Just spent half an hour looking back through my blog entries, all the way back to January 2004. I hadn’t realised this blog was so old. I actually started writing a blog sometime in 2000, in Open Diary, a predecessor to Blogger and LiveJournal. (I’ve still got those old posts around somewhere – perhaps I might post them in here sometime.) That lasted about a year, before OD changed from a free system and started charging for everything but the basics.
Anyway, it’s been an interesting read. The Steadings community has changed – for various reasons we no longer do so many communal things, which is a pity. I don’t do so much walking; on the other hand, I’m not seeing the doctor every month. I’m certainly doing less work – I was forever complaining about being swamped and rushed.
There was at least one entry (from 2005) that I think bears repeating:
Money Can’t Buy You Happiness
That phrase was obviously thought up by somebody who had never experienced poverty. Yes, looked at logically and in isolation, it’s perfectly correct: Happiness is an intangible state and not a purchasable commodity. However, it’s a phrase that’s too often abused and misused. Too many people interpret it as “Money is incompatible with happiness”, which is nonsense; they are too entirely different things.
As Spike Milligan observed: “Money won’t buy you happiness – but with it, you can be miserable in comfort.”