There’s an email group for a couple of dozen of us who were all at school together. It’s been very active over the last 18 months of lockdown and covid-related problems – up from a couple of hundred emails a month to over a couple of thousand, though as lockdowns are released it’s tailibg off again.
This morning, one of my schoolmates (AWK) posted “I’d love to hear what ‘forward-looking’ ideas others have (if any), on a personal, social, maybe global basis”
My response is below. It’s very much a snapshot of how I feel right now, rather than any kind of more general reflection!
“On a personal level, some time ago I came to terms with the fact that my life has reached the “gently winding down” phase. The house I live in was chosen partly because it will be easy to adapt as I get older and more disabled (stairlift keeps being postponed, but will eventually become inevitable, downstairs loo, and so on). I have a garden just large enough to grow a few veg and assorted flowers, which affords me enormous satisfaction and occasional frustration. I’m happy living on my own, and don’t expect to enter another relationship – but if one turns up I wouldn’t object (my Mum got her last boyfriend in her late 60s, a relationship that lasted over 20 years until he died last year, so I suppose it’s not impossible). I pretty much expect to carry on gently declining for the next few years, and don’t really think that I’ve got more than seven or eight years left. But I’m content -even happy – in my present situation.
Socially and globally, I try not to despair. There are causes I fight for, though I don’t expect to “win” in my lifetime. I’ll settle for averting the worst possible outcomes rather than achieving the best! Now that “gay rights” here in the UK has progressed from illegality to broad acceptance over a mere half-century, my efforts – such as they are – have largely switched to climate change issues, and the “social justice” that I think will be a necessary accompaniment. As always, I’m a more behind-the-scenes type than a figurehead, but I have allowed my arm to be twisted to Chair the local Green Party branch. Individual action is all very well (though it often has the side-effect of making the individual horribly self-righteous: there’s a fine line between leading-by-example and being a pestersome bore). What’s needed though, is systemic change,and there are the odd signs of some progress being made, even discounting the flood of “greenwash” and deliberate disinformation put out by vested interests.
The political and humanitarian problems of climate change (desertification and water shortage leading to mass starvation, social unrest and population migration) are becoming apparent, and are things for which I have no answer – I’m afraid that I’ve taken an ostrich attitude as a result.”