I've often felt that one of the more curious tricks that the mind plays upon itself is to apportion significance and congruity to art that it doesn't necessarily deserve; or rather, to imagine that the art has found you, rather than you finding it.* The half-heard song which is in a key which perfectly captures your mood, the film that has a throwaway line which applies perfectly to some problem that you've had on your mind. That moment where you think yes, that's it, that's precisely what I mean.
This is, I imagine, more a manifestation of the human habit of trying to see patterns where there aren't any, to try and intuit some sort of significance from a largely dumb and indifferent universe, than it is the result of any cosmic intervention; but it's a fun sensation anyway, and often a comforting one, it's one of the reasons we find such solace in books, films, music. They can, we feel, teach us about ourselves, and if this lesson happens by accident then this, surely, is the Universe trying to tell us something.
Of course, these accidents are rarely accidents, we are naturally drawn to things which reflect our personal taste. The book pulled down at random from the bookshelf was still already on your bookshelf due to personal choice. The album was in your record collection (I know, I know, I still buy albums, sue me, and then fuck off back to your Spotify playlist which pays the artist you purport to love less than buttons), you already have a pretty good idea what sort of films you like, so you're unlikely to be watching something which won't at some point speak to you.
(I'm going to take a moment here to step out of the main thrust of this blog post and pass briefly over that wonder of the modern age, people slagging off things on the internet, with particular reference to the film Cats, recently the subject of so much digital bile. I haven't watched Cats. I am highly unlikely to watch Cats. Much as with recent mega-hit The Greatest Showman I don't need to, I already know that it's highly unlikely to be my cup of tea, I've seen the odd trailer, heard the odd song. I don't have enough time to read / watch / listen to the things that I actively want to, so I'm unlikely to take a punt on something I probably won't. It seems to me surprising that people could have watched the trailer for Cats and yet still gone to see it if they weren't fairly confident they'd enjoy it, I am forced to conclude that, as with so much else on the internet, people seem to actively enjoy wasting their own time making themselves angry and unhappy, and if I want to do that, all I need is go below the line on a Daily Mail leader article, much cheaper and far more time-efficient).
I felt this sensation (for which I truly hope there is one of those lengthy compound German nouns) when reading Julian Barnes' The Sense of an Ending, as one of the themes of the book is one which has been playing on my mind a little of late. Surely the Universe popped this book in my lap for a reason (all the more so as it was a charity shop find: £1.50 for a spot of serendipity to you, squire). Without giving too much away, the main plotline concerns a middle-aged man being forced to re-evaluate his past; it's concerned with the malleability of memory, the way we tend to paint ourselves in the best light in the stories we tell ourselves how even, in extremis, we can completely erase some of our worst actions.
It's not really a massive surprise that I felt the book chime with my train of thought, as this is something which is often on my mind; over the last few years I've become slightly obsessed with memory, or lack thereof. I started keeping a diary a few years ago, and instantly regretted that it's not something I've done all my life (and also recognised with a certain weariness that it's something I'll have to keep up until the day I die). There is hopefully another German compound noun for regret at all the diary entries that you haven't written.
My written record, you see, is fiction, or poetry (or this blog which, to my mild surprise, celebrates its seventeenth birthday this year). The things which I know for a fact happened are the artefacts that I've written, I know I wrote that story, I know I published that book, I know I did that reading. Beyond that, everything's up for grabs. My memories of my interactions with people, with how I've impacted on people's lives and they on mine, are less reliable. Two people's memories of the same event can be entirely different, as I've learned from many discussions with my wife, and given the enthusiasm with which I spent my twenties blasting my poor brain with all manner of intoxicants, I often feel that my grasp on the past is somewhat shakier than it could or should be. I've made a life-time's habit of avoiding photographs, never been much of a one for joining things and have generally been in work whenever anything's happened. As such, I occasionally find myself wondering to what extent I've actually existed.
That said, I do sometimes wonder if I ever actually do want to remember, and that's a different set of worries altogether. The protagonist of The Sense of an Ending thinks he's led a blameless existence, is convinced that he's more sined against than sinning, before discovering that this may not be the case. I'm pretty certain that I haven't led a blameless existence, that my conduct has often been less than exemplary, and I'm not sure I want confirmation of that. Possibly the best thing I can do is slide off further into obscurity, keep my head down, keep my gob shut and allow the forgetting to consume me.
The older I get, the murkier these questions become, why I am who I am, why I've acted the way I have, how the hell I've ended up here; occasionally I get a lead, something that helps towards a fuller picture, occasionally I get the sense that there's something big that I'm missing, something just out of the picture, that the right photo, or letter, or remembered conversation would bring swimming into focus. A number of decisions I've made or reactions I've had seem inexplicable to me now, even if they seemed to make perfect sense at the time, various prejudices and ways of viewing situations which, when examined, evaporate. I suppose my theory is that memory, accurate memory, provides context, and recently I've felt a number of synaptic jolts as something comes back to me. Inexplicable gouts of grief and loss, sudden crises of confidence on the one hand, inexplicable peace and the sense of forgiveness on the other, but, and this is the crucial thing, I have no idea what for. Or if it's for anything at all.
I don't mean to over-egg the pudding, I lead a pleasant, largely turbulence-free existence. I am happier now than I have ever been, but with this safety, this solidity, I am forced to wonder why that hasn't always been the case. Much as the toddler feels free to scream at their parent but is mute around strangers, I feel secure enough in myself to wonder why I felt insecure.
Curious, isn't it? I wouldn't have written this blog post if I hadn't read that book, and yet here it is, blinking happily away on my computer screen waiting for me to hit publish A matter of public record, a document. So maybe there is something to the notion of the art being there when you need it. Not a sense of an ending at all, but a sense of something as yet unexplored, with the attendant promise that there is much more yet to discover.
*Or have I? I've also often felt** that one of the tricks the mind plays upon its;ef is to imagine that one's always held one position on an issue, or always felt the same way about something, which experience tells me is generally not the case.
** Or have I? etc etc
This is, I imagine, more a manifestation of the human habit of trying to see patterns where there aren't any, to try and intuit some sort of significance from a largely dumb and indifferent universe, than it is the result of any cosmic intervention; but it's a fun sensation anyway, and often a comforting one, it's one of the reasons we find such solace in books, films, music. They can, we feel, teach us about ourselves, and if this lesson happens by accident then this, surely, is the Universe trying to tell us something.
Of course, these accidents are rarely accidents, we are naturally drawn to things which reflect our personal taste. The book pulled down at random from the bookshelf was still already on your bookshelf due to personal choice. The album was in your record collection (I know, I know, I still buy albums, sue me, and then fuck off back to your Spotify playlist which pays the artist you purport to love less than buttons), you already have a pretty good idea what sort of films you like, so you're unlikely to be watching something which won't at some point speak to you.
(I'm going to take a moment here to step out of the main thrust of this blog post and pass briefly over that wonder of the modern age, people slagging off things on the internet, with particular reference to the film Cats, recently the subject of so much digital bile. I haven't watched Cats. I am highly unlikely to watch Cats. Much as with recent mega-hit The Greatest Showman I don't need to, I already know that it's highly unlikely to be my cup of tea, I've seen the odd trailer, heard the odd song. I don't have enough time to read / watch / listen to the things that I actively want to, so I'm unlikely to take a punt on something I probably won't. It seems to me surprising that people could have watched the trailer for Cats and yet still gone to see it if they weren't fairly confident they'd enjoy it, I am forced to conclude that, as with so much else on the internet, people seem to actively enjoy wasting their own time making themselves angry and unhappy, and if I want to do that, all I need is go below the line on a Daily Mail leader article, much cheaper and far more time-efficient).
I felt this sensation (for which I truly hope there is one of those lengthy compound German nouns) when reading Julian Barnes' The Sense of an Ending, as one of the themes of the book is one which has been playing on my mind a little of late. Surely the Universe popped this book in my lap for a reason (all the more so as it was a charity shop find: £1.50 for a spot of serendipity to you, squire). Without giving too much away, the main plotline concerns a middle-aged man being forced to re-evaluate his past; it's concerned with the malleability of memory, the way we tend to paint ourselves in the best light in the stories we tell ourselves how even, in extremis, we can completely erase some of our worst actions.
It's not really a massive surprise that I felt the book chime with my train of thought, as this is something which is often on my mind; over the last few years I've become slightly obsessed with memory, or lack thereof. I started keeping a diary a few years ago, and instantly regretted that it's not something I've done all my life (and also recognised with a certain weariness that it's something I'll have to keep up until the day I die). There is hopefully another German compound noun for regret at all the diary entries that you haven't written.
My written record, you see, is fiction, or poetry (or this blog which, to my mild surprise, celebrates its seventeenth birthday this year). The things which I know for a fact happened are the artefacts that I've written, I know I wrote that story, I know I published that book, I know I did that reading. Beyond that, everything's up for grabs. My memories of my interactions with people, with how I've impacted on people's lives and they on mine, are less reliable. Two people's memories of the same event can be entirely different, as I've learned from many discussions with my wife, and given the enthusiasm with which I spent my twenties blasting my poor brain with all manner of intoxicants, I often feel that my grasp on the past is somewhat shakier than it could or should be. I've made a life-time's habit of avoiding photographs, never been much of a one for joining things and have generally been in work whenever anything's happened. As such, I occasionally find myself wondering to what extent I've actually existed.
That said, I do sometimes wonder if I ever actually do want to remember, and that's a different set of worries altogether. The protagonist of The Sense of an Ending thinks he's led a blameless existence, is convinced that he's more sined against than sinning, before discovering that this may not be the case. I'm pretty certain that I haven't led a blameless existence, that my conduct has often been less than exemplary, and I'm not sure I want confirmation of that. Possibly the best thing I can do is slide off further into obscurity, keep my head down, keep my gob shut and allow the forgetting to consume me.
The older I get, the murkier these questions become, why I am who I am, why I've acted the way I have, how the hell I've ended up here; occasionally I get a lead, something that helps towards a fuller picture, occasionally I get the sense that there's something big that I'm missing, something just out of the picture, that the right photo, or letter, or remembered conversation would bring swimming into focus. A number of decisions I've made or reactions I've had seem inexplicable to me now, even if they seemed to make perfect sense at the time, various prejudices and ways of viewing situations which, when examined, evaporate. I suppose my theory is that memory, accurate memory, provides context, and recently I've felt a number of synaptic jolts as something comes back to me. Inexplicable gouts of grief and loss, sudden crises of confidence on the one hand, inexplicable peace and the sense of forgiveness on the other, but, and this is the crucial thing, I have no idea what for. Or if it's for anything at all.
I don't mean to over-egg the pudding, I lead a pleasant, largely turbulence-free existence. I am happier now than I have ever been, but with this safety, this solidity, I am forced to wonder why that hasn't always been the case. Much as the toddler feels free to scream at their parent but is mute around strangers, I feel secure enough in myself to wonder why I felt insecure.
Curious, isn't it? I wouldn't have written this blog post if I hadn't read that book, and yet here it is, blinking happily away on my computer screen waiting for me to hit publish A matter of public record, a document. So maybe there is something to the notion of the art being there when you need it. Not a sense of an ending at all, but a sense of something as yet unexplored, with the attendant promise that there is much more yet to discover.
*Or have I? I've also often felt** that one of the tricks the mind plays upon its;ef is to imagine that one's always held one position on an issue, or always felt the same way about something, which experience tells me is generally not the case.
** Or have I? etc etc
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