There is a paradox about individual life. That someone can die but everything goes on the same. So it seems an individual life is not important and yet if we said this of every individual we would be finding that nothing is important. So the paradox is that we are very important and at the same time we are not important
When we lose someone we love we suffer the agony of pain and grief and we know that our world has changed dramatically and can never be the same again and yet for most of the people in the world this is not true it doesn’t matter to them.
Anyway that’s fortunate because if we had to grieve for every human being who died we would never stop grieving for a moment.
We ourselves matter to some other people but also because we are part of the human race and if nobody matters then life would be meaningless
But we only grieve deeply for those we know and yet with a modern news media we learn about the terrible suffering going on in other parts of the world and it seems that we can also grieve for those people who died today the same day that my sister died.
And death is necessary. Like leaves fall from the tree and become part of the soil eventually from which new trees will grow or flowers.
If only we did not have blood:if only we could fall like a flower and gently become dust but we have not green sap but we have red blood and when we are wounded we bleed. And it’s a terrible thing to see
And a lot of blood is being shed today all over the world in places where it just not seen necessary.
The reasons for allowing other people to be killed don’t seem good enough. What reason could be good enough?
Well, we might have thought it was a good idea if someone had killed Hitler in 1933 or at any time during his reign of Terror
But even then there would have been arguments about whether a human being could take such a decision and about another person
Taking even one life is a very serious event.
That’s why we pretend that certain groups of people are not really human so it could racially based for it could be that certain children born with certain defects will be better off dead. It wasn’t just the Nazis thought that.
Well we saw the horrors of their path.
Everyone is of value.
That’s why it’s wrong to treat the poor and the disabled with cruelty.
In Victorian times they said that the children in the working class didn’t feel the cold that’s why they didn’t wear shoes because they didn’t feel the cold.
The fact that their parents couldn’t afford shoes for them was ignored. This is of course the defense mechanism of denial.
We all use these defences at times. Especially when it serves our interest so the wealthy could enjoy their wealth because the poor don’t need shoes, a good dinner, decent housing.
Just like animals have been treated a lot of the time but animals are not human beings and it’s far worse to treat human beings that way
Unfortunately it seems that the people in power don’t have this mentality on the whole. They want to become rich and they want their friends to become rich and if there’s a few pennies left after that then give it to the disabled as long as you’re absolutely sure that they are really disabled and not just faking it
For Winnicott, aggression is the infant’s natural exuberance and assertion, its motor activity, a ruthlessness without the intention of destruction, and it fuels creativity and the self’s coming into being (becoming alive, having a sense of self). Aggressiveness, as such, is part of who the infant is
Mary was admiring the rowan tree outside her window when she saw Annie running down the street
Well Annie I didn’t know that you could still run so fast:why are you here in such a breathless state?
Oh it’s my New Year resolution: don’t you know that running is very good for you?
Wlell in theory that might be true but when you’re over 80 is it a good time to start?
I have no choice because I didn’t start when I was younger and time doesn’t go backwards.
Would you like some breakfast? I have some very nice bread here from the bakery and some lovely honey from Devon.
They at down at the kitchen table.
Where did you get your running shoes from, Mary asked her friend?
Oh I think they belonged to my husband. They were in the wardrobe and as I like the colour blue I thought what’s the point of buying new ones?
Well,stone the crows I am amazed you never needed an excuse to buy new shoes before even though you have 78 pairs already.
How do you know tl I have got 78 ,,?
Well I like the number 78 because it’s divisible by 13. So I counted your shoes to see if they would fit the pattern as I have got 65 pears.
And did Stan have 52 pairs ?
Of course not he was a man: men don’t have so many shoes. It dates back to when shoes had to be polished. No man would like to polish 52 pairs of shoes nor come to that would have liked to polish 13 If you have 13 pairs of shoes that will be one pair each for the 12 disciples of Jesus and Jesus himself at the Last Supper although if there were any folk serving the food there would not be enough for them. Why am I saying all these ridiculous things?
And any way how does being divisible by 13 help you or the world or in particular Sir Keir Starmer?
It’s hard to explain it but it just pleases me somehow maybe it’s a distraction from reality.
What is reality anyway Annie asked her rudely
Why it’s just like being back at Oxford with iris Murdoch as our tutor
You seem to forget that I did not go to Oxford; well I have been to the station of course but I never was matriculated there nor anywhere else for that matter. I did go into Marks and Spencer’s there though
Well you’re in good company because 99.99% of the world did not matriculate at Oxford. Most of them don’t even speak English and would not know what matriculation means. But they would all love to go into Marks and Spencers
Words are very interesting because sometimes we read words that we’ve never heard anyone say and we are likely to misspeak
Well I don’t know what anything means, to be honest.
Do you put a comma after means; it’s because if you don’t it’s a completely different sentence?
I see that you don’t know what it means to be honest Is that what you’re trying to tell me?
As long as you don’t use the term fake news I will be quite content with whatever you say whether or not I’ve ever heard the words before.
Give me some examples please
Mishap and awry
You have to see them written down and imagine you’ve never seen them before nor have you heard anyone say them and then you realize the problem unless you are very stupid in which case you won’t know if and your life will go on like a wide river flowing down slowly and gently into the sea with no great waves to drown any animals or people who are not being careful
Now I feel sleepy I wonder if I am awake or asleep. Am I really writing the story or am I just imagining it
How could I know?
How would you know that you know or that you knew,?
Do you know something Annie I think I’ll get married again because when you’re married to a man you don’t have conversations like this do you?
You are so right Mary.
I am so sorry that I am not a man. Evening by try to pretend to be a man I don’t think now my mind would change sufficiently to please you by a totally different kind of conversations not to mention other things that men and women might get up to in private.
Well I think it’s getting a bit late now so why don’t we stop here and then tomorrow we will make a new start
Can we make some new year resolutions ?
Well we can but we should think very carefully first and then we should think even more carefully afterwards.
Oh this is getting on my nerves why do we have to keep thinking all the time?
Do cats think;do eagle think?
Isn’t it wonderful that there are so many questions that don’t have any answers in the system in which we are enmeshed?
Now just stop that We’ve already had one Wittgenstein. I’m not sure if the world can take another one.
The best thing I’m going to do tomorrow is making a cake from a very old recipe that was handed down to me from my grandmother. And it’s got lots of ground almonds in it which are very nutritious as well as being delicious
That’s the best idea you’ve had tonight
My New Year resolution is to start to make cakes again at home and then to invite our friends around on Sunday afternoon to eat them
