Yes, there’s darkness—in this world and in your one, small life—but there is also light streaming in from many directions. Some is coming from so far off, it hasn’t reached you yet. Turn your face to it as often as you can. No darkness deserves your full attention.
Maggie Smith
This was the snow situation three days ago. We had a pleasant walk, the way pensioners amble around the forest and climb a hill to marvel at the view.
It's all gone now, today we are enveloped by a thick mist, just as cold, and the ground is frozen, which makes walking a tad risky. I will gather my inner and outer strength eventually to brace the elements and get a move on, partaking of the sticky foggy air and so on. Yesterday evening we went to a public lecture on democracy and how it can fail and it took me several minutes to warm my fingers so that I could put the key into my bicycle lock. R looked on impatiently and has now ordered an expensive pair of heated mittens that apparently charge via usb stick.
The lecture was in one of the big lecture theatres at the university, packed to capacity. It was a weird deja vu experience sitting on these fold up seats, wooden desks with that neat groove for the pencil and faint scratched graffiti. And so we listened and were told that democracies are delicate structures and that not everyone likes them. This is because it is not the strongest who wins, but usually the community in the form of majority relationships. And the wheeling and dealing of politicians and lobbyists and that you cannot sue politicians for not delivering on their promises. The positive message for me was the large audience and the mix of ages and the lively discussion at the end.
Cycling home in the cold and dark was another story. Hence the heated mittens.
This weather makes me slow down, not in a nice way. In fact, it makes me feel my age, also not in a nice way.
The strange thing about growing old is that the intimate identification with the here and now is slowly lost; one feels transposed into infinity, more or less alone, no longer in hope or fear, only observing.
Albert Einstein
I'm not quite yet to the point where Einstein talks about but I feel the wind blowing off of it. I know what he means.
ReplyDeleteBut wouldn't it be pleasant to be detached enough to just observe people making a mess instead of feeling so involved? Obv not yet but eventually?
DeleteI'm about to start reading Heather Cox Richardson's "Democracy Awakening." I would have enjoyed hearing that lecture and the discussion. Keep warm, stay safe, and pay attention! That way you won't be wherever Einstein was talking about yet, no longer attached to the here and now!
ReplyDeleteThe lecture was based on the book "Why Politics Fail" by Ben Ansell. He describes the various ways of reaching, or not reaching, agreements, by giving a fixed group of people ten options. First asking them to tick the ones that they think will fail, then asking them to tick the ones they like the least and then asking them to tick the ones they personally prefer. None of theses steps resulted in any kind of agreement. We discussid from there, eventually opting for people's assemblies and referendums as potential solutions.
DeleteThe heated mittens DO sound wonderful, though! And the lecture seems interesting. I still think Putin is stirring the pot in all of our countries via social media trolls and bots, trying his best to destabilize democracy as a whole.
ReplyDeleteLooks like he is doing more than just stirring, look what happened with the internet cables in the Baltic Sea.
DeleteYou mention that you cycle and that R is there also, does R also cycle? I mean it seems obvious that yes, he does, but you never specifically say so.
ReplyDeleteI am so disgusted with what's going on over here, the three Hs of the republican party; horribleness, hypocrisy, and hatefulness; not to mention the seriously unqualified people that the republican controlled Senate is going to approve, we are in for a world of hurt.
As for getting older, I don't seem to be feeling what Einstein was but I do have less tolerance for the cold and I can't spell worth shit these days. I can spell a word correctly one time and the next spell it wrong.
Oh yes, we both cycle, always have.
DeleteAs I age, I think less about the future than I did when I was younger. I remember having plans, future plans that may or may not happen, but now, I wander around in my mind a fair bit, dragging up old memories, trying not to think about the future holds (broken hips? hypertension? medications? dementia? loss of my indepedence?). God only knows.
ReplyDeleteI hope democracies survive because the alternatives suck. I guess we shall see. Keep warm my friend.
You are much to active to end up with fractures, keep the bones and muscles moving and you'll be fine. Dementia? What's that?
ReplyDelete