Too Tired to Think of a Title.

This was Zoe’s song back in those distant days when she still thought me worthy of a few sparkler showers:

You’ll remember me when the west wind moves

Among the fields of barley.

~ Sting. Fields of Barley

And so I thought about the phrase ‘west wind’ and naturally wondered – as is my wont – why that wind and not another. It didn’t take long to come up with a reason.

We recognise four cardinal winds and each of them is imbued with its own reputation. The south wind represents heat; the north wind is associated with frigidity; the east wind we think of as sharp and unfriendly; the west wind, however, says ‘mellow.’ This is not always true because it depends on the position of the weather system and other considerations, but as a generalisation it’s what we’ve got. And so the west wind is the least likely to be threatening and also has the benefit of alliteration to commend it to the lyrical mindset.

*  *  *

Talking of words, I sometimes watch a YouTube channel by a woman called Hilary Layne. She’s a writer who uses a simple ‘talking heads’ style and covers notable literary works and their relevance to modern culture. Last night’s took what she considers the three primary works which most describe the causes and effects which produce a move towards dystopia: The Napoleon of Notting Hill, Brave New World, and 1984.

She suggested that modern societies – at least those which follow the ‘western’ model – are becoming so replete with bland conformity at the cost of higher values that an increasing number of people are blind to anything which is bigger than them. It caused me to think seriously about the assertion, which very few YouTube channels do. But then I decided that I’m more interested in a different scale of things. My main preoccupation now is not to look for things which are bigger than me, but levels of reality which are bigger than the one in which my mortal body functions. So I decided that dystopia probably doesn’t matter very much after all.