A Reflection on Helplessness !

Physical and intellectual overwork brought me to my knees. Exhaustion was utter, total and overwhelming. I was unable even to climb the stairs to bed that Sunday evening. The therapy of physical endeavours, as a contrast to the mental stresses of the week helped only to allow my body and mind to protest, and as I crawled crab-like to the bathroom at dawn, I knew that my brain had taken over from my heart. My world was spinning in a clockwise ellipse, relentlessly pursuing its course around me. Closing my eyes could not shut it out. Retching like a child could not change it; nor could the almighty sweat which drenched me and the floor on which I sat. What was I to do? Nothing …. For probably the second time in my life I was helpless, unable to help myself, only this time I knew it; I understood! 

Labrynthitis is not pleasant. Its disorientation is total. It does not respond to drugs, only to time, and of that I have plenty. Those two skulls, one inside the other which moved at different speeds, one always following the other, make for discomforting life. To lie still is one’s only hope, but patience is a virtue which is not my strength. So to reflect on life and love and work, and on a future? What is there for me now, just a warning that I must or should learn to balance those elements of my life to which I have given so little thought? Firstly there is me, myself and I, a complex character, often hiding from his other self. What of me and my selfishness? Should I continue to work sixty plus hours each week? Should I limit myself to the local maximum of thirty-seven and see the quality of service to the community diminished? Should I challenge my managers to give me the support they have always denied, or close down the service and say, “To hell with those who need advice, those who have potential to change our world for the better?" 

My wife and family I do not write about. That is personal, private, confidential and precious. Why should they devote themselves to this man who is everywhere else too often? Suffice to say, “Thank you!” And so my interests, hobbies, addictions. What value do they have? What place in the history of our world? Am I allowed these selfishnesses, or are they like leaves upon the wind, a passing fad, a mere dot in the history of mankind? Is this how I will end my days building the garden fences even higher to shut out others’ gardens, to protect my passions and prejudice? Shall I soak myself in the history of the family, back to the Brayles of 1200? Why look back, unless it is to inform the future. It is not the names, dates and places of the past which matter but the social history which tells me and us of man’s search for betterment. 

So what shall I do? Return to work with its absence of boundaries, little management and impossible demands, or shall I choose the better path, of reason and reasonableness, and put on my ageing frame only the burdens where I can make a difference … as a teacher. After all, this is my profession, or as a writer of what I do not know. Short stories perhaps. So to the computer, my greatest love, I remain faithful. Armed with my mobile phone, PDA and laptop, I can travel the world knowing that I am never more than a call or text or email away from what I love, and to which and whom I will return. The choice is made. Technology matched with reason will save my life, my health, my life’s work. Thank you one and all for your support and friendship. 

To work at last … there is no other course. But my work is words, communication, trust and challenge, poetry and prose in equal measure, and debate, discussion and argument. There really is no choice. I am who I am. I cannot change the person, just learn to remember who and what I am!