They were such times...

It was such a time, such a world, with such places, sights and things, and we were such people as once knew and moved through such a world.

It was also a world deep-scarred by the cruel hand of war.

But was it really as we are now pleased to remember it? Were those places and things as we recall them so many years long past? Were we those people, those fresh young faces? Did it happen as our memory has fixed it in our mind’s eye? Was it in this same world, in these same places and spaces where it all went on? Was it here that we lived a life that was of that time and of that world, never to be so again?

Does this happen anymore?

Was it for these times that we strove and for these things that we longed and for this state of being that we dreamed? Could we have imagined how it would be, how we would fare, and how our lives would run their course far into the future? That future is now this present, and this present is also our future and... our future end. The hopes and dreams of years to come are the memories and souvenirs of years now gone. The fresh waters of the fast-flowing river have slowed to the stagnant water of a turgid lake and we did not see when one became the other.

They were such times whose rich promise matched and stoked our desires, such days as stretched out to infinity. The world was always as we had come to know it and would forever be so. Family and friends too continued seemingly unchanging since first we knew them and would always be such. Our universe was stable, predictable, constant, slow and knowable, and we had it in our hand and under our control. So we thought.

Were we the last generation that would feel the undiluted promise of the future? Were we the last of the innocents, the dreamers, the hopefuls? Was the world we knew breathing its last while we opened the doors of experience that loomed limitless before us? In a time when the instantaneous and the global promised more than they delivered, could we have imagined our existence otherwise? We the hopeful, the gullible, the naïve, the children of the war generation scarred by savage conflict and full of terrible memories.

The Beatles will forever be identified with the 1960s

But either way it did not matter. It did not depend on us. The clock ticked on, patiently marking the passage of time, the days altered in colour and meaning, our certainties grew less certain, our values and beliefs grew dimmer and less reassuring, and our lives became imbued with a sense of apprehension we could not understand. But we were young and simple and confident and brash, and we had the wind in our sails and the sun on the horizon. We had youth and strength and energy and resolve, and we would not be told.

Yet even as we had youth in our bones and hope in our hearts, our era, our world, was nearing its end and it was not the world that our fathers had fought and died for or even imagined. As the old generations passed out of this realm and we took up the baton of life, stepping diffidently into the breach, we could not know we would be the first generation that would be shaken to the core by a tide of change that would sweep away all certainty, stability, conviction and self-assurance and leave a void in our hearts and anxiety in our souls.

They were such times as shall never again be seen and we were such folk as could glimpse the limitless possibilities of a world that was on the move, set in motion by the past and driven forward by the future.  Glimpse them we might but understand them we could not. The fast-flowing but tame river of life was turning into a raging torrent that would burst its banks and hurls us all into an unknown landscape where nothing was as it seemed, where the transient would replace the constant and the fast and furious would dislodge the slow and steady.  

Those unmistakable bell-bottoms of the 1970s!

The past was ours, the present is everybody's, and the future is out of our hands. So it is and so it has always been. The world we came into was black and white and grey and grim; the world we leave behind is a kaleidoscope of colours and a confusion of sights and sounds. We lived and we died and were reborn and must die again. We are you and you are us. You lived in us and now we will live in you. You are our future and we are your past.

In us you see yourselves and our hopes will be your hopes, our laughter and tears will be your laughter and tears, our joys and fears will be your joys and fears, our dreams will be your dreams. We once gave you life as you yourselves now give life, and some day to come you may say to those that follow: “It was such a time, such a world, with such places, sights and things, and we were such people as once knew and moved through such a world."

(Dedicated to my beloved mother who passed away so many years ago and whose passing changed me forever. She has lived in me as I may hope to live in my children. God bless her!)

Valentine's Day - Do we need it?

Well here we are again, at another Saint Valentine's Day, a holiday named after an early Christian martyr by the name of Valentine, though we do now know which one exactly, and we have the usual crop of Valentine cards, flowers, gifts and chocolates being sent or given to a whole variety of people, not necessarily all lovers, boy-/girl-friends, fiancé(e)s, or spouses. It is one of a whole host of special commemorative days, usually with no holiday attached (that is time off from work) and probably has more legitimacy than most in historical terms, e.g. Mother's Day, Father's Day, Grandparents' Day, Friend's Day (or International Friendship Day) and all the other Someone's Day (not to mention Something's Day) which have come into being over the centuries, some with purely commercial motives. It would seem that it isn't enough that we have birthdays, name-days, Christmas and Easter (though neither cards nor gifts are usually exchanged on the last of these). At this rate, every day will be Someone's or Something's Day and then we'll never get any peace or surcease! It will be a constant orgy of card-, flower- and gift-buying, to the great delight of traders and shopkeepers who are the only ones who will really profit from it.

Although I am not intrinsically opposed to such special days, as long as they are kept down to a manageable number, do we really need them in order to express love or affection for someone? Can we not do this unprompted and unbidden? Must we have someone telling us to do it and when to do it? Must a demonstration of one's love involve purchases? Is affection only of any value when it involves spending money? Is this stipulation of special days of demonstration of affection not just another manifestation of an intrusive dirigiste society that feels the need to dictate to people when they must do what and how? It would seem so, judging by how readily we take to such commemorations and all the trimmings that accompany them, inevitably involving trips to the shops (or online shopping sites) for the indispensable (so we are made to believe) purchases, without which our professions of affection or love would not be believed or accepted, it would appear.

In the end, all things considered, does a manifestation of some affection towards a number of people simultaneously on Valentine's Day really carry much weight as compared to the same thing done on a day like any other because one is thinking of that person or those persons and wishes to express their love or affection without the prompting of a particular day which is meant to incite people en masse to manifest affection? Is it not infinitely more valuable and meaningful when one makes such a gesture of affection on an ordinary day of the year, unprompted and unbidden, and with no pressure exerted by reason of a commemorative day on which everyone is doing the selfsame thing and buying the selfsame articles for presentation to a loved one? Do we always need to be regimented and pressured into doing something which should come naturally to us if the emotion expressed is a true and genuine one?

As I said, I am not in principle too bothered about Valentine's Day or, come to that, any other commemorative day, but I sometimes think that with this ever-growing number of special commemorative days, some of which are most worthy (as, for instance those to do with wars and conflicts where we honour the fallen) and some of which are rather silly and unnecessary, are we not in danger of losing our spontaneity and our sincerity when we go along with the herd and of being criticised and rebuked if we do not? For my part, I have this odd feeling that when things are done en masse they are less sincere and less meaningful than when they are done individually and free of crowd pressure, but perhaps I'm mistaken and looking at it all from the wrong perspective. After all, I am a man of a certain age and have seen many changes in my life, some of which I deem good and desirable and some of which I deem bad and undesirable.

Unfortunately, it is not always the bad ways that are discarded in time and the good ways that are adopted. One only has to study history to see this. And one of the prime motivators and persuaders to take one course of action in preference to another is 'Mammon', better known as 'money'. The profit motive is one of the strongest incentives in our modern society and governs both individuals, companies, organisations, and governments, to name but a few. If we now relate this to the subject of this blog, it is clear to see that in monetary terms Valentine's Day benefits all those who sell anything to do with such a day: greetings cards, flowers, chocolates, cuddly toys, heart-shaped trinkets and cushions, and generally anything that can be associated with love and affection. It would be a daring politician who would attempt to banish such a day!

The Final Years

The long dark night of winter presses hard,

cold hard days give way to colder nights

that freeze the limbs and stiffen the bones

in this unkind time of the northern year.

Lord, this chill is unlike any that went before,

and now at my age it is one that unsettles me;

I have seen good times aplenty in my halcyon days,

and I know this coming age will not spare us.

Senhor, tem misericordia de nós...

This winter has outdone its rival seasons,

taken Nature hostage, given it tooth and claw;

the cold and wind to prime and pierce us,

the sleet and ice and snow to unmake us.

Lord, are these the wilderness years foretold,

the barren time of otherworld temptation?

is this the moment when we must be parted,

when our lean souls are driven out from us?

Senhor, tem piedade de nós...

I feel the icy sting of a cold wind, oh Lord

as it sweeps across these stony desolate places,

in these stormy times of unfolding prophecies.

I fear the finality of what must come to pass,

of the union of life and death in this end of days.

Senhor, mal aguento este frio...