Life's a constant source of learning. If you live another day and don't find anything out about yourself, your best friends or human beings in general, you have probably been walking around with too many of your senses shut off.

And yet, for those of us who are always on red alert in all senses, surprises still happen. You think you know someone, you meet, chat, talk, listen and learn and put them into one of those compartments you have assembled over many years. They seem to possess all the correct attributes to be friend, acquaintance, lover, soul-mate or just “passing through”. You note down, mentally, all the facts.

And then, suddenly, without any warning, you feel them moving into a compartment they shouldn't be in. But they fit; they fit better than any before. Everything feels right, even perfect and still you won't believe it. It can't be. There is an alien factor. Something shouldn't be where it is. You know it; experience tells you. Experience that quality you now love to exploit; after all it took you long enough to acquire and enough heartache and pain on the way.

Experience tells you to stop and yet, inside you, is that streak that you have always had. The one which says, go on, try it. Let's face it, if experience is the quality you now value, surely a new one is exactly the right thing to do. How stupid it should also being telling you to stop.

So where do we go? Somewhere new which, if you try it, may completely collapse, or deny yourself a new experience and fail to answer another question you had been asking. An infectious desire to learn; your phrase. An infectious disease; so could you become contaminated, could you be suffering an illness? And finally, you know that although with that experience of life you can see where things may go, others may not. Or have you got that wrong too. Is something wanted but not asked for; hoped for but not explained. If you want someone to show an interest in you, show an interest in them.

If my heart stops beating, then all life will eventually fail. If my brain stops working I could exist in some vegetative state from which, who knows, I might one day return. Head or heart is really a very stupid question. I love life and it must go on.

September 23rd 2018

I left you just over six months ago, ready to embark on a new adventure. All seemed to be in place, all organised, all planned. But, alas, a new idea was suggested, I wanted to do it, I took my eyes off another area and, eventually, it all went wrong and everything is now on hold.

I know exactly why it happened. It won't again because lessons must always be learned. Some might feel that the writing of Samuel Beckett might be appropriate here. “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” Sadly most who quote that haven't read on, There is no way, if you do, that you could feel it is in anyway a motivational quote.

I prefer the quote from one of my favourite writers, poets, performers, singers, Rod McKuen. McKuen quotes, and the words may not be his own I don't know, “Even genius fails. The difference between him and us is that he tries again or goes in a different direction” or the great Albert Einstein who slightly contradicted that by saying “You never fail until you stop trying”.

I will not stop trying. I will examine all possibilities. I will look out for all new areas of co-operation but, all the while, I will remember what the last six months has taught me.