Death – Achilles & Aristotle

Hand Sanitiser

That pandemic favourite – hand sanitiser – has been on my mind this week…

Once touted (with hand washing) as the indispensable saviour in COVID infection control, we all stocked up by the gallon. But as respiratory transmission became more and more commonplace, the question arose: what to do with all this HandSan?

Noticed first by my partner, and then rapidly adopted by me – we discovered HandSan does a terrific job on spots and blemishes… Happy days! Dab a blob and spots give up the ghost, and both the HandSan and the the spots quickly disappear without a trace.

But not just bacteria and facial blemishes – HandSan does a steady job of battling our fungal friends too. Athletes foot, whilst not eliminated, is certainly curbed by high alcohol goo. One of my toenails is telling testament to this, improving week on week with twice daily applications in the bathroom.

But the bigger reason I’ve been thinking about hand sanitiser is as a metaphor for life. Last Friday was the memorial service for a friend who died – probably due to COVID – in the spring of 2020. Blood clots and a brain haemorrhage were the final killer we suspect, but COVID was a likely trigger for both.

A family man and senior civil servant, perhaps in some ways it was better for those closest to him that some time had to pass before any significant number could gather in memorial. It felt like we remembered him with an unbridled wave of positive feeling, not the more tentative eulogies sometimes offered in the face of the raw anguish which follows a sudden death.

Everyone who spoke for Steve – and there were many – reminded us of his warmth, endless positivity, kindness, ready smile and total absence of gratuitous ambition, edge or sharp elbows. Notwithstanding this (and one hopes because of it) he rose to a very senior position; whilst impeccably contributing to the raising of three lovely children into their teens and young adulthood.

I don’t think anyone could have achieved more in the rounded service of family, friends and the wider public or have been appreciated more for it. Taken in his prime, we remembered him as a simply great person in every sense of the word.

After the event, talking to my partner, we both said (and she said another of our friends had also quietly mentioned) the thought had crossed our minds: “how could my funeral ever match-up to that”. Not that it’s a competitive business, just that with the memories of him so bright and large, we felt a little small and monochrome in our achievements and ongoing lives.

Because he left us in his prime everyone’s memories were fresh and his colleagues and friends all were able and wanted to be there. But what will it be like for those of us who might live another 25-30 years…

The audience will be much different. Probably fewer, and at much later stages in life, children will now themselves be in their 50s (the age of the friends at Steve’s memorial). And we will be remembering a life through a different prism. Much more like my father-in-law’s funeral last winter, where he was remembered by his bookseller not his work colleagues. In fact we scarcely touched on his working life at all.

So why does this lead me to HandSan? Quite simply because having experienced my father-in-law’s passing – and sifted through the many objects, possessions and general detritus of his life as part of clearing his house, I’m clearer on my end game. My aim is not to match Steve. My objective is to disappear at my passing, like a small blob of hand sanitiser.

Pouf (as the French say). One minute you’re there, the next you’ve disappeared into thin air. I’m aiming to have the fewest possessions, the smallest footprint and the simplest end. I’m thinking let go of the memorials, the legacy, any pressure to be remembered or fear of not being; and just settling for the the last volatiles of my final breaths floating off into the ether. Pouf, gone. A life lived, the job done.

Letting go of the memorial service lifts a burden from the mind. Having seen one of the best, I’d be surprised if anyone will ever top Steve’s. So my plan is to keep my life simple, and to seek to simplify it further all the time. Wanting less – including less of a parting fanfare – is the way to go, literally and figuratively. No fanfare equals more freedom.

Here’s to being like hand sanitiser: one minute here; the next gone.

: )

Death, History, Life

No Worries

I took the redoubtable Chris Croft up on his offer of a ‘Year of Happiness’ emails over Christmas. I told a friend, and she did the same.

She emailed me last week as below:

This made me smile – in truth 2020 has been a car-crash from start to finish. And where we are now: locked down and cooped-up – as the economy stops dead and we improvise field hospitals – is simply incredible.

Chris’s advice in this week’s happiness email is to ‘worry less’. For once I very nearly didn’t bother to read on.

But as always he has a point; and a practical suggestion… make a list.

To start with, make a list all of your worries. There’s something very therapeutic about writing things down, because it gives you permission to get them out of your brain, and that takes them further away from you, where they seem less important, and more easy to work on and to kill them off.

Usually, my list of worries would be the same somewhat improbable ‘sum of all fears’ one it’s always been:

Losing my job;
Not having enough money;
Having to sell the house;
The whole family confronting me and saying: ‘Dad, you’ve completely failed us.’

Thanks to Coronavirus though these are bang on the £££money – compounded by the very real fear of the lack of it.

But now I can add:

Facing a riot/riots at work;
Facing a riot in our street;
Having to stop paying people;
Having to furlough people (whole new worry!);
Having to make people redundant;
Having to hold onto people’s money who want it back;
Having to pay other people for things we are no longer sure we can afford;
Loved ones getting ill;
Running out of food;
Not being allowed out to walk the dog;
There never being any jobs of the sort I do ever again
My pension disappearing so I can never escape work I hate.

That about captures it! A proper list of worries.

So what to do? Paraphrasing Chris:

But what if the worry really is about something serious? What can you do about that? And the answer is nothing, there IS nothing you can do. Just tell yourself, it’s going to be fine. Keep saying it till you believe it, and finally, put it into context, it’s not the end of the world if it happens.

Unless of course it is… But I was helped today by some useful historical context; reminded of my old friend Michel de Montaigne by an article in Philosophy Now on his great friend Etienne de la Boétie (1530-1563).

Montaigne’s Essays talk of French life in the sixteenth century, in a way which is accessible, modern and make it seem much like life today. More letters and fewer screens back then; but the same dramas of human affairs.

Except… they were in the middle of a bloody civil war of all-against-all.

As La Boétie describes it:

The result: “almost universal hate and malevolence between the king’s subjects, which in some places feeds secretly, in others declares itself more openly, but everywhere produces sad results… It divides citizens, neighbours, friends, parents, brothers, fathers and children, husband and wife.”

What followed was a series of massacres starting in Paris on St. Bartholomew’s Day, spreading to twelve other cities: Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lyon, Bourges, Rouen, Orléans, Meaux, Angers, La Charité, Saumur, Gaillac and Troyes; and killing c10,000 people.

The UK’s WWII ‘Blitz spirit’ and Dunkirk rhetoric is getting more than a bit tired, but I’d rather take Covid-19 than face religious slaughter.

My worries – like everyone’s – are very real; but pretty much every age which precedes us has known worse.

Onwards.

Death, Life

The Old Grey Goose

Just 13 days after the fateful phone call, the old grey goose – aka my mother-in-law – passed away.

As I texted a work colleague:

Thanks a lot, we’re all in good shape. Kids are getting there and Eleanor and me feel grateful we all saw her fully alive the other weekend and that she’s subsequently gone so quickly and gently. A decade too soon; but how you’d want to go if you had aggressive cancer: I’ll be in and just fine tomorrow. The old grey goose has flown off to her final peaceful resting place. It’s all good.

As I wrote to her after we saw the weekend before last:

Dear Hilary – as you said as we left your room today, there is so much I also want to say; but your energy is precious and I don’t want to take more of it than I should.

I just wanted to tell you – as I said to Eleanor in the car – that you looked very beautiful today; you had a kind of luminousity, your hair is lovely and the warmth and light you have brought to all our lives shone out from you and touched us all very deeply despite the pain and weakness in your body.

We will all remember this weekend very positively; I am so very glad we came.

Love

John

I had a good old cry after sending it – something the kids have never seen before; but I think made us feel better.

She was a wonderful woman with a central place at the heart of all our lives.

All too quick; but I think it’s what she wanted – the old grey goose valued her independence more than anything, and never wanted to be a burden. She is at rest.

Death, Ethics, Life, Psychology

Great love and great compassion

I’ve just finished the Dalai Lama’s ‘How to see yourself as you really are.’ And a penny has dropped…

Some of the Buddhist ideas: notably Karma, the cycle of returns and the idea that we are all constantly living and reliving; these are not for me.

But I do like the concept of ‘impermanence’. Recognising nothing stays constant; and none of us live forever, is in some ways the sum of all fears. But it also means bad times will pass, and that tricky situations generally resolve. ‘Impermanence’ tells me I sometimes work too hard and worry too much.

But the key insight for me came about two pages from the end. And it’s this – very simply put in the Dalai Lama’s own words:

It is important not to become inclined towards solitary peace, because by aiming merely at liberation for your own sake, you lengthen the process of attaining altruistic enlightenment directed to others’ good – the ultimate goal.

By mainly taking care of yourself, you foster a self-cherishing attitude, and this attitude is difficult to overcome later, when you train in great love and great compassion.

Consequently, it is crucial from the very beginning not to fully invest your strength of mind in your own benefit.

Perhaps an easier way to swallow Karma (whilst dropping the reincarnation bit) is this: in every action we take, or person we help or hinder, we create ripples in the world. Mostly small ripples of course, but when added up, we can all do a lot of good – or ill.

Like the proverbial butterfly flapping its wings – a simple word or deed could help another ‘sentient being’ towards happiness; or push them closer to anger, hurt and despair.

I’ve sometimes thought that one person can’t make much of a difference… And so, given who I am, perhaps one day writing a half decent book, would be about the best contribution I could make to mine and future generations.

But shrinking into one’s self is not taking the Dalai Lama’s point – “By mainly taking care of yourself, you foster a self-cherishing attitude.” and “it is crucial from the very beginning not to fully invest your strength of mind in your own benefit.”

I do believe that everyday kindness, care and compassion can make a difference. And since I have maybe as many as 20,000 days left; that’s a lot of help (or hurt) I could dole out. But ‘impermanence’ says I could have a lot fewer days, so best to get on with it.

‘Great love’ and ‘great compassion’ are worth aspiring to. Solitary peace, however beguiling, is not the point of life.

Aristotle, Death, Ethics, Life

Sacks and Seneca

A very autumnal feel to this week; in lots of different ways. It’s back to school for all of us: big school for one; a new class for the other; and very soon a whole new place of work for me.

As the kids accelerate forwards, I’ve been mostly looking back this week; at eight years of corporate memory. I’m methodically archiving, filing and mostly deleting my electronic back catalogue. No-one else is going to be that interested. Little that has been done before works exactly the same way again.

But what sticks – looking at the better part of a decade of pronouncements, presentations, reviews, restructures and change programmes – is that many things have got a whole lot better; but the fundamental issues have hardly changed at all.

And perhaps that’s the lesson, as I move onto the next; and next week clock up another year closer to 50… most of the big things in human affairs stay pretty much the same over the sweep of history.

A wise associate of mine, sent me the later life and closing thoughts of Oliver Sacks yesterday, from the New York Times; here:

The joy of old age (no kidding).

And

My own life

I replied:

“These are incredibly moving. This is how I want to live my older years and then ‘rise, satisfied, from the banquet of life’ as Seneca had it. This is the most important and defining thing of all – how we face death and then make the most of life.”

Easier said than done of course – and shame on me; the ‘banquet of life’ is Aristotle’s quote:

“It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken.”

But Seneca’s reflections ‘on the shortness of life’, precised here, are timeless too:

Why do we complain of Nature? She has shown herself kindly; life, if you know how to use it, is long.

But one man is possessed by an avarice that is insatiable, another by a toilsome devotion to tasks that are useless; one man is besotted with wine, another is paralyzed by sloth; one man is exhausted by an ambition that always hangs upon the decision of others, another, driven on by the greed of the trader, is led over all lands and all seas by the hope of gain; some are tormented by a passion for war and are always either bent upon inflicting danger upon others or concerned about their own; some there are who are worn out by voluntary servitude in a thankless attendance upon the great; many are kept busy either in the pursuit of other men’s fortune or in complaining of their own; many, following no fixed aim, shifting and inconstant and dissatisfied, are plunged by their fickleness into plans that are ever new; some have no fixed principle by which to direct their course, but Fate takes them unawares while they loll and yawn—so surely does it happen that I cannot doubt the truth of that utterance which the greatest of poets delivered with all the seeming of an oracle: “The part of life we really live is small.” For all the rest of existence is not life, but merely time.

Ask about the men whose names are known by heart, and you will see that these are the marks that distinguish them: A cultivates B and B cultivates C; no one is his own master. And then certain men show the most senseless indignation—they complain of the insolence of their superiors, because they were too busy to see them when they wished an audience! But can anyone have the hardihood to complain of the pride of another when he himself has no time to attend to himself? After all, no matter who you are, the great man does sometimes look toward you even if his face is insolent, he does sometimes condescend to listen to your words, he permits you to appear at his side; but you never deign to look upon yourself, to give ear to yourself. There is no reason, therefore, to count anyone in debt for such services, seeing that, when you performed them, you had no wish for another’s company, but could not endure your own.

Wise words.