And so it’s Christmas. Christmas time. It’s actually after Christmas, in that strange hinterland between Christmas and New Year’s. If you’re self-employed and a bit skittish, as I sort of am, it’s a time to gather ye your receipts for the previous year and hope your accountant doesn’t kill you for late submission.
Supposedly, it’s a time for reflection. Well, that’s my plan, anyway. It’s all about looking back over the year and thinking about where it went wrong, where it went right, and what you’d like to tackle during the approaching year. Of course you can do that at any point of any year, but it’s lovely and symbolic at New Year’s. So, what would I like to do next year?
I hit upon the wonderful and possibly adolescent realisation this year that I am merely just another natural thing that has occurred on the earth, like a rock, a gorge, a tick or a lichen. I am so many atoms randomly bounding about in a shape that people who know me recognise as me. That is opposed to being some poor crumb-cake sat around shivering under the beady eye of a bearded God who it seems would as soon have me live a pain-free life and die in my sleep at 90 as he would afflict me with motor neurone disease tomorrow. This is no great deep revelation to the earth and my occasional readers. It’s more just a relief for myself personally after being pursued by the guilt villagers with their flaming pitchforks and angry words censuring my neglect of my spiritual side given my distrust of the 
Nicene Creed.
Yup, it’s all good. I’m a transient snot-ball upon the Earth. That’s a rather liberating idea. So, what will I do with this new-found freedom? Well, tremble. Then try not to be lazy about it. Drink a load of coffee and write and record and show friends and family that actually I do love them immensely and that most neglect on my part is due to a suspicion that if I were to vanish away mysteriously they’d get over it pretty quickly. Essentially, to convince myself that, while I’m no saint, I’m perhaps not all that bad either. A not-so-bad, transient, snot-ball roaming the earth in search of food and physical interaction, with all the adventures that that brings.
Yeah, I’m pretty happy with that.