Forgive me if I do not start by "goading the guestbook", but with what threatens to be a philosophical discussion on the nature of "Life". This has nothing to do with my recent reacquaintance with our beloved health service. It was prompted by a simple question from my 18 year old son yesterday evening : "Do you believe in life after death?" (Deal with that one if you can, Dad!)
I did not have a considered point of view, so extemporised (as all do parents do when faced with the curve balls our children throw). I do not believe that we continue in a form related to the physical. For example it seems inconceivable and unbearable that my mother (remembered along with Robert’s much-loved mother in the album A Blessing of Tears) still "exists" somewhere and is somehow looking down on me. How terrible would that be. To spend an eternity as a fly-on-the-wall spectator. I might, I went on, believe that we continue in a different way and once again become part of some universal life force...
And then, which is where this diary kicks off, I began to consider what "Life" is. And astonishingly I realised that in all my 53 years (including a philosophy degree from Cambridge), I had never thought about this. What is it that makes something alive? What does it even mean? After we have died, all the same cells may well be present, doctors can artificially pump blood and oxygen, but "life" will not return. Why does a tree that has been alive for centuries suddenly "die"? What is this"death"? Is it just the cells cease to operate in the way they did yesterday?
Yes, it’s true. I call myself educated, but it has taken me 53 years before I really dwelt upon the utter mysteriousness of "Life". I have been privileged to witness the birth of all four of my children (a miraculous, humbling event), and of course each was as astonishing as the last, but I had never before thought how ALL life is astonishing - and, to my frazzled, slightly dizzy mind, simply incomprehensible.
Perhaps more on this once I have delved more deeply into a question that I am ashamed to say I have never asked myself : "What is Life?" (to which I trust I hear a loud chorus of "duh!!").
After that, I can hardly return to the mundane, can I? So answers to Messrs PPmINTY and andyfromoz tomorrow - although I would say to Andy, who questions whether we would tell a guitarist that he is playing too many notes, that I regularly wonder why so many supremely talented musicians make really bad records, while less gifted (technically) musicians make music of a far higher calibre. It sadly seems a universal law that most virtuosi, whether singers or instrumentalists, fall into the trap of "too many notes" (possibly even Mozart for those who have seen Amadeus)
At which point I should stop, lest I fall into the trap of too many words.
"Health is a measure of our wholeness."
