In Your Sights

There's so much aggression in the way ambitious people speak: they 'kill' *a task or a job); they 'slay' (a look or a style); they write 'hit' articles; they 'slaughter' rating, 'shatter' records and 'decimate' to-do lists. It's all very exhausting - these rap sheets, these testimonials and flaunted, much vaunted goals. And to be honest, all the push and shove is rather unappealing, after the blood lust diminishes.

And ambition takes many forms: all the gold medals on the bottles of wine, or the ‘awards’ won by just joining an online club in which every member gives each other awards; the proud display of life, the ‘revenge bodies’ jostling for space. People saying they are the youngest member of this or that club, the runner of the fastest 100 metre race, the quickest draw in the western province, the teacher with the 90% approval rating, the starlet with the whitest teeth, the longest lashes, the arms with the biggest band width - all the people voting themselves the most likely to succeed. 

A 98 year old lady I knew once told me five golden rules for life: 

0. If a person makes improper suggestions to you, leave the place at once. No apology or excuse required. It’s a net. Don’t get enmeshed. You can tell if what is being suggested is improper by the simple phrase: ‘No one will ever know’. 

0. If a person is proud to know you, they will invite you to meet their family or business partners within 48 hours of meeting you. 

0. Anyone who asks a favour from you or solicits your consent to any personal transaction in exchange for money, whether 8 rupees or 8 million rupees, has caught you. Don’t be caught. 

0. Don’t waste other people’s time and don’t let your time be wasted. 

0. Do your best. You can do no more. 

 

This lady had lived through the whole 20th century. Born in the early 1900s, around the time of the sailing of the Titanic, she grew up in a small town in Northern Ireland, drawing water from the well. She lived through the Great Depression in Australia, World War 2, and all the late 60s, 70s and 80s. 

Her son bought her a big screen television when her eyesight started to fail in her 80s. But she said she did not like to see the news reports, there was so much horror in the world today. 

She told people whom she invited to tea that if they said they could only come for half an hour or an hour - and not for a proper visit, and a leisurely exchange of news, views and messages - not to come at all! Because she would lay a proper table, with plates and cutlery and napkins and water glasses, each in their place, and she wanted the occasion to be appropriately respected. 

Each day, she lived circumspectly. Each evening, she washed everything up and put everything away in its place, and each night she would braid her hair in a small, lovely plait and tune into the late-night radio talk shows, where listeners would telephone in with their problems and dilemmas, and she would pray for them. 

There was a purity about those afternoons, that rings clear as a bell through the chaos of life today. Those golden rules help make straight lines and pathways out of the disconcerting webs of people’s deceit and vain glory and rationalizations. The small daily actions which clear the space in your home and your relationships which enable the peace which you long to have, and to hold. 

To me these embodied philosophies were like the writings of Seneca: they taught me how to live simply, and measure life and others accurately, to use the string of moments in each day as well as I could. To do no harm. 

For this is the goal, the focus, the glittering prize: not a trophy or an accolade to affix on the wall of fame; but peace of mind, and happiness. The beauty of line, that we see in a dancer, or a graceful movement of thought and feeling, in art and in expression. Alignment. Correctness. 

I think about this lady when I see the trash and flash and the noisy nothingnesses of life: the pretensions and the human bonfires of the vanities who present themselves on social media and in all their gory glory, talons uppermost, talents in everyone’s face. 

When we got dressed up to go out, in the varying styles of those decades, this lady would tell her granddaughters: ‘oh, there’s some style in the house!’ and she would make sure we all had nice handkerchiefs with us as her mother used to ensure for her, when she was a girl, because they always came in handy. 

The world spins bewilderingly fast, and there is slippage and debris everywhere. But she was steadfast, and that is her enduring and valuable gift to those who knew her. A perspective which helped us see what actually mattered, after the strobe-lit dazzle had inevitably run its course. 

An open heart. Wisdom. Strength. Innocence. Resilience.