Roots of restlessness

When you leave somewhere, and work hard to settle somewhere else, and then come back to the original somewhere for a visit, it changes something inside you.

You look around in disbelief, because your friends and exes and family members had the audacity to get on with their lives in your absence, to get married, convert to a religion, have children, start a cult, lose weight, start businesses, become alcoholics, grow a beard, grow old, become successful, die. Life moved on, when you were not looking.

And the moment you realise it, you join the tribe. The tribe of wanderers. The restless tribe.

From that day on, you will always be conscious that you are not, in fact, the centre of the world, or even of your own life.

That people out of your sight will do things that you planned to do with them, without you.

That places that your best memories are set in, now only exist in these memories.

That people will forget you, or remember you, at random.

That places will crumble, and streets will be renamed, and unstoppable suburbias will circle your home town until you barely recognise it any more.

That everything is in motion, constantly, unstoppably, and so, you realise, you should be too.

From that moment on, every new place in the world that you visit ,you will ask yourself - could I live here? And if the answer is 'yes' you add it to a map that you have  in your head, with all these places tagged, just in case. Everything you own is mentally measured for a suitcase and either on a 'take' or 'leave' list in your head, just in case. Your passport is always renewed. You travel whenever you can. You can't stop moving house even within the country you find yourself in. It's like an itch under your skin, it comes and goes, it burns and fades, and then one day it does not go away.

You do.

The future is now, maybe.

All the news headlines right now are screaming about UK general elections, Brexit, another Trumpian disaster across the ocean... 

But let's just leave politics aside for a moment and take a stroll through the latest medical science news. (Links ahead, if you'd like to read more about any of the things mentioned.)

Wow.

In the massive, scary, dark shadow of political fuck ups and crumbling economic stability across the world, some amazing things are happening.

In some hospitals, burn victims and post operative patients are already entering VR worlds to ease their pain. Others use them to control their PTSD and anxiety symptoms. And it works! And in some training hospitals doctors are using VR sets to train junior surgeons and other specialist doctors with great results.

Then there's 3D printing - custom designed 3D printed drugs are a few years away - apparently pyramid shape is the best for absorption, but how about paracetamol for children in the shape of a tiny dinosaur or a racing car? Heavily customised casts for broken limbs, that are porous and so there's no sweating and itching, are also a reality right now. Come on, NHS.

And did you hear about the newest hand prosthetic that allows the wearer to feel what they touch?

Oh, and let's not forget the nanotechnology - there's these microscopic fish shaped meds delivery devices that literally swim in your blood stream to deliver specified doses of medications to the target area. Die, tumours.

Alzheimer might also be a thing of the past in a little while, as there's a new drug going through last stages of clinical trials, that eats protein deposits in the brain that are causing it, but doesn't damage healthy neurons and has no known side effects.

It kind of feels like we're on a cusp of either a scientific utopia with healthy, nano filled, VR savvy, happy Earth-men and Earth-women ready to conquer Mars and  the rest of the universe, or a dark dystopia where messy-haired dumb warlords send super soldiers to fight battles for them, over some offensive Tweets.

Nothing to do but wait...

Me and my senile mobile

Me: I want to send an email.

Blackberry Bold, 4 years old: Ok.

Me: It didn't send.

B.: Did so, look.

Me: It didn't.

B.: Oh, right. Yep.

Me: Why??

B.:  *whistling and ignoring me, as I'm frantically digging around in the options menu*

Me: Ok, I have no choice but a hard reset then.

B.: Oh, come on.............. (the longest, most dramatic fading of the screen in the history of phones switching off)

Me: (switching back on) Right. Email. Resend.

B.: Done!

Me: (checking after two hours) Why does it now say 'all retries failed' after it was 'sent' before...?

B.: Don't know.

Me: Wait, where's the... what happened to the previous email I sent...?

B.: No idea.

Me: Send. This. Email. (googling Samsung phones)

B.: *SULK!* ('sorry but there is no internet access at the moment...')

Me: EMAIL.

B.: NO.

Me: (switching Blackberry off for an hour or so and back on)

B.: Hi! (Everything works just fine, email sent, emails received, internet access)

Me: *sigh*

B.: Oh and here's a bunch of emails from this morning! You're welcome.