Thursday, and a disturbed night of sleep so I get up relatively early and have breakfast. Wash down the meds with coffee and then clear the kitchen. My remaining blood tests came in last night and they are all okay. Everything is in the normal range, apparently my kidneys and liver are in fine enough fettle. I clear the kitchen and then prepare my sample to take to the GP. Being an old hand at being a cancer club member I have specimen vials in stock. It’s just wonderful what Amazon will provide. Anyway, I wander down to the GP surgery and hand over my liquid gold and head off to the chemist to pick up my monthly drugs. Yep, it’s that time already in my cycle, Monday is a jab day. By 11 o’clock I am ready for coffee and a couple of crosswords before a light lunch. I recall Baumeister’s definitions of meaning in relation to the self. One of the key elements of making meaning of life according to him is the “efficacy” variable. This is the feedback that is received from the environment about the effect one’s actions, or lack of them, have on the environment. Of course, there are different kinds of environment but the principle in general holds true for them all. It occurs to me that this is one factor that is a major part of retiring, I have in effect divorced myself from what was one of my major sources of feedback about my efficacy in relation to my various environments. Hence the greater difficulty to make meaning of my life as I have severely reduced one of the major variables by which I did that. I suspect this maybe why entering poetry completions is such a soul-destroying process as anything less than prize winning provokes no feedback whatsoever. It set me thinking about what the variables in my environments are which do in fact provide feedback about my efficacy to me. My initial list is as follows, 1: the garden, 2: the rowing machine, 3: the bathroom scales, 4: the viewing figures for the blog 5: my cash book and finally but by no means least, 6: my WhatsApp account. I should include of course the people I live with as they of course provide feedback about my effect on them, sometimes. I was once told I wrote “boney” poetry; it would appear that I live a “boney” life. All this before lunch. Anyone interested in what Baumeister has to say can find it all in his excellent book Meanings of Life. In it he outlines what he calls his existential shopping list of the four needs for Meaning. They are Purpose, Value (Justification), Efficacy and Self Worth. So, I’m off to Amazon to see what they have in stock.
Lunch turns out to be bacon sandwiches, which is a favourite. There then followed a book harvest as not one but two books arrived. One was expected the other a surprise gift from a friend. So, I have reading for the days ahead. I am excited.
I go to the Shed and write a letter to a friend who had sent me a card. I do so in the middle of a thunderstorm with the rain beating down on the roof of the Shed. By the time I had finished the rain had passed and I was able to wander over to the post box and send my letter on its way. I return home to read a while and then watch an early evening football match and eat tea.
The queen dies at about 6:30. Long live the king, Charles the third.
Well, that buggers the rest of the evenings viewing. Every channel is full of it. By the second half of the football match English teams playing abroad were wearing black arm bands and the 8 o’clock kick offs all had a minute’s silence. I suppose this is going to drag on for days, thankfully my books will save me from most of it. It was clear something was up when she shook hands with Lis Truss, the back of her hand was badly bruised. As an experienced receiver of back of the hand catheters it was clear she was receiving some sort of intravenous drugs. I take my evening meds and go to bed with a good book.
