The ticking time bomb

You can’t hear it. You can’t see it. You are aware of its existence on some level, buried deep in your subconscious. Like the elephant in the room, except this elephant is painted the same colour as your walls and it’s wearing a lampshade as a disguise. This elephant is one motherfucking good hider.

Somewhere, a clock is ticking. A clock attached to a bomb. A biological bomb that is going to go off at some point. Tick, tick, tick. It’s matching your heartbeat, synching effortlessly with your breathing, your life force working as one. This is no strained coalition. It’s part of you. It’s as much a part of you as the mole on your arm or that bit of fat on your stomach that you can’t seem to shift.

We are all, from a very young age aware of our own mortality. From the age of three children start asking questions about death. Why do people die? Where do they go? Why haven’t you died yet?

Most of us try not to think about it. We bury it (appropriately) in a locked box somewhere at the back of our cerebrum. No point wasting time pondering on it, we reason. It happens to the best of us. We only face it briefly, when we are forced to do so. The death of a loved one or perhaps the faint brush of deaths icy hand when one is confronted with the uncertain outcome of a test result.

Too busy living to worry about dying, life’s too short.

There it is.

Life is too short.

Is it though? Average ages particularly in the western world are higher than they’ve ever been. Most of us get 70 years or more. That’s enough right? Plenty of time to do what we need to do. Find someone nice, maybe sire a couple of kids, see the good bits of the world. Also sex, lots of sex.

Maybe, if you’re lucky you get to contribute. Leave a mark on the world that means that you are celebrated beyond your own life. Mozart is still heralded over 300 years after his death and he only lived to thirty five for fucks sake. Mind you, they’ll still be talking about Hitler for a long long time so that ain’t always a good thing.

The problem is, none of us has any real idea how long we’ve got. Unless you’ve been diagnosed with something really nasty and by then it’s probably too late to write that novel or paint that masterpiece.

It occurred to me the other day we all might live very differently if we knew how long we had. If on your 16^th birthday (for those who get that far) you opened up an envelope and it had an expiry date on it.

Perhaps the days wasted moaning about inconsequential stuff would be the first to go. Maybe people would spend more time in the pursuit of enjoyment. Maybe anarchy would ensue. An “I’ve only got months to go so screw this” attitude.

Hearing that you’ve only got 697 days left to live might make you want to do some good things with your life. You’d almost certainly want to spend more of it with your loved ones. Hell, you might even want to join Cameron’s big society (but somehow I doubt it).

Sometimes, we live like we’ve got forever. Maybe we need to remember that every day is a little gift, like the inside of a Kinder Egg.

I await the iDeath app from Apple with interest….

Mid life matters

I know this is going to draw a deep intake of breath and cries of disbelief, but in 2 weeks time I hit the big 40. It’s the beginning of middle age, the long road downhill towards incontinence and dementia, of inflamed prostates and the type of pale yellow bag that is neither stylish nor comfortable to wear as an accessory.

Most of those things will hopefully be a long way off or even better, will not happen at all. I don’t kid myself though. I’m getting older and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

My body has been giving me warning signals for a while now. My nasal hair is starting to require almost daily attention, growing at an unfeasibly alarming speed. If I left it for a week I fear it would become longer than Rapunzels hair. My hands look older now; I look down and barely recognise them. A glance at my back in the mirror tells me that I appear to be morphing into Yogi Bear.

I await the ear hair with keen interest and a small amount of trepidation. Seriously, what can you do about that?

Another thing that I’m waiting for is my mid life crisis. Everyone assures me that it is going to happen, I’m male and nearly 40 and it’s a foregone conclusion. I’ve been told that it could be anything from buying a couple of Hawaiian shirts to running away from my family and starting a new life with a woman half my age and a shiny red sports car.

According to Freud, this crisis is driven by an impending fear of death; others believe that it’s more to do with finding purpose that is lacking in life. It can be triggered by losing someone close to you or the loss of a job. Wikipedia reckons that it can last between 3 and 10 years once it sets in.

So, are there any symptoms yet?

Well, I’m not feeling trapped, I haven’t been out shopping for the Magnum PI look and (like 90% of the country) I’m skint, so the impulse purchase of a fast car or a motorbike are out. I’m not obsessed with death (not nearly as much as my 5 year old son is anyway) and I’ve not yet started questioning the meaning of life. Not unless you count watching the Monty Python film of that name.

I think the thing is that I’m happy. I’m feel very lucky.

I have a wonderful family, a nice house and a good job (at the moment) and I feel fairly content. Like so many others, I could do with a few more quid in my pocket but it’s not going to kill me to go without. I have good friends and nice things to look forward to. My parents are ace and whilst I wish I could see more of them (they live in deepest darkest East Anglia), when I do it’s always quality time, (once I’ve checked they haven’t developed webbed toes).

I await this crisis with interest. Maybe it will never come. Maybe it will be much smaller symptoms. I’ve started listening to drum and bass and have just joined some friends in very casually playing in a rock band. Maybe that’s the sum of my “change”.

We’ll see…

Walking back to happiness...

I think that I am what most people would call lazy when it comes to physical activity. Most of my friends joke about the number of times I have started a fitness regime that has lasted anything from a few months to a few hours.

I start off very enthusiastically and can maintain that viewpoint for a while but never manage to be able to make it stick as a permanent lifestyle change. The lure of a nice curry and a couple of hours lounging in front of the television is just too much for me.

One activity has stuck with me though for the last couple of years. I love to go hill walking. Yesterday, it was the wonderful ruggedness of Dartmoor that drew me.

I’m sure there will be some of you out there scoffing at this as a suggestion of physical activity, but you’ve probably never done it. As I sit in work today I feel more physically drained than if I had done the toughest workout session in the Gym. I have muscles that usually lie dormant that are screaming for attention and a flight of stairs this morning felt like some kind of medieval torture chamber. Basically, it hurts to move.

So why do I keep coming back to something that makes me feel this way? I’m not a masochist and I certainly don’t enjoy feeling like I’ve doubled my age overnight. No, the thing that makes me go back time and time again is the feeling standing astride a Tor or a Mountain and seeing no signs of civilisation for miles.

Maybe it’s because I’ve lived in large towns or cities all my life, but to not be able to see another living soul (walking companions excepted) or hear the noise of cars racing past is something very special. Proper silence, where on a calm day you can hear nothing at all. It is a beautiful thing.

The views are another reason for my love of this pastime. You can sit and each lunch with a panoramic vista unparalleled by anything the city can provide. A sense of enormous well being always surrounds me at such times and all of life’s little niggles are a world away. The walk I did yesterday took my companions and I past waterfalls, through rocky valleys, over magnificent tors and (at times) through some really boggy marshes.

The final reason for my love of walking is the sense of achievement it provides. It can be very tough towards the end of a walk to muster enough energy to put one foot in front of the other. To keep going when you’re feet ache and your legs feel like every last ounce of energy has been replaced by lead weights is tough. When you finally reach your goal it feels wonderful. It clears the head in no other way I know. If ever I am feeling sorry for myself it makes me feel better and happier.

My aim is to try and get out and about once a month. I hope I can achieve this.