Semper Idem...

My ''motto'' (I know that sounds a bit hackneyed, and it doesn't really describe what it means personally, but honestly what other word is there?) is ''Semper Idem'' (idem being in the neuter form, since I use it to refer to most, if not all, areas of life) which means ''always the same.'' As an aside, I believe that Cardinal Ottaviani, one of the good guys at Vatican II, had this same ''episcopal motto.'' I wonder what Cardinal Bea's motto was...!!!

Before it becomes completely incomprehensible, I shall begin a new paragraph! The reason my ''motto'' is Semper Idem is because I cannot abide change (at least change for the sake of change, which is meaningless). The details of this pet aversion are rather complex and personal to elaborate on a blog, but I shall do my best to make them seem less so. Meaningless changes seem to break a kind of personal periphery, they are an intolerable affront, an invasion of privacy, utterly incomprehensible. Almost, I would go so far to say, they are a permanent loss of immediate ''control'' on my part, on my surroundings. Changes in the immediate vicinity, if NOT caused by myself, make me angry as coming from other minds, which work differently from mine and do not understand mine, and my dispositions. I only make changes (to routine, habits, the lay-out of my bedroom etc) if I think they are needed, and they are marked by care, and the conscious effort to make it at least seem like the change is a natural progression from an ''inferior'' state, or at least an obsolete, no-longer-needed kind of state. People who know me, tell me that it is very noticeable! My father once told me that I was like ''clock-work;'' always in at the same time from school, work, college, university etc. because I always use the same routes to those respective places, even to the extent of crossing junctions and roads at the same spots, only getting one bus (even if other buses use the same route) and probably other things that I don't even notice anymore.

Of course there are many ''disadvantages'' to this almost fanatical inability to meet something as inevitable as ''change'' at least half-way in this life. Which is one reason among many that I overslept this morning (and therefore missed the unique Ember Day Mass within the Octave of Pentecost at my parish). We all take turns doing odd, no-one-wants-to-do chores in my house. Last night, it was my turn to wash up. And, inevitably, like most things as dull and monotonous as that (theres a lot of unwanted monotony in my life at the moment), I put it off until I should already be in bed. And since I have a very labour-intensive approach to most any job that I encounter (nothing is easy) it takes me some hours to do a few plates and knives, where it would take my mother, say, 20-30 minutes. Everything has its place, in order of size or whatever (I'm sure the details are tedious to most other people), and so I was still doing it at 3:00am this morning. On hearing the sound of my alarm clock (at 7:30am), I was too shaken and bewildered to know to get up; all I could think of was ''just turn the bloody thing off!'' And so I overslept by some hours. Then I went to work, which is always great.

Sorry if this seems bitter or pointless, or just rather weird...