Hunger is all there is, the open devouring mouth of hunger, incessant, never ending hunger, demon mouth, the mouth from hell. Snake swimming, snake in boat, had it fallen from the distracted grip of an angel? Falling, perhaps a necessary humiliation, is, of course, prior to working out how to stand up again, to regain stature and momentum, in order to maintain an air of purpose in tune with current preoccupations and contemporary ideologies that in turn help towards us feeling “on the right track”. I noticed in a shop window a sign reading “nearing the end of life”; suggesting that the right track may not be very long. It goes to show that we have to make arrangements as best we can. If that includes buying a wicker coffin, and a sad procession (or joyful) out to a recently established and nearby woodland burial site, so be it. End of life dynamics, doing it right. Do I demand it or simply invite it. Caught between shy timidity and murderous rage. There was plenty of rage on view in Channel 4’s news yesterday evening when there was a debate about the wearing or not of the niqab. It made quite a strange spectacle to see these enraged women, quivering but faces remaining hidden behind their veils. Also strange to hear their defence of the wearing of the niqab based on the (what seems to me a rather non-Islamic) argument based on the rights of the individual. My thinking might be way off but the resistance to rampant individualistic consumerism that I see embodied in Islamic thought is based on an appreciation of society, in some sense putting the individual second. Some young women claimed that they felt empowered behind their veils. This seems a bad argument, one might claim the same thing for alcohol or drugs or going about in a gang.
When (or if)I am reduced (perhaps nearing the end of life) to hobbling on one leg, dragging the other behind me, taking an age to cross the road in front of some fuming driver who no doubt wishes to hasten these last few yards of my right track to the coffin, grimacing at the sympathetic smiles of the few kindly souls who can bear to watch my hesitant progress, the thing is I shall have to demand an exclusive walking stick. An object of quality and beauty. A last attempt to get things right. Right for the final yards of the the right track. As Geoffrey Hill writes: ‘So what is faith if it is not/inescapable endurance?’ (Page 192) See! I’m on the right track. Marvellous, isn’t it! Or at least grin and bear it?