As much as possible, I would like to end my life unafraid of death – a final defiance of so many absurdities; I sometimes feel I’m making progress towards this but it’s not consistent. Supermarket this week – one of the aisles is taped-off, old guy lying unconscious; people kneeling in attendance – awaiting ambulance – he looks a goner. I don’t remember feeling fear, but driving home – “the fact of existence, here and now, takes on a glorious splendour”. It was more than just relief?
The accomplished Scottish writer, John Burnside, recently had a near-death experience on a Covid 19 ward; typically, he recounts this event with courage and candour. Referencing Dennis Potter’s memorable 1994 interview with Melvyn Bragg, Burnside movingly recaptures its core theme: ‘that the nowness of everything is absolutely wonderous’. After days of crisis intensive care, he recalls: “It was the taste of that tomato sandwich which convinced me that I wasn’t going to die quite yet…nothing I have ever eaten has tasted quite so wonderful”. I was inspired by this tale of survival.
Brushes with death, immediate or remote, seem to have the power to activate our life force and the impulse to celebrate life. In the longer term, one wonders how the anxiety of the pandemic is playing out across the world – I feel an optimism. It’s also possible that people, without fear of death, lose the stimulus of this anxiety – but that doesn’t concern me; I’m coming to suspect that my ‘defiance of death’ project is still mainly theoretical; a work in progress.
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Over the 20 years I’ve written a weekly blog, roughly 10 per cent of readers donated; nothing to do with persuasion – just their natural response. I’ll repeat this reminder till the end of August. If you can help it would be greatly appreciated. This is donation page
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As we emerge (tentatively) from lockdown and make plans to ‘build back better’ – I notice again how ‘patchy’ is the general awareness of the social economy and particularly the contribution of our community sector. The report from the Govt’s own Economic Advisory Group uses terms like wellbeing and social capital – but it’s quickly clear that they ‘borrowed’ those words from a world they don’t understand. So it’s with pleasure that I note the publication of the long-awaited ‘Building the Community Economy in Scotland’ by James Henderson et al. This links to his blog about the Report, published by Policy Scotland.
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I don’t regard large corporations as unstoppable forces of nature; they are human constructs and those that do harm must be stopped. Good John Harris piece looks at the many issues raised by the impact of Amazon; a Reuters article looks at organised resistance in France. If the Amazon business model proves irresistible – I can imagine it as a publicly-owned national service we all love – the Royal Mail.
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It is now inevitable that automation will gradually remove the need for most humans to do paid work – the big debate, about how we then provide for everyone’s basic needs, continues to gather momentum; this piece by Paul Mason, serves as an update on recent thinking/modelling. My position is that human ingenuity will certainly be able to produce sufficient resource; but human nature will continue to struggle with the distribution.
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As well as his jokey, football, radio show, ‘Off The Ball’, Stuart Cosgrove is a serious media pundit; his column in the Sunday National this week references a twitter spat between the Scotsman’s Brian Ferguson and Michael Gray of the new media project, Skotia. Cosgrove thinks their exchange highlights issues at the heart of the future of Scottish media – deserves wider attention.
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The Scottish Land Commission has joined the Wellbeing Economy Alliance (WEAll) – the growing collaboration of organisations working towards an economic system that delivers human and environmental wellbeing. This blog explores why this connection makes so much sense.
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Mr John Lewis, the black American civil rights leader, died on July 17; he wrote this powerful message shortly before, to be released at the time of his funeral:
“While my time here has now come to an end, I want you to know that in the last days and hours of my life you inspired me. You filled me with hope about the next chapter of the great American story when you used your power to make a difference in our society. Millions of people motivated simply by human compassion laid down the burdens of division. Around the country and the world you set aside race, class, age, language and nationality to demand respect for human dignity…”(read full message)
