Otium cum dignitate is the Roman expression of a Greek concept (as is much of Roman culture, but not all, plus the Romans tend to bring something unique to their Greek appropriations) that translates into leisure with dignity.

Leisure with dignity. Yes please.

I’ve known for quite some time that this was my ideal state in life. It does not mean being a slacker and living under a bridge, it does not mean being lazy. It means the (good) fortune to pursue endeavours that enrich you as a person without necessarily, or at all, enriching your purse. Quite the contrary even.

However not being from a particularly patrician family and having had an “interesting” career path, otium usually equates to being impecunious. For Art not power? Yes, but you still need to make the mortgage payments on the house, the country house, the beach house, the beamers, the Ducati etc. I’m kidding of course, we don’t like beamers.

Of late my work fortunes have somewhat perked up, hence the dearth of posts. I know three of you check daily (thanks btw), and I dislike letting you down. Plus I really get the itch to write if I stay away too long. So I got up extra early just to say hello. I have a bunch of half-decent half-baked ideas for a few posts but not so much the leisure to put it together decently (boohoohoo right?). On the bright side, that means there’s a scuba trip in the making.

This is something of an addiction to be honest. I mean the complete package, the southern seas, the adventures beneath the waves, the beers with buddies and the various surprises along the way. Hmmm, just got an idea for a post, about the fictionalization of the southern Pacific, the need for escape/fantasy and the tiki movement. This is what happens when I get started on my otium and I’ve had three espressos before breakfast.

We had planned a quickie to Cozumel in April but that fell through. I know, first world problems. Speaking of which I got my pc back from the manufacturer but lost a bunch of stuff because my back-up got corrupted.

I was partially successful using data recovery software but most of my archives appear lost and a lot of my pictures now look like this:

It was oddly freeing to have my digital slate wiped clean, like a fresh start in life almost. I wonder what that’s about, but back to scuba.

Since a lot of our memories were lost we’ll just have to make new ones.

So stay tuned.

Have great a day.