The happiness of angels

I find no meaning in the happiness of angels. I know simply that this sky will last longer than I.

There was no rancour, only a gentle parting of the ways. Sometime in my early teenage years I came to the conclusion that I no longer believed in God, realising that I couldn’t remember the last time I had. That my outlook on life - some vague notion of leaving the world a better place - didn’t change as a result, might suggest it was never serious; certainly, I don’t think I’d ever thought of the life that came next. Of course my outlook did change, or rather the scope, but not until much later and at an age when such goals feel foolishly optimistic, conceited even.

At first I never gave it more than a passing thought; life would appear to have little purpose but there was plenty to keep me occupied. Age granted me time to think again, not through a fear of death, more a building curiosity on a question for which I suspected an unedifying answer. Thus I came to The Myth of Sisyphus & Other Essays.

Albert Camus; born in 1913 in Algeria, died in 1960 in Paris, a contemporary of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, a one-time communist - albeit during the 1930’s - who in criticising Soviet communism after the war managed to alienate his colleagues on the left, including Sartre who publicly denounced him. I confess, as with George Orwell, this only makes me like him more. Camus was a proponent of absurdism; a philosophy describing the conflict borne from our desire for meaning in a meaningless world, and discussing how we should react when conscious of this fate.

At least I think that’s it. I could hardly claim a complete understanding, yet for a work portraying the “philosophical suicide” of others, notably Kierkegaard of whom he suggests “an almost intentional mutilation of the soul”, The Myth of Sisyphus is a positive life-affirming read. Camus examines whether realisation should logically lead to suicide and answers with a defiant ‘No’, concluding such an act to be rejection. “There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn” he says, though I think he describes it better in one of the other essays:

For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.

Solidarity

In 1980 I was thirteen, Leonid Brezhnev was in his 16th year as leader of the Communist party and therefore the USSR, the Soviet Bloc - having survived the Hungarian uprising - was a reality, it would be five years until Gorbachev’s leadership, nine until the fall of the Berlin wall. To someone my age, politics on a global stage was a duopoly; the free west versus the oppressed east. 1980 was the year a Polish electrician and trade union activist, Lech Walesa, became leader of the Soviet Bloc’s first independent trade union, Solidarity. It was my first indication that things could be different; albeit not without struggle, arrests, detention... martial law.

It’s why every time I see an avatar or comment tagged #Solidarity, I can only shake my head in disbelief. At least that’s one emotion; another was annoyance, this appropriation of the past to romanticise their own role as agents of change. But I settled on bemusement; this lack of self-awareness, I wonder if they’re prone to talk of an ‘elected dictatorship’? Some might be too young to remember, it could be mere coincidence yet, accidental or not, from my viewpoint they still look awfully silly.

Reason

I remind myself; every time I find something that isn’t working I’ve found something to do, as opposed to wondering about my choice of font. Since discovering that embedded comments are causing a problem - in that you can’t comment - I’ve switched to a pop-up window; it looks rubbish, but it works. Slightly more difficult will be unravelling the customised HTML, started when I knew next to nothing and continued through various stages of ignorance; it’s more ‘fun’ that way.

How long has it been broken? Possibly only a week, and since I don’t remember tinkering in that time I wonder if Blogger have done something to interfere with my ‘enhancements’. I should probably update to the latest designer, but that would mean starting over which... would give me something to do.

There are better goals. Absurdism may not be the easiest of subjects but I am determined to finish Camus, albeit not ‘finish with’ Camus since it’s well written - or should that be those bits I can understand are well written - as I dare say are the many bits I can’t. I’ve heard The Outsider is good too. And there’s a host of other stimulation to be found from people who I’ve never read. Small steps, something a little more accessible next; and I don’t say that to knock my intellectual capability, only that I’m a little slow.

Blue sky

It's stopped raining - I can even see patches of blue sky between the thick grey clouds. However, this is only a recent event - and since it has been raining for most of the day, it is my excuse for having spent the afternoon on iPlayer. I'm feeling a tad guilty, but I dare say I'll get over it. Dinner - if I can call what I did to the potatoes 'dinner' - has been served, I've the washing to do shortly and then I'll have the evening left in which to relax. Yet I'm in one of those odd moods where even though the chores are (almost) done I can't quite settle.

Four brilliant episodes of The Shadow Line later, I think what I need now is a light comedy, something to lift the heart a little.

The house of mirth

It's performance appraisal time and social convention requires you re-acquaint yourself with the company mantra:

Those who shout the loudest have the most to gain.

Of course that's not entirely fair, but then neither is making you fill in this form. Luckily you stumbled into contract work for several years and were able to opt out of such torture, resisting attempts of well-meaning managers to drag you back in; now however you’re a permanent participant of this divine comedy. The problem being that once an organisation reaches a certain size, the forms start to cater for the lowest common denominator, bloat with unnecessary detail and punish those who already have a strong work ethic. It's difficult to maintain a sense of individuality; especially when you reach the page containing a table of verbs and adjectives "you might want to use".

OK, so they're not that bad, but I am ambivalent. A formal appraisal can feel an admission of failure when continuous informal is the aim, where a well-run company has the least to gain and an ill-run company the most. It is at best an aide memoir for good management, not a requirement.

The last post

This may be my last post. Earlier today I migrated my Google Apps account to become ‘more like a full’ Google Account, whatever that means. Doing nothing would have meant an automatic transition a few weeks from now; this way (I reasoned) I could at least deal with any problems at a time of my choosing. Ever the pessimist I did wonder about the custom domain name on my blog, the setting up of which had resulted in my Apps account. On the other hand, I’d done this within Blogger and there must be numerous such examples. Cue a few uncomfortable hours unable to log in at all, wondering if that was that and not sure I wanted to ‘start again’, followed by a desperate ‘clear the cache’, as if that was going to work... which it did, and millions breathed a sigh of relief. Well, eleven at the last count.

Waving goodbye

I would gladly wave goodbye to the hysteria generated over Ken Clarke’s refusal to play catchphrase, but can only hope (rather than believe) this to be the case. ‘Rape is rape’ is one of those peculiar expressions that manage to be both true and false; it is everything to everyone, a statement intended to end rather than open a conversation.

Yet if we believe in rehabilitation, as I do, we need to discuss what that might mean in practice. Is recovery possible for those who have committed the most heinous of crimes? Can reduced sentences for those who plead guilty form any part? What are the exceptions? Without presuming to answer, these are all valid questions.

Ken Clarke is what some might regard as a rare breed, a pro-European liberal reformer of the Conservative party; it’s a miracle he’s survived so long. He came unstuck for eschewing the usual platitudes, others will take note and avoid making the same mistake, probably they’ll avoid the subject altogether.