Fifty years ago at about this time of year in 1964 I went with friend in his mini to Liverpool. It was a
Sunday as I remember it (we missed going to evening service at church!) and we went on the short trip from Preston to the
Liverpool Empire to see the Beatles who were then on top of the world, at the
height of their fame. The swinging sixties were just upon us! We counted
ourselves hugely lucky to get tickets to see the group in their home town - understandably they were like gold dust. We
had only got them because my dad, who was a lorry driver and often carried
loads to and from Liverpool docks obtained
them from a friend of a friend of a friend who worked on the docks. I didn’t
ask too many questions – I know they fell off the back of a lorry or to be more precise were got in some kind of devious exchange for something that “fell off the back
of dad’s lorry”!
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| At the Beatles' concert in Preston in 1963 - together with friends I was there in that mob somewhere |
I had seen the Beatles live once before, about a year
previously when they played at the Preston Public Hall. On both occasions one
could hear very little because of the screaming girls in the audience but they
were both events I will always remember. They sang all their popular songs and
in particular one of my favourites “Listen,
do you want to know a secret?”. The song had been top of the hit parade
earlier in 1964 when it was sung by Billy J Kramer but it was a Lennon/McCartney
song and had first been heard on the early Beatle LP “Please, Please Me” – of which I was a proud owner. I don’t know
what I liked about the song – maybe it was one of the few sung by Beatle George
Harrison. Harrison was possibly the most accomplished musician in the group but
no singer – in fact John Lennon once said they allowed Harrison to sing the
song because it only has three notes and Harrison could only sing three notes!
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| The LP where "Do You want to Know A Secret" was first heard |
I’ve thought about this song, this “blast from the past” in
the past couple of days because of what I have been reading and because of my
personal life at the moment. Let me explain.
I have recently been reading of the sixteenth century French
philosopher and author Michael de Montaigne and the more that I have read the
more I have been both intrigued and impressed by him. Montaigne is regarded by
many as one the fathers of modern philosophy and thought. Prior to Montaigne most philosophical
thought had been built upon the classical Greek ideas of Aristotle or Socrates.
Montaigne’s “philosophy”, filled with anecdotes and observations of what he saw
of the behaviour, attitudes and beliefs of men and women brought a new
perspective. Briefly, where the classical philosopher saw man as a rational
being and one who would (and should) aspire to make decisions on sound rational
reasons, always seeking for higher ideals Montaigne saw things differently. For
him men and women operated in their own world and made decisions and took
action based upon their culture, experiences and personal views which were
often at odds with what others believed and thought. It was a much earthier
philosophy of life and mankind.
Montaigne came from a wealthy French family and lived in a
grand château in the south west of France. As a young man he travelled Europe
and his journeys changed his view of the world and of people. What he saw and
heard convinced him that people were just like him -
full of hopes fears, prejudices, beliefs based upon their upbringing,
influenced by factors outside their control and so on. They were not the rational, sensible people envisaged and idealised by ancient philosophers who always acted in the most objective and best way –no, they had human desires, human failings, often made bad decisions,
they got drunk, broke wind and in many ways were simply one more member of the animal
kingdom, no more, no less. Increasingly he studied and wrote, spending much of
his time in a circular library high in one of the Château's towers. On the
ceiling beams of his library he wrote various comments such as “When good health and a fine sunny day
smile at me I am quite debonair; give me an in-growing toe nail and I am touchy,
bad tempered and inapproachable” – acknowledging himself and others as
individuals with all our faults, warts and all.
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| Michel de Montaigne |
When he was in his mid twenties he met a young poet of a
similar age, Étienne de La Boétie, and they immediately became firm friends.
They would spend huge amounts of time together in intellectual discussion.
During these discussions Montaigne discussed his innermost thoughts and beliefs
and began to formulate his view of the world. Sadly after about four years his
friend died. Montaigne was distraught he had lost his soul mate and confidante and in 1571, he retired from public life
to his so-called "citadel", the library in the chateau tower. He
almost totally isolated himself from every social and family affair. He saw
little of his wife and his surviving daughter (he and his wife had six children
but only one survived to adulthood) and he began work on his Essais ("Essays"),
first published in 1580. As Montaigne wrote, he almost became himself on the
page – he laid bare his innermost thoughts, feelings and beliefs just as he had
done with his friend La Boétie. Essais set out Montaigne’s views, many of them
formed on his journeying round Europe and in his discussions with his friend on
philosophy, mankind, education, psychology and society and his central theme
was that man is not rational, people are individuals, everyone should be valued, there are no set
rules that govern our behaviour or what it should be. Most of Montaigne’s views
were ahead of their time and although they might look dated today in fact they
are virtually all things that we now take for granted.
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| Montaigne's Library Tower |
But there is more and it here that I come to the point of
this blog. Montaigne realised that as he wrote his book he was no longer
expressing his deepest secrets, thoughts, hopes, fears and beliefs in private
to a trusted friend but to the whole world, people he didn’t know and could not
trust – if they cared to read his book. ”Listen” his book is saying,” do you want to know a secret?......I’ll
tell you all mine”! Montaigne was
very aware of this paradox. He wrote, “......many
things I would not tell any individual man I tell to the public and for
knowledge of my most secret thoughts I refer my most loyal friends to a
bookseller’s stall” . Modern philosopher
Alain De Botton ruefully comments on Montaigne’s paradox by saying: “......we
should be grateful for the paradox. Booksellers are the most valuable
destination for the lonely, given the numbers of books that are written because
authors couldn’t find anyone to talk to”.
And as I read all this I was struck to consider how much
more true Montaigne’s comment and paradox is today. When he set his innermost
thoughts down on paper, telling people he did not know and would never meet
things that in other circumstances he would perhaps not even tell his wife he
was still only writing for a very limited audience – few people were literate
in those days and few could afford to buy books so his innermost thoughts maybe
didn’t initially travel very far. But today is so different. Social networking
sites like Twitter and Facebook, blogs like this one, an international media where
people like me write to the editor and have our letters and thoughts published, e-mails that can be sent to huge
numbers of people at the press of a button all combine to ensure that our every
action, thought and deed is instantly available to millions across the world. Of
course the vast majority of comment on social media sites is in the realms of
the banal or the simple reporting of a particular incident in a person’s life
but put all these incidents together or when a person like me in a blog begins
to express our feelings on a subject (say about a particular piece of
government policy) then we are to a greater or lesser degree exposing our inner
self for the world to examine us. And it doesn’t end there – increasingly
people use social media and the media in general to clearly set out their views
or innermost thoughts. We regularly see celebrities announcing on sites like
Facebook or Twitter that they are separating from their husband or wife, we
read of people “coming out” – telling of their previously closely guarded
sexual orientation and just this morning I read the awful story of the young
man who killed his teacher at school in Leeds. At the trial where the young man
was yesterday found guilty it was recorded that he sent a Facebook message on
Christmas Day to say he was going to kill the teacher. The genie, as they say,
is very much out of the bottle – we live in a society were Montaigne’s paradox
has indeed come true.
Anyone who has read my blogs before will undoubtedly have
formed some mental picture of me. I frequently write of my political, social,
personal and educational beliefs for anyone who has the staying power to read my ramblings but in the spirit of Montaigne
and perhaps in recognition of that much loved Beatles’ song and a night at the Liverpool
Empire exactly half a century ago I feel that it is right to go a stage further
by saying:
Listen
Do you want to know a secret
Do you promise not to tell,
Closer
Let me whisper in your ear
Do you want to know a secret
Do you promise not to tell,
Closer
Let me whisper in your ear
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| My slipped disc as revealed by an MRI scan.The offending disc is about four from the bottom and you can see it bulging out like a black cherry and pressing on the spinal nerves |
In saying this is a fairly light hearted way I am not
minimising it – I was, to be truthful, becoming a very dispirited, low and
indeed frightened man. Increasingly easily upset and irritable I felt unable to
shake these worrying thoughts from my mind. And although the news that the
consultant gave me was indeed good news – my situation will hopefully slowly
improve (indeed at the moment my back is much better), an occasional pain
killer will suffice to help matters, walking, swimming will also help – and, if
all else fails, then the consultant will, in the last resort, operate to
rectify the problem, I am still not out of the woods mentally or emotionally.
In short I am suffering a nasty bout of depression/anxiety. Just as with
Montaigne with his in-growing toe nail I
am not a happy chappie!
For most of my life – even from teenage years (or maybe even
before) I have been an anxious person – worrying about the smallest thing.
Situations that others seem to take for granted and are just part of the pattern of
everyday life I can get stressed about. I am, and always have been, a
pessimist, always fearing the worst. In some respects this has been a strength,
I spent my working life being diligent in the extreme to ensure that I did a
“good job” – and was frequently applauded for it. As a teacher I would be in
school very early in the morning to ensure that all was ready, no stone had
been left unturned; my professional planning and administration was immaculate,
my reports always thorough and appreciated. On many occasions I was told that I
was “the most organised person” people knew. But I did all this simply because
it was my way of coping – I had to be on top of things, in control, not found
wanting, I was afraid for it to be otherwise. I would often look at colleagues
and see how they could, on the surface at least, be much more laid back about
things – and I wished I could be the same.
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| Very true, I think |
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| Could have been written for me! |
I have been here
before – the last time when I was struggling with my heart failure - but since
then have managed to keep it in check and control it. If one suffers from
depression or anxiety then although pills might help and certainly my
experience is that counselling or therapy support can be hugely helpful you are never really free of it. It is always
lurking in the background waiting to leap out on you when you least expect it
or when life becomes just that little, bit more stressful , as mine did when my
disc slipped in my back. And this is the frustrating and indeed depressing thing
about it – you cannot control it and it affects you long after the thing that
originally caused it in the first place has disappeared. My back is on the mend
and is certainly manageable – but the effect of the episode on my mental state
are still there and I suspect will remain so for some time. In short, I am
told, my nerves have been shredded.
And one final thought – not about depression or anxiety or
secrets – but following something I mentioned earlier in the blog. I commented
that our UK papers are full of the details from the trial of the young man who
murdered his teacher in Leeds. In Facebook messages last Christmas, he talked
of “brutally killing Maguire” (the
teacher) and spending the rest of his life in jail so he would not have to
worry about life or money. On the day that he did it he showed other school
friends the two knives he had brought to school for the purpose. In other words,
he told other people, friends and via a social networking site any strangers
that cared to read his postings his innermost thoughts, the things that were of most importance and significance to him..............and no-one took it seriously. It was just one more bit of "stuff" on social media instantly read and soon forgotten. Now that really is a paradox, to be given someone’s prized innermost
thoughts and not to meaningfully respond in any way. In my view, it is too, a
worrying reflection upon young people and the cultures and virtual worlds that
they seem to inhabit where innermost secrets and profound information can be
ignored or not recognised as important. Maybe if someone reading Facebook had
taken note of the killer’s innermost thoughts as set out in his Christmas Day
post then a murder might not have been committed and a number of lives not
ruined. It is for me a reminder of the
manner in which the trivialising of life and values can occur in the age of the
virtual world and social networking where nothing is considered in any depth, all is transient and disappears at the press of the delete button. Montaigne would indeed have been perplexed by
that, I think.
Pssst!- listen, do you
want to know a secret!
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