Changes in me and in the world

I deleted the last post as it had some strange interference and was very irritating to read, not fitting line by line onto the posting format. Anyone who comes onto this blog out of interest in procuring the book 'Okraalom' is welcome to get in touch with me by means of my e-mail, sambas@paradise.net.nz or by ringing Christchurch (NZ) 9812969, or mailing to 137 Milton Street Chch. 8024.

Looking up my diaries which I haven't done for years gives a strange impression of how much one changes over the years between youth and comparative old age. There was a stability then that is missing now, and people did not have such high expectations of material reward, nor did they base so much of their status and sense of well-being on monetary wealth, awe-struck regard for celebrities, and social dominance. I think a lot of our thoughts in the fifties were on how to shape a better world after the horrors of the Second World War. We even thought that religion and changes in philosophies of life towards educated democracies with a touch of 'socialist' idealism (not the excesses of Russian-style Communism) might do the trick. I wonder as I return to trying to get a grip on the Spanish language, whether 'High Rise' Spain is full of people now who are a lot happier than they were when I was there during the last years of Franco's reign with its repressive and oppressive stability. I would like to hope so, but I wonder, and maybe the answer would lie in going back for a visit of reasonable length - which I hope to do before getting too old.