Let’s count our blessings

Don’t be obliged to read me. My pieces are too long, too wordy and not snippets for glances at on smart phones that you only have the time and patience for. 

So be it. It’s okay

Hollywood action star Bruce Willis has a severe form of dementia, his cognitive skills (speaking, reading, writing and remembering) are going, going, gone at 67. No more acting for him after decades that made $5 billion at the box office from the ‘Die Hard’ series and scores of appearances on film and stage. At least he has kept $250 million in the bank, not that it’s much use to him today.

Daniel Barenboim, one of the finest classical pianists, conductors and humanitarians of our time, has had to step back from his art because of a debilitating and crippling vascular illness. Disappearing now, inspiring, emotive performance and a mind brimming full of all the greatest orchestral music and piano works known to man.   

I have had my own health issues of late, mercifully none of them fatal. I have lost 12 KG in weight in recent weeks without going on Ms So-and-So’s diet plan or taking exercise. Trousers falling down, extra notches on my belt, muscles going AWOL, sleep deprivation from pain, once used as a torture method in dungeons the world over. If I don’t take my opiate painkillers for a while, walking stick still at hand, I get chills and the shakes.

Why am I telling you this?

Because we’ve got to carry on, and in my case it’s with words; words are what I do, what I have been doing for a long time, so we must count what blessings we have left and keep cracking on before it’s too late.