Suffer these fools (gladly)

Listen to: Mountain Sound - Of Monsters and Men

(I have a playlist that would make you label me as a pseudo-hipster - songs that play on radio but were probably liked by hipsters before they were, you know, mainstream.)

I was reading one of Arthur C. Clarke's stories today - Rescue Party - and was telling Shu Yuan how dated the story was. To make it clear, this is the first story I've read written by Clarke, because I can't remember if I've read any other in the past. And while it may be dated in some ways (helicopters as the future of our transport! Punched cards to keep records of every person in existence!), some of the ideas were really interesting. Like the Palador guy and the collective intelligence of the race. And while punched cards in filing cabinets may sound antiquated, Clarke would have laughed at the NSA and how the big tech companies keep all our data.

But it's the way he writes, like as though it's very normal to read about a tentacled alien landing a spaceship on Earth before the sun goes nova, that makes it all believable. A bit like Diana Wynne Jones' style, since I was reading Deep Secret this afternoon. All about Magids and alternate worlds and emperors who won't let his own children know their real parents. And when you try to describe the stories to someone else, they tend to get the Defuq are you reading? looks on their faces.

I suppose it's stress or - as Shu Yuan keeps reminding me - my attitude towards my stress, that makes me wonder on and off why I do the things I do. Why I have to do the things I do. It's a strange thing to let your mind wander and realise that you're wistfully thinking of how things could be very much different, not really much worse, but not necessarily better either.

I was walking through the bookshop yesterday, wondering was there anything I wanted to buy, and thinking about the Clarke book that I had picked up earlier. Then I thought about how I've been worried over the same things for the past week, and how I've been so tired when going to bed and waking up in the mornings. And then I realised worrying about these things isn't going to change anything, and I've just been making myself tireder than I should be.

Someone on a different planet would have found it quite funny that I should be so worried about these things. Little things, little talks. Once you're out of it, you'll find it strange that you found them that important in the first place.