Minifesto

Who am I?

Hi. My name is Kittiker. I am a tremendously lucky person. I have a lot going for me. I am healthy, clever, well liked, confident, pleasant and mostly kind at heart. I have friends and family who love me and who stick around when things are tough. I have a comfortable house in one of the most beautiful parts of the world and I share it with a wonderful partner whom I adore and am adored by. I have an interesting, challenging job which pays well enough to live on. I have many passions and interests and I have the time and opportunity to mostly explore them as I wish. As I say, I am a tremendously lucky person. And yet...

And yet, despite all this, there is a sad little seed at the core of me which gnaws away and sours all that I have. I am fretful. I find it difficult to relax. I always remember what went wrong, my slip ups, my errors of judgement and all my beautiful memories are eventually worried into dust and ashes. And I am tired of it.

I suppose I could start taking antidepressents (been there, done that, got the impaired balance and deadened mental state) But that's not for me. I don't think I am depressed. And I don't think that it's to do with some kind of modern malaise, though, of course, the problems of society do make their impact. But they always have. I think some people just find it hard to be happy. But I want to try.

So this journal is part of my quest to count my blessing and to seek out the simple pleasures that can make life wonderful. This is a fairly loose remit, I know, but I want to be able to explore and share many different kinds of experiences. I will record my thoughts and investigations here. It may focus on things I have done or seen or places I have been and I warn you now that many posts will centre round yarn and food. It will all be about the search for joy and beauty in the world and it starts now:

Two hours ago, there was a huge rain shower. The gunmetal sky opened and great, shining globs of rain poured down. The water turned the road into a river and everything was drenched. Then, just as suddenly, it stopped and the sun shone down. It was like the world had just been made.