I know exactly what he means. The trick, and one I don't think I've really mastered, is finding a balance between hustle and bustle and peace and solitude. A well balanced human being really does need both but not in an enforced way. There's nothing worse than being quiet when you feel like being noisy and having to be noisy when you feel like being quiet. There is a place in our world for both things, we just need to learn how to embrace both and employ them in the correct situation.
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Yesterday I got lost in translation. Well not quite. I got lost in a spiral of time. Sat down at the computer to try and sort out all my family history files that were all over the place. I think I had them on a variety of old laptops and portable drives and trying to make some sense of them and put them onto the same machine meant that the time just evaporated.
Whilst I did this I decided to listen to some music via Alexa. For some reason I decided on some David Crosby - him of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. It never ceases to amaze me how rock stars with the sweetest voices are some of the heaviest drug users and human flotsam imaginable. Think about The Eagles, the Beach Boys and many similar - voices of angels, lifestyles of (well I can't think of anything appropriate).
So before I knew it, the time had hurtled along to 4 pm and it was time to have a zoom call with our American friends who are due to visit us in June so that we can show them all the places American tourists usually miss.
Then it was off to Hethersett Library for the latest talk/event organised by the Friends of Hethersett Library of which I am vice-chair. It was a talk by local author Jeni Neill who was explaining about her love of history and heritage and how she came to write her novel "The Devil's Dye" which is about Strangers to Norwich in the 16th century.
Strangers isn't a derogatory term but is used to describe merchants and others who fled religious persecution in the low countries to come to Norfolk and Norwich in particular. Theirs was a proud heritage in dyeing that they handed down as they became integrated into local communities. In many ways the Strangers became the backbone of Norwich and today we still have Strangers Hall (now a museum) and the Strangers Club.
It was a very interesting talk made even better by coffee and chocolate cake. We hold talks every two months on the second Wednesday of the month.
I noticed that the library has a large number of books and DVDs for sale. People with a DVD player who like collecting films will be very happy bunnies. Second hand DVDs are now available from so many outlets like charity shops for absolute peanuts. Those in the library were just 50p each. In a charity shop recently I saw them available for 25p each or five for a pound.
Do you remember the days when people collected DVDs thinking that they would become valuable in the future? I guess the same could be said for CDs. They are now pretty worthless unless you want to see a film for little outlay.