Hey readers,
I don’t know what to call this, as it’s just a regular blog post sort of thing… but if you were expecting me to list some regular, ordinary, everyday words then you get points for thinking I would do that. I’m not going to do that.
Let’s begin with a short message of displeasure. I have a new laptop! And it’s just over a month old now but the ‘w’ spring/assembly is faulty and my w just comes loose every so often. Acer want me to pay for a full send-away service to see what the problem might be for about £40, plus addition parts/labour etc if they find a problem as it’s not under warranty. Really?! One month old and faulty. Thanks Acer. Saying that, my last laptop was an Acer and that’s been going for about 9 years now -it’s pretty hot and noisy, but it didn’t have a faulty W! Bah. So for the time being I’m having to type carefully -pressing the bottom edge of the W is a sure way to set it loose.
I was brought to my attention the other day that keyboards are all in upper case letters. Some people struggle to see upper case letters, and if you’re looking for shapes then you’re going to really struggle to find these (and probably others too): q, e, r, t, a, d, g, h, and b because they look quite different from the uppercase versions. Why do we have difference shaped letters for uppercase and lowercase? Who decided that? I’ll look into it at some point. I thought it was interesting as I don’t seem to struggle with numbers or letters (yes, i make spelling mistakes, but that’s because I type it and don’t proof it), but for those people that find it difficult then computer keyboards must be tricky for them too. You press the letter A on the keyboard and this comes out: a. Not the pointy triangle letter you expected.
Don’t even talk about different fonts.
Mainly because I don’t know much about typography, words, letters, style, design, etc. I’m just interested to see things and think about what I’m seeing/doing. I don’t always think about what I’m doing. Leads me nicely into something I was doing today: walking. I went for a walk. Yes, it was windy and I mention that a few times in the video (yes, video!) but I also lay on the cliff edge and later climbed down into some chasms (The Chasms, Isle of Man) which, true to the name, were suitably chasmy. Check it out…
So that happened.
In a couple of days time I’m going to be 28 years old. Seriously. Which means that in 72 years I’d be 100 years old. It’s quite unlikely that I’ll be able to say the opposite when I’m 72. I think I’m middle-aged around now, which is below the UK male average of about 35. But the numbers don’t really mean anything. I’m grateful to be seeing another year and that’s more about the thing I wanted to write something about.
Ten years ago I would have been sitting my A-levels and thinking about university. I can’t remember what else I was thinking about to be honest -playing music in a band, motorbikes, revision… I don’t know, it was a long time ago. Ten years seems like a really long time! Some of you may not have seen me in ten years (and some have never met me, hi!) and I know that I’ve changed quite a bit since I was 18. Physically there are some changes, but the biggest changes would me my heart, attitude, thoughts, and faith.
I was going to write a list of things that have happened in the last decade and how they impacted me, but maybe 10 years is still too recent to write about. Well, that’s made this blog a whole lot shorter! But why not take the time to check in the rear view mirror and consider what’s been happening, and then look to where you’re currently heading.
I was watching School of Rock earlier today and I remembered when I was younger I wanted to have a rock-voice and I know I’m no singer, but my voice has certainly strengthened since I was 18 and that’s awesome! You can think what you like about my voice, that’s absolutely OK; I’m just saying that I can hear the difference. I like it. So what am I going to do about it?
And that’s probably a good place to end. “What’re you going to do about it?” The next step. It goes for almost everything in life, once you get a piece of information, or develop a skill, or you become interested in something… what are you going to do? You do not have all the time in the world, even if you think that life is pretty sweet at the moment. It’s short. Shorter than that. Yeah. Have you ever considered some of the big questions in life, why we’re here? How it began? What is truth? What is reality? What happens when you die? Some of these things you need to be really certain about, the last one in particular and I wouldn’t wait until you’re moments away from finding out to start asking the question. If, for example, there is a heaven then what are the entry requirements? If there are any? What do you think?
Don’t wait to explore, wonder and ask those questions.
Hope you’re doing well, and I’ll catch you next time.
p.s. did you like the snail? It was in my way and so I had to wait for him to cross the path before I could get by.
p.p.s. we should talk more often