Some Kind of Overture

 I'm not certain what's going on with me at the moment.

Let's take stock of a few facts and go from there:

• I have a really interesting job: Aside from a few peripheral quibbles; my actual job and place of work is really interesting, and whenever I am there and working, I am happy and feel good about what I am doing
• I have even begun to be a little more social with some of my colleagues; expressing myself a little more, and being more open in what I share with them - which isn't something I felt inclined to do at my previous job of nearly 18 years

• I have an amazing partner; whenever we interact I am filled with love and all the positive feelings - and not without some relationship work from the both of us - but we feel really good as partners, and I am experiencing new levels of shared happiness; it's bonkers in all the good ways

And yet when I am away from these two significant aspects of my life (on 'non-working' days; and when I'm living on my own), I'm finding myself down and sometimes stuck.

An important caveat here - there are absolutely some of these times when I don't feel down; sometimes it is when I have a creative idea and go with it - or go out on a lovely wander with a podcast or two: Sometimes it is when I meet up with a few good friends on a one-to-one basis, and have a lovely waffle about things going on in each of our heads, and feel seen and loved and validated in my thoughts.

But it feels like I've lost an overall direction.

I think the early days of the Ministry of Ginger, it felt like I was forging my own path in the world - building new structures; challenging old structures; and making necessary changes to how I went out into the world, to help me cope with the rampant inequalities across a number of aspects of current living.

And I think that was all pretty successful - I enjoy the structures I have built, and indeed continue to live my life through the lens of the various departments that my life is segregated into.

I think it is with the more external factors that I'm struggling.

Politics is the first that comes to mind; honestly I don't see why politics continues. [That's a horribly phrased sentence, but bear with me here]. Like, election after election I point out the huge flaws in the current political system in the UK; and every time we descend into more and more division - populism on the rise - and the only line I am given is to 'change the system from within'; but it is a system beyond fixing in my mind [hence why I am effectively operating as an independent citizen of the world, rather than a UK citizen {albeit, note for HMRC; still a Tax Resident of the UK}].

And in fact the only time the system gets truly interfered with is when populist bullies like Musk start mouthing off and you can see the tangible impact that has (by one fucking billionaire) on the social discourse at least.

Now I'm not pretending that a revised/revoked political system of the world will protect and insulate from that - but it is maddening to see how reckless power exists in the modern world; when so so many are robbed of their own power.

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Which does bring me to the impending apocalypse...

I think part of my disengagement from the broader strokes of modern society (news, politics, gossip) is because it feels like I am experiencing a slow crescendo of disaster in real time - be that [and I don't like giving a developed nation the front billing here on an environmental disaster example - I am certain there are worst out there; but it is all that the discourse seems to be at the moment] the wildfires in LA; Trump's impending presidency - will he ravage Greenland for natural resources? Will he ensure systems are put in place to further systematically oppress minorities? Will he and Putin go all-in on just whatever the fuck they want? 
Will the combined situation in the Ukraine, Middle East, [insert several other global examples I am deliberately unaware of] escalate to a nuclear conclusion?

Or will it be more of a unwritten world war on those without power/money nor with the means to influence things directly - and therefore get backed into a corner and have to cling on to one of the more extreme political rhetoric, because the middle ground has been eroded and one side is shouting more than the other.

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I'm also getting more and more irritated/infested with AI - well, machine learning. Stop calling it AI and running that in your marketing.

There is a tool at work - for example - that I don't (thankfully) have to use very often, but when I do there is the option to use an "AI search" to resolve the query that you have.

I'm trying not to be 'old man shakes fist at the Cloud' - but what's fucking wrong with building the software so I can navigate it myself, and find the answer - rather than a gimmicky feature that honestly only works if you are used to giving over all that effort to a machine - but a machine that you have no technical knowledge of how they do what they do.

When I figure out an issue in Excel, I can at least go over it and understand [with the building block knowledge of Excel I have] WHY the issue occurred, and knowing what I have done to resolve that issue.

I'm not saying you should always know why something has happened - but if you are never going to know 'why' something has occurred in the future; and just happily accept what a machine learning programme tells you - I dunno, that feels bad.

I'm also anticipating the next hassle when I have to replace this laptop - or replace my phone - and I am either invariably stuck with "AI" being integrated into how I use this technology going forwards [so the biggest companies in the world can continue to farm human experience for a mass database of interactions that will ultimately give an 'average' human experience, that everyone in the future will be compared and judged against - and potentially we'll be at the whole situation where there is no average, as the US air force already found out.]; or - more realistically - I will have to spend additional energy and effort finding a phone/laptop solution that doesn't have "AI" integrated into it, or one where I can opt out at least.

I know that is a headache I'll be facing soon.

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Wow, that was a lot of ranting. And I'm sure I can find more. But - honestly - until I got to writing this blog today; these were things that were just bouncing around in my head - I don't think they were bothering me that much [maybe they were? ~ Ed.] - but equally there were in my head, along with a million other things of course.

This wasn't even the main focus of what I wanted to blog about today!

What
Is

Going

On

With
Me

At

The

Moment?

As I said at the top, when I'm in a flow state with work, or with my partner; I feel good.

And there are other things I do where I feel good too; one-to-one with a few others (including therapy); walking & podcast listening [although to what end?]; I am circling back to my passport project again; and my whiteboard is still full of book idea - although I think I am beginning to accept that it isn't going to be ready for my 42nd birthday, which was originally the plan.

Other than that, I think what had died away from me - is reacting to things. I don't just mean news/politics as I've alluded to above - but also music; to films. To just stuff that is going on, and come into my scope.

I had a realisation that so much of me has been reacting to external stimuli.

Which, when you put it like that, is bloody obvious that is what a lot of human existence is! At a technical level, everything I do is exactly that.

Buuuuut, what I think I mean is that I have broadly been driven by external forces - and absolutely (in many instances) this was a good thing! Like the music I have grown to love in my twenties and into my thirties - that is all external influences; it has driven me to places and people with great success!

Magic is another on/off example - I have this very weekend booked myself to the Spotlight Series in Utrecht to hopefully have a nostalgic hit of Modern Magic in an open tournament setting - even if I am mindful that it might be the last time I play Magic in such a way; I don't expect I will be competitive - and the changes to the game this year in particular, is one step too far for me away from what I originally loved about the game.

And I still get excited about films - LIFF was a delight to review, and I am even more excited for LQFF in March - so it isn't like I have lost that love either.

I think I'm just finding it harder to get excited. Or rather, it is less frequently that I get excited by all this stuff.

I think there used to be a fire within me, railing against the world; but seeking to express that through positive/creative mediums - and that is what I think I'm missing at the moment.

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It's interesting; I was originally going to start this blog with the following quote - as a musical lead into what I wanted to talk through; but I found it challenging to go from the quote and extrapolate from there - but instead it feels apt to get to the quote in this closing portion of the blog:

Long have I drifted without a course
A rudderless ship I have sailed

Turisas, Miklagard Overture

That is how I currently feel; a bit adrift; and - looking back - I've been like this for some amount of time. To be clear; not all the time - and especially not when I am in the company/engagement of others - but definitely when I am alone, and unmotivated.

How I want to feel is more how that song the line comes from, being the conclusion of the superb concept album of some Vikings travelling (as they did in actual history!) from Scandinavia all the way to Constantinople. The song is a majestic finale to the album [which - importantly - sets up aspects of the follow-on album; IE it's not the end], and I planned to link that with the concept of an overture. And maybe even use that as a metaphor for how I might feel...?

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Music - like everything about the world - is one particular way of structuring something. 

In this example, certain sounds.

And in the structures of music; an overture is typically an opening piece to a much larger work. Before the curtain rises at the opera; there is a piece of music that incorporates a number of themes that the audience will later here in longer forms, as part of the actual opera - but this is just a little aperitif; a preview of all that - whilst people are getting settled into their seats etc.

If you go and see a musical - a modern take on opera - you will still get that in most cases.

And in other examples - notably in my life both Turisas and Felix Mendelssohn [the superb Hebrides Overture] - an overture can be a stand-alone piece. Not intended to precede anything, and - in the case of Turisas - just a badass way of describing an epic 8 minute 18 second choral orchestral metal magnificence.

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I think I'm trying to frame my first 40 years here as some kind of overture.

That is at least the creative/whimsical way I would approach it.

Having a sense that everything I have done up until this point has given some notes; some themes; some strong concepts; of what my future might hold.

I guess the downside of this metaphor is that I am therefore now launching into the First Act with only a hint of how it might be constructed; based on what I can extrapolate from the themes in the overture. And I am going to have to compose this on the fly.

And I have a strong desire for that; but I do not yet know if I have the energy or personal resources to back that up.
I know many around me will give what they can - and in anticipation of that; I thank those of you most gratefully - but it does feel a bit like stepping into the unknown here; and I feel that part of this is me that is unknown. 

I have the vaguest of sense of how I have existed these past 40 years, and I have no desires to change that past; nor do I regret any significant part of it.

But I think I would like to get to know better who I am and who I want to be - and (importantly) not just in relation to everything else that is going on.
I don't want to be defined by stuff that happens to me; I want to get to a point where I am me, and maybe we will see each other along the way.