Relaxing with friends and reminiscing of the friendly past

As I shared numerous anecdotes with friends in their garden, I realised the very real beauty of local flora and fauna and the idyllic images of the sun setting in the west. It was a particularly poignant moment for me and took me back to a time when the family used to spend time in our own garden as the light nights allowed us to spend more time outside than stuck indoors. As the dogs would chase after their tails and I would sit there dozing in a deck chair that had seen better days I realised how peaceful and quiet it was and yet another means of escape from the hubbub and turmoil of the world at the bottom of the driveway. The peace was palpable and so tangible, the birdsong, the noise from the insects and the odd barking from dogs coinciding with barking from our own breed led one to think that life could not get any better!! It brought home to me the value of tranquillity and the depth to which such feelings of peace actually matter. Life when I was a child was so different to how it is today. Our lives today revolve around endless regulations, and rules. As a child I was able to make mistakes and learn from them but today we are almost asphxiated by the laws and rules protecting us against ourselves, Where today is the discipline to learn from our mistakes, rules for this and rules for that, you can't do this and you can't do that!!! so what can we do? Our lives are pervaded by the thought police, the do gooders who always want to defend the indefensible, to combat and thwart any attempts we have as individuals to challenge ourselves to daring acts of achievement and attaining a sense of real satisfaction that we had put ourselves in a risk ridden situation and survived, shock, horror but yes of course, this is the 21st century and we have to have rules to follow the rules? Confused, well so am I ? Life was far less complicated in the last century and often more rewarding, than the plastic and often hyper liberal environment that we are cossetted in these days, but that we are told is progress, sometimes I'm not entirely sure it is .......................................??