I am becoming more and more unhappy and prone to being judgmental impatient nasty and sarcastic

Mark 66. Separated. 3 children. Retired teacher and now a part time London guide. 

How are you? 

I am now unable to see being alone as anything other than loneliness and something very stressful and difficult. There was a period when in effect, I was a workaholic. I wasn't really lonely. I didn't notice it but in recent years it's become much more threatening. 

How do you see yourself? 

I am judgemental, cantankerous and grumpy. I see myself as a person who despite everything manages to maintain a pretty good continuity with the person I was when I was younger. I’m amazed to find there's some inner being in me, some ancient throwback which is a great source of energy that considering whatever happens, still manages to carry on and survive and is resilient. It surprises me. I can always make a comeback.

I am a person who has limited horizons but is open and has a moral energy. I am very easily irritated by people showing their emotions. It spooks me and leads me into something I don’t admire in myself at all. I have a dismissiveness and contempt for people showing their feelings or being too effusive.

I've positively chosen to be a person who stays unresolved, who creates  background stress and damage! I have counselling every two weeks. I've got to say it isn't getting me anywhere. I find it difficult to say it’s not working, I feel it’s my responsibility to make it work. 

I am a person who likes to be thrown in the deep end. I like to be comfortable and I don't like to be criticised. 

My biggest regret is that I am dull witted, my memory isn’t good and I don't understand people very well. I haven't got that quickness and I don't have a facility with words. I don't find it easy to express myself. I'm okay at ranting.

What brings you down? 

My character, my negative thinking. Anger and insidious spirals of decline. I'm aware of it, but not. I lack gayness. I’m reading Pickwick Papers at the moment, it’s so much fun. I bring myself down. It's self-inflicted. I'm afraid I'm terribly sensitive to criticism or to not being well thought of. 

I'm often crippled by anxiety. I’ve got to make a literally reference here -  it's the Rev. Casaubon effect in Middlemarch, by George Eliot. He had a sense of an invisible audience. Fundamentally he is crippled by a self-consciousness and has a sense of being watched and judged. George Eliott among other things is saying -  Lighten up. Don't take yourself so bloody seriously. He is crippled by an invisible audience and so am I. 

What would you like to leave for the next generation?

I've already left it in many respects. I've left a curiosity, enthusiasm and energy that still manages to prevail despite my grumpiness and negativity; [It] always eclipsed for other people - not for me - by a youthful energy and an inquiring zest. 

The long-term feeling is that I've given more to my pupils than I’ve given to my own kids. I’ve dedicated so much energy and enthusiasm of my life to my pupils. I’ve neglected my own kids to some extent.

How would you best express yourself? 

In movement. I am kinaesthetic. I love moving. I wish I were a dancer. I love dancing. I go a bit wild when I’m dancing which is obviously embarrassing. Fundamentally that young spirit is always there. I express myself with occasional felicities of expression too.

When I think of creativity I think in terms of drawing. I used to do a lot of drawing but actually drawing isn't the same as creating. There is an element of copying in drawing. I like drawing because it's a form of meditation, afocus. I am sorry that I gave up on my creative side because being creative means you don’t get caught up in intellectualism and being grumpy. It poses you're a person who gets things done and I have become the anti- type of a person who gets things done. I am quite content in my own misery, yes - that definitely defines me! 

MEN TALK - OUT SOON!