|
Every time we wake from our sleep , some deep instinct protests the restoration of consciousness. The Thatcherite view of sleep saw it as an indulgence of shiftless
layabouts. One such would remain forever dormant , a year-round hibernator , if only he could. Once in bed , rather than counting sheep , he quells any unwelcome
twinges of restlessness by constructing mantras of palliative phrases. Reclining in an easy chair , composure on a davenport , stretching out on a settee , undisturbed
on a chesterfield. The committed day-dreamer does not confine his reveries to bedtime. Having lost the name of action , dreaming is all that remains to fill his days.
A sense of purpose and a plan of attack lay the foundations upon which viable relationships and a stable family life are built. Alas , he had been unable to muster
either of these. While others listed their aims and objectives as they prepared themselves for job interviews , he whiled away his time reading thick tomes with no
contemporary relevance. As they honed up their DIY skills in carpentry and household maintenance , he tarried in the halls of fruitless speculation. The tempo
of everyday life seemed to be picking up with every passing year but he was ever more inclined to slow things down to an ambling , sometimes imperceptible pace. The
System held out no appeal , its rewards were illusory and its demands clearly unacceptable but no clear-cut alternatives presented themselves to him.
Urban “civilisation” was The Eternal Racket , with its well-heeled curators of art and literature , its self-perpetuating administrative hierarchies , its tax-dodging
commercial leviathans , its love of sport and its media circus , its military-technological bias , its unquestioned myths of human progress. Action and work both preserve
a sense of identity that reflection dispels. No , its not the idle dreamer who escapes from reality in prolonged and peaceful gazing at the clouds in the sky. The notion
of ‘the self’ is not real in itself , it's just a dream , despite the droves of philosophers scurrying over the fields to pronounce on that concept of identity. The true
escapees are the practical folk who turn to a life of action and work as a refuge from insignificance. The proposed cornerstones of western democracy are property rights ,
competitive trade , a consumer society and the work ethic. Now although the rambler detested all four , he had to acknowledge that Natural Selection operated with its own
versions of them. Territory and nests , the acquisition of food , even courtships , required incessant struggle , while available resources were at the same sort of premium
reserved for occasional rest and relaxation. As he dozed , Shakespearean fragments floated before him. We are such stuff as dreams are made on , and our little life is
rounded with a sleep(1).
Fruitless speculation. It possesses the same sort of enigmatic structure as that cinematic touchstone of inconsequence , Last Year at Marienbad (2).
One such speculator puts forward a desirable mode of government that solicits the realist's response , “In your dreams !” What sane people expect of their governors
is a public-spirited body of well-informed legislators who will modestly supervise the infrastructures of communal life. They would regard necessities such as water ,
power supplies and an efficient public transport system as social services rather than opportunities for private profit. As such , they would be subsidised by taxes
accrued from each according to their means. There would be a return to extensive public housing programs , and a scrupulous regulation of business and financial interests.
Borrowing from the Book of Common Prayer , sanity’s expectation of those governors would be that they hath put down the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the
humble and the meek. They hath filled the hungry with good things and the rich they have sent empty away. If we have to put up with toffs , let them be toffs who are
happier with Beat poetry , fifties’ Rockabilly and Zen haikus than they are with free markets and macro-economic imbalances.
Wig
(1) Prospero in The Tempest.
(2) A 1961 film that baffled both audiences and critics , some hailing it as a masterpiece , others finding it as dull as it was incomprehensible.
|
Archive
Virtual rambler #1 – Posturing, 9th March 2010
Virtual rambler #2 – Managerialism, 17th March 2010
Virtual rambler #3 – Nostalgia, 27th March 2010
Virtual rambler #4 – The Alpha Male, 13th April 2010
Virtual rambler #5 – General Elections, 3rd May 2010
Virtual rambler #6 – The Leisure Industry, 15th May 2010
Virtual rambler #7 – Guide to The World Cup, 15th June 2010
Virtual rambler #8 – Human Nature, 12th July 2010
Virtual rambler #9 – Communities, 13th August 2010
Virtual rambler #10 – Worlds Apart, 6th October 2010
Virtual rambler #11 – Dawdling, 22nd November 2010
Virtual rambler #12 – ELVIS, 24th December 2010
Virtual rambler #13 – Transience, 4th February 2011
Virtual rambler #14 – Regional Accents, 15th April 2011
Virtual rambler #15 – The Afterlife, 21st July 2011
Virtual rambler #16 – Bizspeak, 27th August 2011
Virtual rambler #17 – Night Walks, 3rd October 2011
Virtual rambler #18 – Bob Dylan & Charles Dickens, 8th November 2011
Virtual rambler #19 – Another Nutty Professor, 16th December 2011
Virtual rambler #20 – Customer Choice, 17th January 2012
Virtual rambler #21 – Wearing Shorts, 18th February 2012
Virtual rambler #22 – A Brief History of Progress, 17th March 2012
Virtual rambler #23 – The Myth of Sisyphus, 16th April 2012
Virtual rambler #24 – Natural History, 20th May 2012
Virtual rambler #25 – European Self-Importance, 26th June 2012
|