Been having a bit of an interesting couple of weeks with an almost satori-like moment of enlightenment whilst walking around the Marine Drive at Scarborough the other weekend and then, at about 4:00am last Friday morning (after a day-job black tie 'do') while eating a sausage sandwich and drinking a mug of mocha in a Russian owned all-night cafe in the Smithfield Market area of London, a similar reinforcing flash of inspiration.

It's that sudden realisation that time is moving relentlessly onwards and in danger of leaving me behind. It's also that realisation – gleaned while watching other people of a certain age walking along the seafront and talking to acquaintances of mine about their plans – that it's very easy to slip into a situation where you are doing stuff (hobbies, activities, D-I-Y projects, whatever) purely for the sake of filling in the time before you die. I'm starting to think Neil Young was right when he sang that its better to burn out than fade away.

I suppose the most important realisation is that you have to have a passion about whatever it is you are doing in your life – work, writing, relationships, everything – if you are to be living and not just existing. Candles, it occurred to me, do have have two ends that can be simultaneously burned. OK, it can be messy but that's life. It is what makes life interesting and worth living. It's what makes life exciting!

Anyway, I think it is about time I reinvented myself. I've been the technology journalist who does a bit of poetry publishing and his own creative on the side for too long. Before my brain stagnates, I need to give myself some fresh challenges. So I'm looking at some new opportunities on the day-job front – I'll keep you posted. I'm looking at a totally off-the-wall new idea on the creative writing front – possibly using an alias so I may be unable to say more. And I'm planning to do a lot more travelling. Carpe Diem and all that.