One of the drivers didn’t show up for work the other morning, it turned out his wife had died the day before; they say he found her when he got home from work. He was always having to take days of work to take her to the hospital or look after her on her bad days; I don’t know what was wrong with her. Whenever he talked about it I sensed it was wearing him down.
Last year he bought a new car with some of the money his wife had inherited, presumably from a parent. All the time I’ve known him he has driven an old beat up little car that was economical on fuel. He was economical with everything; the weekly shopping, holidays, everything. He just tried to live within his means, then, when they came into a bit of money, I think they just allowed themselves one or two overdue treats. Even then he didn’t go overboard; the car he bought was just a newer version of his small, cheap-to-run, old one.
Even though his wife wasn’t in good health, no one was expecting her to just drop dead. Still, their modest windfall must have made life a bit more cheerful for them before she went. He called in work today to see the manager, he doesn’t look very cheerful now.
At school my teachers thought I would never amount to anything. I haven’t seen any of them since I left so they probably don’t know how accurate their predictions were. None of my achievements in life have been more than minor. This has, from time to time, caused me anxiety and dissatisfaction, but not anymore. I’ve found that since I’ve been living on my own I no longer care about achievement, or lack of it. A bit more money would be nice, but it wouldn’t take much more to spare me the usual end of the month juggling.
This made me wonder how many of the ambitions we have are for the sake of other people.
The last few years of my marriage were bad, the last couple were horrendous. Would things have turned out differently if I’d been a better partner? Probably, but I’ll never know for sure. Much of what went wrong was my fault, but how much of it that wasn’t is impossible to say.
I wasn’t meant to share a life with anyone, I think that much is fair to say. Now, living alone, there is certainly something about that that feels right; it seems to be in keeping with what, or who, I am. But there is also something about it that really doesn’t feel right, and, despite much self analysis, I can’t put my finger on what it is. Obviously, it has a lot to do with people, most probably of the opposite sex, but that’s about as much as I can say.
I don’t want to live with someone as half of a couple again; I do know that much, or at least I think I know it. The idea of being part of a couple on a more casual basis, not living together, and maintaining a separate life, wouldn’t seem like a bad option were it not for the fact that I can well see how it might be the thin end of a wedge with a rather dangerous thick end.
I doubt if finding a friend with benefits would be a much less risky option, and, anyway, I don’t think I could be that casual; besides, why take the risk when the benefits aren’t as compelling as they used to be? So, a friend, or friends, without problematic benefits could be the answer, although even getting the dynamics of that right is proving more complicated than I would have imagined.
It cannot be seen or measured and there are no scientific instruments that can observe it. So how do we know we have a soul? Well we’ve been told so, that’s how. But is there anything about the soul that we can work out for ourselves?
Well a soul can’t be the same thing as consciousness because our consciousness can undergo changes that a soul cannot; or at least I presume it cannot. Is a soul susceptible to dementia, or the same kind of changes that the consciousness might face after a brain injury? If so, it seems a depressing thought that the soul could spend eternity in that state. Although I can’t say it with certainty, I’m going to conclude that the soul is not the same thing as consciousness.
Is it safe to assume that consciousness ceases to be after death? Consciousness certainly seems to be very dependent on brain function so it probably is safe to assume that it vanishes when the brain stops functioning. Consciousness, then, must be purely a mortal phenomenon, while the soul, it is said, is immortal. We can now then say that only the soul is subject to anything that might happen after physical death, and that consciousness will not be involved.
But what is the connection between consciousness and soul? Well we know that the soul will be held responsible for the choices we consciously make so our soul must be constantly influencing us, even though we don’t seem to have any insight into its process of doing so. It would seem as though we are merely vehicles being driven by our souls.
When I think about what the entity me actually is, obviously my physical body plays a part in my concept of self identity, but primarily I am thinking of my attitudes and opinions, my likes and dislikes, my emotions and what gives rise them, my memories; my personality and character. Are all these things mirrored in my soul? If so, I can’t imagine what the reason for this duplication might be. In the light of the conclusions I have already come to, I can’t seem to avoid the further conclusion that my soul and I are two separate entities that have an intimate coexistence but will, at some point, go our separate ways. This controlling thing I call the soul may well be accountable for its actions once we have parted company, but, during our coexistence, it seems to consider itself completely unanswerable to me.
While I might not have fully answered the original question, ‘what is a soul’, I have come up with perhaps a more pertinent question; why should I give a toss what happens to it after it has left its mortal coil?
I used to hate going to see the doctor when I was a kid. There were two doctors; they were a married Irish couple and their surgery was a big red brick house, which they lived in. The entrance led into a dingy corridor with a door at the end of it that had a small hatch just big enough for the receptionist’s whole face to be visible. Off to the right was a small waiting room with a dozen or so bright red chairs placed around the wall, in a square.
Above the waiting room door were two red lights, one for each doctor. A button on each of the doctors' desks would activate their individual light and also sound a very loud buzzer, thus summoning in the next patient. You would have to try to memorise all the people who were there before you in order to know when it was your turn. They did upgrade to a system based on numbered lollipop sticks but it was no better as you had no idea what number anyone else had. The waiting room would be completely silent except for an occasional muffled cough from someone desperately trying to suppress it. If people absolutely had to communicate they would do it in a whisper, one decibel higher than miming. I don’t know what it was about waiting rooms in those days that made people terrified of making noise.
Both doctors smoked like chimneys and there was always a smouldering fag in an overflowing ashtray on the desk when you finally got into the consulting room. No matter what ailment you went in with, its diagnosis always required a stethoscope being placed on your chest and back, followed by a brief jotting down of notes. The remedy always seemed to be a bottle of thick, pink, syrupy medicine, which, although very sweet, left a very bitter taste in the mouth.
Going to the doctors is a much more pleasant experience these days, with bright, airy waiting rooms and patients happily chatting away to one another while waiting for their names to be called out. You do have to make an appointment to see a doctor now though, rather than just turn up as and when you feel ill; contrary to what one would expect, that practice only seems to considerably increase the waiting time. I suppose that’s the price of progress; having people just turning up unexpectedly is a very old fashioned way of doing things and, after all, it’s no more than common courtesy to let them know two weeks in advance of when you intend to be sick.
I hardly ever bother with fruit but when I do pick something up at the supermarket it hardly ever encourages me to do it more often. I’ve noticed that more and more supermarket fruit is labelled “ripen at home”, with that particular feature presented as a virtue; whereas, in reality, it is obviously a dodge to save someone along the supply chain the expense of ripening it before it goes on sale.
This wouldn’t be a major problem were it not for the producers inserting some sort of genetic timing mechanism into the fruit that gives the consumer a one hour window of opportunity to eat it between the states of rock hard and fermenting mush.
So this, along with the way they seem to have bred all traces of flavour out of most fruit, is the reason I hardly ever bother with it.
Hmmm, I fancy a banana next Wednesday; so when do I need to purchase one, Well it’s Saturday today so..................
Doing the weekly shopping isn’t one of my favourite things but, luckily, I can make it more bearable by combining it with my hobby of people watching. One conclusion I have reached through my observations is that couples should probably stop going shopping together some time in their early thirties. Young couples usually seem quite cheerful as they wend their way round the store together, but by the time they get to middle age and beyond, they seem to become progressively more miserable. A lot of the couples I see in my age group seem to make the journey from trolly park to till in a cloud of simmering mutual antipathy; with the odd impatient rebuke managing to break the surface every now and then. Quite often just as I am passing. This leaves me with a mixed feeling of amusement and sympathy, not to mention relief when I remember that that used to be me.
There’s a programme on BBC Radio 4 called Last Word, it looks at the famous or notable people who have died in the previous week and gives a short biography of each. It is usually interesting and I always listen to it if I get the chance. What I really look forward to, though, is their end of year programme, which is usually on New Year’s eve, when they invite a panel of people in the know to try and predict which celebrities will die in the coming year. The subsequent end of year show always starts by looking back to see how accurate the predictions were. Sometimes they even manage to get a brief interview with the surviving celebrities, although not many of them, for some reason.
Recently completed research could render the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change a momentous exercise in rushing headlong down a blind alley. In his newly published paper on the chemical constitution and electromagnetic characteristics of the Earth’s upper atmosphere, professor James (Jimmy) Edwards -head of the Spiritual Meteorology Department at Oxford University- reaches a conclusion that could turn much of the World’s mainstream scientific thinking on climate change completely on its head.
While professor Edwards agrees that our upper atmosphere is indeed being negatively affected by so called greenhouse gasses, he asserts they are not the main culprit in global warming. It seems, according to the professor, that the real cause of the World’s changing climate and weather patterns is, in fact, an abundance of human souls trapped in the stratosphere.
With a World population of almost 8 billion there are more people alive today than ever before, but that also means that the number of dying is also at an unprecedented level. It is estimated that the global mortality rate is running somewhere in the region of 55 million per year, and with more than half this number belonging to one of the religions that facilitate the transcendence of the soul -predominantly Christianity and Islam-, we arrive at a situation where about 30 million souls per annum are making their way up into what professor Edwards has unofficially named the ‘purgatorosphere’. A quantity that is simply unsustainable, says the professor.
Although professor Edwards’ claims are being dismissed by many of the World’s climate experts, the UN is taking his findings seriously enough to have appointed a special investigative representative - in the person of Hans Lume, renowned Austrian climatologist- to look into Edwards’ findings and oversee any strategic planning that may be called for. Herr Lume has already informally suggested that some sort of quota system may have to be looked at and it seems likely that all Christian denominations and Muslim sects will be called upon to drastically reduce their soul nurturing activities. He then went on to add that, in the longer term, a truly effective solution to our climate problems would only be achieved through persuading the offending faiths to convert to eco-friendly religions such as Buddhism, where the soul is continually recycled, or the more ancient nature based belief systems where the soul is absorbed back into Mother Earth on its hosts demise.
A spokesman for the International Humanist and Ethical Union commented, “it makes a very welcome and refreshing change for the atheists to be occupying the moral high ground”.
December 2018
Some years ago my wife and I went away for the weekend; my mother stayed at the house and minded the kids while we were away. Not long after we returned we noticed that the inside of our teapot, which was normally tea stained almost black, was now gleaming white. My mother had a tendency to be ‘helpful’ in unwanted ways and we were rather annoyed that she’d cleaned the teapot, as we quite liked it how it was. Some time later, It came out in conversation that there was more to the cleaning of the teapot than we had imagined.
When the subject came up, my mother was all too eager to describe the ingenuity she had demonstrated; her pride in which was apparent in her tone of voice. It was my mother’s practice to soak her false teeth in bleach overnight, and, seeing an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, she cleverly used the teapot as the receptacle in which to do it. By the time we eventually heard this story we had, of course, made numerous cups of tea in that teapot and the implications were very quick to strike us both, but, to our credit, we somehow managed not to let our faces betray our true feelings about her thoughtful deed.
I like avocados, I put them in salads. The trouble is; they are quite expensive and I find that about one in six of the ones I buy is black and mushy, inside. I do examine them thoroughly before I pop them into my trolly but, as yet, haven’t managed to find a way of accurately predicting their internal condition.
I don’t doubt for a minute that the store would immediately replace any inedible ones, with no questions asked, but it’s a fifteen minute drive each way and it really doesn’t seem worth the bother, and I really don’t want to hang on to mangy avocados until the next time I go shopping.
I do my shopping by the scan as you go method, so when I get to the checkout everything is already in my bags and all I have to do is pay for it. This means I only pay for what I have scanned. So, to come to the point, I’ve been wondering if it would be morally acceptable to not scan every sixth avocado that I put in my shopping. I’m sure the store’s position on this would be, no, definitely not, but they would be looking at the situation from an entirely different point of view to me. If they were to allow the practice, everyone would be not scanning half of their shopping on the grounds that there is always a possibility that something might not be up to standard.
My solution to our differing perspectives and the store’s argument against my proposal would be to not tell the store I was doing it. From both a philosophical and practical standpoint, this seems the optimal strategy. My problem would be solved and, by maintaining secrecy, no one else would be encouraged to do the same thing.
I do, of course, realise that a good deal of caution will be necessary in the execution of my plan, as the police tend not to be very imaginative regarding the distinction between creative problem solving and shoplifting.
I turned up at the address with the boiler I was delivering and a man who looked like he was in his late 60s answered the door. He had bright orange lips that glistened and his mouth was hurrying to get rid of the last remnants of whatever he’d been eating. I asked him where he would like me to leave his boiler; whereon he pointed to a door along the hallway and said, “in there, but are you squeamish?”
I’m not particularly squeamish but I was reluctant to commit myself before knowing exactly what I would be encountering behind that door. Before the look of uncertainty had left my face he went on to explain that his wife had recently died and was in the room where he wanted me to put the boiler. Quite a few possible scenarios darted through my mind in the short interval before he revealed that it was merely his wife’s ashes that were residing in the room.
Now if he hadn’t said anything about his late wife being in that room I would have been in and back out again without noticing a thing, other than how untidy the room was. But, knowing she was in there, obviously the first thing I did on entering was to scour the room for her. Even then it took longer than I would have expected to find her. It turned out that she was on a coffee table in a little wooden box, blending in with all the other clutter. I don’t even think I would have realised that it was her had there not been some sort of bereavement card propped against her box.
I put the boiler down in one of the few spaces in the room where it would fit and then went into the kitchen, where I put the delivery note down on the worktop next to the plate covered in baked bean residue, which explained the orange lips, and asked the man to sign it. I couldn’t help noticing how cheerful the man’s demeanour was for someone who had very recently lost his wife. I speculated to myself that perhaps the man’s wife disapproved of baked beans while he rather liked them and his new found freedom to indulge himself more than compensated for his loss.
Just as an incidental observation regarding my squeamishness; I found the remains of the man’s lunch on that sauce smeared plate a lot more off putting than those of his wife.
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