Compare and Contrast

I used to spend most of my working life online. Any goals I achieved took place there; any creativity I exercised could only be seen there. At the time, I accepted that was the price of the skills that I found myself to have and the craft that I learned from long experience

A potter or a wood-carver might produce beautiful objects that could be touched, held, seen or even smelled. I would produce carefully constructed logic in well-structured documents, or efficient and robust computer programs with touches of elegance in their architecture that a fellow-craftsperson would appreciate. The medium might be different, but the principle is constant, I thought

As an observation on myself, I'm surprised that, since I turned in the company laptop, I have not missed my old life at all, or felt much need to find a similar replacement activity in the virtual world. I'm not a gifted gardner, handyman, DIYer or even beekeeper, but I feel some satisfaction at the end of a day filled with those things that I do not feel after a day like today: spent online, even if doing things with at least a sprinkling of analysis, logic, constructing an argument and doing some tech tricks. Perhaps there is an inherent difference in virtual and real-world activity, that I have stumbled upon without planning it. Perhaps our society as a whole is on the same journey

In the brief time I had to scan the glum news, I got childish amusement from the phone-app's decision to place two stories briefly next to one another. The slight mystery in the headlines helps the humour I think, so word-for-word: 'Driverless bus service in Scotland to be withdrawn due to lack of interest'  and, right beside it 'Small aircraft took off by itself and flew out to sea, accident report reveals'. Two together are more effective than either alone. I took the same view of the primroses - I confess I turned one of them to be beside the other - but I didn't try to hide the slug-bite. Life in the real world