Preferring the old telephones

One of the useful functions of retirement must surely be to relive one’s youth. In between comes a time of working-to-support-a-family-and-pay-a-mortgage, which can be irksome to the spirit. It’s easy to forget how hard it was to become adult: to find somewhere to live and pay a month’s rent in advance plus a month’s deposit and find a non-irksome job if possible. I love the word “irksome”. I was looking for a synonym for “pesky”, the epithet I usually apply to my mobile phone. I try to minimize its irksomeness by keeping the same old one. It belonged to my daughter several years ago but is still far too modern for me. My grandparents had a candlestick phone, with no dial. You had to pick up the receiver and wait for the operator, then request the number. It was considered bad form to jiggle the receiver rest up and down to attract attention. Any phones more modern than that, I treat with suspicion. My grandfather treated even that one with suspicion. He’d bellow impatiently at callers in monosyllables: “Yes? Yes?”, hoping to discourage any further audacity. Poverty had compelled him to let out most of the house and he found it irksome to answer the phone on tenants’ behalf. I and other descendants in the male line have continued the tradition of barking into the mouthpiece, or that pinhole that passes for a mouthpiece these days.

Every generation extols that Golden Age before the great decline in values, but on closer examination we see that it merely harks back to the days of our youth. But let’s tear ourselves away from that topic and consider “not doing” some more. TV commercials foster covetousness and the urge to earn more, which requires constant hustling, as opposed to sitting on a bench watching the world go by; or squatting on one’s heels in the shade of a dusty pueblo. I like the old-fashioned word “constitutional” that I read in Conrad today, meaning the brisk walk that a gentleman takes for no other purpose than to keep fit and breathe some fresh air. “Not doing” certainly includes constitutionals.

This is my thesis: that a sane person will revert to a state of not-doing when the needful has been done. Not-doing doesn’t mean being a couch-potato, in fact it includes whatever is necessary for the retention of sanity---something which will vary for each individual. The small child keeps constantly busy, perhaps talking to its teddy-bear or imaginary friend. I do pretty much the same. It’s called blogging. I keep the house clean, because it’s a joy to do so, providing constitutional exercise and pleasure to the eye when it’s done. But once the house is in its optimum state, I’m not going to change it. The walls can stay the same colour with the furniture in the same position. I’m satisfied with the friends I have and don’t seek more, or even to see the existing ones more often. I’m satisfied, even with my natural and inevitable bass line (or baseline) of mild dissatisfaction, that gets me out of bed in the morning, dissatisfied with further sleep.

We have it completely wrong. Our much-vaunted technology angers the gods. Well it certainly angers Nature, as does our promiscuity. Technology has no use other than to support a higher population. We allow “labour-saving” and aspirational goods to tempt us, but they have to be paid for with the inanity of call-centres replacing the holy rituals of hanging out washing for the joy of seeing it billow in the open sky. I recall in Borneo sarong-clad women washing clothes on rocks in the river. I wasn’t on a tourist trip goggling at quaintness, but there to stay with relatives rooted there, of those tribes. The women in the river were only a generation away. The Industrial Revolution would never have started there. No, it started here in this land of cold winters, in the dying years of the colonial slave trade. A new slavery was born from yoking men, women and children to newly-invented machines. I am of the people who did that, suffered that, though I hold more proudly my possible Aboriginal blood from Australia. (I’m a direct descendant of Archbishop Sumner of Canterbury, but I take no pride in that.)

The way they taught me history, I never questioned its insane cruelty, except when directed to do so. They taught us the Black Hole of Calcutta and the Indian Mutiny, but never the Massacre of Amritsar, when General Dyer got his Gurkhas to shoot thousands of women and children like fish in a tank. My teachers avoided any implication that the Industrial Revolution and the British Empire were intrinsically bad: not from cunning but blindness.

The obvious flaws of the Soviet Empire and Communism were convenient to prevent us, the prisoners of capitalism, from attempting escape: most of us, that is. Islamism is equally convenient, since to non-Muslims it’s related to an alien religion. The Cold War was a kind of cartel: not to keep prices high, but to breed a complacency where there was no incentive for either side to clean up their act, seeing that the “enemy” was so much worse. The same today. If Islamism didn’t exist already, the West would have had to invent it. Perhaps they did.

I don’t have any solutions to offer. I have strong opinions but don’t offer them as something of any value. That is not why I write. If I were to leave a tiny legacy to the world in written form, it would defy the classifications of the Dewey Decimal system. I do have something to say, but its essence is not a set of ideas to save the world. If I could show by example rather than content a body of self-expression derived from independent thinking, it will be enough to call it my life’s work.

We don’t need more ideas. We need clearsightedness, so as not to drown in dross and imitation of dross.

Not doing and not writing

I must apologize for not delivering on the promise made at the end of my last. I did try to start a memoir about my life in the commune, but various technical problems presented themselves.

I had difficulty with names. I couldn’t remember some; I didn’t want to use some because the emotion was too strong and telling felt like betrayal. Contrariwise, with other names I felt that I must use real ones to relive the memories with enough feeling. Then I was unhappy with the pronouns, like “we arrived at Crow Hall in a battered van”, when “we” meant my family. My memoir has always been centred on “I”: one soul cast into the maelstrom of existence. Till now it has only reached the dawn of adolescence, and hasn't yet had to deal with adult responsibility. So when it came to describing “our” homeless state, back in 1971, I tried to find refuge in a more inclusive “we”, not just my family but the more inclusive “we” of the human race. I wanted to say “We all do our best”, for I found myself squirming in shame.

Another reason why I could not say “we” in the family sense was that my first wife has become a blur, blanked out from memory, a silhouette with no feeling attached. Add all these things together and it doesn't amount to “emotion recollected in tranquillity” which with Wordsworth I take to be the condition of poetry (prose in my case). Does this mean my life-story from 1962 to 1989 can never be told? Not necessarily. The Autobiography of John Cowper Powys makes no mention of his mother, sisters, wife or mistress, and the only women described are from the demi-monde, such as dancing-girls in burlesque shows or street-girls, whom he likes to sit on his knee fully-dressed while he reads them poetry. And it doesn’t matter: the book has a wholeness and completion even so. You can’t tell a tale without leaving lots out.

Never mind. Making perfunctory apology to readers I confess to being happy to not do things. This dawned on me yesterday. I don’t mean I sat on the sofa staring at my fingernails. I mixed fine plaster to fill up unsightly holes in various rooms. I shifted the bird-feeder around in the backyard, though the birds still don’t come and take the seed. (Not-doing seems to be their bag too!) I thought of buying a tree, a variety of prunus with a Japanese name, which blossoms pink in the spring; and a spade to assist in planting it. But I didn’t. I thought of a way to paint the intricacies of the hill opposite my window: actually two ways. One was to cut stencils for the roofs and walls and windows of the houses that cling to the hillside; making a repeating pattern therefrom. The other was to make printing blocks from potato to achieve the same. Then I would use water-colours to fill in the remaining details. But I haven’t done it. My day was spent in trivial activities, many of them abortive.

“Procrastination” is a different topic. To get a haircut, have my car safety-tested or fill in my tax return are unthinkable, unless a deadline looms close. I don’t even experience a choice in the matter. Approaching such activities before due time imbues me with a fatal lethargy.

Not-doing is a vital elixir for restlessness. It’s to intend, and relish in anticipation---and then do nothing; to plan a story or poem and never put pen to paper. The space freed up is delicious, like fruit gathered from the wild, or a gift from the gods.

Back to the memoirs

Between July and September of 2007, before the move which brought me to my new home, a worker’s cottage in the factory district of a Chiltern town, I’d got into a rhythm of posting chapters of a memoir, on this very blog. I produced a series of vignettes, not always in chronological order, covering my life from conception to just before the commencement of puberty, or is it adolescence? One or both. I’ve been stuck at that brink, in my mind, for a couple of months, unable to move forward. I always stumble on reaching a particular point: arguing with myself what should be mentioned and what should not.

What was the point of offering this memoir anyway? As regular readers will know, at a certain point I restricted this blog to invitation only, about sixteen members. It felt risky to expose my life openly to all comers, not because of any threatening incident, but the mere possibility, which I had seen happen in the life of an acquaintance. But now I've lifted that restriction, and the only protection is a little anonymity where names are occasionally changed to inhibit the brute power of search engines.

This morning I awoke thinking of the blog as a fire, that wonderful discovery of the ancients which serves so many purposes. It warms, illuminates, cooks---and consumes. I write here to use up energy! That is also why I go walking, wash dishes, keep the place clean. Yesterday I hung out washing on the line, though we could have draped it indoors on clothes airers and dried it just as efficiently with less exertion, for in any case it had to be brought in before nightfall, not quite dry. But the sky was bright and the breeze brisk. As I stood between three lines pegging out sheets, I was transported to Conrad’s Narcissus, or the unnamed sailing ship of his hero’s first command in The Shadow-Line; for these sheets were the sails! I was the captain, assessing the strength and direction of the wind; taking responsibility for my ship with unceasing alertness. That moment in our tiny backyard symbolizes life: to gather our strength and set sail on that adventure which only Nature and imagination can complete. (The Shadow-Line in particular covers this theme of energy. All the crew but two are stricken with a deadly fever, and the ship is becalmed. Their sails must be frequently trimmed to try and catch every little zephyr, but who is to do it?)

Ah, Life! You really do need time to stand and stare, to see the pattern of your life’s work in its pathos, humour and intricacy. Never mind fiction: from life we may trawl wonders like a fisherman casting his nets into the deep.

What I write about doesn’t matter too much. What is to hand? Will it burn? Chuck it on the fire, stop it from going out. Every day has its demands. We wake up, we stir ourselves. We must be fed and dressed. We must deal with those things which force themselves on our attention, perhaps with threats. Or failing that we have to fill our day with meaning.

I propose to continue my series of memoirs shortly, skipping twenty years and continuing at a point thirty-five years ago. At that point, I’d gambled a house, a career and almost a marriage too; not staking them on a number at roulette, but on a dream, an iridescent bubble that suddenly popped leaving nothing behind.

That was the point when homeless, in a battered van, with wife and two small children, I arrived at the Commune. (to be continued)

The Word

A few miles from here, the Wycliffe Bible Translators nestle in a spot near the woods, in huts that might have once been an Army camp, but have now been landscaped into a cosy village from which the Good News is spread worldwide. Jesus in his time couldn’t speak loud enough to be heard by all the five thousand who followed him into the desert; unless that miracle was edited out of the record in favour of the five loaves and two fishes that ensured they all got fed even if they missed the sermon.

Is there actually any good news to tell? Is world-wide communication the answer, and if it is, what is the question? My train of thought was set in motion by Joanne . In her blog she asks “If you had the entire world’s undivided attention for just a minute, what would you say?”

We now have our chance to speak to the world. It’s called blogging, but the more voices, the more the world’s attention is divided.

The Greeks had an art called “rhetoric”: how to get your point across. In its modern form, it’s one of the most studied today, all because of competition: everyone’s selling something, and they all want someone’s undivided attention. When they ask for mine, I seldom give them the full minute.

But, says Joanne, what would you say? I know this question occupies Jim a great deal too: not so much what to say, but how to say it. He apprehends life mystically, finding it wondrously intricate, just as scientists do on a parallel path, using different methods. I’m grateful to be in that good company too, along with Blake and Wordsworth and a host of others: potentially everyone. “Would God that all the Lord’s people were prophets!” (Numbers, 11:29) To be a prophet is more than proclaiming stuff. Everyone wants to say something, even those who can’t speak---their eyes are eloquent. If our words are to have any value they must come from a deep place.

I was listening on the radio to a discussion on Wordsworth’s The Prelude. He was very free as a child, wand’ring lonely as a cloud amongst the mountains and wild daffodils of the Lake District. He lost his mother at eight and his father at thirteen, becoming the adopted child of Nature which sustained him and flowed through to his poetry. In this blog I have tried to convey how much I have been sustained by trees and clouds and everywhere that the sun illumines or the rain washes with its tears of joy.

Others get the same thing (as far as I can tell) from holy books. In this post I referred to the Bible’s magical qualities, and I think I explained why that doesn’t make me a Christian. It is obvious that the holy Koran nourishes and protects my neighbours, for many of them have texts on their doors in expressive Arabic calligraphy and you can hear the equally expressive recitations from the Mosque. I don't know any Arabic, but I perceive the power. And I see that Islamism, the so-called bad side of Islam, is merely the mirror-image of Christian cultural imperialism---and militant Zionism. When one stops threatening, the other will too.

When I turn to the Bible, it’s only when it calls me: the same with Nature.

To him that knocketh

I mentioned yesterday that when I know what I want but don’t know how to get it, I do what comes naturally then give up and ask the Universe.

Example 1

For several months now, I’ve brooded on an idea to help others discover who they are via self-expression and good writing. I envisaged a small class in the community centre at the end of our road, a converted school building 100 years old (see pic, taken on rainy evening). I discussed the idea with two community workers and waited for something to happen. I didn’t have the confidence to do anything on my own: needed some kind of collaboration.

Yesterday I was looking for some way to volunteer in good causes and discovered idealist.org. As “skill offered” I put “writing” and pressed the button. An organisation in New York is offering a free course to youngsters over the internet, on exactly the lines I had envisaged. They are looking for additional mentors. I sent in my application.

Example 2

I’ve been looking for work and if an angel had visited, clipboard in hand, to record my specifications, I’d have said “a small company nearby which appreciates the experience of an older person, needs a computer programmer, and has premises within walking distance”. Today I discover that a friend of a friend is recruiting with that specification for a company 200 yards from my house.

Example 3

I’ve had an idea in the back of my mind, to write a regular column in a newspaper: basically to get paid for writing what’s essentially a blog post, tailored to the paper’s standards and readership.

Unprompted by me, a journalist friend from a big city in India asked his editor if I would be considered in such a role and was told yes. I only have to send some samples. Given this amazing opportunity, I tried it out and soon realised that it wasn’t what I wanted to do after all.

***

I’ve written about this phenomenon a few times in my blog and mentioned “The Cosmic Ordering Service” – getting what you want as simply as ordering pizza, though you sometimes have to wait longer. I’ve met one of the authors of a book with this title.

I don’t actually believe anything, in the sense of a theory. “Angelic signs” make a handy label. It seems to me that the Universe is saying I can have everything I want: just ask. This might have implications for others but you won’t catch me writing a book telling how “You too can get everything you want”. People can work that out for themselves.

I have no religion and no intention to be a preacher-man. But it’s written up in Luke 11:1-13.

Angelic Omen

Blah blah blah (stuff edited out)

At 8am I heard the refuse collection lorry. I dashed out, for I hadn’t wheeled out a bin to prepare for its arrival. One of the men saw my plight and kindly came back to empty it, so that was pleasing, till I discovered I had locked myself out: no mobile phone, no money, no coat. It was no big deal---a chilly walk in skimpy clothes to borrow keys from K at work. Apart from mundane chores I spent my day contemplating a restless energy. “What am I to do with my life?” At 65, I ought to know by now.

Blah blah blah (more stuff edited out).

I would have deleted the entire post but then it would have deleted Charles’ anecdotal comment below.

I’ve been frustrated, waiting for some paid work, or even unpaid, doesn’t matter so long as it’s worth doing. I take all the rational steps to get what I want, but (I confess) when I don't know what to do beyond that, I “ask the Universe” and wait for some angelic sign.

Yesterday evening I received an email from an agency I hadn’t registered with, urging me to apply for a certain contract. The author's surname was Gabriel.

Out of the window

It’s been so hard trying to write that I’ve been tempted to try painting again, even if it takes years to do a picture. I have one beautiful view that I see through the window as I type. It’s different each day. At night the streetlights twinkle and the windows glow dimly. In the winter afternoons, the setting sun strikes. I could do hundreds of sketches, studies, close-ups, attempts in different media. What to do with my life? It was nice when I thought I was about to get a job, for then the day seemed like a holiday, a scarce resource of free time about to be used up.

I’ve been reading Joseph Conrad, especially The Nigger of the Narcissus. Every sentence, observation, character-sketch, incident is so exquisite so it is impossible to choose a quote to prove my point (though I have used one above, under the blog title). His writing has more wisdom than a shelf of self-help or spiritual books. I was looking at someone’s blog. He’s a Buddhist and was talking about it being essential to give up the attachment to material things in order to attain happiness. Though a cliché of the spiritual life, it struck me as extraordinary. I mean, our whole society - I am speaking of life in the West and not some Amazon tribe without contact with Western ways - keeps going on the entirely opposite premiss. No child spontaneously attaches himself to material things. He is ruthlessly trained into it by parents, advertisers and his peers. It is something he has to learn, or get to be a bum who will shame his parents. (I’m very proud of my four children and three grandchildren and their funny ideas like not having TV and sending their children to a Steiner school or educating them at home and thinking it’s fine not to learn reading till 10 years old. Proud of them in spite of those ideas, not because of them. And the younger ones dropping out of university and not being terribly interested in careers. I tell them to find out for themselves how to live. I’ve done my bit when they were little children.)

Am I attached to material things? Definitely. I am hugely grateful for this roof over my head and this computer and the internet and my loving wife and my slowly decaying car - even that one, for when it dies I will have to go and buy another, regardless of my preference to walk or go by bus. I cannot turn my back on the world. I would sooner live and die under a shady tree as I said in my last, but in winter I would need some cardboard boxes and something to keep out the cold; and God (in whom I don’t really believe) has sent me a wife who doesn’t put up with my eccentricities.

I’m attached to persons and things. My own body and the living existence of loved ones. This view. The more I photograph it and try to draw it, the more I will be attached to it, though I know all things will pass.

Clinging to tired old scriptures is so unimaginative. Let it all go. We recreate the basic truths of life in the process of living. If it wasn’t for all the chatter, the noise of commerce, government, politics, religion, advertising, “entertainment”, gadgets, foolishness and junk food (literal and metaphorical) we’d be able to tune into life itself. In fact even with those things around us we can. I do. I don’t sit crosslegged trying to escape my thoughts, but I practise my own principles. I nearly said “practise what I preach”. Do I preach? I hope not. There is too much of that already.

The present

It's a heavy frost this morning, with little diamonds catching the sun. I took pity on the black cat that makes eyes at me every day as it sits on the fence and looks in. It is very grateful, wandering everywhere exploring, delighted to be in the warm. Someone feeds it but it doesn't seem to have a warm home in the daytime.

On days like this I see the point of having a house. Other times there is an aboriginal voice in me that scorns any shelter that insulates me from the common air and sky. Later, as I hang out the washing, I feel the warmth of sun and revise my view again. That's living in the present gone mad, I suppose, but blogs are born in the present. Their gestation period is negligible!

Ecstasy and unreason

The single-minded pursuit of ecstasy---that’s what my life is for. Perhaps this is not for everybody, but it’s the only thing that works for me and I’m glad I realised it whilst I still have time. I’ll be resuming my memoirs soon, when things (never mind what) are straightened out a little. The aim of those memoirs is to trace that fugitive golden thread of ecstasy in my life, amongst all the confusions and humiliations of growing-up---a process which is still far from over today.

I never understood why my life was so random: why I took major decisions against all reason and suffered in consequence. I bought and sold property at the wrong time. I married the wrong women, followed the wrong guru (not that I believe in a right one), took up the wrong career. For in my heart of hearts I knew that none of these things mattered. To swoon over drifts of fallen leaves in Autumn---as I did today, I wish I could have taken snapshots---is worth more than fortunes won or lost, in my estimate.

I was pleased by this photo taken yesterday from my upstairs window, for it showed me more than I saw with the naked eye! Please click it to view full-size. It speaks eloquently in a way that I thought only laborious painting could do, in pastel or water-colour (ah, if I had the time!). I had wanted to buy one of those houses on the hill, but the valley is good enough, because it lets me see the hill, and the "Allelluia!" of those windows as they catch the setting sun.