my  block

where uzairs roam

I had a lot of train-riding to do yesterday (to and from Wood Green to get the whey, and to and from Osterley for FB), so I decided I would finish Evelyn Waugh’s “Decline and Fall”. It was shaping up to be a decent read, light and funny but nothing outstanding, until the very end, where I found this gem:

“Well, it’s like the big wheel at Luna Park….You pay five francs and go into a room with tiers of seats all round, and in the center the floor is made of a great disc of polished wood that revolves quickly….the nearer you can get to the hub of the wheel the slower it is moving and the easier it is to stay on….Of course at the very center there’s a point completely at rest, if one could only find it. I’m not sure I am not very near that point myself….Lots of people just enjoy scrambling on and being whisked off and scrambling on again. How they all shriek and giggle! Then there are others, like Margot, who sit as far out as they can and hold on for dear life and enjoy that. But the whole point about the wheel is that you needn’t get on it at all, if you don’t want to. People get hold of ideas about life, and that makes them think they’ve got to join in the game, even if they don’t enjoy it. It doesn’t suit everyone.”

“Now you’re a person who was clearly meant to stay in the seats and sit still and if you get bored watch the others. Somehow you got onto the wheel, and you got thrown off again at once with a hard bump. It’s all right for Margot, who can cling on, and for me, at the center, but you’re static. Instead of this absurd division into sexes they ought to class people as static and dynamic.”

It’s delivered by Professor Silenus, who concludes with a breezy dismissal of what he’s just said, “I know of no more utterly boring and futile occupation than generalizing about life”. Apparently, this is actually a conversation Waugh had with the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. I completely agree with the fact that we covet what we don’t have and assume that it is what we want. In the process, we lose sight of the things that we truly do want, or worse, deliberately let them go because we assume that since they aren’t pursued by others, they can’t be worth much.

It reminded me of a recent conversation with AAA-B (I’m starting to confuse myself with all the acronyms now…) where we talked, inevitably, about the purpose of life. We both agreed that maximising one’s own potential and ability is undeniably at the core, and leads to other goals such as serving humanity, etc. I mentioned that, at the same time, I found it admirable how people I’ve met in smaller towns are often perfectly satisfied with the size and pace of their lives, that they don’t covet, and that their goal is to perfect their own lifestyle. It’s a bit abstract, but what I meant is exactly what Professor Silenus says above.

The important point is that being a static personality is not a shortcoming in itself — it’s just different.