I Would Hate To Be That Man

2025-02-08

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I fear disuse. I fear lack of purpose. Not necessarily in terms of conclusions but more in terms of direction. Whatever I do, I feel good to think it adds something somewhere. No, I'm not thinking of increasing the national GDP or my fame or fulfill a spouse's desire. I think of it more in terms of experience. Where nothing goes waste. It could be anything - a film which knocks the daylight out of me, music which haunts me through the day, a shadow I see lengthening as I lay in the winter sun, the unceasing drip of an incurable tap as I sit reading, of sitting silently w...

I fear disuse. I fear lack of purpose. Not necessarily in terms of conclusions but more in terms of direction. Whatever I do, I feel good to think it adds something somewhere.

No, I'm not thinking of increasing the national GDP or my fame or fulfill a spouse's desire. I think of it more in terms of experience. Where nothing goes waste. It could be anything - a film which knocks the daylight out of me, music which haunts me through the day, a shadow I see lengthening as I lay in the winter sun, the unceasing drip of an incurable tap as I sit reading, of sitting silently with my dad as he nods off to sleep, of letting my mum tell a story from her childhood a millionth time because old experiences are her mainstay now.

But I grow older, and have started to forget. What gives me sustenance are traces of the life I have lived and am living. Because that is what experience does - it makes you alive in the moment - and the moment consequently never ends.

I am keenly aware, with each passing day, of how life seems long but days turn out to be so short. And before I know months have gone by, and then years. And I have nothing to show for them. Not in memories, not in the senses. And I ask myself - 'what have I got this life for?'

And I battle for a full day, and consequently a full life.

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