Behind each mystic mountain there’s another one to climb, or is it ‘misty mountain’? It’s unimportant. However well meant, metaphors like this one tend to be a bit trite. There isn’t enough case specific information available to be able to decide if the application is right, or even useful. I can’t help thinking why is the subject driven to climb, who are they with, what equipment have they got, what’s the weather going to be like and how did they plan their route? But perhaps I’m reading too much into it, definitely so if the value is precisely in its simplicity, or universality.
If what we want to say by this is, “we’re locked into a journey and sometimes the going is uphill and other times its down,” then it’s a perfectly adequate bit of small talk. But why not just say that and be done?
On a different tip, I’ve set myself a task which relies on another task being completed first. I’m a bit hacked off about Task A not getting done because Task B is more interesting. Task A was going well but work and family duties have soaked up all the available time and energy, and for now the momentum is lost.
There is added complexity in that I need help to complete Task A, so it’s not just my time I need to plan for. I’ve almost popped the question, out of desperation, to a couple of people in a 'come on, let’s just do it, let’s do it now!’ kind of way. But I lean over, look at them and realise nothing’s as simple as it should be. I have too many needs and they don’t have enough, i.e. there isn’t much chance of a fair exchange of favours coming any time soon.
If Task A were a bit more glamorous than, say, erecting an old shed, I might skirt round this problem. If it were collecting and tapping a barrel of ale and giving my helper a chance to try it out, it might fly without a separate return favour. Unfortunate then that Task A = old shed.
I need to get the shed up in order to decant all the bicycles and baby equipment out of my workshop. Tinker time is always tight and I need a work space where I can leave a job half done, throw a rag over it and return to it where I left off, with nothing moved. My lack of ability to move Task A along is definitely cramping my style.
At least as the job has been in mind for two weeks now I've had the time to scout around, while pursuing my work on building sites, for discarded timber, polythene and screws for the job. Every time I find something useful I feel a small step closer to the satisfactory execution of Task A. There's a lot to be said for small mercies. Of course, right away I'm thinking, 'what's being said and by whom? And how are mercies measured, or even recognised, anyway?' I can't help it.
And then I think, driving myself crazy, Waste not, want not. But who says it’s waste and when does not wasting become hoarding, more to the point when is recycling just living with terrible shit? As Jane once said about a not very good ‘kids, let’s recycle and save the planet’ programme, “think it’s called Is it Really Rubbish?”
I think I know the answer, but it's not my question.
