Twiddlings
painting by Sam Caldwell
Have you ever considered you’re just twiddling?
I went to a gallery opening earlier. Some beautiful things there (more on that tomorrow.) I saw a painting I intend to buy by a young Scottish artist.
I’ve been thinking about things like that lately. How one fills one’s time. We, human animals, put such energy into such a range of unusual pursuits. How we look, what we own, what we read, what we eat- how we arrive at each particular decision. Sometimes we relive terrible moments and (re)worry about something someone said to us in 1987. Or 91 or 98 or 2005.
And yet- we’re only really treading water. Waiting until our legs go tired and we sink. Hopefully peacefully. And at that moment we’ll realize that none of our past obsessions, desires or pains meant anything at all.
Happy monday night 🙂
My Mazamet 
I’ve never worried about life having any meaning, and think people can get too hung up about it. Have another brandy and forget about it Mr. M.
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I’m okay with it not having a meaning; but still bemused at the lengths we go to (naturally) to create the illusion/delusion of meaning 🙂
And yes to the brandy!
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So yours is a nonchalant concern, just like Sam’s lady in the painting.
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That’s a good way of putting it. Also a bit like how I slow down when I’m getting to the end of a good book, afraid those people and their lives will be out of mine forever.
When I was little and extremely happy or extremely afraid, I’d hold my breath, as if that stopped time.
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That makes sense to me, as psychological time has only a tenuous link to physical, ‘clock’ time. Science still hasn’t informed us what time is, if it is anything at all.
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That is why it is good to work (doesn’t necessarily mean for pay) for a cause you believe in and that matters. You can go to your grave satisfied that you made a difference for the planet, and/or the planets beings. Yes We Can
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Well, at the moment I have you making me go out to look for shelves 😀 That certainly fills one’s time!
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Ha-Ha that’s pretty funny. Was it the part when I wrote that I would, like Sarah Palin touts, “Drill baby Drill,” right through your new nice tile and install shelves myself if I lived there, and then you are stuck with what I picked out?
I think it would be cool to buy 3 shelves and to install them offset from the one below.
In other words, the bottom shelf install, the middle shelf install 3″ to 4″ above and to the right of the bottom shelf, the top shelf above and to the right of the Middle Shelf by 3 to 4 “. This would create a step design but importantly it would leave room on the bottom shelf and the middle shelf to place a tall object there, instead of forcing all the tall objects onto the top shelf. If I lived there I would also probably take off the doors of the under sink cabinet and place nice fancy baskets lined in cotton on the shelf and bottom of the cabinet. It gives the effect of a drawer rather than a cabinet shelf. It is a PIA to bend down and try to find something in the back of the undersink cabinet or even just the bottom shelf. Pull out baskets would solve that at a low cost.
Now that I think abut it again, I had the builder of our last house install quite a nice shelf drilled right through the glass mirror above the sink, but that was dry wall and that might not be so easy if you have a cement block wall behind that mirror. I have had tile counter tops and they are a PIA particularly in the bathroom as that darned toothpaste gets stuck in the grout (but maybe they have better grout nowadays), so I think because they are such small countertops to begin with, I would have used a solid surface Formica. I know people think Formica is cheap but they have quite nice looking selections now and it is solid surface which is much more practical around a bathroom sink and it is just a very small countertop.
Do you hate that, do you grind your teeth when people comment on your projects with comments saying how they would have done something differently? I usually don’t mind unless it is a really stupid or expensive idea I can’t do do to budget constraints. If it is good feedback I just generally tuck that away in my memory banks for next time I do a similar project.
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I actually love getting ideas now because this is a whole new world for me. Creating a big, luxury bathroom couldn’t be easier. To be honest, luxury homes in general are easy. It takes an actively bad designer to get that wrong. Small/compact spaces on the other hand are a real test; and one I’ve never really considered before. I’ve had to spend hours just sitting there imagining what I’d need if I lived in a space like that. Where could they put a vacuum cleaner? Winter coats? If a friend stays over, where do they sleep? It’s a very interesting mental exercise 🙂
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You should try living in a one bed flat in Gibraltar if you eant challenging …
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The site will only allow one level of reply so this comment is actually a reply to your comment that begins with, “I actually love getting ideas now…”
I agree with you 1,000%. High end you have so many beautiful things to select from, Low end budget in a small space is much much harder. I have sorta done it, not to the degree you are working with, but a 1 bedroom 700sq ft condo. The best design decision I made was hooks, coat hooks everywhere I could. When a door opens there is a space between the door and the wall created because of the door frame, I probably put 14 hooks in that space by the entry door (two rows and alternate just a bit the height of adjoining hooks in the same row) it did extend a bit past the width of the door but that was okay. That was the most used fixture in the place. People hung their coats and backpacks, I saw a guitar hanging, shopping bags and various other things. People generally are lazy (me included) and do not like to hang but they will hook things up. It is quick and easy to throw things on a hook. Likewise in the bathroom no need for long towel bars, four or five hooks will be used more than a towel bar. You can paint the hooks the same color as the wall so they are not obtrusive or alternately paint the hooks a bright contrasting color to add color pop. I don’t like plastic hooks, only simple metal enamel painted hooks and they are cheap! You can get away with a lot less closet space if you provide a wall with plenty of hooks. Even in the bedroom I put in hooks, not a lot, maybe 4 but when I would check on that condo they were always being used.
Here are the hooks I used.
I like the white ones, white is nice and clean but that is a personal preference.
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You need JESUS in your life! Then you’d have…aw, fuck it. I hear ya brother. We worry, then we die. I’m drinking red wine and happy in the now. Course, I’d be happier if my now included someone giving me a shit-load of money, but, barring that, I be happy right now. $Amen$
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I drink 1.5 litres of red wine per day, every day. Sometimes brandy before bed. It’s slightly difficult to be in the now when we don’t know when now is 🙂
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True. My morphine drip gives me the same problem. If I ever could, I’d love to come to France and hang with you all. We’d have a blast. “The readiness is all.”
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damn, now I feel like a amateur in my drinking. You give me a goal to shoot for! 🙂
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One and a half litres? You bloody French! Do you live on water crackers the rest of the time to maintain that waistline?
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For years I did the *Russian Ballet Dancer Diet* which includes that famous breakfast of black coffee and a cigarette, then lunch is two cigarettes and a diet coke, and dinner is the rest of the pack and vodka 🙂
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Indeed. I drink my wine (mulled at the moment) and chat with my husband. I hope what I’ve done in this life makes life of someone better now or in the future by my actions, by supporting what I find important causes, by picking up trash or helping my neighbor dig out of the never….ending……. snow……..ahhhhh! Oy, my muscles hurt from the shoveling.
Right now, making two people happy is what is important and what I know I can do.
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Two people? Do you have a sister wife? 😀
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Oh hell no! A more jealous spouse than me would be hard to imagine. the two are just me and the husband 🙂
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Wrong, Pinky. We each of us make a stab at immortality via the legacies we leave behind. I hope I’ll be remembered for the stories I tell, or, failing that, I pray that something about those stories hangs around, maybe makes people think.
You, on the other hand, have a foot in both the physical world – via the houses you build – and the world of words and ideas created by your blogs.
Please note that I made no mention of children. They’re a gift to fate and we can take very little credit for them. But the things we create with our hands and minds, those are not ‘twiddlings’. And if you say that again I shall have to smack you. 😉
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Without so many distractions, I think most lives would be a bore. And besides, I think there are countless people who, without a distraction, would be forced to think about life and the thought alone would be threatening to them
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To be honest? No. I don’t ever feel like this anymore. I can’t say life is frequently fun, but I don’t feel like I’m twiddling. Jesus and/or wine have definitely not saved me, either (tho I still prefer one over the other ;-)).
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I am in stasis. Oh, for the activity, progress, value of twiddling!
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Sounds like the opening scene of a Walker Percy novel. Comfortable man goes to an art gallery, returns home, asks himself “Jesus Christ is this IT?”.
Wasn’t it Socrates who said philosophy is the art of dying well?
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And yet no novel is forthcoming- because that would be pointless, wouldn’t it? 😀
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I don’t know about pointless. Percy wrote all about the existential boredom of wealthy middle aged southern gents contemplating suicide and pulled it off. Depends on if you have a knack for fiction I guess. I sure don’t.
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Sorry. You said Percy and I immediately began reliving Bysshe Shelley. What were we talking about?
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I like the Peanuts version. To the question “Why are we here?” Linus said, “To help other people.” to which Lucy replied, “Why are THEY here?”
Like most Peanuts, “that’ll preach,” and I’d have to answer that it may be circular, but it’s true, helping other people makes us more human. Small kindnesses are the biggest things in the universe.
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Words… like meaning, like purpose. I don’t trust them. Slippery little devils.
What I’m after – and in so many different ways – is satisfaction. That’s why I have pursuits and hobbies and interests and activities and work. No matter what the forum might be, no matter what the particular activity may be, what I want is a level of satisfaction from the connection.
I have a painting that seems to be an abstract, which is so unlike me (I gravitate to form and the beauty it transmits) that people wonder if I’m going daft calling this one by far my favourite. Be that as it may, what I see is the musical form articulated by colour in just the right hues for a trumpet sound, which grants me an immediate and deep sense of satisfaction every time I look at it. I can hear that painting. That’s why I own it and find it so valuable, whereas others quite properly couldn’t care less about it. They get no sense of satisfaction engaging with it.
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One short sleep past, we wake eternally. 🙂
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