Julian Summerhayes

“For a few minutes I tried to empty my mind entirely, to concentrate solely on breathing: sometimes it’s useful to rediscover simpler pleasures of life.”
― Romain Gary

Good morning.

It's Friday — although I no longer know what that means — and I'm here again, writing that is.

You'll excuse the tendentious title but it's been appearing a lot over the past week.

Of course, prima facie it all matters. 

Or does it?

What matters most to you?

Your life?

The life of others?

Or something else?

Are you living your life that way? First things first and all that malarky.

The thing is, even before Covid19 reared its ugly head, I was struck by how little we cared about certain things — e.g. the earth, animals and in some cases our mental wellbeing. And save for the latter, which I'm sure is a big issue right now, I'm not sure we've changed our mindset. If anything, the 'we-don't-give-a-shit' modus operandi has returned or will return in abundance. Terribly judgmental I know, but I'm simply reporting in on what I've seen, heard and read. Put it this way, most people want to return to business as usual, and we know where, in time, that will leave us.

In anticipation of the brickbats, I'm not resiling from that last statement because, let's face it, we've been on the take from nature et al. for way too long and it can't have come as any real surprise that living cheek by jowl with some of her more egregious tendencies is at least partly to blame for the spread of such a pernicious and successful (qua its host) virus.

Let's back up a bit though.

Who are we?

Our thoughts, feelings, emotions, senses and a bushel of stories?

Are we?

What, when everything is changing?