The reaction of the audience – big and starry names all – was perhaps the most interesting feature. Some appeared genuinely amused, some showed by their body language that they felt obliged to look amused, while others were clearly outraged. For my part, I admire his courage and agree with him.
But it also had me thinking of my own little life down here at the bottom of the pile where stars never penetrate. I remembered – and I daresay I’ve said much of this on the blog before – that no matter how much effort and commitment I put into climbing any ladder, and no matter what skills and level of intelligence I possessed, the vicissitudes of life always found a way of kicking me off it. I’ve lived life as a losing game of snakes and ladders. Life always ensured that I could never be successful in terms defined by our beloved culture.
But there’s another side to the story. Life always kept me close to the edge, but it never let me fall over. Whenever I arrived at the point where I couldn’t see how I was going to pay the rent next month, or even subsist at all, life always stepped in and placed some money in my pocket from an unexpected source. I’m tempted to suspect that it was always meant to be that way. I’m fairly sure that if I’d become a star (as I nearly did once in a manner of speaking), or had achieved a high level of ‘success’ in any field, I would be a smaller person inside than I now am (which is not to say that I’m a big person inside, just a little bigger than I would otherwise have been.) It’s part of the reason why I harbour a strong suspicion that one life is only part of the story.
I might write a post about graveyards next, but don’t bother to hold the front page. It won’t be all that enlightening.
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