© Pierre Maré,
2004 - 2007
Offbeat 124
I did something unusual last week. I bought a couple of books. One was a book I had wanted to read for years. The other was a book that I hadn’t known about, but had I known about it, I would have wanted to read it.
In the bigger picture, stretching back across the years, books are not an unusual phenomenon in my personal context. I used to devour them, in much the same way a bored housewife might devour a box of chocolates: unthinkingly, yet comforted for the taste and the luxury.
Before TV and the computer and work and being part of a family became such important things in my life, I used to read for two to three hours a day. But the world changed. Costs stretched. Money contracted. And reading has of late become a brief few minutes before turning off the light, or the pressured, meaningful thing that ensures that I am able to function professionally.
Before the
arrival of these two books, my only recent anticipation and excitement
was the occasional DVD rental or a fortnightly addition to my X-Files
DVD collection. The two books have provided an unpleasant jolt to my system.
Not only am I reintroducing myself to the person I once was, but I am
also struggling to read. The words and concepts blur as I fight to stay
awake for yet another page. And every page I read comes with the knowledge
that I should be doing something more productive and meaningful.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way.
All work, and no play, makes Jack a dull boy, or so the saying would have it. But all work and no play ensures that there is something for today, and something for tomorrow, and something for the farther future. All work, and no play, and yet more work, is the inexorable survival strategy in a sea of rising costs. And the only way out is the door marked ‘less’.
Would I want to make do with less? Not ever, given that ‘more’ is a pension fund and security. So working less is not an option. And the list of ‘things to do’ that is pinned above my workspace is not going to vanish into the murk recesses of the wastepaper basket.
What bothers me most is the fact that, over time, I have become different people. The person whom I was a few decades ago and the person that I am now, do not sit comfortably in the same room.
The old me was an easygoing soul, a little bit oblivious to the cares and concerns of the future, always ready with a smile and willing to absorb difficulties and move onwards. The new me is far more serious, purpose-driven and rightfully concerned about the future. Problems are no longer things to be glossed over. They need solutions. The work needs to be done, preferably yesterday.
I wish I could sit the two down and discover what they have in common, but I don’t know where to begin, and I suspect that the two would actually despise one another. Fortunately they are separated by the years.
And there are new versions of me on the horizon. I will change, and I will change again. What will these future personas think of the person that I now am?
Carson McCullers, an incredibly insightful poet, penned the words ‘the dead demand a double vision’. It’s the same with the living. If you can’t see back far enough to know from where you came or can’t look ahead to know where you are going, you are living in oblivion, if not dead to the world then probably dead to yourself.
I don’t have the option of going back: the free-and-easy, beer-swilling lifestyle is a thing of the past. And I can’t predict the future though I spend a lot of time trying to influence it. So perhaps, I should learn to read again, to take enjoyment from books and to consciously seek out books that I want to read. It seems to be the one strand that has twined throughout my life.
The post-modern approach to just about anything says reinvent yourself by looking ahead. But it is wrong. Everyone needs checks and balances. And the emotional investment of youthful optimism and hope needs a return in later life. A life in which dreams are discarded or forgotten is no life at all.
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