I wonder how many people my great-great-grandmother knew? In the early 1800s, I wonder how large the average social circle was? When you read Jane Austen, the hunger for contact with new people is palpable. Extroverts must have found it so difficult to be content with reading and walks in the country, when they secretly craved the company of other people whom they hadn't known since birth. Perhaps they felt a yearning for something which they couldn't put into words, an uneasy feeling that their horizons were too small? Of course there were always big cities, parties, theatres, the Opera... but for the majority they were once-in-a-lifetime treats, or marvels only heard of from others fortunate enough to experience them.
I know so many people - through work and years of involvement in various communities - that I quite often am lost for a name when someone smiles and speaks to me in the street. It happened yesterday. I have learnt to make non-commital conversation and ask vague questions cleverly crafted to give me clues to the person's identity.
I have never tried to count, but I must have known literally thousands of people by name over 48 years. And then there are the people I see regularly, whose names I may never know but who nevertheless form a part of my interior landscape. The people in my dreams may well have real lives - they must come from somewhere, and my dreams are densely-populated.
So - my great-great-grandmother? I bet she was in daily contact with 50 people at the most. There would be family of course, and close relatives, and people in her village who were regular faces... perhaps a travelling salesman or two, and an awareness of Queen Victoria's existence, which probably didn't impact much in a tiny Northern village.
I can't help thinking how much less stressful it must have been. So much of my brain is given over to classifying people by whether or not I already know them, whether I can remember their name, whether they remind me of someone I already know (I read that women are especially prone to this). How restful to go to bed knowing that all the people you knew and loved were in your thoughts, rather than waiting their turn...
I suspect, though I'll never know, that there was far less angst and feeling futile back then. How could you not feel you mattered when you were one of only 50 or so significant people in your life? Whereas I'm aware of being one of 6.75 billion.
Back then, news travelled slowly. If you heard of a disaster it was dreadful - but by the time you heard of it, there was nothing you could do. Whereas now we hear the news and see it as it happens (see my poem 'Overload' below) and there is immense pressure on us - each one of us - to make some response and try to help.
Well - we can't always help. I am desperately sorry for the people involved in the shooting in Belgium, but I can't change the outcome by my feelings. And yet - there they are. I am suddenly projecting back in time, imagining how I would have felt had it happened to my children, remembering the kindness of the people I met in Belgium over 25 years ago, grieving a little with them...
Is it awful to say that I think we put too much pressure on ourselves by this incessant involvement in something which is none of our business? Of course there are many occasions when it is helpful to send money, and we're quite good at that, I think - but even that can be a way of distancing ourselves. And perhaps we're right to.
If there is some disaster, I tend not to listen to the news for a few days. I have decided to protect myself from the immediacy of it, because it makes me feel helpless. Perhaps it is not unfeeling to decide that I cannot emote for the whole of humankind, whatever the media decree. Maybe I am right to protect that small part of my brain which is NOT coping with the stress of an exploding social network? And yet here I am on the Internet, compounding the problem. Could I have become a People Junkie?
Ultimately we all seek to 'matter' to somebody, as we seem to matter less and less to ourselves. I think this is what is behind the celebrity cult, the efforts of unknowns to become known. If they are known to 3 million viewers, then possibly there is some meaning to their life after all.
I'm not sure that we are any better off in terms of emotional well-being than my great-great-grandmother was.
What do you think?
Sunday 25 January 2009
Saturday 24 January 2009
The root of all evil?
It has always annoyed me when people misquote that. It is, of course, the LOVE of money which is denounced in the Bible; money can be useful, but the love of it can definitely eat into our hearts and lives and gradually destroy us as spiritual beings.
I'm not in any way belittling the tremendous amount of suffering the Credit Crunch is bringing in its wake, and I am certainly not suggesting that all those affected 'deserve' their misery, or that they had an unhealthy attitude to money. All sorts of people are caught up in this - all of us, in fact.
However, ever since finances began to dominate the media, I have found myself unable to shake a sneaking feeling that this is ultimately going to be Good For Us as a society. I've never seen money as 'real' and I don't think it will be a bad thing if we are forced to rethink what we truly value in life.
When did we start measuring our success in terms of money? Who decided that you were a better person if you could buy more things? At what point did the buzz of buying a new pair of shoes become more enjoyable than having a cup of tea with a friend? Why do so many people prefer to go out and spend money, rather than spend time dealing with possibly uncomfortable emotions?
If you are an 'emotional eater' you get visibly fat eventually. However, there has been no visible consequence of emotional spending until now. Sure, individuals have got into huge debt - but that's been okay, hasn't it? Because there has always been someone around to literally cash in on their misery and make a quick buck off the back of it. And anyway - when everyone's in debt, it's no big deal. is it?
Well - it's Crunch time. Credit Crunch time, to be precise. Those who have gorged on other's debts are now succumbing to all the side effects of moral obesity. Some long-established financial institutions are dying of heartlessness. Others find themselves too weighed down by their own debts to stand on the High Street, and are gasping for the breath of renewed funds which are never going to arrive.
As billions of pounds disappear electronically from our crashing financial systems, I'm left with a question to which I've never had a satisfactory answer.
What IS money? It's not really there, is it? Each month my employer sends a list of figures out to various banks, who then inform their clients that they now have X amount of 'money' in their account.
When I go shoppping, I give a plastic card to the cashier, which enables a few of those numbers to appear on someone else's screen and disappear from my account. I rarely see actual money, though I do make a point of seeing a few pounds of it every week, just to make myself feel slightly less insane for being part of this bizarre system.
When I was a teenager and attending an Evangelical Church, there was much muttering about the AntiChrist and the Last Days. (Incidentally watch out for those Fundies, Obama, cos I seem to remember that bringing about World Peace is a No-no. Make sure you leave a few trouble spots!)
We were warned that the Mark of the Beast would probably be a tattooed barcode on our arms, which we would have to show in order to buy food. Persecution would come in the form of Christians (who would refuse to have the Mark of Satan, obviously) being unable to buy food, clothing or anything else they needed, because money would no longer exist.
Oh, how we laughed. We knew technology like that wouldn't be possible for at least another 150 years - and anyway, WHY would anybody want to deal with money that way?
I believe this is the very system being investigated now. I imagine there would be lots of security issues, and I'm sure I'm not the only person who wouldn't fancy a tattoo for any reasons, but still - those Evos had a point.
Except they missed the fact that, as they sat in their beautifully-carpetted churches, and went home to host their gourmet meals (Prawn Cocktail! Wow!) whilst millions carried on their daily business of starving to death, the West had already sold its soul and was blissfully unaware that, as in every good fable, Payback time was on its way. We survived a few 'recessions' - and grew even more confident that we could survive anything.
This time, I'm not so sure.
I think we may just have to face up to the global damage we have done with years of selfishness and greed. We will definitely have to redefine our values. It may even be that we spend less money on things, and more time with people.
My dream is that as all this sorry story unfolds, we will learn to gauge wealth by contentment, not material riches. Compare the looks on the faces of our spoilt, overfed, bored-with-life children with those of hungry children in an African village welcoming visitors.
Who is richer?
I'm not in any way belittling the tremendous amount of suffering the Credit Crunch is bringing in its wake, and I am certainly not suggesting that all those affected 'deserve' their misery, or that they had an unhealthy attitude to money. All sorts of people are caught up in this - all of us, in fact.
However, ever since finances began to dominate the media, I have found myself unable to shake a sneaking feeling that this is ultimately going to be Good For Us as a society. I've never seen money as 'real' and I don't think it will be a bad thing if we are forced to rethink what we truly value in life.
When did we start measuring our success in terms of money? Who decided that you were a better person if you could buy more things? At what point did the buzz of buying a new pair of shoes become more enjoyable than having a cup of tea with a friend? Why do so many people prefer to go out and spend money, rather than spend time dealing with possibly uncomfortable emotions?
If you are an 'emotional eater' you get visibly fat eventually. However, there has been no visible consequence of emotional spending until now. Sure, individuals have got into huge debt - but that's been okay, hasn't it? Because there has always been someone around to literally cash in on their misery and make a quick buck off the back of it. And anyway - when everyone's in debt, it's no big deal. is it?
Well - it's Crunch time. Credit Crunch time, to be precise. Those who have gorged on other's debts are now succumbing to all the side effects of moral obesity. Some long-established financial institutions are dying of heartlessness. Others find themselves too weighed down by their own debts to stand on the High Street, and are gasping for the breath of renewed funds which are never going to arrive.
As billions of pounds disappear electronically from our crashing financial systems, I'm left with a question to which I've never had a satisfactory answer.
What IS money? It's not really there, is it? Each month my employer sends a list of figures out to various banks, who then inform their clients that they now have X amount of 'money' in their account.
When I go shoppping, I give a plastic card to the cashier, which enables a few of those numbers to appear on someone else's screen and disappear from my account. I rarely see actual money, though I do make a point of seeing a few pounds of it every week, just to make myself feel slightly less insane for being part of this bizarre system.
When I was a teenager and attending an Evangelical Church, there was much muttering about the AntiChrist and the Last Days. (Incidentally watch out for those Fundies, Obama, cos I seem to remember that bringing about World Peace is a No-no. Make sure you leave a few trouble spots!)
We were warned that the Mark of the Beast would probably be a tattooed barcode on our arms, which we would have to show in order to buy food. Persecution would come in the form of Christians (who would refuse to have the Mark of Satan, obviously) being unable to buy food, clothing or anything else they needed, because money would no longer exist.
Oh, how we laughed. We knew technology like that wouldn't be possible for at least another 150 years - and anyway, WHY would anybody want to deal with money that way?
I believe this is the very system being investigated now. I imagine there would be lots of security issues, and I'm sure I'm not the only person who wouldn't fancy a tattoo for any reasons, but still - those Evos had a point.
Except they missed the fact that, as they sat in their beautifully-carpetted churches, and went home to host their gourmet meals (Prawn Cocktail! Wow!) whilst millions carried on their daily business of starving to death, the West had already sold its soul and was blissfully unaware that, as in every good fable, Payback time was on its way. We survived a few 'recessions' - and grew even more confident that we could survive anything.
This time, I'm not so sure.
I think we may just have to face up to the global damage we have done with years of selfishness and greed. We will definitely have to redefine our values. It may even be that we spend less money on things, and more time with people.
My dream is that as all this sorry story unfolds, we will learn to gauge wealth by contentment, not material riches. Compare the looks on the faces of our spoilt, overfed, bored-with-life children with those of hungry children in an African village welcoming visitors.
Who is richer?
Friday 23 January 2009
Grievance...
My breasts have made an official complaint against me.
They say I 'cramp their style' -
Obstruct their view with 'inappropriate clothing'
And draw attention from them with my smile.
My breasts inform me that I'm 'over-zealous'
About eye-contact, and making conversation.
It isn't true, but they're convinced I'm jealous;
They're demanding that I pay them compensation.
My breasts are into Equal Opps and Cosmo.
Apparently, while I sleep, they go online
Where they're part of some community in Oslo,
Who insist I don't refer to them as 'mine'.
They don't need me around to pull, they tell me.
They've personality enough, they say.
I don't attract a great deal of attention -
Whilst men ask for their number every day.
I'm going to let them go to town one evening
(Although I find them rather immature)
There are so many tits out drinking on a Friday.
Two more will make no difference, I'm sure.
They say I 'cramp their style' -
Obstruct their view with 'inappropriate clothing'
And draw attention from them with my smile.
My breasts inform me that I'm 'over-zealous'
About eye-contact, and making conversation.
It isn't true, but they're convinced I'm jealous;
They're demanding that I pay them compensation.
My breasts are into Equal Opps and Cosmo.
Apparently, while I sleep, they go online
Where they're part of some community in Oslo,
Who insist I don't refer to them as 'mine'.
They don't need me around to pull, they tell me.
They've personality enough, they say.
I don't attract a great deal of attention -
Whilst men ask for their number every day.
I'm going to let them go to town one evening
(Although I find them rather immature)
There are so many tits out drinking on a Friday.
Two more will make no difference, I'm sure.
Overload
We're all connected like some
Human Internet,
Media hyperlinks grafting us instantly into
Other people's lives.
I can't watch the TV news right now.
The pictures on radio aren't just better -
They're so vivid they give me nightmares,
And when I hit DELETE, the screen reloads with
Fresh images of horror.
From thousands of miles away
A nation watches As It Happens!
With one click, transported to the spot
Where wailing villagers mourn a lost generation
buried with their teachers.
A different village every bulletin!
Ten thousand Aberfans at the touch of a button!
Or I could savour the sight of mothers
Stumbling wide-eyed through the flooded wreckage of their lives,
Their parched throats denying them the last comfort
Of screaming for their families -
Whose bloated, stinking corpses rot five miles downstream,
As their rulers continue
To export rice to Singapore
And bask in the glory of their re-election.
Unable to be there in person,
We donate a few pounds to the
Pay-as-you-Watch-wall-to-wall-Reality-Horror-Channel;
Consciences salved, we pour the tea
And settle on our sofas.
Vicarious vultures.
Unable to devour their grief in person,
We watch the re-runs on the hour,
Between our favourite Reality TV, adverts for pizza, hair-dye and personal injury claims.
Familiar faces entertain us.
Meanwhile millions die.
But we don't know their names.
Human Internet,
Media hyperlinks grafting us instantly into
Other people's lives.
I can't watch the TV news right now.
The pictures on radio aren't just better -
They're so vivid they give me nightmares,
And when I hit DELETE, the screen reloads with
Fresh images of horror.
From thousands of miles away
A nation watches As It Happens!
With one click, transported to the spot
Where wailing villagers mourn a lost generation
buried with their teachers.
A different village every bulletin!
Ten thousand Aberfans at the touch of a button!
Or I could savour the sight of mothers
Stumbling wide-eyed through the flooded wreckage of their lives,
Their parched throats denying them the last comfort
Of screaming for their families -
Whose bloated, stinking corpses rot five miles downstream,
As their rulers continue
To export rice to Singapore
And bask in the glory of their re-election.
Unable to be there in person,
We donate a few pounds to the
Pay-as-you-Watch-wall-to-wall-Reality-Horror-Channel;
Consciences salved, we pour the tea
And settle on our sofas.
Vicarious vultures.
Unable to devour their grief in person,
We watch the re-runs on the hour,
Between our favourite Reality TV, adverts for pizza, hair-dye and personal injury claims.
Familiar faces entertain us.
Meanwhile millions die.
But we don't know their names.
Virgin snow...
When I was little, I loved to be the first person to tread in new snow. I was last in a family of four, and always felt as though I was playing catch-up with the rest of them. I couldn't break new ground, be the first to go to University, or learn French, or marry... but I could make my mark on virgin snow, look at those tiny footprints with the glow of satisfaction which comes from having Been the First to Do Something.
This, I'm sure, is why I have always loved notebooks... I go into stationery departments and inwardly gasp at the sheer potential of all that blank, white space. And, like many of you I'm sure, I sometimes buy them and then freeze, unable to sully that beautiful first page with mere writing. It has to be GOOD writing. And I find that my best writing comes halfway through most of my many notebooks, the previous, scrappy pages a testament to the editing process. I know that, but something in me doesn't want to subject a new notebook to that process - which is silly of me, because in the end I always cave in and write something - ANYthing, just to break it in.
Two years ago I was given a beautiful book, with a soft, bejewelled cover. And I have still written nothing at all in it. It sits reproachfully in my room, a metaphor for unfulfilled promise and procrastination, a thing of beauty with no inner life of its own.
Too much beauty can be daunting. I take comfort from that as I look in the mirror, or wait for responses from dating sites (more on that story later!!)
Inertia can set in as you wait for perfection.
That's what brings me here. For too long now, I have written for too small an audience. Those who hear my poetry seem to like it very much. Recipients of my emails treasure them. And so I hope that what I write on this blog will become a source of entertainment and - why not? - hope for the people who read it. I believe in love and life and laughter, and I've learnt how to use humour to get through some pretty dreadful times in my life.
The title for this blog came from a thought in a coffee shop a few weeks ago. I'm not too bothered by mortality. I've faced the death of people I love and I think - at almost 50, but still feeling 18, cliched though that is - that I shall come to terms with the end of my own life pretty well. I hope it's not for a very long time, of course, simply because I love life and want to enjoy it for as long as possible.
What bothers me more is the feeling of futility. Many years ago I read 'The Feminine Mystique' in which Friedan refers to 'The Problem That Has No Name'. This phrase has come back to haunt me as I struggle to find the meaning of my life. I've found meaning in various places down the years, and I know I shall again, but for now I have willingly thrown myself into the river of Not Knowing. I think it's important to have those times in your life when you abandon yourself to NOT having the answers, to allowing emotions to bubble up, through and out of your psyche...
This is the promise I made to myself for this year. I hope you will share my journey with me as I tread my prints into the Internet, and maybe we can help each other through what, I am perversely convinced despite the doom-and-gloom merchants, is going to be a wonderful year.
First-born post
I've already posted on here but, because my Virgoan* nature impelled me to 'correct' the time, I now realise my first post will be appearing in a few hours. So I've added some of the poetry to which it refers in a gung-ho wot-the-hell-archie spirit.
You'll be reading a lot about metaphors on this blog. I see them everywhere - always have. And it seems to me that the still-birth (or rather, delayed birth) of my first post has a significance. For at the moment I am exploring where I want to be in life, what it all means... and my very first attempt to write about this was sabotaged by my own need to control.
Interesting, that.
Enjoy the poetry! :)
*Not at all sure I really believe in astrology, but not at all sure I don't. I'm certainly a nit-picker at times! (With a VERY messy house. Why did I miss THAT trait?)
You'll be reading a lot about metaphors on this blog. I see them everywhere - always have. And it seems to me that the still-birth (or rather, delayed birth) of my first post has a significance. For at the moment I am exploring where I want to be in life, what it all means... and my very first attempt to write about this was sabotaged by my own need to control.
Interesting, that.
Enjoy the poetry! :)
*Not at all sure I really believe in astrology, but not at all sure I don't. I'm certainly a nit-picker at times! (With a VERY messy house. Why did I miss THAT trait?)
Intimacy
It's not the entwining of bodies,
But the meeting of minds;
Not the mingling of sweat,
But the exchanging of thoughts.
Not the greedy look of lust,
Or sigh of pleasure as we thrust ourselves together...
But the simple 'How are you?'
And the knowledge that
It really matters.
Anyone can share a bed - that's the easy part.
Intimacy?
Oh! - that isn't for the faint of heart...
Much Ado about Nothingness
We are composed of a million trillion bundles of energy,
Which flash on and off
In the heavenly binary code which defines our existence.
Our solidity is an illusion;
An image flickering too fast for us to register
The infinitesimal gaps –
Those places where we cease to be
ten thousand times a second.
And in those secret spaces,
Between the dreamt-of and unthinkable,
Dwell archetypes and angels,
Monsters and demons.
Energy is constant, so the scientists say;
But I am not.
Opposing forces in my life
Vie for supremacy,
Forcing me to choose a thousand times a day…
Saint or sinner? Give or take?
Loser or winner? Love or hate?
I’m led by a will which believes itself to be free,
Daily trying to discover the point of being me.
The miracle – that we were born at all;
That my fleeting existence coincides with yours,
And that we acknowledge our common humanity –
Is enough to justify my heroic struggle
As I do intellectual battle with eternity,
Giving life – my life – to ancient myths
Which repeat with endless variation
Through centuries of ordinary lives.
Nothing, they say, is new under the sun.
And yet each millisecond, each of us
Bears witness to a new life just begun
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
