And where do I go for the truth? The wind rattling the windows, worrying at the dry leaves of the beech hedge (actually, a promise of a future hedge). I saw the isobars packed tight, the depression off to the north-east, giving the Scots another bashing.
Our minds sleep fitfully in the ordinary, the day to day detergent dramas of our lives. Intimations of truth or Truth perhaps could arrive in that moment of waking up to the strange, the unheimlich, the not at home . . . so, yes, you were right to go off to Russia to be shocked out of the blank wall of the familiar into something so startling one might think of it as the truth, to see the weirdness of truth or the truth of weirdness. Though Macbeth had only to step outside the castle gates to see the witches stirring up a whole cauldron of trouble.
I’m holding on to Thomas Kuhn’s idea of the paradigm shift applied to the possibility of a change in economic thinking. Rather as there was the advent of the neoliberal, market dominated thinking that was picked up conservative politicians in the late seventies. There’s a desperate need to move on but will it be back to Keynesian ideas or something more startling? Will it emerge in this Olympian year or will we continue to wait, despairingly perhaps, no holding our breath, as inequality increases and the hyper-rich get even richer (well why not if we can get away with – you can hear the self-pity in their voices). When will the tipping point (as Malcolm Gladwell described it) arrive?
To what degree is my poverty self-chosen? Or merely the result of stuff happening (Donald Rumsfeld’s theory of looting – hadn’t he heard of capitalism?). But then again, these days, that used to be hours, I puzzle my way through months that used to be days, one myopic eye on studying, the other on the, yes, weirdness of aging. Perhaps the fear that I am no longer going anywhere at all – it’s all got to be handed over the children. What could I say in my defence if there should be any accusations of wasting time, making wrong decisions (is there any other type of decision?)? I did what I could . . . but I was in such a rush to get to the somewhere where I haven’t arrived (yet!). So there could be some hope that even at this late stage (how late is late?) I will, in fact, arrive where I intended – even admitting that the destination was never entirely clear to me – lost in myopia, as usual.
So let’s admit it, life is way too difficult, but hope flickers on, putting up a head or at least a hand to emerge from the dream wreckage or the wreckage of dreams, wishes emerge from the mist . . . oh yes, I could do A (or B or even C) . . . I promise I’ll let you know when I get there or like you, when I’m on my way back.
Happy New Year!