And such causes the most of us sadness:
It stems from the creed
That good comes from greed –
And that, friends, is nothing but madness. "
Gregory Dark
I enjoy limericks. Those at the beginning of these entries are designed, maybe, to have a little bite to them; those at the end are designed only to amuse. The aim of ‘A Blog Oasis’ is not to be instructive. Rather its thoughts are meant as aids to your own cogitation or rumination or meditation. They are there to be read and pondered – absorbed or not, according to what such pondering advises you. I chose them because they have all, in their own ways, helped me, particularly when (as I frequently do) I find myself wondering about whether I am making the most of myself, whether I am living the life I would like to live.
No-one in the history of man has ever, I suspect, been able to do that entirely, and I write for those, like me, who are still searching and exploring. Those who have already found have scant need of most literature, and none at all of mine. If you are still searching, though, just maybe, some of these words may help in your quest.
The comments I have written to accompany the quotes are not invariably analyses of them. Often they are divergent thoughts spawned by the original.
I wrote ‘A Blog Oasis’ originally for a daughter. To avoid using the cumbersome, and tiresome, ‘he or she’, I therefore tended to use feminine pronouns.
“There,” she reflected, “I shall find peace; and at my age, is not that happiness?”
Stendhal, ‘The Chartreuse of Parma’, chapter 2
Speech is a horribly inexact form of communication. Always there are, at least, three versions of the same sentence: What I mean to say, what I do say, and what you hear. Often the disparity between the first and the last is so enormous that the independent witness could wonder whether they were indeed parts of the same conversation. Even the written word is penned with more or less ineptitude and is read by anyone who is not a saint with a left-luggage office of prejudices, preconceptions, ignorances and peculiarities.
If hindsight is the only exact science, semantics must be one of the most inexact. As a writer, words are my tools and I can get quite prickly (in case you hadn’t noticed!) if they are misused. But my pique will not stop ‘chronic’ being understood generally as ‘very serious’, nor ‘petrified’ as ‘terrified’ nor ‘precocious’ as being ‘cheeky’. But then Shakespeare would be surprised today by what ‘naughty’ has come to mean, or ‘cool’ or ‘wicked’ or … or … or.
Happiness is a word for which a million people would offer up a million different definitions. I’m going to understand it as a core acceptance of oneself and one’s lot. And I believe such cannot be obtained without peace.
I don’t think such peace need be bought at the price of accepting the lunacy and injustice of the world. But I think it is possible to rail against both, and strive to change both, without such compromising the peace at one’s centre. I don’t have that peace, but I have (I think) tasted it. And I have seen it: in the Dalai Lama, for one.
What say, sweetheart, we search today for a bit more peace within ourselves? Who knows, maybe if we all sought today for a bit more of such peace, maybe the world would become a bit more peaceful!
I have been accused of writing from a higher moral plain, or considering that I do. I really don’t believe that to be true.
I write because I wrong.And I wrong because I’m human. This is not original sin, but original fallibility. There has never been a person born without such fallibility, nor will there ever be one. If we were sensible, we would recognise that as being one of the very many things which unites us all.I write because I continue to wrong.
And because there is that within me capable of grievous wrong.
I write because it’s always seemed to me that, if I suffered from eczema, the consultant I would want to see would be a dermatologist who shared my complaint, rather than one blessed with a baby’s-bottom complexion.
I would love to be able to claim that I have meditated my way into spiritual enlightenment, or that God whispers to me why His mysteries are so mysterious. But I haven’t and He doesn’t. I do spend a lot of time in thought and reflection. But I fear more of this is day-dreaming than concrete cogitation.
I write because I have wronged.
In microcosm I have made a fair amount of the mistakes of which man is capable, and have committed most of the sins, vices and peccadilloes that are on offer – occasionally (it must be said) very enjoyably! I write because I continue to wrong.
I’m no poacher turned gamekeeper, I’m merely a poacher who’s studied quite a lot about game-keeping, who am in awe of certain gamekeepers (and utterly appalled by others!), and who keeps thinking that game-keeping is really such a good idea that one day I really should give it a whirl. If only life wouldn’t keep on intervening!
I keep wondering when I will finally be old enough to learn from my mistakes; and am now old enough to know that I probably never will.
Far from claiming any kind of high-ground, therefore, I accept that I write from a position deep in a chasm. I do stand in judgement. But it often ill behoves me when I do so.
I write because, yes, I am capable of grievous wrong.
I do have to stand in judgement of the likes of Mr Bush and Mr Blair. I try to remember Gandhi’s enjoinment to hate the crime but love the criminal. And I accept that I know neither Mr Bush nor Mr Blair (nor do I have the slightest desire to do so) and am thus condemning the criminal from a position of ignorance. Sometimes, though, the crime has such enormous implications, one simply also has to condemn the criminal. If its acorn is poisonous the oak must be.
I feel I have to stand in judgement of these two men. I feel we all do. Because their actions have threatened, and continue to threaten far too many of the things for which they are demanding of others that they forfeit their lives: democracy, human rights, civil liberties, free speech and indeed the whole species and planet. And in a way which I am sure history will deem to have been considerably more dangerous than the threat posed by al-Qaeda. But I must also accept that, had I sought (and obtained!) such office, there is that within me quite as capable of abusing power as egregiously as these two men have done. I hope I might have stopped short of the excesses meted out by, let’s say, Mugabe or Amin or Cecescau or Pinochet. But, you know, in the right circumstances, I’m not even too sure about that.
And that’s why I so passionately believe in the concept of free speech and democracy: the world needs to be protected from people like the me I could be.
So, no, I do not write from any moral high-ground: my strength is only my weakness.
" Her fiancé was born close to Gloucester;
He was a roué, a cad, an impoucester;
He conned her and boucester,
And then double-croucester –
But, thank God, he finally loucester. "
Gregory Dark
No comments:
Post a Comment