Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, Act 5, Scene 5.

 

Hi there. It's your normal, average paranoid and delusional man here. I've been gone for a while, but not to worry, it wasn't anything serious, just a case of, perhaps, I couldn't be bothered. For a while now I've been living a bit that way - not being bothered, that is. Having been discharged from mental health services, and with the voluntary work I once did largely disappearing, and with  my mum's death around two years ago, you could say that I've become somewhat isolated, which has probably led to this not-being-botheredness. So, I can only apologise, for those of you who obviously hang on my every word, for my elongated absence.

Anyway, I've decided that this will definitely be my final blog post. Nobody, it seems, writes blogs anymore anyway. At the risk of sounding like an old fart, which., I should add, I'm rapidly becoming, it's all Tik Tok now. The written word is receding in the face of vlogs and viral videos. Maybe next I'll try to become a middle-aged influencer, but I can't see it somehow. I don't think I can be bothered.

So why am I bothering to write this blog at all? Well, I just wanted to thank all the people who've commented or followed what I've written over that last 250 or so posts, and also to end on a more conclusive note than I did in my previous blog. As I've said, my life now seems to have become one of a certain solitude, so I just thought that a blog might remedy some of my burgeoning loneliness.

More and more I begin to feel, no doubt as a result of some of this isolation, that life may be passing me by. And, as Shakespeare put it, tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day. For how do I spend my time? I read. I watch TV. I, as it were, while away the hours, that, as Larkin put it, "advance on death equally slowly", whether spent "giving evidence, or birth." I'm aware that this is all a bit depressing, but it's none the less true. I really must find something, some raison d'etre, otherwise sink into a psychic and emotional abyss.

I've no doubt that many others share my predicament, and indeed, it would seem that loneliness and isolation are a growing epidemic. Indeed, ITV's Good Morning Britain have dedicated a whole campaign to combatting such soul-shrinking lifestyles. 

As ever with this blog, though, I would like to inject some positivity. I still have the members of the Pathways Group, who I have mentioned in these pages, to keep me company at least once a week. There's phone calls and emails too. I have wider family, who although I don't see that often, also phone or email and sometimes visit. I could never say, then, that I'm totally alone. Perhaps sometimes it just feels that way.                         

And, I'd just like to say, that this blog, in this post-truth, alternative fact age, has been my truth. I hope it has helped some and comforted others. I hope, that by being truthful about my own experience, it has somehow resonated. For, I think as the great African-American writer Tomi Morrison once said, the more parochial you are, somehow the more universal you become. Now more than ever, we must speak the truth, with passion and veracity, to stave off the dark political forces that seem to be gathering. So, never give up. Never be afraid. You never know, tomorrow nay not be just a repeat of today. 

That's all forever, from your normal, average paranoid and delusional man.