Thoughts from the Jambu Tree

Thoughts from the Jambu Tree (or how to maintain sanity in 2017)

There’s not often you get a distinctly bad year. In recent history some stand out. 1845 saw the start of the Irish potato famine. 1914 and 1939 brought years of war.  1918 was the flu pandemic, 1859 the Chinese famine, 1981 the African drought, 1995 the North Korean famine and floods, 2004 the South Asian tsunami.  2016 was a particularly bad year. I think most people would agree. Perhaps not in the scale of the above so far, but certainly the signs are there. In politics we had Brexit and Donald Trump. Celebrities died in droves  – David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Terry Wogan, Prince, Muhammad Ali, Gene Wilder, Jean Alexander, Ronnie Corbett, Carrie Fisher and her mum and George Michael to name a few.  Terrorists were getting more impactful in the West – the Nice attack, the Istanbul airport attack, the Brussels attack. Natural disasters were making the news – Hurricane Matthew, the Zika virus. The refugee crisis was getting worse every month.  2016 is never going to go down in history as a cheery year. Too many omens point to it continuing.

By December 2016 I had had a number of reactions to this (1) go into hiding – a caravan in the wilds of Scotland with a small dog, an electric heater, lots of good fiction, quality DVDs and a supply of cider  – still a very strong pull; (2) buy a gun or lots of drugs, lock the door, curl into a small ball and end it all – another statistic for 2017; (3) go with the flow, believe Brexit will bring prosperity (especially for Scotland), nod when Sean Spicer, Trump’s White House press secretary, states Hitler did not use chemical weapons, cheer when the US boasts about firing missiles at Syria and dropping the biggest non-nuclear bomb on Afghanistan – that would require a complete brain transplant; (4) embrace the day when the Orwellian 1984 is complete, the Ministry of Truth and Love take over and Newspeak is the new norm – not that far off ; or (5) search for, identify, note down and focus on the things that still make life worth living – even if it may not be for very long. 

For those of you who know me, I am not a renowned optimist. I am, being Scottish, a realist. A cynic and pessimist by default.  Before I resign myself to the caravan in the wilds with the small dog, I have to have a go at number 5. Is it possible to change from a negative pessimist to a positive optimist? Or at least move the dial more from one to the other.  The question often is, “Are you cup half full or cup half empty?’ Being a realist and interested in the concept of and capacity for change (be it personal, institutional, national or global), I claim to be neither. I would rather see myself as the person with the jug of water next to the cup.

When I was about 19 I used to say ‘amazing’ all the time. Everything was ‘amazing’. The park was ‘amazing’, the food was ‘amazing’, the outfit was ‘amazing’, the joke was ‘amazing’. Everything was just ‘amazing’. And I meant it. I was constantly amazed by everything and this was when I was pickling gherkins in a factory in Lubeck in Germany wearing huge blue mechanic style overalls and ginormous green wellies and at one point had the worst ever toothache so there was nothing inherently amazing about my average day! I just had a positive outlook.

Where did that go? How did I become a person who, despite living in one of the most beautiful countries in the world, can only see the black side to everything? What happened? From an external point of view, I have not suffered great hardships, I have my health. I am working, I have a lovely apartment and house. There is no logical reason for me not to be upbeat and if not see everything as amazing, at least see some potential in it. Now you can blame the outside world, you can blame people around you, or you can just accept that you do, as an individual, actually have some power and responsibility to change.

I started this blog in 2012 when I first brought my mum, who has Alzheimer’s, out to Sri Lanka to live with me. It helped me to come to terms with the changes in her and in our relationship and helped me to cope. She is still with me, oblivious to the challenges and complexities in today’s world. She has enough of her own. Her comments though are often hilarious, sound and perceptive, although unconsciously so.  She is still with me and will be drawn on for commentary relevant or not in future blogs. I would like this blog now to help me do (5) and explore  being the person who can fill the cup.