2016 is only four months old and is already proving to be a remarkable year, giving us lots to ponder. Not only have disruptive weather events experienced here in UK and elsewhere been cited as yet more proof if it were needed of climate change and the ground shifting - literally - under our feet; but also we have heard announcement after announcement of the death of well-loved figures from the worlds of entertainment.
On the 400th anniversary of the shuffling of William Shakespeare, (at this point my concentration exited stage left for several hours in a Shrine that I know)(As you were), all sorts of epithetical temptations befall the budding blogger. Shall I compare thee, life, to a Chinese take-away? Life is but an English summer's day, full of sunshine and warmth and signifying that hail is just around the corner (and has now arrived).
We should, by now, be well acquainted with impermanence, with the sheer precariousness of life on earth. (Indeed with the extraordinary unlikelihood of it ever happening in the first place.) We are getting through our species at an alarming rate and, what with Climate Change (apologies if you're a denier), we soon won't need to rely on nuclear weapons to snuff everything bar cockroaches out. However, we do have this malady of treating the shuffling off of our celebs, already too many to count on a hand or two, which is where I lose it, as our major sad losses, sad losses though they truly are. What we are really mourning is our memories and our perception that Nobody Does It Better than them. Which, if true, would have had W. Shakespeare so in awe of G. Chaucer that he would have joined the Civil Service. There's a sort of permanence for you.
The joyous occasion of Her Majesty the Queen's 90th Birthday is rightly to be celebrated for all sorts of reasons. She is a rock. But even rocks eventually slip below the waves, eroded. I, for one, think our Constitutional Monarchy is a great institution and has a lot of legs left in it, let alone three successors to the Queen lined up in succession. It's survived because it has adapted. That's the point of this blog, I think: continuity, adaptation, renewal all within the fact of impermanence.
I am betraying my simple-mindedness. For me this, the fact of impermanence, begs the cosmic question facing our apparently grown up era that sees no need for God. Where has the mighty thread of creativity in all the arts and sciences come from if not from the continuity of hope, enquiry and exploration that have joined up our thinking ever since cavemen first joined up the word 'boundaries' with 'let's push out the'? (Ed: source for this?). And what's the cause of creativity if not a Creator?
Maybe one of our celebs could tell us. If it's not too late.
