This is ostensibly a photography blog, but as the only platform available to me outside of direct social media I will sometimes bend its use to the sharing of myself at a more personal level. I trust there is value to be found in doing so.

Life has become strange. Staying at home alone for weeks on end, being told in no uncertain terms to remain this way until further notice for the heath of the nation is something I never expected to experience in my life. Most everyone else on the planet would say the same, yet here we are. History is being made. The global Covid 19 pandemic of 2020 will be remembered in ways that will only become clear over the months and years to come. There is fear and uncertainty in the air, so much anxiety and upheaval. But also a quiet excitement stirring in the deeper places within many of us about the possibility of positive change for our society. It’s like the bad case of butterflies the teenager feels before their first kiss,,, Dare we hope? We’ll have to wait and see. We can each do our part. For the moment, I am passing the days largely by myself. Work has ceased. My sons come to stay, then go again. I eat. I sleep. I read. I write. I reflect. I plan. I exercise, take walks, and I think…

I am lucky enough to live in the country so I’m able to walk for miles without any problem in maintaining social distance. Yesterday the only people I saw were a father and his daughter out on their bicycles. The little girl, no more than five or six, was lagging behind and as I passed she called out to her dad - that time honoured phrase of the child “…are we there yet?” The dad and I smiled at each other in silent understanding, and I walked on.

That brief moment sparked the writing of this post.

What is it I wonder, that gives all children that sense of impatience with a journey? And what in turn leads an adult to eventually make peace and realise that the journey itself is often the whole point? It felt like I witnessed a tiny reflection of how we act, both as individuals and as a society at large.

Children, particularly the young ones, are virtually incapable of patience. I suppose it has to do with brain development, but tell a child they have to wait for something they want, and (s)he will struggle. They’re all about outcomes, and always find the journey annoying. Even when out for a simple bike ride the feeling comes… are we there yet? This is fascinating to me. We all go through this stage of life and in theory we grow out of it. But do we? We may learn to enjoy walking for walking’s sake (and annoy our children in the process), but in the wider field of our lives we fight the same battle with impatience. Even in our maturity we still carry with us the tendency to want to arrive, to have the outcome without the process that leads to it. We know all about patience but that doesn’t mean we’re at peace with it all the time. Delayed gratification is hard for us. I am as guilty as the next man. The conditions brought about by this pandemic have compounded an already challenging situation in my life, causing my partner and I to be held apart for many months. Peace under these conditions does not arrive by itself, it must be cultivated. I want nothing more than to get to the part where we can see each other again, and remain together. Meanwhile I must find the joy and opportunity that the time apart is offering. I can do it, but it’s not a walk in the park.

In general this is how we are as individuals, and this is also how we are as a society.

As one of the roots of how we operate, our collective consciousness is inhibited by an unwillingness to take on the hard work of true growth and advancement. Everybody knows we’re not doing very well - that through our pleasure seeking and laziness we have, truly, created for ourselves a poor bed to lie in. But our whole society has an awful time looking at it square in the face. Whenever we try, the unspoken consensus is always to turn away from the daunting task and rest a while longer inside the comfort of our myriad forms of distraction. It’s a part of human nature. Individually driven as we are by our deep internal mechanisms, it plays out on a global level. We rail at our governments and politicians with projected outrage, transferring responsibility to ‘our leaders’, forgetting that each and every one of them is subject to the same patterns of behaviour as ourselves. It is a rare individual that truly embodies the capacity to transcend the poorer base attributes of being human. It is rarer still that such a person has even the desire to aspire to positions of power. Thus it is that the pathways to leadership are left open to those who do wish to tread them - those motivated by material achievement, reputation, avarice and ego, cunningly shrouded in raiments of altruism and service to the greater good. We couldn’t wish for a more exquisite example than right now.

But instead of blaming and finger-pointing we really ought to stop, and realise that doing so is often just another way of deflecting attention outwards and away from ourselves. It’s been said many times before - a society is only as great as the sum of its parts. As long as we persist with the status quo, coasting individually upon the raft of deferred responsibility, taking refuge in the glorious abundance of comfort and delusion we have built for ourselves - tabloid journalism, mindless TV, consumerism, narcissism, schadenfreude, new toys, cake, etc… etc… we cannot honestly expect our society to evolve. The show will continue to run according to the time honoured principles we have grown accustomed to.

If we want change and evolution - to grow out of this time for reflection we’ve unexpectedly been given, I suggest it begins with relationship. Relationship with ourselves crucially, and with those closest to us, our partners and family members.

If we attend deeply to our own inner gardens, root out our blind spots and work to change them, we can align ourselves with a loving awareness of what it is to live more responsibly. We can attain greater harmony for ourselves and those near to us. We should not be fooled into thinking this is a selfish act. It’s my belief that where this takes place and is noticed by others, it causes a ripple effect. Engaging sincerely in personal work, taking responsibility for ourselves and living by example in our own quiet way is an act of love for our society.

This is not a manifesto. Many of us know this already, and I’m under no delusions of grandeur regarding the numbers of my readership here. I am simply moved to share something of my thoughts as the days go by and we wait to regain the many freedoms we took for granted.

Are we there yet? I don’t think so. But I have positive feelings for the profound current of re-evaluation that is in the air.

May we all be well. May we all see clearly our true nature.

Ben x