The thoughts of Peter Lewis Skippen
USD 25,99
Format: 13.5x21.5
Number of Pages: 78
ISBN: 978-3-99146-715-1
Release Date: 06.08.2024
Deep and insightful, spanning the years 2018 to 2023, The Thoughts of Peter Lewis Skippen conveys the opinions and feelings of Peter as he navigates his experience of modern life without his wife Paula, sharing his journey through a rollercoaster of emotions.
2017
July 2017
The greatest sin of all
You need to remember but you have to forget. The greatest sin of all diverts the mind and creates a vision that will never stay true. To live without desire, ambition, or hope in a vacuum of mind where tomorrow is today. Eternity is the memory you will never forget, and death is the sleep that tears the mind. So is love the greatest dream of all, or the greatest sin? To cause such misery, sadness, and pain for the rest of one’s life. To take love away is the greatest sin of all.
August 2017
Memory
The past is gone, never to return; so you have to move on, put it all behind you. A fresh start, a new beginning—all this can be done, so people say. But I know what I need, what I want, what must be, and it is not of this simple, empty, alien world. It is of another place deep in the mind, where nothing can detract or escape from the memory of the past. Or the hope for the ultimate future beyond our understanding of reason or reality, where memory is the only life and to forget is to destroy, to remember is to live.
September 2017
The fight
Battling with my mind, sometimes I win, sometimes l lose. The past and future in conflict, each trying to oust the other. I have little control over the past, edging it out by concentrating on other pursuits. A moment’s lapse and I am back in the past, flipping from one image to the other. Indecision can be bad; what to do, what would she do? A decision has to be made; that’s when it gets difficult. It doesn’t matter if I am right or wrong, vulnerability has set in and I am crushed.
September 2017
Haunted (a bad day)
If only I could close down the past, close the door, look forward not back, think straight ahead, concentrate on the future. This is all in vain; how can I empty my brain, delete the past? I would not know who I am or where I am going. Haunted by one’s own memories that will never depart. To die is to live, to live is to suffer quietly in no obvious pain. When you are walking towards the edge of the cliff, the sooner it comes the better. Death is the only answer but that would crush the mind of those so close.
October 2017
Today tomorrow (another bad day)
Wake up, get up, dress, make the bed, tea, wash, breakfast, tidy up, paperwork, gardening. Visit the lad, chat chat chat, home, dinner. What to do? TV. Radio. Fall asleep, wake up, go to bed, up twice in the night; finally, get off to sleep. An empty day, an empty life; hard now, but I am dreading the winter. At least death is an end to it all.
2018
January 2018
Daydreams
She exists in my mind, in my thoughts all the time; never a moment when she is not there. From the morning to the night, she is always around; it is a comfort to know that I am not alone. I can’t see her, I can’t hear her, but I know she is there. One little sign. That is all it would take for the goodness of life to explode, but it never comes. Life is a prison, my home is a cell, tomorrow may change but today is the same. There is only one possible cure.
Mar 2018
Never, never, never
Why are politicians so stupid? To know you are right when everyone else is wrong is a very rare thing, but it never deters our betters. Their way is the right way, never mind the cost, never mind the misery, never mind this, that, and the other; it could go on forever. If only we could reshuffle the political cards and come up with a Trump—perhaps not. How about a president? No, not with Blair still breathing. No, we are stuck with never, never, never. Perhaps the devil you know is best, even in a dress.
June 2018
The greatest con of all
Insurance is important; it gives people peace of mind. You pay the company money, then claim, and they pay you money. Religion is different; you pay by doing as you are told. They pay by providing after death a heaven. There is no contradiction; that is the beauty of religion. The problem with this is, be there a God? No one knows until it is too late; everyone hopes for, but who knows. So is religion the greatest con of all, or the greatest insurance ever? Only time will tell for all of us.
June 2018
The greatest lie of all Lies
Everyone tells them; mostly politicians, counsellors, builders, estate agents, clergy. It’s a very long list. Lies are almost expected. However, to imply (which of course is not a lie) seems a minor misdemeanour, but can have unsettling consequences. I never said that is the usual response. To imply virtue and decency above everything, it would never happen to me attitude can be very overbearing. So the greatest lie of all is what Mother said. Or was it just implied?
July 2018
The great heatwave
The sun is up, warm is now hot, soon to be blistering, grass is straw, plants are dying, trees are wilting. Fish slowly splash in the pond, foxes sleep away the day, the doves are in the tree, the rat is in his hole, even the cat is in the shade. Rain is the only cure, but will it come in time to quench the summer drought? The sun has set. A heavy blanket of heat prevails; another difficult night to sleep. A thunderstorm would be a welcome treat: the sooner the better, the wetter the better.
July 2018
The end of reason
There has to be a reason in life, goals to achieve. Work provides food to eat, a shelter to be in, but when that is secured, it is not enough. With a partner or marriage, advancing together, a bigger abode is taken. Then children come along. Self-employment brings holidays, a car, expensive this and that. The children leave home, a pension brings retirement, but the partner dies. Now life is just about getting through the day; those early goals have disappeared. There is no more reason in life.
July 2018
The healer (a very bad day)
To live in memory is a curse hard to control. There is no way to avoid a flashback in time, a slide show with no exit. Photographs are a menace to be avoided, happy memories are no longer happy, sad songs are now cruel songs. Time is not a great healer, time makes life longer, time makes life harder, death is the only healer, death to life death to memories.
July 2018
Lost spirit
Why is it that the lady in the wheelchair is so cheerful and I am so miserable? Life must be very difficult for her. Is this because a person’s spirit decides if they are to be happy and full of life or unhappy, making life a struggle? It does not matter how the rest of the world suffers; your own problems, however insignificant, override every other problem the world has to offer. It seems what happens in the mind is more destructive than what can happen to the body.
July 2018
The biggest Pests
Pests abound, life is about avoiding them, they seem to queue up to irritate us. The fleas and flies sting and bite, snails and slugs devour our flowers, weeds overrun the garden, animals call and bark, children scream and shout, computers play up, noisy neighbours, cold callers, teenagers. Pests aplenty. But what can sting the most is that prickly little thing called a conscience. Especially when it is too late to address.
August 2018
Acceptance
After years of marriage, living on your own brings a realization of who you are and what you are. Some widowed people need to get out, mix, be in a crowd, have lots of friends. Others find this difficult, near impossible. Like an army in full retreat, I need to keep running or I am lost. Alone in a crowd around relatives is to be avoided. Fortunately, meeting strangers is easier, especially for a common cause. Is this all down to a lack of confidence or because the demise of my partner leaves a hole so deep I will never be able to crawl out?
August 2018
From the ashes (Radio 3 competition)
The huge mistakes that eventually erupted into the great war caused so many lives to be lost so many lives ruined. How could anything good, let alone great, rise from the ashes of such a terrible conflict? Yet the humble French ambulance driver Maurice Ravel, and the son of a wealthy Austrian industrialist Paul Wittgenstein, both scarred by the war, Ravel emotionally, Wittgenstein by the loss of his right arm, combined when Wittgenstein commissioned Ravel to write a piano concerto for the left hand. The result? A gem of musical adventure, some twenty minutes of mystery, enchantment, and sheer magic. The piano and orchestra together in a masterpiece of sound that will last forever, never to be forgotten.
August 2018
Past and present
The ticking of time is oh so slow, but time is passing, time is moving forward; it is always behind pushing on. You cannot ignore its relentless march whatever the speed. When a life has a short expectancy, and life is one long pain, seconds are hours, hours are days. Then it is over in a flash, and time accelerates at an alarming rate, leaving you set in the past unable to catch up. All because time is just a condition of the mind, a mind that is out of equilibrium and not responding to past activity, the future is uncertain.
August 2018
Problem solved
Criticism is something easier to give than to take; indeed, many react to criticism abruptly with hostility and abuse. When two people gauge a situation very differently, some conflict is almost certain. Clever is the person while getting his point across can criticize, but disguise his comments so not to offend. You might simply call this being devious and the problem postponed, but in any conflict, time brings reflection and disperses irritation, so a more balanced view is established. With a little goodwill, a way forward can be found and the problem solved, or at least agreed upon. If only we could find this clever person.
September 2018
Then and now
A return to yesteryear means endless walking, waiting, and queuing. If you wanted to go anywhere, walking was a necessity. To the shops, phone box, school, or workplace, usually via the bus stop where waiting was almost a national pastime. Poor Mother, tramping from one shop to another, queuing at all of them. Then having to lug all the shopping home. The telephone box, no more, has shrunk to the size of a chocolate bar that doubles as a torch and camera, as well as the ability to communicate with the rest of the world. All this without having to get off your backside. Nowadays, of course, waiting is all done in the comfort of your car, often while commuting. Back then, nobody I knew had a car, and obese people were surprisingly hard to find.
September 2018
Her and him
Who said women are the weaker sex? It has to be a man; no woman would be that stupid. Strength should not be measured by physical ability alone. Putting up with pain is not a male attribute, far from it. What a woman’s body has to put up with in a lifetime puts men’s problems in the shade. What a woman sees in a man, and what a man thinks a woman sees in a man are miles apart. So why are so many women let down by useless men? Perhaps because young men are fearful of clever women; they try to cajole and impress rather than behave. Eventually, he can’t keep up and is left behind to flounder or go home to Mum. Yet, a forceful man is a leader, a forceful woman a bully to be avoided. Sometimes, women just can’t win.
October 2018
A place
I don’t want to live; I don’t want to die. I just want that great hole to swallow me up and deposit me somewhere in the future, a long, long way away. A place where bad memories can no longer find me, where misery and sadness no longer exist. A place where every creature, every plant has a story to tell and I have the time to observe, follow, and learn. However, the past prevents the future. Even when this place is all around but under lock and key, seemingly never to be disturbed until the final calling.
October 2018
Failure and success
Success is always followed by failure. Nobody can win all the time. And yet, failure is so often blamed on one individual person, be they politicians, captains, managers etc., but few people make all the decisions—certainly not in a democracy. Blame is sometimes shared, and of course if everybody is to blame, nobody is guilty. The usual get-out clause is, we all have to learn, changes have been made. Alas, too late for some. One should not get too carried away with failure or success. What is important is life and the fight to succeed, to improve, to move on, and to help others less fortunate. Staying together united will then give you the best chance of success, which of course can be measured in so many ways.
November 2018
The vision
Death is always a long way off. Tomorrow will never come, but time creeps on. Perhaps not now, but when you are feeble, frightened, and vulnerable, needing someone to tell you what to do or what not to do, and the future is out of your hands, the vision of death will eat at you. It is the vision that will take you away. The vision that will relieve all your pain, relax your constant stress, and eliminate your despair. The vision leaving you on the doorstep to start the final journey you deserve, and expect. The vision of hope.
...
July 2017
The greatest sin of all
You need to remember but you have to forget. The greatest sin of all diverts the mind and creates a vision that will never stay true. To live without desire, ambition, or hope in a vacuum of mind where tomorrow is today. Eternity is the memory you will never forget, and death is the sleep that tears the mind. So is love the greatest dream of all, or the greatest sin? To cause such misery, sadness, and pain for the rest of one’s life. To take love away is the greatest sin of all.
August 2017
Memory
The past is gone, never to return; so you have to move on, put it all behind you. A fresh start, a new beginning—all this can be done, so people say. But I know what I need, what I want, what must be, and it is not of this simple, empty, alien world. It is of another place deep in the mind, where nothing can detract or escape from the memory of the past. Or the hope for the ultimate future beyond our understanding of reason or reality, where memory is the only life and to forget is to destroy, to remember is to live.
September 2017
The fight
Battling with my mind, sometimes I win, sometimes l lose. The past and future in conflict, each trying to oust the other. I have little control over the past, edging it out by concentrating on other pursuits. A moment’s lapse and I am back in the past, flipping from one image to the other. Indecision can be bad; what to do, what would she do? A decision has to be made; that’s when it gets difficult. It doesn’t matter if I am right or wrong, vulnerability has set in and I am crushed.
September 2017
Haunted (a bad day)
If only I could close down the past, close the door, look forward not back, think straight ahead, concentrate on the future. This is all in vain; how can I empty my brain, delete the past? I would not know who I am or where I am going. Haunted by one’s own memories that will never depart. To die is to live, to live is to suffer quietly in no obvious pain. When you are walking towards the edge of the cliff, the sooner it comes the better. Death is the only answer but that would crush the mind of those so close.
October 2017
Today tomorrow (another bad day)
Wake up, get up, dress, make the bed, tea, wash, breakfast, tidy up, paperwork, gardening. Visit the lad, chat chat chat, home, dinner. What to do? TV. Radio. Fall asleep, wake up, go to bed, up twice in the night; finally, get off to sleep. An empty day, an empty life; hard now, but I am dreading the winter. At least death is an end to it all.
2018
January 2018
Daydreams
She exists in my mind, in my thoughts all the time; never a moment when she is not there. From the morning to the night, she is always around; it is a comfort to know that I am not alone. I can’t see her, I can’t hear her, but I know she is there. One little sign. That is all it would take for the goodness of life to explode, but it never comes. Life is a prison, my home is a cell, tomorrow may change but today is the same. There is only one possible cure.
Mar 2018
Never, never, never
Why are politicians so stupid? To know you are right when everyone else is wrong is a very rare thing, but it never deters our betters. Their way is the right way, never mind the cost, never mind the misery, never mind this, that, and the other; it could go on forever. If only we could reshuffle the political cards and come up with a Trump—perhaps not. How about a president? No, not with Blair still breathing. No, we are stuck with never, never, never. Perhaps the devil you know is best, even in a dress.
June 2018
The greatest con of all
Insurance is important; it gives people peace of mind. You pay the company money, then claim, and they pay you money. Religion is different; you pay by doing as you are told. They pay by providing after death a heaven. There is no contradiction; that is the beauty of religion. The problem with this is, be there a God? No one knows until it is too late; everyone hopes for, but who knows. So is religion the greatest con of all, or the greatest insurance ever? Only time will tell for all of us.
June 2018
The greatest lie of all Lies
Everyone tells them; mostly politicians, counsellors, builders, estate agents, clergy. It’s a very long list. Lies are almost expected. However, to imply (which of course is not a lie) seems a minor misdemeanour, but can have unsettling consequences. I never said that is the usual response. To imply virtue and decency above everything, it would never happen to me attitude can be very overbearing. So the greatest lie of all is what Mother said. Or was it just implied?
July 2018
The great heatwave
The sun is up, warm is now hot, soon to be blistering, grass is straw, plants are dying, trees are wilting. Fish slowly splash in the pond, foxes sleep away the day, the doves are in the tree, the rat is in his hole, even the cat is in the shade. Rain is the only cure, but will it come in time to quench the summer drought? The sun has set. A heavy blanket of heat prevails; another difficult night to sleep. A thunderstorm would be a welcome treat: the sooner the better, the wetter the better.
July 2018
The end of reason
There has to be a reason in life, goals to achieve. Work provides food to eat, a shelter to be in, but when that is secured, it is not enough. With a partner or marriage, advancing together, a bigger abode is taken. Then children come along. Self-employment brings holidays, a car, expensive this and that. The children leave home, a pension brings retirement, but the partner dies. Now life is just about getting through the day; those early goals have disappeared. There is no more reason in life.
July 2018
The healer (a very bad day)
To live in memory is a curse hard to control. There is no way to avoid a flashback in time, a slide show with no exit. Photographs are a menace to be avoided, happy memories are no longer happy, sad songs are now cruel songs. Time is not a great healer, time makes life longer, time makes life harder, death is the only healer, death to life death to memories.
July 2018
Lost spirit
Why is it that the lady in the wheelchair is so cheerful and I am so miserable? Life must be very difficult for her. Is this because a person’s spirit decides if they are to be happy and full of life or unhappy, making life a struggle? It does not matter how the rest of the world suffers; your own problems, however insignificant, override every other problem the world has to offer. It seems what happens in the mind is more destructive than what can happen to the body.
July 2018
The biggest Pests
Pests abound, life is about avoiding them, they seem to queue up to irritate us. The fleas and flies sting and bite, snails and slugs devour our flowers, weeds overrun the garden, animals call and bark, children scream and shout, computers play up, noisy neighbours, cold callers, teenagers. Pests aplenty. But what can sting the most is that prickly little thing called a conscience. Especially when it is too late to address.
August 2018
Acceptance
After years of marriage, living on your own brings a realization of who you are and what you are. Some widowed people need to get out, mix, be in a crowd, have lots of friends. Others find this difficult, near impossible. Like an army in full retreat, I need to keep running or I am lost. Alone in a crowd around relatives is to be avoided. Fortunately, meeting strangers is easier, especially for a common cause. Is this all down to a lack of confidence or because the demise of my partner leaves a hole so deep I will never be able to crawl out?
August 2018
From the ashes (Radio 3 competition)
The huge mistakes that eventually erupted into the great war caused so many lives to be lost so many lives ruined. How could anything good, let alone great, rise from the ashes of such a terrible conflict? Yet the humble French ambulance driver Maurice Ravel, and the son of a wealthy Austrian industrialist Paul Wittgenstein, both scarred by the war, Ravel emotionally, Wittgenstein by the loss of his right arm, combined when Wittgenstein commissioned Ravel to write a piano concerto for the left hand. The result? A gem of musical adventure, some twenty minutes of mystery, enchantment, and sheer magic. The piano and orchestra together in a masterpiece of sound that will last forever, never to be forgotten.
August 2018
Past and present
The ticking of time is oh so slow, but time is passing, time is moving forward; it is always behind pushing on. You cannot ignore its relentless march whatever the speed. When a life has a short expectancy, and life is one long pain, seconds are hours, hours are days. Then it is over in a flash, and time accelerates at an alarming rate, leaving you set in the past unable to catch up. All because time is just a condition of the mind, a mind that is out of equilibrium and not responding to past activity, the future is uncertain.
August 2018
Problem solved
Criticism is something easier to give than to take; indeed, many react to criticism abruptly with hostility and abuse. When two people gauge a situation very differently, some conflict is almost certain. Clever is the person while getting his point across can criticize, but disguise his comments so not to offend. You might simply call this being devious and the problem postponed, but in any conflict, time brings reflection and disperses irritation, so a more balanced view is established. With a little goodwill, a way forward can be found and the problem solved, or at least agreed upon. If only we could find this clever person.
September 2018
Then and now
A return to yesteryear means endless walking, waiting, and queuing. If you wanted to go anywhere, walking was a necessity. To the shops, phone box, school, or workplace, usually via the bus stop where waiting was almost a national pastime. Poor Mother, tramping from one shop to another, queuing at all of them. Then having to lug all the shopping home. The telephone box, no more, has shrunk to the size of a chocolate bar that doubles as a torch and camera, as well as the ability to communicate with the rest of the world. All this without having to get off your backside. Nowadays, of course, waiting is all done in the comfort of your car, often while commuting. Back then, nobody I knew had a car, and obese people were surprisingly hard to find.
September 2018
Her and him
Who said women are the weaker sex? It has to be a man; no woman would be that stupid. Strength should not be measured by physical ability alone. Putting up with pain is not a male attribute, far from it. What a woman’s body has to put up with in a lifetime puts men’s problems in the shade. What a woman sees in a man, and what a man thinks a woman sees in a man are miles apart. So why are so many women let down by useless men? Perhaps because young men are fearful of clever women; they try to cajole and impress rather than behave. Eventually, he can’t keep up and is left behind to flounder or go home to Mum. Yet, a forceful man is a leader, a forceful woman a bully to be avoided. Sometimes, women just can’t win.
October 2018
A place
I don’t want to live; I don’t want to die. I just want that great hole to swallow me up and deposit me somewhere in the future, a long, long way away. A place where bad memories can no longer find me, where misery and sadness no longer exist. A place where every creature, every plant has a story to tell and I have the time to observe, follow, and learn. However, the past prevents the future. Even when this place is all around but under lock and key, seemingly never to be disturbed until the final calling.
October 2018
Failure and success
Success is always followed by failure. Nobody can win all the time. And yet, failure is so often blamed on one individual person, be they politicians, captains, managers etc., but few people make all the decisions—certainly not in a democracy. Blame is sometimes shared, and of course if everybody is to blame, nobody is guilty. The usual get-out clause is, we all have to learn, changes have been made. Alas, too late for some. One should not get too carried away with failure or success. What is important is life and the fight to succeed, to improve, to move on, and to help others less fortunate. Staying together united will then give you the best chance of success, which of course can be measured in so many ways.
November 2018
The vision
Death is always a long way off. Tomorrow will never come, but time creeps on. Perhaps not now, but when you are feeble, frightened, and vulnerable, needing someone to tell you what to do or what not to do, and the future is out of your hands, the vision of death will eat at you. It is the vision that will take you away. The vision that will relieve all your pain, relax your constant stress, and eliminate your despair. The vision leaving you on the doorstep to start the final journey you deserve, and expect. The vision of hope.
...
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