Author: Robert Walker

Never-Ending Night

by Robert Walker, posted in Stories

I’ve often dreamed of love that could be mine,

Where in my heart, hope softly starts to glow;

But all my feelings, I must now confine,

For you’ll not turn to me or ever know.

You are the sun, too bright for me to keep,

While I, the moon, just borrow distant light;

In silence, your beauty I must seek,

Alone within this never-ending night.

For every smile you give without a care,

Feels like a dagger cutting through my heart.

How can I live with all this deep despair,

When I know we will always be apart?

And though my love for you will never fade,

You will never hear the plea I’ve made.

What is Love?

by Robert Walker, posted in Theme

Romantic love is often entangled with physical desire, where the intoxicating desire for the other is mistaken for something deeper. The powerful drivers that propel the body towards procreation create a heady cocktail of emotions, a pleasurable drug, which can induce a euphoric high, but can also lead to drunken obsession, jealousy, and inevitable disappointment when the initial jolts of passion fade away. Most relationships, at least in their early stages, operate largely at this level, driven by societal expectations of passion and the pursuit of an idealised romantic partner.

Over time, many of these relationships, if they last beyond other attractions, settle into patterns laid out by cultural expectations: marriage, children, and the daily grind required as members of society. Yet, amidst this routine, many couples never truly learn to love one another in the deeper, more meaningful sense. They follow the motions, adhering to prescribed roles, without truly seeing the other.

Romantic love is not about what someone can do for you or the physical pleasure they might provide. Love is the genuine concern for the other person’s well-being. It is the wanting to care for them, not because you expect something in return, but because their happiness, their health, and their emotions genuinely matter to you. In doing so, you are rescued from the ultimately unfulfilling confines of self-interest. When your partner is unwell or unhappy, love makes you want to be there for them, not out of obligation, but because you truly care. It’s a desire to offer support, to be their comfort, and to share in their burdens, transforming you from a shallow creature into a truly alive human being.

Love is about joy. It’s about celebrating life’s moments with the other person, enjoying their successes and happiness. The bond of connection and mutual understanding creates a love that transcends the physical and the temporary. Though, of course, if you love the person, you are more likely to find them attractive and electrified by the energy of their body next to yours. Loving the person makes it more likely you will experience deeper physical pleasures than if you are merely coveting surface appearances.

This leads to a question: who is more likely to experience true love—two twenty-year-olds, captivated by the beauty and sensations of each other’s bodies, or two eighty-year-olds, who see the beauty in each other’s wrinkles, who love each other not for their fading physical appearance but for the familiarity and comfort they have found in one another? The love between these two people is rooted in knowing each other intimately—their strengths, weaknesses, flaws, and virtues—and loving them for all of it.

Love is not about how one looks or how one makes the other feel in the heat of passion. It’s about being present for each other, appreciating the other, and finding comfort in their presence. It’s about love that lasts when the distractions of youth have long faded, leaving behind the enduring connection between two people who have chosen to know each other intimately.

It is the connection, the concern, the joy, and the familiarity that define love, a kind of love that so many seek but only a few truly find. True love, in its deepest sense, is a commitment to the other person’s happiness, a recognition of their beauty that transcends the physical, and an appreciation of the shared journey through life.

Cats and Dogs

by Robert Walker, posted in Stories

A dog will play with a new toy until it’s shredded to pieces. A cat will play with a new toy for three seconds before deciding that the box it came in is far more interesting.

A dog shows excitement by bouncing around like a spring. A cat shows excitement by blinking at you slowly and then pretending you don’t exist.

Leave a dog alone for an hour, and you’ll come back to a reunion as if you’ve been gone for years. Leave a cat alone for an hour, and they’ll be exactly where you left them, slightly annoyed you interrupted their nap.

Tell a dog to sit, and they’ll sit immediately, looking proud. Tell a cat to sit, and they’ll give you a look that says, “You first.”

Dogs love to show off their tricks and accomplishments, like catching a ball mid-air. Cats show off by walking along the highest shelf in the house and knocking down whatever’s in their way.

Podcast #15

by Robert Walker, posted in Drama

The Tyger

– by William Blake
A Little Bit of Drama

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat.
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp.
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears
And water’d heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Random Thoughts

by Robert Walker, posted in Random Thoughts

I didn’t realise Montaigne was so influential. His words have an echo in much great literature after him, including the works of Shakespeare. Was Hamlet referring to Montaigne in, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”? Was Roosevelt referring to Montaigne in, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself”?

There has been an obvious degeneration of quality, hasn’t there? Maybe it’s easy to cherry-pick from the past, but those cherries are a lot more appealing than today’s rotting harvest.

Note to self: Learn about AI and think about its application. What’s the future of Hollywood, the BBC, Netflix etc., if AI enables individual creators to make great films and programs from their ideas?

We are hurtling towards AI. I hope it helps us, as we are in need of some saving.

Poetry is words that dance with music.

Poetry was originally meant to be sung. It is musical in its being. Yet many actors perform Shakespeare’s verse in one note.

What justifies the statement, “I am an artist”? An artist is moved to become a new expression in the dance.

I’m biassed against Byron because he was snobbishly dismissive of Keats. However, art is not the artist, even though we live in a society that glorifies the cult of the individual. Art is not just the result of a person, it emanates from humanity, and more deeply, the world.

Over the past year, I’ve been on the receiving end of two spectacularly awful bureaucratic blunders, which have inspired some Kafkaesque ideas for a sci-fi horror screenplay I’ll be writing this Autumn.

It is amazing how the odd sentence here and there mounts up over time.

The subconscious is far more intelligent than my reasoning.

Some of the most insightful and prescient comments people make are often throw away, instinctive comments made before rationalising kicks in.

A key teaching of Christianity is that the highest calling is not one of dominion but of service, exemplified by Jesus who devoted himself to humanity, ultimately sacrificing his life. “Those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted” resonates with the paradoxical wisdom of the Tao. It has inspired phrases such as “a servant of God,” “servant of the people,” “in service of your country,” and more contemporary ideas like “servant-leadership.”

A real flaw is the deluded self-certainty of being in the right. “You are a stupid piece of shit,” as often repeated in the febrile modern world, isn’t right. “You are behaving like a stupid piece of shit” is rather more likely because virtually all of us has been in that second category from time to time. A better example of this was given with sins and stones a while ago.

To Get Things Done

by Robert Walker, posted in Random Thoughts

Optional ways to get things done:

Be incredibly well-disciplined, ever-vigilantly defeating distraction impulses.

Live in fear, constantly in motion because you are terrified of the consequences of failure.

Live in hate, fired up to prove people wrong or in vengeance of some past wrong.

Have an inflated ego, pushing yourself so that you can assert yourself over others.

Be a narcissist wanting others to admire you.

Have warped beliefs that you obey without question, usually due to some perceived reward.

Desire the future reward so much it overrides everything else.

Be a saint working relentlessly because you care about people and want to bring some good into the world. For instance, this could be for a benevolent cause and/or your family’s wellbeing.

Be out of your mind, doing what you do, like a machine.

Be insanely obsessive, driven by a compulsive need to do it at all costs.

Be in love with what you do, so you want to do as much of it as you can.

Or create a routine that is easy to adopt out of habit.

The last one is the most realistic in most situations. Therefore, design the rules of the algorithm up front, so it’s easy to get things done without having to be a great master, a saint, or a sinner. The consistent taking of small steps can become vast in its effects.

Random Memories

by Robert Walker, posted in About

I once worked in the Cabinet Office, which was a remarkable experience. One day, I made an internal phone call and was greeted by the indignant response, “Do you know who you are talking to?” I must have dialled the wrong number and was instead talking to some supercilious twit. I said, “Is this the Prime Minister?” He was a bit confused and said “No,” to which I responded, “Oh, I must have dialled the wrong number then,” and hung up. Times were different then. I remember playing football in Downing Street, kicking a ball against a wall. The security guards just thought it was funny as they laughed and joked with the drivers. I don’t remember security cameras. I would wander freely around amazing empty state rooms in Whitehall and the Treasury, and nobody seemed to mind. There were only two men on the front desk of the Cabinet Office, which was just a short walk away, down an old Jacobean corridor, to the back door of Number 10. The entrance was just a normal turnstile, which could have been easily jumped over. By the time I left, though, the entrance had been secured with ceiling-high glass security turnstiles. It seems incredible now, but not so long ago, appraisal of risk and implementation of standards operated by a very different compass. Rightly or wrongly, we currently live in a much more rules-based, legalistic, risk-conscious culture.

I constantly come up with hare-brained ideas that I then impulsively implement, badly. Should I add this to my CV? It just so happens though that some show signs of life before falling flat, while occasionally others work out very well. But mostly I look back and wonder at what on earth was I thinking? Why was I so stupid? Being aware of this doesn’t make me want to stop coming up with stupid ideas, only to become better at turning some of them into good ones.

Worry Reps

by Robert Walker, posted in Stories

To build up the worry muscles I’ve been doing reps on some non-proportionate thought loops. My achievement today was that I was able to cram in an extra 30 minutes of worry time followed by some focussed anxiety to distract me from what I was doing.

I’m really seeing the results—my heart rate is elevated, and I’ve managed to develop an ability to turn a minor inconvenience into a full-blown crisis, breaking all personal bests! My jumping to the worst possible conclusions has also come on leaps and bounds.

I’m now working on a new technique called “Pre-emptive Fretting”, where I worry about potential future worries before they even have a chance to materialise. It’s all about staying ahead of the game, you see.

For an added challenge, I’ve started integrating some multi-tasking worries—like stressing about relationships while simultaneously fretting over work issues. It’s a real brain workout, but the sense of overwhelming high-performance anxiety at the end of the day is so stimulating that my mind doesn’t even want to go to sleep.