Confronting the truth
One the recurring themes in the blog-posts to this organ – and indeed one of life’s ironies – is the sometimes puzzling relationship that human beings have between their own degree of self-awareness and their appreciation of how others may see them.
In many respects the gap between the one and the other is not that cavernous but it is in that gap that most of us dwell most of the time.
Ask Boris Johnson – no doubt, as he contemplates the eventual leaving of his post – and all that goes with it including Chequers Court – in his new “Prime Minister in name only” capacity whilst the process to decide his successor unfolds he will be struggling to come to terms with the realisation that his three-year tenure at 10 Downing Street is drawing to a close and that inevitability he will now go down in history as one of the least distinguished holders to have ever occupied the role.
Not quite what he had ever intended or planned when, as a youngster, he set out upon his quest to become “world king”.
When it comes to the impact that we who are non-politicians have upon history and the general tide of human affairs, I tend to agree with whomever-it-was that suggested that our ultimate worth is probably no more than the general (median?) “view” that all who ever met, or had dealings with, us during our lifetime.
In other words, after our eventual demise – at some pearly gate or metaphorical (should that be “metaphysical”?) “reckoning centre” – all the views of us ever held by other people will be chucked into some vast crucible bowl and – after taking into account whether these be good, bad or indifferent (and presumably in addition, of course, the strength or weakness of each view) – subsequently out of that melting pot will spew a chit with one’s historical “place in history” or reputation typed upon it.
Let me add a caveat here. When I wrote above that I “tended to agree” with whomever came up with the above theory, I suppose that – to be more accurate – what I should have said was that I feel that it would be rather sensible, fitting and appropriate if this method of “judging” people was the reality.
Now in my seventy-first year, I find myself increasing confronted by both other people – and by evidence provided by photographs, videos, sound recordings and sometimes letters, emails and notes – of my fast-diminishing mental faculties; my fragile capacity to recall memories both long ago and short-term; my fraying physical fitness … and just generally my fading importance and relevance to anything happening in the present or future.
Granted, it is part of the human experience that – after the age (I’m just picking a number here) of 35 – without fail we rise every morning and kid ourselves that “inside” we are permanently no more than, say, 37.
This may be an admission of fundamental weakness on my part but – perhaps as some sort of defence mechanism – I am no fan of photographs or videos in which I personally appear.
Just for the record, it was ever thus. I’m no Brad Pitt-standard matinee idol heart throb to look at, never have been – and, to be fair, have never been bothered in the slightest by this genetic “hardship”. We are whom we are.
Yet even this week, whilst I have been gardening at home for between four and five hours per day (all the while kidding myself I’m 37) and striding from one flower bed to another, sometimes hauling with me a trailerful of cuttings, cropped branches and tens if not hundreds of stinging nettles from wherever I have culled them to the massive bonfire paddock, I have felt I was/am “on a mission” and achieving great things.
It so happened that last night, once my “nearest and dearest” had returned from her labours, then immediately did her housework (including a clothes wash, a dishwasher cycle, brushing and then washing the kitchen floor) and then came into the garden to video me on her smartphone as I went about my business.
Later, over dinner in front of the television, I watched some of the short videos she had recorded of me “working” in the garden.
They were uniformly horrific.
Instead of showing me as a distinctive Aidan Turner (Poldark) look-alike, scything away at the hay resplendent with my manly hairy chest muscles glowing with sweat, what I saw upon the smartphone were a series of clips of a stooped, little old man with a pot belly, shuffling around with a pronounced limp and – I have to be honest here – looking not a day younger than 86 or 87!
