Not for bread alone

What goes on within us, in the complex immediacy of Now? I suggest this string of moments is all we have: the movie of our life, played live, in which we have no choice but to act; beyond which there is Nothing, though it’s our constant illusion to think otherwise.

Joyce had a fictional shot at recreating it, dissecting the moments, in Ulysses, but there were no electronic devices then and I don’t know how it could have been done to capture real life. A long chain of ideas brought me to a recent experiment on YouTube, and I still hadn’t given up the idea last Friday, when armed with modern devices and time to spare I went off to buy a loaf of bread. A simple errand, arising from necessity and chosen randomly for the furtherance of Art. The resulting video, stills and audio have been duly ditched as unfit for sharing. Fiascos they were, or more correctly in the Italian, fiaschi. Yet a cut-down transcript, tarted up with editing, might just make the grade, when seen as a further experiment: not one to explain or justify, but publish and be damn’d. So here it is.
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Hovis. I’ll get it from Loudwater, at the other end of the valley, for the sake of the stroll. My route passes the bus station, so if there’s one ready to depart, I’ll hop on and let it take me as far as the Valley Path, past the town centre’s dreary familiarity and earthbound faces.

There’s one scheduled for Hicks Farm Rise at 2:30. That’ll do nicely. There’s nothing more heraldic, in Lawrence Durrell’s term, or archetypal, in Jung’s, than a diesel bus, emblem of my life-story, from the Forties in Australia till this moment. Buses defy the passage of time, as I try to do. Let one be painted on my escutcheon. Let “Defiance” be my motto. Nothing has changed of their noise, smell, vibration, variety of passengers carried, lumbering slowness and sullen unreliability. The government gave me a free bus pass, renewable till death us do part, as a prize for reaching the age of 60. I shall brandish it, and travel!

It’s 2:30, the passengers get up from their benches, poised. The bus doesn’t come. Some hang around in hopes; others move along in search of an alternative. I follow them, and see a bus about to depart for Castlefield, which will do just as well. I take a seat at the very back, near to someone who has just produced an odorous meat pasty, which he munches straight from its half-opened packaging. Eating is on the list of forbidden things on a bus. Another near passenger is obese to the point where, if there was no other choice, I could just half-sit beside him, so long as I had a rail to hold on to every time we rounded a bend. He sits opposite a seat filthy and tattered from previous passengers putting their feet on it, in this corner out of the driver’s view, He’s dropped his shoulder-bag on it, bearing the logo FCUK, mark of a once-desirable designer brand. Officially it’s not a dyslexic expletive but the initials of French Connection UK.

Looking out the window, I see we’re at Green Street, yards from where I live: surely a round-about route for Castlefield. Whoops! My brain had registered “Micklefield”—I’m going the wrong way. The easy thing would be to get off. The nearest place I could get my usual loaf is at Tesco, next to the bus station. Convenience is plainly not my concern, otherwise I’d ride to the the summit of Everest by helicopter, if I wanted to go there at all. (At the bus station I had visited the men’s room, where a cubicle was closed with a notice “We apologize for the inconvenience.” In England, “convenience” is a euphemism for “public toilet”. I wished I had brought a pen, to change it to “the lack of convenience,”, but who would appreciate my pedantic joke? Some humourless cleaner might report me for graffiti in a public lavatory, an offence that stripped of context could be misunderstood.)

No, I shall not get out of the bus. I will carry on to Castlefield and walk to the southernmost edge of town, instead of Loudwater to the east. The die has been cast. I find myself emulating the eponymous Dice Man from a novel by Luke Rhinehart, for I let my life be ruled by careless chance. I bought the book for my younger son when he dropped out of a psychology course at university, in his final year if you please, for what turned out to be a career in bartending. Seeing randomness in his trajectory, influenced by nature or nurture, I thought it might appeal to him, or offer a warning. Now he’s a manager in a company with 800 pubs and hotels, still as he claims practising applied psychology. While I was at it, I bought him a copy of Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk as well. I can’t quite recall why, except that it might appeal to a hidden part of his temperament—or mine. In his heart of hearts a father thinks of a son as a homunculus of himself (a Mini-Me?), doing the things he never could achieve himself. Or it’s just that we tend to give that which we would secretly like to receive.

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You need a lot of patience to be a bus driver. All these narrow roads, parked cars, thoughtless drivers coming the other way. Think how many jobs we take for granted which gain their stature and dignity from human frailty. If people were not too lazy to drop their litter in the bins provided, there’d be no jobs for the picker-uppers. Whenever I see one, I thank him. (The last one, in the children’s playground behind our backyard, was at pains to say that his real job was to mow the grass, but the regular picker-upper was sick. He had a fine grasp of seniority.) If all children received the kind of parental guidance—or good genes, I don’t know which—that provide them with a properly functioning conscience, there’d be no crime and few jobs for the police. If people cared enough for their own health to use food, drink, drugs and tobacco in moderation, there’d be need for fewer doctors and nurses, more unemployment.

Now the bus stops on a steep hill. An unsteady man with a drinker’s nose and bandy legs stands up to get off but then he sees an ancient couple he knows, and they exchange greetings in a leisurely way, while the doors remain open and the bus driver waits in a limbo beyond timetables. Then the man realizes, moves to get out, till a sudden afterthought moves him to go back and deliver it. The ancient couple reward him with a laugh. Finally he gets off, steadying himself at the bus stop, waving with equal benevolence at the couple and driver. I find myself rather affected by this tableau, and wonder why, till the penny drops: one day I too may be dependent on the kindness of strangers and bus-drivers, grateful for everyone’s patience as I creep like a tortoise, while I can. Move forward a few years and buses may be just a memory; then memories will be stilled in a dewired brain, till the curtains meet on stage and it’s end of show for one more person while the world goes on just the same. All of which makes this “now” all the more piquant, regardless of content, till the last drop is drained.

Off the bus, I pass the house I nearly bought in 1988, on first moving to the town. “I”? It was a different “I”. And if I had bought it, how would that have changed things? I don’t know. Today’s “I” would not be the “I” now thinking this thought. It’s like that sci-fi comedy, Back to the Future. If you change the past, you may never return to the same present.

I leave Rutland Avenue by this footpath which connects with Halifax Road, to avoid the traffic noise and because I feel at home in footpaths, these generous gifts to the people, preserved by statute in perpetuity from being blocked or built over. Footpaths in any case are the staple of my wayfaring, a solid way to “step on air”, a ritual & pilgrimage whose journey is its own destination. We perform rituals, sacred or profane, to strengthen the original experience by repetition. We do them for no reason except that they make us feel at home. Through such means, we are helped to float airily through life.

When I first started scribbling, and later when I learned to chatter into a voice recorder while on the move, it was to set down a thought so that I didn’t have to remember it; thus leaving an empty space for the next thought to float in. Whereas, if I were to sit at a desk, and wait for the next thought to arrive, it likely wouldn’t come. So that would be the end of that. But now I’ve learned this. Thoughts arrive, prolific, uplifting—or trivial.

Now I’ve nearly reached the supermarket at the southern edge of town, You can see golden fields, already harvested, just beyond. Just now I was standing at the traffic lights to take a photo when two women in their car stopped at red, seemed to be laughing at me, I’m not sure why. So gave them a disarming smile. They were duly disarmed and smiled back. It was a powerful moment, for I cannot smile at will and my face in repose can resemble a scowl.

In the old days before all this technology, people might laugh at you if you went down the street talking to yourself, but these days everyone does it, what with BlueTooth and all that stuff. But still, I stop this recording when someone passes, as a woman just did. Perhaps she was beautiful, or perhaps it was her smile, which I certainly don’t assume was intended for me. It was inclusive and generous, embracing her entire field of vision, the whole visible landscape; a smile which said she was fortunate and knew it. And I like to think it was broader for recognizing I was having the same experience. She was dressed loosely in black, and she was black too. It’s my observation, certainly in this town, that white women avoid your glance, as if to say “in your dreams!” or simply “get lost”. Whereas the women of a certain religion or culture, prevalent round here, who keep their heads covered, will not admit to seeing you even, unless they are crones, in which case they might share a moment of inner sunshine with you. While by contrast, strictly in my experience, a black woman, even with her Sunday church-hat on—perhaps she especially—will usually be interested in the fact that you are aware of her, & glad of it, boosted by acknowledgement of the trouble she has taken with her hair, deportment and dress. These are my uncensored thoughts.

I brood on my inability to smile at will. I could never have been an actor. It’s a step forward to start accepting my own face, to see it starting to reflect the person inside. To find contentment within one’s own skin can take a lifetime, I don’t mean of constant effort, but of waiting till life smiles upon one, and then with no effort one can smile back.

Postscript: Prophetically, after writing the above, I don’t mean to imply any causal connection, I’ve discovered the knack of smiling back, and even pre-emptively smiling, because it comes from somewhere within. And this has held for the last few weeks as if an important part of my sense of self has been restored to how it should have been from childhood onwards, as if a surgeon had performed the operation to mend a cleft palate and hare-lip, which Nature had left sadly fractured.

Buying a loaf can be a momentous adventure, as this video shows:



And here are three more adverts for Hovis from the 1970s.

Stepping on Air

I’ve spent a few weeks in awe and praise of Meister Eckhart, dear reader, and you may be glad to know I’ve had enough of him for the time being. I’ve no intention to publish a draft-in-progress called “More on Disinterest”. Indeed, this morning I find myself arguing against him: him and his way to God, wherein he places disinterest above love:

“The teachers praise love, and highly too, as St. Paul did, when he said, ‘No matter what I do, if I have not love, I am nothing.’ Nevertheless, I put disinterest higher than love.” Which he then goes on to explain—why he sees disinterest higher than love.

Now that the enthusiasm has spent itself, I wonder how it could have had me sailing so close to Christian shores, after a lifetime of fishing in their waters yet untempted to land. The turning-point came this morning, on my way to a haircut, captured verbatim by my new voice-recorder in these words: “I think the joy in life comes from making the most of what you’ve got. So, possibly Eckhart is wrong.”

It was a delightful moment. Free again! Free to obey the inner impulse, not sit at the feet of a teacher. But then, sometimes the inner impulse does take you to such feet. In different circumstances (born to different parents, say) I might have woken up one morning and yielded to a youthful impulse to fight for a cause, not waste my life kicking a ball around with other deadbeats in this mean street that offers no hope. And then, before I came to my senses, if I ever got the chance to before being shot like a mad dog, I’d be masked in black & threatening America with my blood-thirst; knowing that many who remained carefully silent would applaud my stand, even if millions of others wished nothing more than to crush me underfoot like a cockroach. A Faustian contract: to trade one’s human misgivings for the sense of mighty power and divine destiny.

Enthusiasm: possession by a god, supernatural inspiration, prophetic or poetic frenzy; an occasion or manifestation of these: obsolete. Oxford English Dictionary.

“Make the most of what you’ve got!” That’s what drives me to tap out something on this keyboard. To craft some words for the sake of it; to say the thing that expresses my sincerity and uniqueness. Never mind sermons, never mind pious aspirations. Just to use the gift, spend the talent. Yes, spend, for talent originally meant a sum of money, and only acquired its present meaning through a parable of Jesus as related in Matthew 25:14-30. Let me assure you my talent, if any, is in pedantry, not preaching—whilst getting a passing buzz from dishing out the biblical quotes, just as socialites might get a buzz from celebrity name-dropping.

And what it comes down to, me changing my mind like this, is sometimes feeling old and sometimes feeling young. Perhaps it’s one of those times in life, hesitating at the cusp, as in puberty or menopause; or in my case, old age, if such an outcome cannot be avoided. The human animal is full of quirks, and don’t imagine we can transcend them through haughty monasticism that talks of “higher things”. I shall revert to a habitual suspicion of any idea which comes from the thinking brain when divorced from biological rootedness, this inescapable physicality. The senses speak, the body responds to what the day brings. I rejoice. Today, anyhow.

I went for my haircut, I felt good & felt that I looked good, before and after equally (better before actually, but it will grow). It won’t always be so. The barber’s newspaper, The Sun, that rag of Rupert Murdoch, showed a photo of Paul Gascoigne, a mere 47, footballer and media darling of yesteryear, being rescued from the street with a bag of booze, in a state of terminal haggardness and drunken collapse, and why? There but for the grace of God go I—yes we still need God, surely it’s madness to be an atheist, for I can claim no credit for anything in my life. It’s all grace, my success in avoiding ending up as a jihadi fighter or a famous Newcastle United footballer. But I can make the most of what I’ve got. Which, I suddenly realize, in this piece tapped out extempore & without editing*, is exactly what that parable of the talents says.

And now, before I deny it thrice and the cock crows, I have to admit that I’ve written a sermon after all. Whereas, my original intention this morning was to try and write something to accompany the picture alongside, cropped from a photo I took the day I published a post called “Stairway to Heaven”. I decided the title this time should be “Stepping on Air”, before having any thought of the content. How to link the writing to the picture and title? Ok, here goes.

Stepping on air: a new-minted expression referring to the human ability to feel good supported on something which has no physical substance: a memory, reminder or mere symbol of wellbeing. The sense of pride or feeling that one looks good, with scant objective basis; or that one is loved, “if only” by God; the confidence that everything is OK; the placebo. Stepping on air: an idea that explains so much (not just religion). Stepping on air: a skill some learn and no one can rely upon unconditionally. Radical!
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* “tapped out extempore & without editing”—written before some very light editing (Ed.)

Other Places, Other Times

Here’s another audio post. This time it is all music, accompanied by still images, apart from a 42-second introduction. It’s a big file—1 hour and 16 minutes best heard at high quality. Please allow it time to load on your device.

I’m tempted to write a lot about the artists, albums and how the compilation was put together, but let the voice intro, and the list of tracks I’ve posted on YouTube, suffice. They happen to be some of my favourites—selections from the jukebox that plays unbidden in one’s head. Some of them have been lodged there for fifty years, without refreshment through the ears. None has been there less than fifteen years (-ish). Which is why I shall shut up and let them enter your head as they may; telling their own story about this world we share. (A story which emerged almost by itself from the compilation process, and surprised me.)

To be a pilgrim

I’ve been wanting to follow on from my last—that first attempt at publishing an audio-visual blog, thereby attempting to capture the essence of the moment in a candid and spontaneous way. Now on reflection I rather think that the audio-visual part, as well as being unfeasibly time-consuming, was largely irrelevant, and could beneficially be stripped away. The unedited observations came out incoherently, and further attempts I’ve made since were muffled by street-noise. It’s the process of selection, refinement and polishing which best shows the beauty of a stone, or the clarity of a thought. So I’d like to continue, with regular reporting, in this process of being aware of consciousness. It has to be regular, since no two days are the same: indeed consciousness can change by the moment.

I went into town yesterday, on foot of course, it’s the only sensible way. It’s a walk in the opposite direction anyhow to where I’ve parked the car, and then it would have to be parked in town. In fact I live in town. Nothing is more than fifteen or twenty minutes away. And when I get too old for that, I can hop on a bus. On the way I recorded some observations, here presented in no particular order and duly edited. In any case I haven’t got used to the new Olympus yet and chatted away to it several times when it wasn’t actually switched on.

I found myself full of hesitancy (? hesitance . . . hesitation?—what is the word?), just as in my previous post, where I couldn’t decide about changing a light-switch. I can spend an entire day dithering, not sure what to do. I went to the bank, hoping to sort something out there, but no one in the building had enough knowledge. This seemed so outrageous that I let go of my dithering and told them, in words hardly more polite, to get lost, as I’d go to another bank. Decided on Santander. At least I knew where it was, but then found the windows were all blanked out with paper, as if they had “done a runner” as the Cockneys would say. Is there a trustworthy bank any more? A small sign on the door said it was being refurbished, and gave the address of temporary premises on Oxford Road, so I set forth, but couldn’t see it anywhere. As I dithered, a man, who clearly wasn’t from round here, in fact I imagined him as a recent illegal immigrant, asked politely if I could help him. I couldn’t understand what he said but then he showed a cut-up piece of card with “Barclays Bank” written on. “I don’t know,” I replied, “I’m looking for a bank too!” I who have lived in this town since 1988. As I crossed the street I thought yet again how my anecdotes so often appear allegorical. It was Joe Perfecto who put that idea into my head, in relation to a few blog posts. Yes, I’m on an allegorical quest, like Christian in The Pilgrim’s Progress. You don’t have to be a Christian to be a pilgrim. And perhaps most Christians these days don’t see themselves as pilgrims . Well, I don’t know what they see themselves as. On the primrose path perhaps. I just looked that up, in case it comes from Bunyan’s book. No, it is from a speech in Hamlet. And when I did find the bank I realized I’d passed it twice already that day before I’d decided to look for it. Another alleged allegory, by a notorious alleger (? allegator?)

Today has been different. I’ve focused on what I’m doing, moment to moment and it’s pretty much sorted out that hesitancy. Part of the problem yesterday was trying to define “disinterestedness” whilst on my errands in town, thus being abstracted from being disinterested in the present moment. A friend told me she couldn’t get it, the meaning, and I wasn’t too clear myself, especially as it’s something you don’t see much of these days, out in the world. It’s assumed everyone has to take sides. Democracy is based on that. Vote for A or B. Justice is based on that. Guilty or Innocent? There are protests in Ferguson, Missouri. Am I on the side of the police or the protestors? And what about Gaza? These are perfect illustrations of what I suggested in my last, that “disinterestedness” is a better word than “detachment” for translating Meister Eckhart’s abgescheidenheit. It was pretty much impossible to be detached from the Gaza business, and all the other things

So how would I explain “disinterestedness”? I thought of the situation at the beginning of a court case, in which judge and jury have not yet heard the evidence. Their attitude ought, and indeed must for the sake of justice be one of disinterest, that is to say without bias or prejudice, so that they can listen to the proceedings starting from a clean sheet of no information. When you think about it, this gives them the best chance of giving the matter their intense concentration. Try telling someone about what they ‘know already’. Will they listen? No, their attention will filter the input: “Does this agree with what I know? Or does it contradict what I know?” Thereafter the analogy breaks down of course because the judge and jury are there to form judgements. What Eckhart proposes is that we don’t do that, ever.

It’s hard to imagine disinterestedness. The world is going the other way. People protest because they, by some strange means, ‘know’ the rights and wrongs of any situation. Well, I do. I too am pretty sure about what’s wrong in Gaza, and I’ve spent time fruitlessly growling about it to myself. What we ‘know’ comes from our emotions, which make us so certain of the situation that we may be prepared to perform drastic and regrettable actions based on that certainty. And then we have the modern types, the scientists, humanists, atheists & others who think it is possible to ameliorate the world through evidence-based rationality. To them, the possibility of this better world is hampered by the beliefs, superstitions and unrestrained emotionality of those who are not like them. They have laudable plans for better education, more equality, economic progress, democracy, child care and so forth—laudable aims. Are they right? I have my prejudices on most subjects under the sun, but I don’t know, except emotionally. I am a beginner in this disinterestedness pilgrimage. I can just about spell it but there again, I’m not sure.

Disinterestedness: to apply not-knowing to everything. To do this you have to stop in your tracks, stop getting het-up, as if that were a virtuous thing in itself (“righteous anger”). And in the case of Gaza, Ferguson Missouri, Eastern Ukraine and parts of Iraq, what does a little disinteredness show us? That when people pursue principles and judgements, such as who is innocent and who not, who the land belongs to, who must be punished and so on; when they pursue these principles and judgements with disregard for the ordinary decencies of respecting others as if they are your own family, then people get hurt, and there is no limit to the destruction and violence that may result.

There is a time to get het up, of course, and that’s when the awfulness of what happens is so close that you can actually do something about it, or so close that you must do something about it.

As for the rest, we are being wound up and manipulated, and the infection is not just out there. It is embedded in us. The infection has taken root, and what’s worse, has become culturally mandated. You’re a cold fish if you are seen not to care.

To follow this path of disinterestedness, so strongly advocated by Eckhart, and make the effort of preparations, without waiting for any “infusion of grace” (see quotes in my last), we have to be ready to stand alone, and resist the prevailing currents. And I must overcome my hesitancy (hesitance . . . habit of hesitation?) and focus on the task in hand.

Stepping aside

I had no thought of doing an audio diary, nor for that matter of producing a music video, let alone combining the two into a hybrid. Some things evolve by accident: you and I for example, if you can believe it, have evolved in exactly that way. Certainly the best things in my life have just happened. Mostly I strove and yearned, in a reaching-out which discovered myriad ways of making mistakes, like variations on a theme, ringing the changes on a peal of bells. I’m beginning to think it has only been when I stepped aside that the thing I most value has happened. In this blog I’ve often referred to such occurrences as moments. Timeless in themselves, they’ve been brief by clock reckoning. I used to think they came about by physical circumstance, sensual input or triggering of ancient memory. I have worshipped wild Nature and aimless wandering like Wordsworth among the daffodils. Now across seven centuries, Meister Eckhart teaches me that these moments result from stepping aside. The term he actually uses is abgescheidenheit, usually translated as “detachment”. Raymond Blakney in his 1941 translation calls it “disinterestedness”. Today, in a resurgence of violent invasions reminiscent of those days, I think his word is the better chosen.

The above is by way of introduction to the YouTube audio blog above. The opening image shows a scene from the legend of St Brendan, in which he sailed with some fellow-monks from Ireland to the Fortunate Isles, which some have identified as Newfoundland. Encountering a whale, they clambered aboard, and performed the holy Mass upon its tolerant back. As for the rest, it tells its own tale, in a rough-and-ready manner. In crucial instances, I’ve left my audio clips in an unedited state, the whole point being to capture the spontaneity. The words could have been better chosen, and I think you will find the opening readings—from Meister Eckhart—daunting at first. Accordingly I’ve provided a transcript below, occasionally edited and annotated.

[piano introduction from “It never entered my mind”, by the Miles Davis Quartet]

From Meister Eckhart: a Modern Translation, Raymond Blakney, 1941, the chapter headed “About Disinterest” (original in German, approx AD 1300):

I have read much of what has been written, both by heathen philosophers and sages and in the Old and New Testaments. I have sought earnestly and with great diligence that good and high virtue by which man may draw closer to God and through which one may best approximate the idea God had of him before he was created, when there was no separation between man and God; and having delved into all this writing, as far as my intelligence would permit, I find that high virtue to be pure disinterest, that is, detachment from creatures. Our Lord said to Martha: “Unum est necessarium,”, which is to say: to be untroubled and pure, one thing is necessary and that is disinterest.


[Short piano interlude, from “My Funny Valentine”, Miles Davis Quartet, 1957, from which the other interludes are derived except where otherwise indicated]

Now I ask what the object of pure disinterest is. I reply that it is neither this nor that. Pure disinterest is empty nothingness, for it is on that high plane on which God gives effect to his will. It is not possible for God to do his will in every heart, for even though he is almighty, he cannot act except where he finds preparations made or he makes them himself. I say “or makes them” on account of St. Paul, for God did not find him ready; he prepared St. Paul by an infusion of grace. Otherwise, I say that God acts where he finds that preparations have been made.

[Reader, if you are no Christian, but an agnostic, this talk of God may make you uncomfortable, but there is no need for concern. God was as real to Eckhart’s time as Darwin’s evolution is to ours. Evolution provides explanations, validated scientifically. God was and is validated experientially. Today, no belief is required, but experience is still available.]

[Miles Davis on muted trumpet.]

Vincent: On Friday my trusty voice recorder took a suicide leap out of my pocket, “hoist by its own petard”, so to speak. It had a wrist-strap, which I never used for that purpose and which tended to dangle from my pocket. I must have caught my hand on it. So there it was, gone: jumped before it was pushed, helpful to the last, knowing far better than I did how out of date it was. A mere seven years ago, I’d swapped my cassette model for a digital one. My new one as you can hear has high-quality sound.[I erroneously said on the recording that the old one was 12 years old.]

[Piano interlude.]

I seem to be spending all day changing a light switch, with now some doubt surfacing as to how necessary it was in the first place, and coming out with different answers to that question. [A two-way, two-gang switch in the kitchen needed some upgrade as I thought, part of a redecoration project. I bought a smart new one, but could not work out where to put the wires, ended up taking it back to Screwfix, cleaning the old one & refitting it exactly as before, so that the switch on the right continues to operate the bulb on the left. This seemed to use up most of Sunday.]

[Laid-back trumpet interlude.]

The impeccable moment: stepping out of Screwfix [after buying a replacement switch]. Into the rain, there is my car. How do I describe this impeccable moment? It is a perfect emptiness.

[Piano & trumpet interlude, while I step into the car, after which you can hear the sound of windscreen wipers & background engine sound.]

These moments happen; and that’s all that matters. It has never really occurred to me that the moment could be prolonged, into a connected continuity, not just in moments, but the fabric of my whole existence. Because those moments were never sought. Or when they were sought, they could not be realized, the quest was fruitless. And I see clearly that when it happens, in a completely banal environment, on an almost meaningless occasion—there could be no way of seeking it out. I suddenly see, guided by Meister Eckhart, even via his Christian terminology (intrinsic to where he is standing, as a high-up Dominican speaking in his sermons to other senior Catholics, perhaps, in his sermons) that his language is still perfectly adequate to reach my understanding, crossing the centuries without need of modification, just some good translation. And this he gets from Raymond Blakney.

[Opening bars from “Milestones”, by Miles Davis; marking a return to Screwfix, to exchange one switch as faulty and return the other as not needed]

And the other thought, as I came (to Screwfix) for the second time, was while I was in the shop, and there was this sense of “Yeah, I am all right, as I am. There was a sort of awkwardness (when I thought) “Yes, I should have done this and done that . . .” Yes, it was like, my adequacy to live in this world . . . is not in question. That question has never been asked . . . except by me. And that is just one of the quirks of being human; that if you want to learn to be human, you learn to deal with it.

Here’s a song called “Moments”. It was written by Bryn Howarth who sang it as part of his support act to Fairport Convention’s tour in 1975. That’s when Sandy Denny heard it. Her cover version is the last song she ever recorded before her death in 1978.

[Song: “Moments”, followed by fade-out and end.]

Postscript: Disinterest in welcome moments of respite brings gladness. Further preparations are being made. Even the simple action of changing a light-switch is fraught with human fallibility, and I’m not just talking of incompetence in DIY. Living is not simple, but our failures, yours and mine, are worth as much as others’ success. Add the lot together, and what do you get? This world.

PPS: I started with the idea that an audio blog would save all that typing, could facilitate daily posting. Some hope! We’ll see. Perhaps there will be one reader/listener who think it’s worthwhile, will see through all the amateurish imperfection to what was intended. But if not, the attempt still has been worth it. Special thanks to Cindy for ongoing encouragement.