A single day is enough to make us a little larger or, another time, a little smaller.
― Paul Klee
I miss my uncle, Adrian.
He’s been dead over 25 years.
He was and remains my boyhood hero.
He had it all: the look, the Suzuki 250GT, the Ford Capri, the music, the art (he was a bookbinder — the last of his type) and always a pretty woman on his arm (by all accounts, they loved him).
And if he wasn’t a true hippy — i.e. he didn’t get high on drugs, or not that I know — he sure had the look, including a brilliant kaftan coat and hair almost down to his waist.
But I don’t just miss the love, the look and the languid nature of his style, I miss the whole effing epoch. Sure, it wasn’t around for long and no doubt the meme was quixotic and bound to fail but what’s wrong with love ruling the world or trying to get along or just being kind to one another? (I know I’ve missed a lot out but you get my drift.)
I do wonder, though, why we’ve not seen a return to those days — i.e. something as freewheeling, and less obsessed with me or a hyper-liberal world (I hate the word Woke and refuse to use it)?
Perhaps it’s because that was then and this now; namely, there’s simply too much water under the bridge to return to those slightly vaunted days.
Perhaps it’s because we don’t want to: these times are supposed to be some of the best yet apropos of technology, life expectancy, and our gleeful aspiration to all have the same things.
Or perhaps it’s because we have no storytellers left willing to exalt the magnificence of a world where we all got along, lived a communal life and didn’t see a work-life balance as the apogee of a life well-lived.
What am I trying to say?
I’m not sure but I do still long for a very different world, one not riven with divide, hatred and greed. Am I naive to think we could invent a different way of being? Probably, but then again, I don’t believe, fundamentally, that this is how it was meant to be; and I say that as someone who can, through a deep-seated memory of living with my great-grandparents (born in the 1890s), remember a time when being all you can be etc. wasn’t, as it seems now, the only show in town.
PS. I’ll leave you with a favourite Seasick Steve song of mine. I’ve copied below a few lines from the song. You’ll get my drift . . .
When I was younger
Used to wonder why old folks used to talk about the past
I used to think they was so boring
Now I’ve arrived at last
Anyway, why do you wanna listen to what I got to say at all
Don’t you got nothin’ better to do
Don’t you got nothin’ better to do
Don’t you got nothin’ better to do
Than listen to a man
From another time
Listen to a man from another time
Listen to a man from another time