Recovery

For me the unflattering result of society  - more specifically, social engagement - is the necessity of recovery. I have become such a tarsome habitué of my own insular scope that I can no longer manage the fallout without earnest readjustment.  The reclamation is reminiscent of my erstwhile housekeeping following a dinner party - though happily without the physical demands of alcohol poisoning.  Apart from that physical recuperation the psychical rally is no less directed to purgation.  In short I have become a convict of my personal obsessions - which even more disparagingly will not alarm anyone who knows me. By way of defence I have the arrogance of excusing my incapacity by confidently asserting it is my posture of preference! Increasingly I have lapsed into what some might more generously - and metaphorically - label "retirement to the country with his book and bottle".  However the descent is characterized the hard truth is that - perhaps without the stimulus of blended whiskey (and certainly without the infection of youth and all that that entails) - I have instead willingly succumbed to a quiet and repetitive lifestyle, a confessed mediocrity.

The only strength to derive from this malady is that my return to health is not so much to escape or decontaminate the initial trespass but rather to document what precisely transpired throughout the challenging event. I find the instant I cross the threshold of privacy to the public domaine my ancestral instincts take hold and catapult me into a dynamic which is dedication to all the commanding assaults of nature. It is a veritable "fight or flight" paradigm which I suppose rightfully triggers those secreted skills and connivances which are appropriate to the larger sphere of corporate activity. I don't suggest there is anything threatening in the social unfolding; but I am alive to the potent progress that might ensue. It is after all a participatory skirmish at the very least.  I have heard it quipped that, "If you want conversation at table, invite someone who lives alone!"  Though this captures a cryptic reality, for me the greater derivative is the value of contributing to the congress.

Naturally society no more than theatre is composed exclusively of "hams" who insist upon provoking entertainment. Nor generally speaking is the object of society a shoot-out. But for those of us who feel the weight of involvement (perhaps even for the greater good and not self-adornment) the metabolism will react accordingly. The customary boundaries are one's health and the weather, graduating to travel, politics and occasionally jewellery and the stock market. One must distinctly avoid religion and former acquaintances or paramours, subjects which as often as not are sous entendu.

Whatever the dalliance the expenditure of energy has its by-product. When the tapers have dwindled to the the pewter candlestick, when the second or third round of cognac has circulated, when only crumbs remain upon the porcelain dessert plates and the linens are strewn across the festive board, then it is time to consult the wall clock and proclaim the lateness of the hour, preparing for the inevitable withdrawal. The ensuing kerfuffle amid swaying arms, embraces and touchless kisses suddenly concludes the hours which have astonishingly sped by.