I woke up this morning around 3am. I was wrestling with the heat. But more than that: I was suddenly aware - somehow - that the world has actually changed. It has changed and it is never going back to what it once was [see photo]. This is a startling realisation when it hits home. For me it delivers a truly bizarre feeling because I have spent my whole life driving changes through institutions, systems, and people's brains.
Why I woke up in fright - not panic - this morning is a total mystery. However there are things which have grounded me in the past that have gone missing from my life. I have taken those things for granted. I have - in some sense - assumed they would always be there. But they are disappearing as if the tide is going out and taking with it all that was sensible, reliable, decent, and moral. I am left looking at the sand with new eyes as I search for any sign of life as I have known it. A crab. A stash of seaweed. A something or other. Is there anything that still makes sense to me and fits in with the life I have lived?
Ahead lies a new tide that will come in with all the energy and vigour of the last. But this tide signals a new time for all of us. This tide brings concrete changes to our stretch of beach. This tide will reshape the sands of time that have become so familiar. This tide will dump heaps of unwanted trash on our sands; but, it will also bring a fresh new glimmer to a beach that has grown old and grown tired.
Richard.
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