Tucked into the corner of the square by the old fishing harbour, there’s a recently opened indie coffee place called The Cynic. When I went there early this morning, the proprietor was strumming on a guitar as he waited for customers to appear, so when I asked him about the name over the door, he was not too busy to fill me in. Among other things, he gave me a detailed history of cynicism, from the contempt for social conventions espoused by the ancient Greek philosopher, Diogenes, through to its subsequently corrupted modern-day meaning of skepticism. I was impressed (though afterwards, when I checked with Microsoft co-pilot, it credited Antisthenes, not Diogenes, with kicking the whole thing off).
Whatever. The Greek philosophers had the privilege of sitting around defining the meaning of life, which is a luxury most of us cannot afford until retirement, by which time most of it is already spent. Maybe that explains why this last week, like so many others, has felt to me like a desperate attempt to cram in as much ‘meaningful’ stuff as possible before time runs out. Consequently, most of my Saturday was taken up with providing logistical support for a public demonstration, by NHS medical professionals, of the fatal effects of pollution and climate extremes. It involved a choir, recorded music, pretend corpses and a staged medical enquiry. I could have been a corpse but, because I have a van, I was allocated the roadie job – which, being non-public-facing, also served to side-step potential awkward situations caused by my inclination to rise to, rather than absorb or deflect, abusive or ill-informed comments. Corrective training is available, I’m told, but the truth is, I don’t feel like being nice to detractors.
Then there’s my interest in Citizens’ Assemblies, the movement to get more people involved in politics outside of the traditional party system. The idea is that the populace should have more direct influence on government policymaking. I agree with the principle and I attended an inaugural meeting, but I have shunned the subsequent call for leafleteers. Similarly, in the movement to persuade the denizens of Plymouth to adopt a Directly Elected Mayor, I have attended the initial meeting but shied away from any active involvement thus far. Am I apportioning my time according to my skill set, spreading myself too thinly or just being lazy? There is so much to do when you have options.
High on my (non-political) agenda last week was the second meeting of the neighbourhood jazz appreciation group that I’m trying to get off the ground. If success is quantified by numbers, then I can claim some progress - twice the attendance figures recorded at the inaugural session. And if success is quantified by diversity, then I can claim a one hundred percent increase in the number of females turning up as another coup. The fact that the group has migrated from my living room to a popular public venue and, by so doing, has become a more social event, accounts for the rise – that and the leaflets, for which I alone take credit! Mind you, they were not actual pieces of paper that I posted through letterboxes – they were digital – but I did have go online to learn how to make them and, admittedly, I do need to master the art of distributing them more effectively via social media.
It’s a far cry from when I ran the folk club at university, where we went to the pub with crayons and filched A4 sheets to make posters that we then pinned up in busy places. Life was so much simpler then, before it was complicated by the accretion of experience - and its accompanying tinge of cynisism.
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