Right – this is a soppy post. Look away now if you have a weak stomach. (The TL;DR version is
Reasons to be Cheerful
.) As I’ve learned, sometimes it’s a good idea to spend time appreciating a pleasant moment, and reminding oneself of how lucky and comfortable things are. This is a note to myself of how nice things are at this point in my life. It’s 2011 and we’ve made it this far. As a kid I used to try and work out how old I would be in the year 2000 and the calculated age of 29 seemed tragic; I’d be too old to enjoy it! We don’t have jet-packs, colonies on the moon or hover-cars, but we do have some pretty impressive stuff.
There have been times
when I have been subjected to what my friend Alex called “a worry track”: a perpetual set of worries that pervade all other thoughts, all of the time, like a kind of existential tinnitus. It’s not nice. Not as bad as hunger maybe, but not good. And it goes on for years. But at this moment in time, I’m not suffering. Sitting on a comfy sofa, in a warm house, with a powerful laptop, on which I can summon up just about anything I can think of, is a nice feeling. On my right moob is a small beautiful bird who is preening my beard. In front of me is a
FMT
that is currently playing music from a collection of stuff that a computer somewhere on the planet thinks I will like. The collection could be titled “music to love Leo by”. With a few clicks of a little remote control I can watch any of thousands of TV programmes, films or music videos. That’s a pretty cool thing. In the next room, my wife is pottering around. She has found her true calling in life: dealing with wild animals. Now she is sitting next to me on the sofa, typing on her laptop. Tomorrow I have to go to work; but apart from the commute it’s a stimulating and entertaining job. I sit down in an Aeron chair and write code all day – hardly
The Jungle
is it? And frankly the commute provides a perfect opportunity for reading. Perhaps it’s because I’ve just finished reading a book about life in
the year 1000
that I’m not only appreciating life as it is now, but also glad to observe the improvements in the lives of many people since then. All of this is better summed up by an article a friend sent me today:
Reasons to be Cheerful
. There are too many people currently being blown up, irradiated, tortured, starved and drowned in the world for us not to start appreciating how luxurious our lives really are.