usually devours it. Perhaps she had eaten something during the night.                   ...

  Almost two years… two years and, so far, most of us have survived. Not all of us have survived. There have been casualties of the illegal diversion wars and raids and attacks and stupidity. There are still some people who support this. Yet, somehow, most of us have survived almost two years under a moronic anti-science, anti-education, anti-vaccine, anti-everything that is not white male leader. The most idiotic of idiots support Marco Rubio and Elon Musk… they have NO CLUE what they are talking about or doing, they simply think with the head between their legs.                     Old fashioned conventional traditional thinkers… no concept of reality and modern ways of working, no understanding of the efforts and responsibilities and ways of working that other people have. Like a classic late Gen-X/Baby Boomer, no ability to understand the view of anyone except their own, yet claiming super...

The COVID pandemic saved me. If it were not for that, I would be homeless or in a mental institution now. Let me explain. In 2008, I suggested that my team work one or two days a week from home as we had the technology and no requirement whatsoever to commute large distances to the office. The office was a tremendous distraction, there was no ability to focus, people simply walking around chatting and interrupting. Remote work was not allowed. In 2012, I I started to work some weekends and agreed to do it only if I could do those days from home to avoid driving to an empty office to do everything I could do from home. This was granted and, in 2012, finally, remote work became a small part of my life.   In 2013, I moved to Madrid and led the team responsible for delivery and support of laptops and iPhones… I became very popular. It was impossible to focus on anything. As a result, I started to work one day a week from home, with an agreement that I would walk to the office immediate...

  One of life’s struggles can be that of trying to balance between the positive and negative and, if possible, to focus on the positive. Life can be wonderful, filled with awe and wonder for nature, full of rich friendships and conversations, study and work that help us to feel a sense of purpose and value, as well as romance, passion, excitement, travel, exploration and growth. However, it is also frequently filled with conflict, sickness, death, the awareness of cruelty and suffering… a feeling of hopelessness.                     Morrissey’s My love, I’d do anything for you plays as I lie on the couch and contemplate life. ‘Who am I? Every night of my life always missing someone’ he sings, accompanied by a dance-like rhythm. The album, Low in High School , is one of the greatest, in my opinion.  Full of Morrissey’s classic self-deprecating lyrics, which are funny but also absolutely a...

  Red rose, white rose … a beautiful tale… a traditional male and a flirtatious married female. A tale that seems written for me, and one that was found by pure luck. I’d ordered a book by Eileen Chang simply because I remembered enjoying the one that was on my shelf, Love in a fallen city , one that I had read as a part of my studies. Whilst waiting for the new book to arrive, I picked up the older one and discovered there was one short story at the end that I had not read. My bookmark, a ticket from Sorolla House museum in Madrid, was in the book at the beginning of the story. I started to read it and fell in love with every poetic, rebellious, unconventional word and line. I have also fallen in love with the character, Jiaorui. It has really whet my appetite for the new book that has arrived, Half a lifelong romance .  I did feel sad at the end for Wangli and her daughter. People deserve better from their relationships than neglect.       ...

  I’m a materialist. Not like Madonna, the material girl living in a material world, I simply believe in physical matter and not the spiritual realm. However, in recent times, there have been moments that I have felt my mother has been trying to communicate with me from beyond. Firstly, a sequence of books that I read in a row in which the protagonist dealt with the relationship with their mother (or children) causing me to revisit my own relationship with my mother and reassess many events and conversations. Then, last night, locked in a fever dream, hearing my mother call out ‘I know you are Michael, and I just want to see if I can help you in any way.’ But, even in the dream, I was too sick to respond. Finally, I regained strength and called out to her. I entered from outside into a kitchen (one from my teenage home) and she was calling back ‘where are you?’ When I walked into the living room, I saw her sitting on the couch close to the balcony door. I was standing in front of h...