Contact Lens

I used to be funnier than I am now. At least, that's how it seems.

Whenever I look back at old blog posts, they seem much better than the muck I pump out nowadays.

I hope that it's just a distance issue - the old posts seem better because they're less familiar; the new ones are fresh, and heavy as peat.

Lucy experiences the same thing with her story chapters. She reads the old ones and thinks they're works of genius (she is correct), but that the new ones are rubbish (she is incorrect). Even though when she was writing the genius ones, all those many months ago, she thought they were rubbish compared to the gems of an earlier past (she was correct/incorrect).

I read this blog entry yesterday, and it really made me laugh. Is that arrogant? Or was I a different person then - thus worthy of praise?

I suppose I find it funny because I have exactly the same sense of humour as myself, and get all of my own references.

(Actually, that's not true. Sometimes my past self's quest to be incomprehensible bears all too potent fruit.)

Will I look back on my current output with fondness in a couple of years? Not this post, obviously. But one where I'm interesting or funny.

Perhaps.

Perspective is a curious thing.

It makes one man weep and another man sing.

Oh no, wait... That's the power of love.

I don't think those lyrics are accurate. I mean, we have information on only those two men (the crybaby and the troubadour). But what about all the other men? And what about women?

Huey Lewis has a lot of explaining to do. And his "News" is tabloid at best.

But perspective is a tricky beast.

It makes one man sing, and another man yeast.

The closer we are to something, the more ordinary it seems. The past is a foreign country, after all. Exotic, alluring, profound. And we forget about all the bad stuff. That's why everyone thinks modern life is rubbish. It's just a trick of time.

We won't be able to see the beauty of 2011 until 2028, by which time we'll all be robots and living in a Justin Bieber dictatorship (with moustachioed Big Bieber staring at us from every wall).

Then, in 2051, we'll look back fondly on the halcyon days of oppression and pop with rose-coloured spectacles (welded onto our robot heads).

And it's not just time, but also space where perspective holds dominion.

Things closer to us seem banal. Those further away seem spectacular.

For example, I've got a red biro on my desk. It seems boring. Whereas the Taj Mahal seems like a wonderful place, as it's so far away.

But this is just an illusion.

If the Taj Mahal and the red biro were placed side by side, I'd see them as equally impressive.

The only reason that there aren't scores of Indian tourists flocking to see the pen is because of my stringent security measures.

I've trained dogs to attack anyone that isn't Caucasian. Some people have said that's racist, but as I tell them time and time again, dogs are colourblind. Just like their ivory-white master.

I'm just protecting my pen from unsavoury elements, that's all.

[I like to slip into ironic racism every now and then, because it's making an important satirical point. If you can't see what that point is, YOU'RE the racist.]

[Also, dogs aren't really colourblind]

Anyway: perspective.

We're all partisan. We can never get an accurate picture of the world, because somethings are too close and big and blocky, and some are far away and blurry and remind us of the big blocky things we squinted at as children.

The only person with complete mastery over perspective is God, and he treats us with the contempt we deserve. Massive ants, we are. And that's all we'll ever be.

In conclusion, I'm not qualified to judge my present work. So for all I know, this might have been my best post ever: funny, enlightening and endemic of a golden age the likes of which we will never see again until next time.

***

I haven't posted a photo for quite a long time.

So here's a photo: