Backs and Books

Backs are funny things, just not in the comedic sense. I have been fortunate enough so far to have only suffered real pain in my back twice, but it was sufficient to allow me to empathise somewhat.

When my back went out one Christmas Eve it taught me a couple of things. One was that since there had been no warning, you really don't know what's around the corner. I bent down and couldn't get up, that was it. It was frustrating because I had to lie in bed or on the sofa but I wasn't really ill, and whilst that wouldn't be a problem for say, Homer Simpson, to me it was one big old annoyance.
Another thing that struck me was how theatrical it all looked. If you told an actor to play at having backache, they would have the exact same way of walking and facial expressions as someone who really is suffering. You wince involuntarily. You hold your back because it feels like it might come apart. You walk as though....well as though you can't walk. And there is sweet Fanny Adams that anyone can do for you, you just have to - well, not exactly ride it out, more shuffle it out.

We are told that backache is the price we pay for walking upright and maybe that's so, but if you're one of those who does suffer, cold comfort. I have a number of friends and family members who suffer with their backs, from the chronic to the about to go into surgery, the pain ranges from debilitating to completely unbearable. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

Books are a different matter, although just as serious. I was watching the news this morning, appalled at a bunch of Iraqi Sunnis riding around in an open-topped car, anger in their faces and holding aloft pictures of Saddam Hussein. It contrasted starkly with the scenes of joy from other Iraqis, and throughout all of these news scenes, I did not see one woman.
I was pondering on the nature of the beast when a new item came up, an American author, Jonathan Littel, has been awarded the Grand Prix du Roman by the Académie Française. It reminded me that sometimes it is easier to experience the soul of a nation through its literature. However much the French irritate the hell out of me from time to time, I have witnessed their soul because I have read so many of their great works of literature. Somehow their authors mitigate their awfulness and it isn't the political commentators who do that, we don't find out about the soul of the French by reading what several of them think of the global stage, it's through their works of fiction.
The people who write and share their opinions about politics and economics are simply people who think they know something, rough cobblers together of wooden frameworks. But the true writers, the storytellers and creators of fiction, are Master craftspeople, literary cabinet makers. By their works shall we know them.

As soon as I saw the headline in the Guardian, 'Philosopher puts religion on the stage', I knew exactly which philosopher it would be.
Yes, it could easily have been Baroness Warnock, but I was sure it would turn out to be Anthony Grayling and lo, it was he.
At some point whilst I was teaching A-Level philosophy, I went on two courses taught by him. In his turn, Anthony Grayling had been taught by Freddie Ayer, so the line continues, well, unless this means that I have to publish something meaningful, which would be a bit of a pain and more or less ruin my day.
Grayling has published, but then most people you are taught by at university level have published something in their own field. But his name keeps cropping up, in the newspapers, on TV and now the stage. What impresses me most however, is his continued commitment to simply teaching philosophy, he still lectures at Birkbeck college, one of the colleges of the University of London.

I kept a slip from a fortune cookie.
'In vain have you acquired knowledge if you have not imparted it to others.'
It doesn't really matter how we do it, by passing it on to our children, by writing, or by teaching, or even through something practical which we make and add to the product of our country. But if I had anything to add to the fortune cookie message, it would be something I learnt from Anthony Grayling, whatever you do, whatever you teach, it must be ethical, passed on in good faith.