Guitars and Life

Spend any time around a bunch of recovering alcoholics and there are a series of themes that come out. Within that series of themes (I should write a blog post on my reflections on those themes at some point) one that often comes through is fear. Fear of being made to look a fool Fear of economic insecurity Fear of emotional insecurity - i.e. those you love leaving you. Fear of being found out as a fraud etc. One thing though is the irrational fear - the fear of nothing but fear itself.  I woke up this morning fearful.  What of I really have no idea, maybe I had had a dream that was lost to my consciousness that caused this I really don't know. Now what is the best reaction to this?  Look at the facts.  I can't place what this fear is about, it probably is just a stupid dream I've already forgotten, I was alright last night when I went to bed and nothing has changed ... so put if out of my mind and ignore it. Not the alcoholic part of me - it spent far to...

I was going to post about the economy, the Chancellor's statement (Osborne, not Valorum, though you might think we've gone over the dark side given the perilous state of everything), the strike, the debt mountain - I started typing it on the way into work after reading the paper.   But frankly is was a miserable post that concluded we are all doomed, capitalism is reaching it's ultimate zenith of a small number with huge wealth and the rest of us fighting for existence from the scraps from their tables.  So I binned it - what's the point? Now what is worth talking about is that I went to a meeting last night I've not been to in ages.  No real reason except that family circumstances make Tuesday less than ideal for me to be out that night every week.  I had been invited along by the secretary to be the speaker.  Now 6 years or so ago this was one of my "home groups" I was secretary myself and the guy who is now secretary was himself a struggling newcomer w...

Last night BBC4 had two programmes about prog rock, a load of old clips of various BBC recorded performances, early Genesis, Yes, King Crimson etc. Then a documentary about prog rock. I'm an unashamed fan of Yes, Rush etc. given where I was born and brought up as well near Canterbury Soft Machine and Caravan had a lot of influence over local groups. Great programmes reminded of the skill in prog rock, yes it might have been disconnected lyrically with the youth of the 70s and we all sought solace in punk but it was still a great time for music I think. For me I wanted to be like Steve Howe or Robert Fripp when I was 14 but I had no idea how much you needed to learn to do that. So punk seemed a good idea and I loved the rebellion aspect to push back on the crap society we seemed to have coming out of the 60s. But then punk went all fashion and I didn't like it as much, I went back to metal with Maiden etc. and listened to prog under the cover of darkness... :-) Today prog is ali...

(Bit like the quote from the Roger Miller the singer who said something like “It took me 20 years to become an overnight success”). For anyone who’s followed stuff here or elsewhere before there was a here will know I went through a low patch. I’m slowly coming up the other side. I was sharing about that and some other stuff at an AA meeting last night and as ever in that process I began to realise that things are better than they were a while back, I’m moved on and am getting on with stuff better. As ever though my negative default brain process clicks in and almost demands something more tangible to prove to me this improvement. I try to quell that with “This will pass..” “Time takes time”, “Acceptance is the key” etc. thoughts and application of the programme. Then in my inbox this morning is an invite from a Prof at a learned university to step in at the last min as a speaker at an international conference next week. Someone can’t now make it and they know of some work I did...