To be or not to be?

I’m not ready to die, but I don’t really want to live

What is this life if, full of care,

‘It wasn’t like this when I went to school.’

It has no doubt always been easy for older people to look around and think life is going to hell in a handcart.

My parents wouldn’t have let me do that.

Oi ‘ad ‘oles in me shoes, A deed.

Etc etc

So forgive me for wondering about my children’s future, and their children’s…

A report today says children are getting shorter through malnutrition.

More juvenile obesity and young diabetes.

Porn and misanthropy pours out of social media into young (and older) heads.

Kids kill themselves after reading messages telling them they are fat, or are only good for a screw.

Vaping is starting to kill people, including youngsters. (Who would have guessed?)

WTF is going on?

Poverty stalks the streets.

Pollution destroys the lungs.

Sewage clogs rivers.

People are crippled by interminable, long, suffering waits for healthcare.

But no. Hold on, my friend. All is well. We are a rich country.

We are growing faster than other G7 countries. (Nope)

Employment is high.

More money is going into health, councils, education, transport, than ever before.

Well I don’t buy any of it. We are in a hole of largely our own making.

And it’s a big big hole.

‘And it’s getting bigger all the time’. (Elton John, Blue Moves album. What do I have to do…?)

It’s not just in Blackburn, Lancashire, either. (You know that one.)

I am not ready to die.

I want to paint, and listen to birds, look out at trees and grass and flowers.

I want to see how the grandkids get on.

I want to enjoy lying back on these sunny days, just being. Reading. Snoozing.

No, I’m not ready for death, although I sometimes think it may be approaching.

But I cannot find the optimism you need to live on, into a world that is becoming ‘more and more absurd’. (Elton again)

I just cannot get my head around it all.

I cannot shake out of my mind a picture of malnourished children in decaying buildings, enduring hardship and hunger, with no possible way of escaping, doomed to repeat each miserable day after day.

I wish it would go away.

But when I close my eyes, or open my imagination, it’s just stuck there.

I feel huge guilt and huge hatred for those who have brought us to this.

Is this the fate of all people as they move towards the fall? To look back in pleasure, and forward with fear?