One Final Day

One day we will hug a person we love for the last time, or scruffle a dog's neck, or eat a final meal, or stare at a view that's precious to us. Nothing lasts forever, and this reality can be either a terror or a catalyst. Its 00.22 in the morning as I sit here on my sofa. I've just been looking through pictures on my Ipad. Apple do this clever technical thing in which an image briefly moves before it locks into place. There are several images of my beloved Billy that move ever so slightly before he settles and becomes still.To see him move is terribly piercing. I want to glance to my right and see him snuggled up on the top of the sofa, only he's gone. Gone forever. All of you who read this will likely have experienced the longing for one last contact with someone or something departed. A primal yearning to reach out. To touch, to hold, to inhale a fragrance or feel the contours of someone's features. It's a unique kind of agony, right? It's an impossible wall through which none can pass. Where the only currency is memory, which often seems a poor relation. Some things in life we cannot have. Some things we cannot change. And it hurts. You know what? I have no clue where I'm going with this. Just screaming into the void, really. I have no particular words of comfort I can bring that would brighten the day of somebody feeling this way. I mean how could I? But know this; what you feel, what I feel as I type this is utterly normal, and also beautifully human. It means there was something in our lives that was precious, something of real meaning. A deep connecting element, a presence you could love and cherish and yearn for. What a gift to have had such a thing? What a privilage to have felt that most sacred ache. Some call it love, but whatever its name its a mysterious force that reminds us that we're not just flesh and bone. Goodness knows I struggle with faith, but who hasn't yearned to see someone who they have lost again. Greedy perhaps, but understandably so. I'm so fortunate to have a wife and kids I adore, and a wider family that I'm proud to stand alongside. I am not bereft of love, nor without hope, yet still I yearn for that which the universe cannot afford me. What I would give for one last walk along the canal with Billy, or one last phone call with my Dad during the half time of a football match. One last connection with the ghosts of our past. What a glorious thing that would be. . .

My Thoughts On Andrew Tate

Unless you've been living under a rock Andrew Tate will be a familiar name to you. currently languishing in a Romanian prison under suspicion of sex trafficking, his lifestyle and outspoken views have him loved and loathed in equal measure. To some he's a mysoginist and player, to other's he's just an Alpha male speaking honestly into relationships and sexual dominance hierarchies. Me being me, I decided to ignore what the propagandist mainstream media say, and instead spend some time listening to what he says. My thoughts have emerged and they are somewhat mixed, because he strikes a contradictory note with most positions he holds. I've heard him bemoan the breakdown of traditional values whilst simultaneously burning his way through women like a dose of salts. On that note, there's an unsettling disparity emerging when it comes to online dating. A very small percentage of high achieving men are enjoying the overwhelming majority of women, the latter being uber picky and aiming for the top of the pile where most men cannot aspire to compete. Society is going to and is already paying a price for this but nobody appears to want to consider the ramifications. I very much like what he has to say about personal responsibility and also the way he celebrates masculinity. We need a world full of strong and capable men, just as we need beautiful feminine women who by their qualities can gently help to control our worst excesses. Ladies, we need you, and you need us. Positive masculinity and femininity are magnificent qualities and I will celebrate them. If you want to walk another road then I'm not stopping you, but I'll stand firmly against you whenever you vomit out terms such as toxic masculinity and patriarchy. Anyway's back to Mr Tate; I would want to clear that should the charges against him be upheld he should spend a very long time behind bars. Yet even then his poor life choices would not negate his wiser moments. Even the worst of people can sometimes have wisdom to impart, and I absolutely share his concerns around how men are becoming feeble and passive and useless. Good men make the world better. Mentally capable men can bring about reasonable outcomes. Stong men can inspire and lead and illuminate. I am proud of my particular set of chromosomes, and I won't buy into the dim witted view that everything wrong in the world can be placed at the feet of men.