Just walking along one sunny October day a few years ago, (to Newport cemetery on the anniversary of my mum's death), I wondered what would be a sufficient lifespan, and after a bit of calibration came up with 350 years. (I recently discussed with Alexey at work and she's going for a much fuller 800, after an initial rather pathetic 80.)
Dipping into 'Ikigai: The Japanese secret to a long and happy life' a while ago my takeaway was that you have to keep yourself busy. The writers analysed communities in Japan where life expectancy is 120 years. (120? - obviously inadequate, but a starting point, I suppose.)
2020 is my first year after about 14 years of doing continuous personal photography projects. I got to the end of what I needed to do and it was great. Inevitably through Jan and Feb I got a growing awareness of having nothing much to replace that. So began the plan of doing random things. Including things I'm not very good at doing, and doing things again that I'd just sort of stopped doing a long time ago. There are a lot of things one can do but the hard part is that you have to actually do them.
My initial target was 10 things but I'm probably nearer 20 now and even in the last few days have added three to that; socialising after-work drinks, basketball practice and, today, learning to play the electric guitar.
Even tuning the guitar proved to be completely satisfying.
The final high E string snapped so necessitating a trip to the Musicroom store on the High Street for a replacement. I did classical guitar classes long ago but apart from remembering EADGBE that was about it, but thanks to Youtube I knew I needed a light 9 guage string and came home and could also youtube how to string it properly. Thank you to Youtube for everything, I love you.
It also provided the platform for my first lesson, including instruction on making E and A chords. I now have little movement left in the fingers of my left hand.
The guitar I'm using I only got originally to hang on my wall as a beautiful object. That was five years ago, when I moved in here. It was on eBay and required making a trip out to a village somewhere in the countryside in Cambridgeshire or Norfolk, I think it was, and arrived at a cottage by a river in the middle of nowhere and the guy selling walked us through to his band practice room/ studio at the bottom of the garden. He had drums, a bunch of guitars, pretty much everything in there. He threw in an amp, cable and a bunch of parts should I want to restore the electrics to original. It's an Avon Rose Morris vintage Les Paul copy, made in Japan in the seventies. He must have thought I intended to actually play it but it's been on my wall ever since.
Today though, I actually did.
Dipping into 'Ikigai: The Japanese secret to a long and happy life' a while ago my takeaway was that you have to keep yourself busy. The writers analysed communities in Japan where life expectancy is 120 years. (120? - obviously inadequate, but a starting point, I suppose.)
2020 is my first year after about 14 years of doing continuous personal photography projects. I got to the end of what I needed to do and it was great. Inevitably through Jan and Feb I got a growing awareness of having nothing much to replace that. So began the plan of doing random things. Including things I'm not very good at doing, and doing things again that I'd just sort of stopped doing a long time ago. There are a lot of things one can do but the hard part is that you have to actually do them.
My initial target was 10 things but I'm probably nearer 20 now and even in the last few days have added three to that; socialising after-work drinks, basketball practice and, today, learning to play the electric guitar.
Even tuning the guitar proved to be completely satisfying.
The final high E string snapped so necessitating a trip to the Musicroom store on the High Street for a replacement. I did classical guitar classes long ago but apart from remembering EADGBE that was about it, but thanks to Youtube I knew I needed a light 9 guage string and came home and could also youtube how to string it properly. Thank you to Youtube for everything, I love you.
It also provided the platform for my first lesson, including instruction on making E and A chords. I now have little movement left in the fingers of my left hand.
The guitar I'm using I only got originally to hang on my wall as a beautiful object. That was five years ago, when I moved in here. It was on eBay and required making a trip out to a village somewhere in the countryside in Cambridgeshire or Norfolk, I think it was, and arrived at a cottage by a river in the middle of nowhere and the guy selling walked us through to his band practice room/ studio at the bottom of the garden. He had drums, a bunch of guitars, pretty much everything in there. He threw in an amp, cable and a bunch of parts should I want to restore the electrics to original. It's an Avon Rose Morris vintage Les Paul copy, made in Japan in the seventies. He must have thought I intended to actually play it but it's been on my wall ever since.
Today though, I actually did.