Life! Don't talk to me about life.

Marvin the Paranoid Android made me laugh the first time I heard him drone on the radio series of Hitch hikers Guide to the Universe. It was 33 years ago and I would go to bed early to lie and listen to the series on my old clock/radio.

His permanently depressed state really tickled me. He had a brain the size of a planet and no task was able to occupy the smallest part of his intellect. This meant he was constantly bored and depressed.

They used him as a general purpose ship’s robot and at one point he had to wait for millions of years for his owners to turn up.

As a fluffy young teenager bouncing along on a glittery cloud of optimism this character, was my antithesis. So he made me laugh.

However, in the intervening decades Life has happened.

My glittery cloud has evaporated. My bounce has petered out and I am now somewhat “de-fluffed” by circumstances.

I don’t think I’m Marvin now but I do experience life with a little less zest than my adolescent self.

I try to look for the good in people and am generally disappointed. Faults and weaknesses are easy to spot. I have to work to see the good in people and know in my heart that eventually folk let you down. Because they’re human?

Trading off my well paid but mega-stressful service job for a semi-retired existence in a supermarket has paid dividends. I have time and energy for family and for the interesting bits of life that come along.

They offered me a manager’s job a while ago but I stuck to my guns and think I’m in the right place.

My recent change of job has enhanced my quality of life: being with a better manager; shorter hours; far less physical work.

But overall the old noggin isn’t doing enough. I don’t read as much as I used to. I rarely learn new work skills.

I need to get the cogs working again and so need a plan.

Maybe a new language?

Maybe forcing myself to find time to read again. (Gill’s getting me a pseudo-kindle)

Perhaps all this Marvin-esque thinking is down to the big 5-0 coming up in a few years.

Don’t know.

It might be an effect of my old Dad going into hospital the other day and my younger brother’s heart attack earlier this year.

Either way it needs sorting.

I’ll let you know.