As an actor and comedian, as one who treats tragedy with a flair for the dramatic, life as a writing human contains all the necessary ingredients for decades of fun.

Barely raise the hint of sarcasm.

Avoid cynicism like the plague.

Treat your characters with care.

Make sure they have fun, facing death with a laugh and a last chance for escape.

I pause from the story in progress to consider, to sidetrack, to meander off the path, the possibilities of characters whose lives partly parallel people I meet.

To show that we want gender differences in cultural references because it is the most common body form we deal with.

Yet our spreadsheets containing cells, rows, columns, tables and formulae are gender neutral.

How often do we look at a chart of data and exclaim, “Damn! That’s hot!” or “[She/He] looks fine!”?

I explore the sexuality of our humanness to understand where we’re going with artificial intelligence.

Robots or cybernetic beings which don’t interact with us have no need for gender identity.

It is in that future context where I always live.

Out there, 400 marsyears from now, when our future selves are looking back at us, they will see this day, or the result of this day, in one form or another.

Trillions of state changes later.

Some days living here in the daily struggle of self, helping friends and family, empathising with them and by extension their friends and family (ad infinitum), and living in a projected future tests my ability to think objectively.

Occasionally, I give myself permission to take a break from being everything and everybody to myself at once, let alone to those I know.

As I have done the past few days, enjoying the usual luxury and freedom of wandering away to think and write, causing hurt feelings to those I seem to ignore, confusion to those I barely know, giving them, if they choose, something to talk about when they briefly take a moment to notice my absence.

I give my full attention when I can.

Sometimes I wander off.

I just have to be me.

Where I’ll end up in the next few weeks is anybody’s guess.

I’ve changed.

That’s all that matters for now.

Four hundred marsyears from now is a different story!