No change

Having had time to think about it, I think people learn new tricks but don't actually change. They can try, discover a particular fault and work to fix it, but sooner or later the rubber will bounce back as that's who we are. We didn't choose it, we didn't design it and it's not our job to do any more than manage the worst of it through tricks. We can't change the feelings which drive these acts, just not act on them. That's who we are. I feel the same now as I first remember nearly 50 years ago. That's me, I feel like me and I always have. I've tested it on me, I've tested it on others and I don't think it's fair or realistic to expect anyone to become different other than by maturing and not acting on their lower drives.
So I'm happy to drop the bugs but they're not changing me, they're just spotting mistakes and correcting them. I'm no different, and my reactions are no different from trying to change what's happening in a TV programme we're watching. That script has been written and only the audience can decide to laugh or cry.

Otherwise it's a quiet time, the usual sort of possibilities, some closer than others, a 'non date' on Thursday (all I have at the moment, woman, no action) and the rest is in the future. All this heavy stuff on personal development is beyond the pale unless the person makes a decision help is required, and as doctors can see if they need one I can see I don't, that work has been done over the last 30 years or so and however many rough edges are left it's chance if the odd one is worn off by an observer or left to become like my grandpa after having a stroke left him with few inhibitions. I think all I'd do was laugh at farts more and talk about myself with little restraint. I'd probably be ruder online but only because people seem to find it easy here where they probably never would in the real world. That's not personality but a bad habit so can be stopped when picked up. Now powder my nose and call me Shirley but I can't see how being lonely is a character flaw as accused of earlier. Besides my pathological anxiety (I have a certificate to prove it) there's nothing at all wrong with me, and complaining that one by one all the people close to me have gone until only my parents are left then it's hardly my doing. I did nothing to get these people in my life so have no direct way to add more. They just attach themselves to you if not related as and when you come across them, and stay until they go. Effort was never a factor, my friends were either from school, my parent's friends' children or from my annual holiday. They began vanishing when they got married one by one besides one, and the rest readjusted their radar to people like them.

So I'm in a gap, a drought, most people I see are the only ones left, but none left from the old life more than once a year or so. If I share that with people it's no different from sharing a hernia, a bereavement or which tablets I've been prescribed. If you're reporting good circumstances it makes you no more strong person than reporting bad ones a weak one. It's just weather. In my case climate but as we all know, climate changes. And that's not man made either whatever they try and tell you.
I can either fill the gap with anyone I can find, like eating bogies or picking up fagends from the gutter, or manage without as nothing is better than the wrong stuff I can tell you. The average ones are better than nothing, like space rations, but no one wants to live of freeze dried food and tablets forever. Is this a character fault by describing what's now an 18 year reality more or less? If not then am I missing anything I could do about it? It's like studying as I've said before, quality not quantity. Going out and looking or online is the equivalent of reading your books all day with little or no direction. If there was anywhere specific, like your best potential essay, I'd exploit it, but social life isn't as clear cut as an exam course.

I've still got a few good years left in me, it can change, droughts end with or without rain dances, and will without the rain dance, and as such there's no need for me to do one. The best I do is look up people I know already as at least I know exactly what I'm getting. As I've known so many once you exclude the many moved away you have a few locally and if lucky I only really need to get back with one or two to fill the gaps. And despite a financial shortfall I may still try and move when my grandma's house is sold and will fill the money gap with a well chosen tenant. I'll be making far less money than now as most will have gone on the house, but I'm good at making a little go a long way. Plus the area is far more civilised and likely to meet people old and new as it's where I grew up and since. That's the best way I know and will cost me all my money to do so at great financial risk. But why not improve your life while you can and just trust your wits to eat beans for a year or two and not use the car very much? I could even drop Sky TV as long as I have the internet, so have a few areas to cut just like the present government. But that is ahead, and can't happen for some time, till then it's carry on as usual and hope for more, and think I've chucked out the idea that in some way I'm personally responsible for this out of the window. Unless you know different?