Letter to Monty 19
Dear Monty,
It was good to see you back on our screen and good to see the garden. You did look a little tired though, I hope you don't mind me saying.
Three days and three ways.
8/3/12
Sometimes I feel as though I am living in a machine, processed. Computers have revolutionised everything but can sometimes make me feel as if I am living less. I interact with my fellow humans less, and listen less because I have to concentrate on inputting information into the machine.
Facebook and Twitter are interesting because they allow us to communicate with so many other people than ever before in our history, but without any personal connection.
The machine monitors everything, from our sins, passions and lusts to which brand of beans we prefer. It can encourage us to act in certain ways by linking like-minded people and provoking action.
The machine can be cruel just as we are cruel - it can be kind just as we are kind...but what is it doing to my soul? If you believe in a soul, or a heart, or a centre to our being that is.
I know that I am finding it harder to tolerate my fellow human beings in the flesh. We seem to have become a people that are impatient with the real world and its inability to deliver instant results. We were once known for our ability to wait patiently in a que!
God give me patience !
9/3/12
This is the day another little bit of me died. A gradual soul-death and its all down to my lack of tolerance...so much for asking for patience yesterday !
Melvyn Bragg analysed the class system of my era in his program tonight. It made me rethink the fact that the things I regard as 'worthy' are in fact all predominantly middle-class preoccupations.
When I think of who attends church for example...in the main it is the middle-class and the language and culture is middle-class. The same is true of gardening; many allotment holders are not the 'underclass' that Bragg discussed but middle-class people remembering their working-class roots.
There are churches where young people from 'troubled' backgrounds attend groups, then the church attempts to mould them into its middle-class values...but they don't fit. God knows I have had the same attitude in the past.
I no longer know who I am. I used to just be a boy from Swansea with no knowledge of anything other than plasticine, Dr Who, drawing, discovering all kinds of insects in the garden, and 'helping' dad, and burying treasure and making maps to find it. Then I started to grow up and in came an undercurrent of lust introduced by my schoolmates who passed around the mags. I remember the strong work ethic of my mam and dad, who on reflection now are not as working-class as I used to think.
Everything becomes history so rapidly...my youth is now history ! I notice how quick new things fade - so we constantly look for the next thing or recycle the past. I suppose it is down to our struggle to live that makes us this way. Life v death.
What is there of any certainty in this life apart from 'death and taxes' ?
10/3/12
Today I wake up with a horrible memory of yesterdays anger and try to bury it under other preoccupations, which just makes it worse...so I have to accept what I am. Then I look out of the kitchen window onto the same view that I see every day, and like Hockney's bigger picture...I see the same garden but because of leaf bud and early light and last years pruning...it all looks so different. 'Behold I make all things new'.
Each day IS new, each season.
Thank you for letting me ramble on .
See you again soon Monty.
Paul.
It was good to see you back on our screen and good to see the garden. You did look a little tired though, I hope you don't mind me saying.
Three days and three ways.
8/3/12
Sometimes I feel as though I am living in a machine, processed. Computers have revolutionised everything but can sometimes make me feel as if I am living less. I interact with my fellow humans less, and listen less because I have to concentrate on inputting information into the machine.
Facebook and Twitter are interesting because they allow us to communicate with so many other people than ever before in our history, but without any personal connection.
The machine monitors everything, from our sins, passions and lusts to which brand of beans we prefer. It can encourage us to act in certain ways by linking like-minded people and provoking action.
The machine can be cruel just as we are cruel - it can be kind just as we are kind...but what is it doing to my soul? If you believe in a soul, or a heart, or a centre to our being that is.
I know that I am finding it harder to tolerate my fellow human beings in the flesh. We seem to have become a people that are impatient with the real world and its inability to deliver instant results. We were once known for our ability to wait patiently in a que!
God give me patience !
9/3/12
This is the day another little bit of me died. A gradual soul-death and its all down to my lack of tolerance...so much for asking for patience yesterday !
Melvyn Bragg analysed the class system of my era in his program tonight. It made me rethink the fact that the things I regard as 'worthy' are in fact all predominantly middle-class preoccupations.
When I think of who attends church for example...in the main it is the middle-class and the language and culture is middle-class. The same is true of gardening; many allotment holders are not the 'underclass' that Bragg discussed but middle-class people remembering their working-class roots.
There are churches where young people from 'troubled' backgrounds attend groups, then the church attempts to mould them into its middle-class values...but they don't fit. God knows I have had the same attitude in the past.
I no longer know who I am. I used to just be a boy from Swansea with no knowledge of anything other than plasticine, Dr Who, drawing, discovering all kinds of insects in the garden, and 'helping' dad, and burying treasure and making maps to find it. Then I started to grow up and in came an undercurrent of lust introduced by my schoolmates who passed around the mags. I remember the strong work ethic of my mam and dad, who on reflection now are not as working-class as I used to think.
Everything becomes history so rapidly...my youth is now history ! I notice how quick new things fade - so we constantly look for the next thing or recycle the past. I suppose it is down to our struggle to live that makes us this way. Life v death.
What is there of any certainty in this life apart from 'death and taxes' ?
10/3/12
Today I wake up with a horrible memory of yesterdays anger and try to bury it under other preoccupations, which just makes it worse...so I have to accept what I am. Then I look out of the kitchen window onto the same view that I see every day, and like Hockney's bigger picture...I see the same garden but because of leaf bud and early light and last years pruning...it all looks so different. 'Behold I make all things new'.
Each day IS new, each season.
Thank you for letting me ramble on .
See you again soon Monty.
Paul.
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