On a personal note ....
"Who's driving that car," I said to no-one in particular, as you do, faced with yet another example of appalling driving behaviour "the dog?" A "Grumpy old man" moment. Is it me or is the world going the dogs?
The other day, "Look down and back," the friend said, "only to see how high you have climbed, how far you have come. Then turn and look up and forward into the sunshine." She says things like that.
I now rarely read The Times, neither online nor in printed versions, since Rupert Murdoch put up a paywall. (And I object to the news this morning about the deal Google's trying to stitch up with the telecoms companies, too.) But I am aware of often a sentence or a thought, written by a journalist whose trade and living it is, prompts a blog post. This is one such. This morning an article in the Independent by Terence Blacker, reviewing the life of Jonathan Miller, "Grumpily is no way to grow old" ends with a ringing statement. And a reminder to me,a personal nudge to work hard at not being a grumpy old man. Well, not all the time, anyway. My sunlit friend would approve of my learning the lesson. I shall quote it in full, with full credit and appreciation to Terence Blacker:
"Do not be hung up on the past. Your greatest triumph, your most shattering disappointment, matters less than what is in the present and the future. The truth is that your contemporaries – for example, the great and good men of the Apostles – may be more solemn and respectable than you are but they are not necessarily leading more worthwhile lives.
Enjoy your successes. Take at least a little pleasure in what you have done or are still doing. No one engaged in creative work feels as appreciated as he should be, but who, in the end, really cares? It is the work that matters. Whingeing about the way it was received makes you, not your critics, seem small and silly.
There are other little lessons. It can get lonely up on Mount Olympus; dismissing others (even journalists) as being intellectually inferior and therefore a waste of time is simply stupid. Not all critics are morons; even the vulgar can be interesting. To be dissatisfied with a life so rich in experience and success is a sort of self-betrayal. By showing a touch of generosity to the outside world, particularly as your grow older, you might just possibly make your world a warmer, more enjoyable place.
