Nice these late autumn days in Taipei. There was a spell of cooler weather earlier with some rain but warmer again currently. I suppose this is the equivalent of Indian summer. Aboriginal summer. Last gasp of warm weather before however we get into winter, ease or plunge I forget.

Yesterday was so nice that after lunch I started wandering and meandering on my bike, thinking of all the possibilities where I could go just casually riding before heading back to my own neighborhood. I didn't get far. With each pedal, the prospect of going further became more unattractive. I've done this before. I know Taipei and there's nothing new to discover by going on; nothing interesting, nothing fascinating, only familiar nothing. Dead to me city.

It's been years and years that I've been doing nothing, never venturing beyond about a two mile radius of my neighborhood. There's been infrequent reason to go beyond that. I know any changes I notice will be changes of the same things. In a similar vein, I can jump on the MRT to some random station to see how things are different in that area and I'll end up feeling how pointless that was.

I used to get on my faithful Giant road bike and go on "rides", so long ago in the past that I can reference them as something I used to do. I would get out of Taipei and ride in the surrounding townships, in the mountains, in what used to be Taipei County. All of those towns and cities are now districts with their same names in one consolidated entity called New North City, literally translated, or New Taipei City otherwise. I explored as much as I wanted to and as much as I want to. There's nowhere I haven't been or want to revisit.

And retreading old ground, supposedly and theoretically this would all be different if there were someone else in my life that I might enjoy doing . . . things. Finding something new somehow becomes fun when it's with someone whose company is enjoyable. Even going somewhere familiar with someone is enjoyable because it's about the company. Even going somewhere familiar with the same person because it's about us going there this time. How charming.

But no, I get bored. Boredom is how I got to where I am now. Even enjoyable company will eventually become boring to me, and that makes it pointless. It's pointless to continually find new enjoyable company who I know will eventually bore me. That pursuit, knowing its pointlessness, would become an attachment to enjoyable company. I dislike that kind of pointless more than I like enjoyable company. The kind of pointless into which you have to put energy. I'm fine with the pointlessness of my life in general because I don't have to put much energy into it.

I do remember when Taipei wasn't boring, when there was always somewhere new to go and discover, whether by street bike in Taipei proper, road bike further afield, or MRT or bus along whichever lines they went. Early on, some of it was done with classmates or that Korean chick, but most of it was on my own. Then there was that visit by Sadie in 2013 where it was that enjoyable company thing.

Now I look at google maps and I'm not even curious about anywhere. I just look for food places in and around a two mile radius. Hell, when I first got here there was no google maps, I bought a paper map at a bookstore to decide where to explore. That's indicative of the changes, but the changes are more than that. The world and society has changed and moved on to become a place that isn't mine anymore and doesn't interest me.

I haven't kept up with changes. Mind you, I still don't have a so-called "smart phone". I put that in quotation marks, but for most people that would be like saying I don't have "lights" at home. What do you mean you don't have lights at home? (I don't have lights at home). What do you do for light at home? (I just don't need lights at home). You just sit in the dark? (Computer and TV screens provide all the light I need). I do have lights, but transpose that to a phone.

What do you mean you don't have a smartphone? How do you live? How do you breathe? How do you exist? Are you even here? In a few decades, that may not be hyperbole. And "smartphone" is a word, it's not spell checked as an error. That's how much the world is passing me by. I may not even be a qualified English editor anymore.

I imagine a virus that is only transmitted through staring at smart phone screens and which is time activated and then kills the user. There would be a mass die-off of humanity. I would survive. Who else? You? Would I be the only adult surrounded waist-high in children. Not even, as I read an article about how most kids have phones now. Me and homeless people shall inherit the earth. I haven't seen any homeless people with smartphones. Yet.

I digress. Whoa, do I digress. Well, never mind. I was just going on about how the world and society has changed and transformed and I didn't even notice nor care. Come to think of it, I totally saw it coming, too. And still don't care. It's not judgment, just description.