Tacking

I've been slack with the camera. Again.  How easy it is to get out of the habit of seeing.  The interesting things are still there, but I don't notice them. 

In any event, I've been thinking that this blog doesn't have to be just in pictures - it can be words, too.  Maybe a place to record the tangents I follow each day. 

As it happens, this post was started one Thursday afternoon. In between little grizzly work tasks, I started to write about how I want to use the blog differently.  Two days later... here I am, late on a Saturday, pondering the state of things.  And wondering, why did I pick that title for this post?  Oh, I remember - I was thinking about how yachts tack - I think this describes their change in direction.  Better check that... in my new two volume Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.  That's got to be worth a picture, right? Maybe when there's some sunshine I'll get around to it.

Hopefully, this won't be the last reference to the lovely, lovely dictionary that's come to take up residence here.   How I've longed for one of these. Nearly bought one full price a few years ago. Imagine my delight when I saw it on special (nearly half price) at one of my favourite bookshops, Readings.  Oh yes, my lovely, you shall be mine!  And with CD-ROM.  I can take the CD to work - the OED is the best reference for definitions in legal matters.  Though I think Australian courts also allow reference to the Macquarie, our homegrown dictionary.

Anyway, to tack, intransitive verb, the 7th definition of 9, means "Alter a sailing ship's course by turning the head to the wind and across it, so as to bring the wind on the opposite side of the vessel".  Ideal.  That's what I meant.  One of the other meanings would have been just as useful - attaching a thing to another. Attaching words to pictures.  Or words to a blog that had been, albeit in its infancy, mainly pictures.  Should have known it wouldn't take me long to start talking.

One reason I want to write on the blog, is to link to things I find interesting - not just cute, amusing things, but things that stand out, or fit in, as I womble along.  It's hard to keep a good record of these, without adding to my hopelessly overgrown favourites lists on my work and home PCs, or printing out articles I may never read again.  And Facebook just doesn't cut it as an archive of personal wanderings and wonderings.

I'm thinking at the moment about what I do, what I might want to do differently, how on earth I might get there, if I can sort out what it is that I want to do...  I've pondered this on and off for a long time.  But obviously more off than on, coz I'm more or less still there, thinking, but not changing.  Sure, I've moved around a bit, got a postgraduate qualification, kept the home fires burning.  And yet, still this dissatisfaction.  For some reason, perhaps just the passage of time, age, accumulated disappointments, it feels more serious this time.  It's harder to propel myself out of bed every day.  What's missing seems to have expanded - there's a bigger hole than ever.  Who knows what comes next?   It's time to think about 'it' again. 

In the same way that it's said, if you buy or want to buy a particular make or model of car, you'll see cars of that kind everywhere.  Well, I'm seeing stuff about change, transition, movement, discovery, and doing what you love.  Maybe it's part of the human condition, this feeling of restlessness, that there must be something more.  There may be other strands of this in my case - being a Christian, for starters. 

So, here's two to read and think about.  Unlike more organised, experienced bloggers, I think I'll post before I've really thought about things.  We'll see how that goes!

• Steve Jobs' speech at  Stanford University graduation ceremony.  I like it.  Simple, but effective.  Perhaps some would want a more intellectual speech.  Me, I prefer simple and inspiring.
• The book I bought at Readings, when I had to take dictionary no.1 back (it was only the 5th edition - in a 6th edition box - couldn't bear the idea of losing a few years' worth of words!). Thomas Moore's A Life at Work.  I've linked to the transcript of an interview with Moore.  I'll report back when I've finished the book - my criteria for material on this topic is whether it moves me on.

Finally.  A question, or two.  Mick Jagger.  I know I wasn't born when he was big with the Stones. But really. what  were women thinking?  What is attractive about this man?  Then again, I never did like seedy types.  Here's Mick and the lads, with You Can't Always Get What You Want.  Preach it, brother.

Is that a good place to finish?  That's a rhetorical question