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Wednesday, 19 May 2021

Does it All Come Right in the End?

A short but profoundly philosophical post. 

Ah, vanitas vanitatum, 
Which of us is happy in this life? 
Which of us has our desire, 
Or having it, is gratified? 

This quote looks familiar - indeed - it's the spoken section in Ian Dury & The Blockheads' This is What We Find (from their 1979 album Do It Yourself). It also happens to be the last-but one sentence of William Makepeace Thackeray's 1848 novel, Vanity Fair. Also name-checked by Ian Dury in another song from Do It Yourself, Inbetweenies. ("Oh Vanity Fair, with a capital V").

Back in January - with Covid raging all around my door, with winter's early sunsets, the cold, the darkness and the damp - spring and hope seemed a long way off. I longed for the warmth of spring, long days - and for an end to the fear that has kept us all house-bound for so long.

Now, having had both my jabs (Pfizer - the most effective one) and with cases of Covid in full retreat in Poland (down 88% on the first week of April), things should be should be looking up. 

There were a few days last week culminating in last Thursday when the sun shone all day, just after my second jab; I felt absolutely ecstatic. A readjustment to a new, and longed-for reality - and having had my desire - I was indeed gratified - temporarily. The ecstasy waned, short-lived, this week has proved rainy and overcast.

Things always change, but never resolve. Our destinies - fate or will, our individual narratives - is everything working out the way it should be - or is it all random? 

I think back about my father's final days - was everything resolved for him, or did he die, aware that there were still issues awaiting resolution?


This time last year:

This time two years ago:

This time three years ago:
Heavenly Jeziorki

This time seven years ago:
Why are all the shops shut today? 

This time eight years ago:
Jeziorki at its most beautiful

This time ten years ago:
Useful and useless in my wallet

This time 11 years ago:
In search of the dream klimat - remote viewing made real

This time 12 years ago:
Zakopane to Kraków in 3hrs 45min

This time 13 years ago:
The year's most beautiful day?
at

2 comments:

  1. Jacek Koba23 May 2021 at 09:38

    Just read a story where two elderly ladies sharing a log cabin with not much stimulation by way of news of the world outside check the barometer (the kind I have too, from a supermarket) to learn what weather is heading their way. The barometer always says ‘change’, the variation being that sometimes the needle is on the letter ‘a’ and sometimes on the letter ‘n’. It’s a thought to ponder! My barometer has never got as far storm, rain, or fair and dry. Now, I don’t know about you but I’m living in a world where I want change and don’t want change at the same time all the time, so I wonder if the perverse (German) manufacturer has penetrated the innermost recesses of my psyche by keeping me in a state of permanently changing ignorance?

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  2. Michael Dembinski23 May 2021 at 16:35

    @Jacek Koba

    This is quantum entanglement. The world is changing and not changing at the same time (until the Conscious Observer lifts up the lid and sees which it actually is).

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