The American poet, Tony Hoagland, died in 2018 from pancreatic cancer, aged 64; he wrote up to the end, including a ‘farewell’ poem, Distant Regard: “ If I knew I would be dead this time next year, I believe I would spend the months from now to then writing thank-you notes to strangers and acquaintances …”. I’ve no inside info about my own ending, except that I’m obviously in the departure lounge; I’m attracted to the idea of end-of-life thank-you notes.
Andy sorts my car; Beccy understands my computer; Dan is a skilful handyman; Jade is a smiling waitress – and so on. Excluding family and the cast of players closest to our world, there are dozens of people who help with bits of our life – ‘bit players’. Over the years, probably hundreds of strangers and acquaintances show us (mostly), the natural kindness of ordinary people; few would expect to become friends – but I experience my hope for humankind in my regard for this collective goodwill.
Hoagland ends his poem: “It took me a long time to understand the phrase ‘distant regard’, but I’m grateful for it now; and I’m grateful for my heart, that turned out to be good, after all; and grateful to my mind, to which, in retrospect, I can see I have never been sufficiently kind.” I find the poem’s ending particularly moving, for its end-of-life positivity; a gentle acknowledgement to himself that he had been a good man – who should have been kinder to himself.
——————-
Who imagined that our PM could have done something so stupid, that it even displaced COP26 as this week’s lead story – but his attempt to distract from Owen Patterson’s corrupt lobbying has triggered another ferocious sleaze eruption. Like myself, John Crace watched Monday’s emergency debate – his usual scathing comment. Johnson’s contempt for our democratic institutions is known to all, but his invulnerability is a mystery; he seems accountable to no-one, not even the Conservative Party. Is it only wishful thinking, or do I sense this week, a shifting of the mood. As ordinary citizens, all we can do is interpret the shift in the mainstream media – but sometimes that’s what decides events.
——————-
We can save our economic system, or our planet – but not both; that’s my take. Climate justice means that future economic growth must go to poor people – we, in the West, must accept less; this reality is not even whispered by our leaders. This Social Economy article suggests that young climate activists could be critical in bringing us to our senses.
——————-
For most people, the core of friendship is thinking and speaking positively about each other – ignoring or downplaying faults; or should true friendship include the negative bits as well. In this Conversation piece, an academic philosopher looks at the writing of Iris Murdoch who firmly believed that understanding the other person is an integral part of love and friendship.
——————-
From Wednesday’s Scottish Community Alliance Briefing, I found this superb article by Rob Hopkins, founder of the Transition Movement. Hopkins equates our human reaction to global warming with the five stages of grief identified by psychiatrist, Elizabeth Kubler Ross – he takes us thoughtfully through Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. Personally, I found this connection helpful.
——————-
It’s a no-brainer to most of us, that justice calls for a wealth tax against the world’s richest people, but the call has disappeared again, even from the UK opposition parties, never mind the Tories. Good article on the OpenDemocracy platform about the enduring strength of the neoliberal lobby which is able to keep wealth tax off the table.
——————-
Love this Wendy Cope poem, Names; it reminds me not to take myself too seriously.
“She was Eliza for a few weeks when she was a baby – Eliza Lily. Soon it changed to Lil. Later she was Miss Steward in the baker’s shop and then ‘my love’, ‘my darling’, Mother. Widowed at thirty, she went back to work as Mrs Hand. Her daughter grew up, married and gave birth. Now she was Nanna. ‘Everyone calls me Nanna,’ she would say to visitors. And so they did – friends, tradesmen, the doctor. In the geriatric ward they used the patients’ Christian names. ‘Lil,’ we said, ‘or Nanna,’ but it wasn’t in her file and for those last bewildered weeks she was Eliza once again.
