This week, I occupied my time with nothing out of the ordinary. Though perhaps I had best come clean and admit that I allowed my time to be occupied by nothing out of the ordinary. For I feel that those of us who are fortunate enough to have freedom of choice ought not to take it for granted or squander the opportunities it affords for betterment. As one author put it, “If we would only give, just once, the same amount of reflection to what we want to get out of life that we give to the question of what to do with a two weeks' vacation, we would be startled at our false standards and the aimless procession of our busy days.”
I claim no distinction in this respect. Much of my time has been squandered on self-gratification and I find myself now contemplating Schopenhauer’s observation that “The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it”.
But this is not just about urging us all to improve ourselves or the world about us. It is also a reflection on our innate selfishness and disregard for the woes of others. And it seems to follow that the further away those others are, in status and/or geography, the less likely we are empathise with their plight. For example, the Jarrow hunger marchers arrived in London to be greeted by the profound unconcern of the ‘ruling class’. And, whenever fellow humans perish in natural or man-made disasters around the globe, our sympathy is always fleeting. Except for those who devote themselves to humanitarian causes, most of us carry on without interruption to our lives. The current situation in Europe – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – seems to reinforce this point.
A month ago, I would not have recognised the Ukrainian flag if it had been waved under my nose – which it never was. But now, widespread sympathy for the suffering of Ukrainians is expressed by frequent public display of its national colours. Two days ago, they appeared in a common part of our block of flats and, although this is against the terms of the lease, it is unlikely that they will be removed (unless there are Russian nationalists around). What is happening in Ukraine now has occurred before, notably in Chechnya, yet there was no such expression of popular support for the victims on that occasion. Could the difference be explained by the fact that Putin’s aggressive expansionism is getting too close to the comfortable complacency of our Western European heartland?
The old-fashioned, bloody war that we thought would never happen again in Europe is being waged. Yet life goes on as normal for most of us. And it’s not the only outrage being perpetrated by tyrannical regimes: China, having colonised Tibet, is enslaving Uighurs and threatening Taiwan; the Taliban are refusing Afghan girls the chance of education; Moslems in India are being persecuted by Hindu nationalists; the Polish and Hungarian judicial systems have been politicised to bolster the powers of their autocratic regimes. Yet life goes on as normal for most of us.
Comparatively speaking, citizens of the UK lead a charmed life – for the time being! Our own government distracts us with jingoistic nonsense, while steadily eroding our freedoms by curtailing our rights to protest, packing public bodies with political appointees, removing itself from the scope of judicial review, privatising any remaining public institutions and otherwise deploying the tactics of wannabe dictatorships. These are evidential threats to our freedoms that we ought to be resisting. Yet life goes on as normal for most of us.
And, if that were not enough, the planet’s ecosystem is collapsing on our watch and future generations will inherit a depleted Earth. Yet life goes on as normal for most of us. We occupy our time with nothing out of the ordinary.
Sad and true.
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