I have long ago abated my erstwhile gusto for Christmas. And birthdays or statutory holidays. There are no clients about whom to concern myself. Nor parents. We’ve downsized and utterly abandoned any thought whatsoever about new furnishings, accessories or ornaments.  There are no parties or invitations on the horizon. Even Trump appears to be evaporating. Instead we have lapsed into calculated contentment and agèd habits and customs. Perhaps also into that much derided absorption of the Rastafarians into purposeless maintenance and cleaning, “Care it good, Boss, for soon it will be mine!”

Rastafarian
relating to a religious movement of Jamaican origin holding that Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia was the Messiah and that black people are the chosen people and will eventually return to their African homeland.

a member of the Rastafarian religious movement. Rastafarians have distinctive codes of behaviour and dress, including the wearing of dreadlocks and the smoking of cannabis, and they follow a diet that excludes pork, shellfish, and milk.

But every day is a good day.  Certainly it takes longer and requires more commitment and tolerance of pain when getting out of bed to start the day, to get the machinery into a semblance of lubrication, to swing the limbs in the required directions without falling over, to tend to repeated ablutions and cleansing, only to stare into the mirror and see nothing but what is in your head. Every day is special. Because I fully intend to make it so.

Never have I acquainted my private cheerfulness with any resource other than myself.  Obviously there are notable causes for contentment, viz.,  stand-alone resources of perfection such as music, art or entertainment. But you and I both know that when it comes to the assessment of those endorsements they are as unmoved as stone were we not prepared to personify them; were we not prepared to add our own artistic weight and colour to the image; were we not trained to restore the underlying intellect and philosophy to an otherwise perfectly temporal world.

Oh, who am I kidding!  I have no idea what it takes to see every day as special. But I know I do. Perhaps I was simply blessed with some genetic trait that encourages optimism. Or maybe it’s because I have twice escaped near death (though I believe I haven’t changed since or before those events).  But it doesn’t matter.  All I know is, this is it, this is what we have to deal with. And I propose to do whatever it takes – including intellectual subterfuge if necessary – to create a world view which is, if not indeed gushing with enthusiasm, at least spiced with a degree of marvel and discovery.