As it is the start of another year, readers already know that it is also the end of the last one. We also know that we can’t change the past, but that it is how we live in the present that may affect the future, but given that the ‘present moment’ is fleeting, my expectations now have a shorter time-scale than ever. So it is that each day, Marie and I try to find something to look forward to.
We lunch out frequently, and our choice of venue depends on how we feel on the day and where else we need to be. Because we enjoy a wide range of cuisines and dishes, Avelinos in Ross offers us the chance of a couple of hours of Italian ambience and the challenge of the Crossword. On our latest lunchtime visit the restaurant was almost empty but, as usual, the meal and service was excellent. We sat and thought about friends who, unless they have been to a restaurant previously, would never go into a place if it was empty. Their maxim is, “If no one else is in, it cannot be any good”.
This type of reaction usually draws me to conclude that our five senses are not wholly integrated into our reasoning brain, and that, any reaction based mainly on what other people are doing or not doing, is little different from the ewe that sends out a warning baa which others then echo until the whole flock panics and huddles together.
Because the five human senses are the same as those of sheep, most humans react to perceived immediate danger in the same way. And the story about the boy who cried wolf shows that there have always been people with reasons to want to make us fearful. In the case of the boy it was at first fear but then personal caprice however, in the case of socially organised groups it is never as simple as that. Moreover, the playwright George Bernard Shaw said, ‘The majority is always wrong”, by which he suggests that one should be very chary of saying and doing what everyone else is doing.
Most of my life I have tried not to parrot the fads and fancies of the various ‘isms’, ‘movements’, and ‘trends’ of the day, and so I am concerned when organisations a) analyse a given situation, b) proclaim a disaster is imminent, and c) we should all be fearful were it not that they have the solution. Whilst I am sure that there is ‘truth’ scattered everywhere, I am also convinced that a solution will not be found amongst those folk who say that because no further truth can be found; we should therefore shut up and follow their solutions if catastrophe is to be avoided. You can almost see hysteria developing when they start to give the rest of us nasty names.
Given that each of us has just one life to reflect on our own personal ‘doomsday’. I am sceptical of anyone who wants me to join in their version of a ‘social’ doomsday. Unlike my own personal doomsday which has everything to do with how I live my life, I cannot help but muse that maybe, the ‘social’ doomsdayers, are really indulging in what Psychologists call displacement activity, so that by getting more people into their club and beliefs they themselves, like the sheep, feel more secure by being in a flock, After all, in a flock they don’t have to expend so much energy in thinking about their own personal doomsday? (Dies Irea)
Talking about personal worries however made me think of Steve and his mate. Good natured but slow witted lads from rural Devon. They saw slack period in house repairs ahead and so scanned the adverts where, to their delight, there were lots of jobs in Qatar. The pay was good and all they had to do was lay blocks and bricks. Accommodation, food and everything else was provided.
Having never left Devon, their simple lives had centred on small local building work and darts in the pub, so they were nervous as they took off from Heathrow. But, as the work was going to be easy, and all the building materials would be on site when they arrived, they settled back to enjoy their new challenge.
They marvelled as they flew over France, the Alps, Italy and the Mediterranean. Cloud covered the rest of the journey but as they descended and levelled to land they noticed vast swathes of sand surrounding the city. At touch down, they looked at each other in alarm, and fear sprang into their eyes at the overwhelming sand. In panic Steve said,
“Don’t move. Stay on the plane.
We’ve just gotta be out of here before the cement comes”.
View from the Pew 