As 2023 is now in full swing I thought I would take the opportunity to look back on 2022 and reflect on what it has meant to me. The significant event of last year for me was me leaving a corporate job I was forced to take due to being made redundant during the pandemic. Whilst I did what I could to make the best of a bad situation the experience of working there was very negative. Firstly, because I felt I had been forced into taking the position merely out of economic necessity rather free choice. Secondly, the work itself was very tedious, mundane, and often could have been performed effectively by a twelve year old.
Underneath these feeling there was a further layer of resentment I felt because this situation had in part been caused the actions of the government making a vast swathe of activities illegal during the pandemic which meant my previous employer was unable to make any money. Further, once the furlough scheme was stopped (only to be hastily reinstated a few months later) loosing my job was inevitable. Also, if I had finally taken the leap and quit my job to focus on music full time this would have been equally disastrous. What happened to me and countless others is a example of the problems caused by the state managing society and the economy. For when a government expands to the point were it having to make decisions about what type of life is permitted under the guises of stopping the spread of one virus it is forced to decide whose livelihoods are to be permitted and whose are to be forbidden. In making such a decision it transgresses the bounds of just governance and condemns the victim of such measures to a life of servitude and handouts. Every administrative blunder and every bad decision suddenly does not merely affect the state apparatus itself but the lives of millions of people in drastic and irreversibly.
Further, such unjust interventions show the limitations of representational representative democracy. The emergency powers the government granted itself during the pandemic were as far as I am aware not ever allowed to be scrutinised by the general populace. Further the emergency measures were voted in at lightning speed so that even though they were to later reviewed and dismantled the damage had already been done. An emergency is always the harbinger of the erosion of liberty. Although, life has returned to more or less “normal” in the UK (which makes the lockdown restrictions seem ridiculous with hindsight) who knows when the emergency card will be played again. Although given the scandals surrounding the government breaking the very rules the enforced I don’t think they will be able to get away with the same lie again, they will have to invent some new pretext.
An alternative strategy to combat the virus, namely, shielding vulnerable people and allowing people to make up their own minds as to what to do was not considered for the simple reason that the government must been see to be doing something to justify its existence, no matter how stupid. As most other countries Europe were going into lockdown in harmony (intentionally or unintentionally) with the wishes Chinese Communist Party so the UK had to follow suit. The Corona virus fiasco is vivid demonstration of the problem with a paternalistic state which refuse to allow people to make their own decision about how to live their lives and instead resorts to the heavy-handed of law to enforce its wishes.
On a positive note, the pandemic showed me what was real in my life and what was fake. It showed me the importance of family, and taught me not to take what I have for granted. For the good things in life may be taken away from us at any moment,we must enjoy them whilst we have them. Further , the pandemic brought into to focus the triviality of the things I often worry about on a daily basis, such as: petty domestic disputes or whatever the latest piece of office drama is currently playing out in the trivial stage of nine to five. As someone who has been hospitalised due to respiratory issues there was a possibility I could have been made seriously ill by Covid-19. The thought of my own death brought home to me the transience of life. It is a truism that has been repeated to the point of cliché but it is worth restating: the present moment is all we have. In the present we can take action and change the course of the future, in the present we can examine ourselves and our desires honestly, and in the present we can find joy.
The pandemic took away much from me, my job, the hard won progress I had made in my music career, and my pride but through the stripping away of these external things I was brought closer, in spite of my unwillingness, to God. Catastrophe is not something to be glamorised or sought for its own sake. However, in spite of all the damage such events do to our lives, our banks accounts and our self esteem something of great value can be salvaged from the wreckage of our lives. The destruction of the cocoon that is our external identity allows the light of God to shine through.
I must temper with what I have said with a cautionary message: we speaking of the divine we must do so with humility and an awareness of our human frailty I meet many people who have been convinced they have a direct connection to God who have done terrible things to themselves and others. Whatever pronouncement us fallible human beings may make about God we must be vigilant that we do not turn him into a servant of our own culturally sanctioned whims and prejudices. All I can speak from is my own experience that has been had by many others throughout history but remains peculiarly my own for I can see through my personal set of cultural tropes and predilections. I say this not invalidate my spiritual experiences but rather to show we must handle such insights with care and humility.
There is a problem with looking back at the past and trying to make sense of it which is that our memory only presents us with an edited version of the past. There are many events, nuances, feeling and judgements that do not survive the caprices of memory. So when I look back on 2022 I am only looking back on what my memory has selected. The full reality of 2022 is inaccessible to me. From this realisation can come a certain sadness towards the inevitable process that is the passage of time, which erases so much and only leaves us with fragmentary remains in our memory. However, this inexorable process of forgetting is also a balm that can soothe the pain of the bad experiences of the past. Further, that even on a daily basis we must forget the miscellanea of the previous day when we sleep if we are to retain our sanity.
In closing, I have written this piece to see what I can learn from investigating the past, but ultimately but after every bad experience we must learn to also do the opposite; to look forward.