Who has seen
the videos and photos of the earthquake
and tsunami in Japan, made even worse now
by possible nuclear meltdown, and not
thought: what does anything mean when faced
with such devastation?
Even if
we are presumed
safe, doubts
bubble up,
rattling the foundations on which our daily
lives rest. It's not only physical
certainties which suddenly seem unreal: watching
cars, trains, ships, planes, streets, buildings,
towns and all sophisticated technology -
not to mention people - being swallowed up,
crunched and spat out in bits by the inexorable
advance of a monster wave - but also
the To
Do lists
on my desk, the projects, the things I've
done or am doing seem completely irrelevant,
insubstantial, confronted by such irrefutable
proof of the fragility of all human activity.
You could say that simply facing one's own
mortality gives rise to the same
existential angst. But it's not quite the
same, is it? As long as something remains
after you've gone, there's continuity.
But what if it all goes, on the kind of scale
they're witnessing in Japan right now and
perhaps, in future, even worse? Don't you
wonder: what is the point?
The answer given
by many creative people would
be: the point is the point. You do what you
do because that's who you are and you would
go on doing it even if there is no point
- the meaning is in the doing.
Well...h'm...okay...sort
of. Intellectually I kind of go along with
that but it doesn't satisfy my soul,
if you know what I mean. Or even if you don't
know what I mean. It doesn't satisfy my guts
either, those pesky guts which always demand
other answers, something beyond intellect,
beyond words. Gutsy answers.
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