A five-hour train journey can be a great opportunity to get stuck into a book, which is exactly what I did last Sunday, albeit the book I chose was not an uplifting tale of heroism, romance and happy endings: it was quite the opposite. Sam Freedman’s Failed State examines the dysfunction within Britain’s political and institutional systems. If it weren’t for the fact that the author proposes plausible remedies to our disastrous governmental establishment (the book’s subtitle is Why Nothing Works and How We Fix It), I would have been both outraged and depressed by the end of the journey. Only the power of hope kept me from falling into the slough of deep despond, on whose edge I habitually teeter in glum pessimism at the state of world affairs. To make matters worse, I was on my way to a funeral.
Well, to be
precise, it was a cremation, followed by a funereal ceremony in a church to
mourn the death of a 93-year-old man. It was the second time in a month that I
had been in a crematorium, so I could not help but notice the architectural
similarities – the uncluttered room flooded with natural light, the muted
colour palette and the high ceilings – which seem to provide appropriate, respectful
settings for proceedings, whether they be sad, muted or determinedly non-morbid.
Whichever the chosen mode, there is high quality audio-visual equipment to
supplement the spoken eulogies. Moreover, having been at a secular ceremony
earlier in the month, the differences between it and the religious variety seemed
to me to be incidental to their purpose, which is the public expression of mourning.
We travelled
home by road, stopping over at Salisbury to visit an elderly relative, now in
the care of a nursing home. During the journey we contemplated the news of the
death of an equally elderly friend and the prospect of attending the memorial
celebration of her life. The knowledge that none of us is far from death resides,
usually, at the back of one’s mind and comes to the fore only at times such as
this. However, for the millions of humans directly affected by wars currently
being waged around the world, or for those living precariously without adequate
food and shelter, it must be an everyday preoccupation. Such is the relative
ease and comfort of my own life, that I must occasionally remind myself of my
good fortune.
While at
Salisbury, I had time to visit another of the ancient sites near it, Figsbury
Ring, which is thought to be the remains of an Iron Age hillfort superimposed
on a Neolithic henge. There are no signs of buildings, just concentric rings of
mounds, in an elevated position spanning about six hectares. During the few
days of my travels, the weather had abruptly bypassed spring and turned to
full-on summer, so that I stood there in full sunshine and with birds, bugs and
butterflies as company, the only other person in view having walked away with
her dog.
I inhaled deeply the antiquity of a place
that humans had begun to fashion five thousand years ago. I cannot compute how
many generations have died since then, but the contemplation of the number puts
a perspective on how short and insignificant one’s lifespan is, no matter how much
one might wish otherwise. And, until recent times, death came either unkindly
or untimely to most people as a matter of course. This had been a fortified
settlement, so I imagined battles in situ were not uncommon.
But that was
two days ago. Now, back at home, I watch the crane in the boatyard over the
water putting all those leisure craft back into the sea, where they will
float through the summer months, their crews either oblivious to or escaping
temporarily from the failing state and their own mortal limitations. We all
have to find ways to enjoy life while we can.
No comments:
Post a Comment