The world around.
1970: Looking backwards as a 37 years old at life, fairness and justice it seems to me that, broadly speaking each of us gets roughly that which each of us deserves - i.e. that which our individual mix of talents, looks, applied energies, genetic parentage, upbringing and basic 'character' has warranted. Of course I'm not here talking necessarily about money. Whether or not we want to admit it I think we all realise that there are many rewards in this life other than the financial. I suppose I'm talking about reward equalling, or perhaps not equalling some kind of natural justice.
Of course I know all about the genii who live in anonymity and/or penury producing truly earth-moving works but for such people their genius is the reward all by itself. It is enough. Personal comfort to the truly gifted means little or nothing. Read up on your Socrates. (To do that you need to read up on his pupil, Plato, for Socrates didn't leave much if any of the written word and Plato did. I love the interchange at Socrates' trial, as reported by Plato, between himself and his prosecutor. Asked whether he considered his seditious advice to the young was because he thought himself wise, the philosopher said that, yes, he had indeed consulted the Oracle. What did it tell you? asked the prosecutor. I asked it if I was indeed the most knowedgeable, the wisest, in all Athens. It said that I was, for I was the only one wise enough to know that I knew nothing.)
Natural justice! It seems to me that the prime exception to prove the rule is not the individual but Mankind as a whole. In the sacred name of money and the stuff we imagine and are taught must come with it (comfort, security, even happiness) we - Mankind - is constantly seeking ways to take out, or attempt to take out of planet Earth more than it can possibly offer or afford.Yes, it's that classic guy up a tree sitting out on the branch he is busily cutting off. There is only one outcome; natural justice indeed.
Such thoughts have loomed large in my mind since reading Dr Rachel Carson's seminal work The Silent Spring. This is a book about the effects of the US led post-WW2 DDT fixation. In summary, if an insect eats 'our' food then let's kill it without regard to all that depends on it - and which in the end we depend on ourselves. All for the sake of what? The next dollar bill! I'm not sure if it was Plato who declared that those whom the Gods wish to destroy they first make mad.
I went on to borrow from the library Dr Carson's wonderful trilogy Under the Sea Wind, The Sea Around Us and The Edge of the Sea. The content of these books have not and never will leave me..
So how do I reconcile such thoughts to my new position as promoter and promulgator in chief of these dreaded manmade hydrocarbon plastics? Well, I cannot, so I don't! Like everybody else I am trying my damnedest to earn a living, to accumulate (and spend) as many pound notes as possible. I have four offspring to bring to maturity and twenty five years of mortgage payments to make. My mind goes back to that party in distant Solihull, the one where a bright young Indian guy, sensing my innate radicalism, told me the only way anyone could ever change things without recourse to mass weaponry was from the very top of the heap. Work within all the rules, Bryan. Then when you get to the top, if you have enough energy left you can change the rules. I have a very long and rugged climb ahead of me. The odds against are long indeed - but not long enough to divert me from my mission.
Thinking won't do it. There are things, many things to actually do. I drain the last of my pint of beer, bid goodnight to the barman, nod to the young woman, and her friends, and go to bed.
Of course I know all about the genii who live in anonymity and/or penury producing truly earth-moving works but for such people their genius is the reward all by itself. It is enough. Personal comfort to the truly gifted means little or nothing. Read up on your Socrates. (To do that you need to read up on his pupil, Plato, for Socrates didn't leave much if any of the written word and Plato did. I love the interchange at Socrates' trial, as reported by Plato, between himself and his prosecutor. Asked whether he considered his seditious advice to the young was because he thought himself wise, the philosopher said that, yes, he had indeed consulted the Oracle. What did it tell you? asked the prosecutor. I asked it if I was indeed the most knowedgeable, the wisest, in all Athens. It said that I was, for I was the only one wise enough to know that I knew nothing.)
Natural justice! It seems to me that the prime exception to prove the rule is not the individual but Mankind as a whole. In the sacred name of money and the stuff we imagine and are taught must come with it (comfort, security, even happiness) we - Mankind - is constantly seeking ways to take out, or attempt to take out of planet Earth more than it can possibly offer or afford.Yes, it's that classic guy up a tree sitting out on the branch he is busily cutting off. There is only one outcome; natural justice indeed.
Such thoughts have loomed large in my mind since reading Dr Rachel Carson's seminal work The Silent Spring. This is a book about the effects of the US led post-WW2 DDT fixation. In summary, if an insect eats 'our' food then let's kill it without regard to all that depends on it - and which in the end we depend on ourselves. All for the sake of what? The next dollar bill! I'm not sure if it was Plato who declared that those whom the Gods wish to destroy they first make mad.
I went on to borrow from the library Dr Carson's wonderful trilogy Under the Sea Wind, The Sea Around Us and The Edge of the Sea. The content of these books have not and never will leave me..
So how do I reconcile such thoughts to my new position as promoter and promulgator in chief of these dreaded manmade hydrocarbon plastics? Well, I cannot, so I don't! Like everybody else I am trying my damnedest to earn a living, to accumulate (and spend) as many pound notes as possible. I have four offspring to bring to maturity and twenty five years of mortgage payments to make. My mind goes back to that party in distant Solihull, the one where a bright young Indian guy, sensing my innate radicalism, told me the only way anyone could ever change things without recourse to mass weaponry was from the very top of the heap. Work within all the rules, Bryan. Then when you get to the top, if you have enough energy left you can change the rules. I have a very long and rugged climb ahead of me. The odds against are long indeed - but not long enough to divert me from my mission.
Thinking won't do it. There are things, many things to actually do. I drain the last of my pint of beer, bid goodnight to the barman, nod to the young woman, and her friends, and go to bed.
No comments have been added yet.
