Eternal

Eternal by Chris Green

The daily proclamations of doom and gloom and the celebrity indiscretions in the media are getting me down. It seems none of it has anything to do with me. Why do I need to know what they are squabbling about in Parliament if I can do nothing about it? Why does it matter that a gay piano player and his partner have had another baby or that a female pop star has gone into space? Or that a comedian groped a soap star on a reality TV show?

The war reports that are splashed across the front pages every day are hardly life-affirming, either. Should we attack? Will they attack? Should we retaliate? Will they retaliate if we attack? Should we join the ones who are already fighting? If so, which side should we support? Your take on conflicts depends on which media voice you follow, or at least that is the intention. Weapons, we are told, are important to the economy, and weapons require wars. As Orwell pointed out, wars aren’t meant to be won, the state of war needs to be continuous, with periodical adjustment of who the enemy is.

Climate change too features in the broadsheets, primarily because no one seems to want to do a lot to tackle it even though they espouse the opposite. When it comes down to it, the drive for profit is always going to eclipse practical considerations regarding the prospects for future generations. Fake news is streamed continuously as vested interests flex their entrepreneurial muscle to promote their jaundiced points of view. News and advertising are almost indistinguishable.

I wonder what would happen if I stop watching news or current affairs programmes on TV. What if I watch no TV at all and turn off the internet on my devices? If I read no papers and avert my gaze each time I pass a newsagent or find myself in a public space where I might inadvertently be subjected to news media? What awareness would I have about what was happening in the world if I rely on snippets of conversation I might accidentally pick up during the daily round? How much would I miss? Would being out of touch matter?

I resolve to avoid discussions about current affairs with friends and neighbours. Nor will I ask questions about what was going on. As a seenager, retired and living in a rural area, I reason it ought not to be too difficult to avoid the saturation news updates we are subjected to daily. I might miss Facebook a little or experience mild YouTube withdrawal, but I feel I can cope with these. On the whole, my life will be enhanced. I can follow Atman Kamel’s advice and spend more time staring into space. Being here now. Or was that the other fellow?

Shopping presents one of the first major challenges. Supermarkets, general stores, and filling stations also sell newspapers. Watching people plonk their Express or Mail on the belt with their shopping, face up with its screaming headline visible, was one of the irritations in the first place. It is distressing that these people believe the stuff they read in these rags and, come election time, vote accordingly. How is that going to improve anything?

If I leave it until later in the day to do my shopping, there is less chance of seeing the headlines. I take to shopping at four in the afternoon. This, of course, does not stop the rain on the way chatter at the checkout or if they have looked at The Express the fourteen inches of snow at the weekend. It does not stop the racial stereotyping, the casual put-downs of minority groups or the demonising of the youth of today. I am thankful that the checkout operators at Lidl are quicker than most.

My regime also means I need to avoid some of my friends. Roger Burdon is a definite no-no. He talks about little else but the political rough and tumble. He has given me an unremitting blow by blow account of all the recent resignations. Trevor Bailey too is out. He converses about nothing apart from the looming terrorist threat and whether security levels were sufficient. I can’t imagine Trevor staring into space or being here now. Ellie Barnes-Wallis’s obsession with the gay piano player’s burgeoning family suggests I needed to give her a wide berth, too. Once I have written off Phil Moon (neo-liberalist alienation and Russian interference in elections), Stan Lee (hedge funds, tax evasion), Reg Clifford and DeeDee (LGBTIQA+), Rosey Parker (Harry and Meghan, celebrity culture) and I have stopped going to the pub in case conversations touch on current affairs, I am left with no-one to chew the fat with.

Solitude is not scary at all. I have more time to stare into space. Without the constant chatter of others, I am no longer tugged this way and that by rogue thoughts. I begin to appreciate the world around me. I become aware that I had a fabulous array of wild birds in the garden and take in the sweet songs they sing to brighten their day. How could I have not have noticed this before? I watch the clouds float across the sky, mesmerised by their ever-changing patterns. It doesn’t matter that I do not know what the clouds are called. The names we give to things are just names; these have nothing to do with their essence. I feel somehow connected to my surroundings. I talk to the wind. The wind does not know it is called the wind. It just carried on blowing. I wish upon a star, but the star does not know it is called a star. It just carries on reflecting light, as it has always done. Everything seems to be in capricious harmony with everything else. I have a sense that I belong. Is this the essence of now that Atman Kamel talks about? Presence. Sati. The eternal. Is this it? Free from concepts, is my personal history now just another story?

Occasionally, I speculate about how many Facebook notifications might have built up or what my email inbox would look like, but I don’t dwell on it. The electricity has not been cut off, and the water is still running, so presumably the direct debits are still being paid. I resist the temptation to take a peek at my online accounts. The past, as someone famously once wrote, is another country. They do things differently there. Or to put it another way, there is no past and there is no future, there is and can only ever be now.

Of course, when I am out and about, I overhear snatches of conversation, but do my best to shut these out. It will be the same old stuff. Moans and groans about something inconsequential. I catch the anxious looks on people’s faces, but haven’t they always been there? Hasn’t anxiety been the norm for most people? I am not about to be sucked back into their world of doom and gloom. If you take the time to look for it, there will always be something to worry about. Insecurity and dissatisfaction form the backbone of the economic system. Capitalism depends on free-floating neediness. There is always plenty of bad news circulating, most of it manufactured or fake. To justify their existence, it seems to be the politicians’ job to make sure of that at there is always a crisis. The role of the media is to spread concern far and wide.

Retsina seems an unlikely topic for everyone to be talking about. Retsina is an odious wine, probably only palatable to those born in the Attic peninsula and surely of no interest beyond this. Why then is it suddenly the word on everyone’s lips? I have gone into town to get supplies, and the tension is palpable. Anxiety levels are off the scale. On the street and in the shops, there are heated exchanges. People are cursing Retsina. Retsina is the reason phones are dead. Retsina is to blame for the power cuts. Retsina is the reason the shopping arcade is closed. There are no newspapers on the news-stands, so maybe Retsina is behind this too. With each step I take, people’s agitation becomes more vigorous. Panic is setting in. It is mayhem. I can contain myself no longer. Being in the present and being at one with oneself is all very well, but sometimes curiosity cannot be contained. I have to find out what was going on.

If there’s one person I normally try to avoid, it’s Will Mone. But depressing though he can be, Will is a mine of information. Bumping into him on the street, I spot an opportunity to find out what is going on without logging back on. Will is sure to know everything there was to know about Retsina.

‘How on earth can you not know?’ Will says. ‘Everyone’s talking about it. Retsina is the most deadly computer virus yet created. It is rootkit, worm, bot, trojan, multi-purpose all-in-one. In no time at all, it appears to have knocked out all communications worldwide. It’s going to be back to the carrier pigeon and the horse and cart, old buddy.’

Was this a joke? Will didn’t normally do jokes.

‘Then I may have been spared,’ I say. ‘I switched off all my devices a month ago.’

‘It won’t make any difference,’ Will says. ‘Retsina will have found a way to reactivate them and infect them.’

‘So just how bad is it, Will?’ I say.

As soon as I have said it, I realise you ask Will Mone how bad something at your peril.

‘It’s bad!’ he says. ‘Nuclear power stations and automatic guided missile systems will have been affected. There’s probably something heading this way as we speak. We’ve no way of knowing, of course, but this could be the end of civilisation.’

‘That’s not so good,’ I say, trying not to overreact to the dramatic turnaround of our prospects. ‘Tell me, Will. Why is it called Retsina?’

‘It is because it is thought to have originated in Athens,’ he says. ‘As Greece was the birthplace of astronomy, mathematics, engineering, medicine, philosophy, modernity, and all the other shit, it is fitting that it should be involved with the end, don’t you think?’

‘I think it might be best if I leave you there, Will,’ I say. ‘Before the curtain falls.’

So here I am. Is this it? Atman Kamel says there is no past. And no future. There is only now. It will always be now. If he’s right, I don’t need to worry. But just in case, I need to find a quiet corner and get down to some badass omming to contemplate the Eternal.

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