Cathedrals and Cages by Anne Nicholls
Why do we write? Why do we build cathedrals?
Why do we have wars?
If you stand within the glory of Gaudí’s cathedral you’re in a waterfall of light where the shadows play hide-and-seek. Typically we think about something bigger than ourselves. That may be beauty, or love, or pure thoughts that have nothing to do with a pound of sausages from Tesco’s. A cathedral reaches up to the highest point … of something.
Back in the olden days of caves and shadows in the night, light and togetherness meant safety. Nothing could sneak up on us. Anything that tried would be speared or fried with our cookfires. Belonging meant security.
But security meant toeing the line. Listening to Big Brother. He’s right, you’re wrong, bop. End of story. Over the centuries this translated as empires and invasions: the so-called Pax Romana, or Pax Britannica, or the reach of the Moghuls from Asia to India to China. And let’s not forget the First Nations of Africa and the Americas. A flowering of art and aspiration, which grew from the fertilisation of soil with blood.
But social cohesion is falling apart. Those of us who learn from history are doomed to stand by and watch while those who don’t, repeat its mistakes. Scotland and Wales want independence. So do several autonomous regions of Spain, and let’s not forget the Northern League who want to divide Italy into Rich Lombardy and Poor Everywhere Else. And where does that leave Manchester, Liverpool and Northumberland, which are so far north of Watford that Londoners think the yokels still wear woad?
Britons with short memories don’t think about how there hasn’t been a war within Europe for seventy years. We’re losing the cohesional pull of We’re all in this together. The Management want their way. A definite job with a definite income? Nah. If you’re less than middle management it’s a zero hours contract for you, my lad. Or lass. Right to bereavement leave? Sure, if you want to get the sack. Want a decent return on your life savings? Pity you’re not a banker.
Can’t fit in with society around you? Build your own little cage. Write a book to inspire. To keep like-minded folks safe and cosy by their hearth. To belong – just not here.
Trouble is, more and more of us are building our own little cages. We have the highest ever rate of single-occupancy dwellings. Epidemics of isolation and suicide. Individual use of power places a greater demand on the planet than family, clan or tribal use. Sure, individualism is great – unless not getting tromped on = the sacrifice of social interconnection.
‘Aha!’ you say. ‘What about the interweb? Social media rule, don’t they? I connect to hundreds of people a day.’ But does a symbolic hug have the same validity as a physical one? Who would you rather have plaster your broken leg, a hands-on medic or some bodiless nurse talking you through it on the phone?
The bottom line is that we have to take what we can get. On the left of this equation is what we’re willing to act to invite into our lives. On the right is circumstance. Scylla meet Charybdis.
So in the end we each have to think what we are. Are you a person who builds or destroys? Do you add to cohesion or subtract from it? Do you side with the Eloi or the Morlochs?
Or do you accept that we don’t have to behead the tall poppies, just enjoy their added piquancy? That you can extend your caring to the people around you, and not just those of your chosen flavour? And to people you’ll never meet even over the wires? That our species doesn’t have to be only competitive, whatever back-stabbing politicians or greedy industrialists mandate?
In his political satire Candide Voltaire summed it up brilliantly: We must cultivate our garden. Literally, in the regreening of our planet. Culturally, in adding our personal warmth and inclusiveness to our communities.
And in the realms of the mind, through philosophy, literature, music and all the arts. We can paint in words, notes and pigments, a vision of how good the future could be if only we stopped behaving like bacteria.
Can you build a cathedral of light?
More to the point, will you?
Anne Nicholls began writing as Anne Gay. She changed the name after marrying author Stan Nicholls. Her first published SF work was the story Wishbone, which appeared in theGollanz/Sunday Times Anthology of SF Competition Stories. A slew of other stories was followed by her novel Mindsail. This ran to four editions and reached the Sunday Times best-sellers list just above Dick Francis. He was at #65 on the way down from #1, though. Other novels, The Brooch of Azure Midnight, Dancing on the Volcano and To Bathe in Lightning followed, receiving wonderful reviews including in the Daily Telegraph. Learn more about Anne Nicholls and see some of her art at her website https://annenichollswriter.wordpress....
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