Whenever I see a friend, a little something in me dies.

"What to do with a surplus of hippos". There are forty hippos at the zoo in Israel. Do you need/want a hippo? Write to Israel.

I'm still trying to overcome this paragraphing problem. Let's see if I can write a paragraph about something now...

Having previously failed a second attempt to write more than two coherent sentences about anything at all, our hero leaps bravely into a third, though falls short, managing to only write a four-part sentence of self-indulgent blather.

Someone quoted Gore Vidal on the radio this morning "Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies". This is something I find it very hard to acknowledge myself. I have very few friends that at our age I could consider "successes". Few child prodigies, fewer happy, averagely accomplished people. Almost all my friends are intelligent creative people. Most people say this. I think you can only see as far on either side of you as the horizon. We can see further due to media sources, etc. But regardless I see my friends as being some fantastic people, and yet mostly unaccomplished. University toppled a few, employment more than a couple more of us could handle. Are we published? Have we found our callings? Unlikely. Unless retail is the new travel writing or slam poetry.

There are two options here. I prefer to think I'm learning, laying in wait for the opportunity when I can push back with all of my intellectual weight and do something significant. In the opposite corner maybe success is a lot harder now we all start from a higher place. Gore Vidal was born into a relatively privileged position. So was I. So was almost everyone I know. I also experience very little of what is know as "envy". I am always deliriously happy to see my friends success, and distraught when they fail. This seems like a lie, but I assure you any major changes in my friends lives is a big deal. And rare. Maybe now I should requote as "Whenever I see a friend, a little something in me dies" (I'm making that my title, by the way). I am so sick of this relative stability and more sick still of seeing it everytime I meet a friend, or talk to them on the phone. Having that reflected back at me is more depressing than if I were the only one of my friends going nowhere.

Here is an example: I just returned from just under four months traveling alone, mostly in Europe. Occasionally with people. There is an observable group that consider this a triumph. The over thirties. Almost everyone else has discovered how easy the world has become with any little sum of money. I personally see my travels with some disdain. It was almost stupidly easy and I am slightly ashamed when someone congratulates me on getting it done. But most of my friends are loath to travel for this same reason, having known almost in advance how almost everything will play out. In the seventies travel was an adventure, now it's a few facebook posts no-one comments on.

I hope for a change. I wish people could see now the actual struggle my generation faces. That is the challenge of seperating ourselves from the computer, the TV, our iPods and mobile phones and facing the world head on. Touching the earth, making things grow, meeting people well outside our social sphere, knowing what things are for us, not what they were for others.


I think that's all, I have to go check a cake I'm baking. I'm having an aunt an uncle for high tea. I will tell you about them later.

white.suit