Perspective.

Perspective.

Have you noticed just how your perspective on; the scenery about you, your take of events personal, or casual commercial ones in your orbit, or your feelings over the latest exasperation with political changes and point scoring seem merely a cosy friendly way to give the impression of doing something to earn their crust?
Changes in perspective, a line of sight, a new view on matters, trivial or substantial require input for a new perception.

My new perspective naturally enough at the moment has become centred and focused upon my medical results expected next Tuesday mid-day. At that point there will be a report to inform me just what my immediate future may be looking toward. In the past few days it has been my approach to tasks to be as brief as possible then to rest for a period. For as long as possible then to rest for a period.

Well it appears that my interview with the consultant, is to be tomorrow afternoon. I have been given instructions to lay off the jokes, that I do not doubt. Though it often gets said, in the old homestead, that with the rise and rise of the PC kill joys, and their irritating lack of common sense it is a wonder that humour has not been extinguished. Having said that my lesson should have been learnt years ago. Having lost at least two jobs by out of place humour.

As the BBC among others have been promoting a fresh look at longevity and its desirability, or lack of it. This appears to me to be the moment I should considered setting out my own progress or lack of it in advancing my case for a much extended life span for the general population. My general picture of events goes something along these lines.

*                    *                   *                    *                    *                    *                   *                *

There was I cruising along not doing a great deal of harm to anyone, just ruing my mistake in signing up for the Andrew at the tender age of sixteen while my contemporaries were far more concerned with how they could maximize their chances of a degree course, and then dodging the compulsory National Service commitment in 1951, how times and attitudes change?

Well for those who like my dear departed mother see a pattern, form, and design in everything, after four years of virtually no discernible progress in the elevation of my career in the navy I was dumped with little thanks, or ceremony, in a scruffy double breasted brown suit and barely enough money to get home. Though my prospects seemed non-existent there was about me a totally unrealistic attitude that at last I was free. How wrong can you be?

The first thing I was to discover was that this was merely the next chapter in my personal odyssey. Sure my ambition was pretty gross but as I was gradually to find my first necessity was to get a source of income. As with many stuck at the bottom of the ladder with so many obligations and responsibilities it can be a wonder that anyone breaks through the barrier of achievement.

With our marriage and a youngster to feed, clothe, and shelter underlined just how ordinary I really was, a very ordinary tale of relentless pressure. Then the writing itch struck. Eighteen months, clashing with night school and work, my wife swore she would never put up with such again. As 'First Choice,' my novel of the adventures of three young boy seamen in their training, nose dived into the sea of hard luck tales, it seemed she would get her wish.

It was to take ten long years of grind, rebuff and rejection before the powers that be pressed down hard on my stupidity ............now I had reached the Golden Age of thirty seven, the age when men of a certain range of achievement suddenly achieve the strangest ideas. Why, where, how ? My only explanation is the moment when a searcher finds what he never knew or understood just what it was he was looking for, but now with a clarity given with the blessing that few receive now know the answer.

One small addendum needs to be added to that comment is that the blessing I have received to understand the answer and where it derived from has needed my life span to double to accept the conclusion of my original logic. Yes, the answer seems to centre on  seventy-four. I have had to double my original life-span to accept, develop and prove the task set out for me.

And to underline the irony of the whole issue.  There is a further modern labour of Hercules to be confronted, endured and defeated : cancer.