Tag: David Copperfield

The candle beside me is flickering as I write this new meditation. This is because there is a breeze from my lounge window, which is open as it is still warm this evening. It is one of those long drawn out balmy evenings when twilight seems to stretch out forever and the darkness of night is an afterthought.

When I was a student, I used to love evenings such as this one, when I would slowly wend my way home to my little rented room through the streets of North Oxford, past large walled gardens, the night air heavy with the perfume of foliage in full bloom. Would that I was a student again, ambling aimlessly along those sweet-scented avenues under a sensual indigo sky. But the past is another country. Moreover, I do not want to be young again. But I would rather be somewhere else this evening, in another place.

However, now that I am retired I am free to amble aimlessly again should I so wish. Within the restrictions of the current unprecedented situation of course.

After another week of lockdown, I am beginning to feel ‘cabined, cribbed and confined’ as Macbeth says in Shakespeare’s play. I am sure I am not the only one to be feeling this way at present. Even though the lockdown is easing slightly, we are perhaps still apprehensive about the future and at times ‘cabined, cribbed and confined’ in our own fears. It is the uncertainty about the future and our lack of control over it that is the seed of our unease which leads to a lack of interest in the present and so inertia seeps in. And yet, as I have mentioned before, we have no real control over the future anyway.

These fears and worries are exacerbated by the media frenzy about the virus and mixed messages from our government and medical experts. Perhaps we should take advice from Mark Twain (the creator of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn), who wrote ‘I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which have never happened.’

Feeling ‘cabined, cribbed and confined’ can have the effect of shortening our perspective. It makes us long for wider horizons and breathtaking vistas. No doubt this is one of the reasons why people have dashed to the coast and to national parks despite the lockdown. We are looking for something above and beyond the relentless news which overwhelms us, something more expansive to escape into.

I imagine that is why some people threw themselves into binge-watching box sets of TV dramas when the lockdown began, not just to occupy the time but to be enveloped in an all-consuming storyline. For the same reason, sales of long 19th century novels increased substantially in the first weeks of lockdown: another way of escaping into an expansive narrative. That must be one of the reasons why I reached for ‘David Copperfield’ on my bookshelf and immersed myself in it again. It was comfort reading: a long involved story

that I know but don’t know, as there are always scenes and details that you don’t remember in a long novel. We have needed to escape into another world, whether between the covers of a book or streamed on a screen. It is a way of coping with the fears and frustrations of the moment. To be in another place, even if it is an imaginary one in a fiction.

I doubt Marcus Aurelius would have approved of escaping into a story. The novel didn’t exist when he was alive, let alone movies or television. However, there were the great legends and myths of the gods and goddesses and their dealings with mere mortals. There were also Homer and Virgil’s great epic poems about the legend of Troy which are expansive narratives in themselves. I think he would have looked at them for a message, a moral to help him through the lockdown (as we can do too of course in our own reading).

He would definitely have taken solace in philosophy, and especially the Stoic philosophy which he tried to live up to: to accept and endure. That is what we have to do at present: accept and endure. We can learn from Marcus and the Stoics, then, though it does seem rather a joyless approach. A good story can help us in our endurance, if only to take our mind off things for a while. It might even provide us with a way through.

As I have mentioned previously, Marcus would have used the contemplation of Nature to help him to endure too. As he writes, ‘Nature, all that your seasons bring is fruit to me, all comes from you, exists in you, returns to you.’ He would have gazed at the sky as can we. The sky is its own breathtaking vista (especially as there is so little air traffic at the moment). We do not need to hurry to the seaside or a national park to find it. We can lose ourselves in its immensity by looking up from our garden (however small) or our balcony or window.

Ciaran Frederick, who took the photos of Neilus Aurelius for this website, is an ex-student of mine and is currently studying photography at the South Bank University in London. He has found a different way of escaping to another place: by revisiting places he has been to through his photographs.

He has created a booklet called ‘Dreamland’ as a lockdown project. It comprises landscapes of places he visited in 2016 and 2017 in Iceland, Australia, Ireland and parts of the U.K.. They are places he would like to revisit but of course he can’t at present. Many of the landscapes are bleak and isolated with solitary barns, cottages, dilapidated buildings and stone walls.They remind me of the covers of the ‘concept’ albums of the progressive rock bands I used to love when I was Ciaran’s age!

His aim is to put ‘a positive twist on the depressing feelings of lockdown’. So though the locations and objects reflect the bleak feelings of emptiness in lockdown, inspired by Aerochrome film, he has coloured the images with different shades of blue and pink to

give a sense of calm and excitement. Therefore the forests, plains and overgrown grass and bushes surrounding the objects are varied shades of pink and the skies and waters are different hues of blue and green creating a vibrancy of hope.

Like Ciaran, we need to find our own calm and excitement and hope in the bleak circumstances we are living through. Though we may feel we are living a monochrome existence at the moment, we need rediscover the colours in our life.

Ave atque vale – Hail and Farewell! Till the next blog.

If you are enjoying my blog, and have not already done so, please sign up below to receive notification of each new blog by e mail. Just add your e mail to ‘Follow’ as it pops up!

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A selection of previous meditations is also available in audio form as ‘Meditations of Neiulus Aurelius’ ASMR on YouTube. I would also value any feedback on nzolad53@gmail.com or my Facebook page or Twitter.

Ciaran’s ‘Dreamland booklet can be ordered on http://www.ciaranfrederick.co.uk

Many thanks

Neilus Aurelius

The flame I am gazing at is very steady this evening as I begin to write my meditation. However, now that we have entered the seventh week of the lockdown, my emotions have been far from steady. I take solace that Marcus Aurelius’ emotions weren’t either. From his own ‘Meditations’ it appears that he had a quick temper and could be quite impatient with others. At least he recognised these failings and was unhappy about them. I am sure that writing his meditations in his tent at the close of the day helped him to calm down. Writing this is helping me to calm down too.

Patience has never been my forte either! I am impatient for this lockdown to be over, as is everyone else, I imagine. I also seem to be suffering from inertia now and a lack of focus. I have discovered that inertia is exhausting, more so than intense activity! Everything can be done tomorrow. But then the world is in a hiatus at present. We are all in one long intermission, one long theatre interval. Except that we are not allowed to congregate together in the theatre bar to await Act Two!

Marcus teaches us that one way of coping with this lockdown is to connect with Nature and to exercise our innate powers of contemplation. That has been helpful, I must admit. I should be writing this seated at the table in my garden but the evenings are too chilly at present for that. Also to some extent I have stoically accepted the situation as he would try to do. But I think my stoic acceptance is now wearing thin after all these weeks.

Marcus also tells us to ‘take pleasure in all that is presently yours’, in other words to enjoy the moment. I mentioned in my previous meditation, that this is what Mr Micawber in Charles Dickens’ novel ‘David Copperfield’ is eminently able to do: to enjoy the moment and enjoy the company he is in, despite his continually desperate financial embarrassments. I have succeeded in enjoying the moment myself at times: listening to my music, sitting in my garden, reading and writing, watching movies and tv and streamed filmed theatre performances (especially productions I have missed). Most of all I have enjoyed distance walks in the company of a few friends in the local park and woodland which I have, to my shame, just discovered.

But despite these lovely moments, there is still that lingering unease, which is ever present and which we all feel. It is forever at the back of our minds, or fluttering in the pit of our stomachs. We are anxious for the lockdown to end and most of all for this horrific pandemic to cease. Like Mr Micawber, who was ‘hourly expecting something to turn up’, I am optimistic for the future and am sure this lockdown will end soon. But optimism does not take away that gnawing unease I have mentioned. Nor did it dissolve Mr Micawber’s unease either.

My impatience and unease are of course all wrapped up in the uncertainty of the future. Because of the pandemic, we have all had an acute awareness of the unpredictability of the future forced upon us. Also personally I am cast adrift in the uncharted waters of retirement, having finished finally in February. I do not possess an adventurous spirit (except artistically) so I must confess to being rather perturbed – or in the words of the Rodgers and Hart song, ‘Bewitched, bothered and bewildered’.

But then, we have to admit that the future has always in reality been uncertain. We have been so used to planning our lives because now we can book holidays and other leisure events so quickly and easily in this digital age. And of course our employment has to some extent planned our lives for us too. Yet we begin to think we are in charge of the future, dare I say it, masters of the future. This pandemic and the resultant lockdown have reminded us that we are not.

The young people I have taught and helped have always been aware of this uncertainty as their future steps have depended upon examination grades. This year with GCSE and A level formal exams cancelled, their anxiety is even more acute. Even though now officially this is none of my business and I am no longer involved, I do feel for them.

In my case, my school career has, in a way, been a series of projects leading to productions and fortunately for me, my final project was completed in February, which I count as a blessing. But now the holidays I had planned – to Italy and Paris) – will not take place, nor will several theatre and opera visits. I have come to realise how much I have over planned my own life in recent years in my semi-retirement. I hope that is one lesson I have learnt from these last weeks.

But how should we view the future now, in these days of uncertainty? Should we, like Mr Micawber be optimistic? Yes: or how else will we get through these dark days? Which brings me to another possible approach to this lockdown. So far we have explored the Marcus approach and the Micawber approach, as summarised above. Now I am going to explain the ‘Martin’ approach.

Martin Luther (148-1546) the theologian, priest and father of the Reformation was also originally a monk. Being a good monk he kept a garden and apparently an orchard. The story goes that someone asked him, ‘What will you do if you know that the end of the world is coming soon?’
He replied, ‘I will plant another apple tree.’

In that reply there is not only optimism, but hope. Hope expressed in a positive act.

So I have bought myself an olive tree for my garden. And in a beautiful notebook from Budapest, which a friend gave me, I have made a list of possible plans for my retirement.

I may share these with you in future blogs.

Meanwhile: Be optimistic, or even better, hope. Hope in the future. Do something positive each day.

Above all, stay safe and well!

Ave atque vale – Hail and Farewell! Till the next blog.

If you are enjoying my blog, and have not already done so, please sign up below to receive notification of each new blog by e mail. Just add your e mail to ‘Follow’ as it pops up!
And please do pass on the blog address to others who may be interested.
A selection of previous meditations is also available in audio form as ‘Meditations of Neiulus Aurelius’ ASMR on YouTube. Including a NEW EPISODE.
I would also value any feedback on nzolad53@gmail.com or my Facebook page or Twitter.
Many thanks
Neilus Aurelius

Once again I am seated here beside a candle beginning my meditation. We are still in lockdown. The candle is still burning with a steady and bright flame. However, my own flame and that of some friends I have been speaking with, is flickering a little. This is because we are now into the fourth week of the lockdown and I am feeling a little flat, a little empty (as are my friends). It is not exactly boredom, but something deeper than that. A kind of ennui. And a feeling of ‘When will this end?’

In my last meditation, I suggested how Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher emperor and inspiration for this blog, might approach this lockdown. I imagined that he would try to accept the situation with equanimity in line with his Stoic philosophy. He would encourage us to make the most of the present moment, to connect with Nature and develop our contemplative powers. I called this ‘The Marcus Method.’ Now I am going to explore another possible approach, which might, incidentally help with the feelings I have described in the first paragraph.

I have recently been re-reading ‘David Copperfield’ by Charles Dickens. One of my retirement aims is to work my way through Dickens’ novels. At least those I haven’t already read, studied or dramatised! But, as I am ever one to be distracted from my aim, I decided to re-read’ Copperfield’ first. In January I saw the new film of the novel by Armando Iannucci, which was very entertaining and which made me want to go back to the original (as the film was a rather superficial reading of the novel in my opinion).

One of the characters in the story is Wilkins Micawber. When David is a boy, he is sent to London by his cruel stepfather, Mr Murdstone, and put to work in a wine bottling factory (which Murdstone partly owns). He lodges with the Micawber family, though usually has to find his own meals. The Micawbers are constantly in debt and avoiding their creditors or putting valuables into pawnbrokers’ shops to get ready cash. David helps them on several occasions.

‘David Copperfield’ is Dickens’ most autobiographical novel and Mr Micawber is based on Dickens’ own father, John Dickens. In real life Dickens worked as a boy in a boot blacking (boot polish) factory putting labels on the jars. This was because his father, like dear Wilkins Micawber, was constantly in debt and money was urgently needed. The Dickens family moved house on numerous occasions because of their constant flimsy financial situation when Charles was a boy (as do the Micawbers in the course of the story). In fact John Dickens, like Micawber was in the debtor’s prison for a while in the Marshalsea near London Bridge and Dickens, like young David, visited him there. The Marshalsea and its inhabitants are the centre of a later novel, ‘Little Dorrit.’

This was the most traumatic time for Dickens and he kept this period of his life secret except to his close friend, John Forster, who had permission to include it in his biography of Dickens after his death. Whenever Dickens strolled near the site of the blacking factory (by Hungerford Stairs, near what is now Charing Cross railway station) he would walk on the other side of the road or avoid it completely. But he did eventually find the courage to face his trauma by putting it into a novel.

Despite all that Dickens’ father put him through as a boy, his fictional alter-ego Mr. Micawber is affectionately drawn and appears as a larger than life and entertaining character. In a way he is a kind of philosopher himself, forever making long speeches and writing long, verbose letters (often of the begging variety). In total contrast to Marcus, he is a highly theatrical philosopher. His expounds his philosophy of happiness to the boy David:

“Annual income twenty pounds: annual expenditure nineteen pounds, nineteen shillings and six pence, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds: annual expenditure twenty pounds, nought and six, result misery.”

From these words you will probably notice the contrast between Marcus and Micawber: Marcus tried to live out his philosophy, whereas Micawber makes little attempt at all.

Sometimes he expresses his despair. ‘In short I am forever floored,’ he says. And yet, he is also the eternal optimist. Though he is forever unemployed, forever selling his possessions or pawning them and forever having to avoid his creditors (by literally running away, assuming false names and decamping his family) he is always ‘hourly expecting that something will turn up’ to alleviate his disastrous financial affairs. And after several appearances in the story, he eventually does get a regular post in a law firm in Canterbury and is the one who unmasks the devious Uriah Heap near the end of the novel.

Through all these trials and tribulations the family somehow stay together for as Mrs Micawber frequently says: ‘I never will desert Mr Micawber!’ One minute Micawber is very low and will weep because of his misery and then the next he is dancing a sailor’s hornpipe or, red-faced, preparing his special hot wine punch.

At the moment, in this lockdown, we are experiencing the mixed emotions that the Micawbers feel as a result of a very different crisis to theirs. We may feel unsettled, uneasy and even low and depressed every now and then and then cheer ourselves up with music or binge TV or other online entertainment. Because of social media, even though we are physically in isolation, despite distances, we are able to cheer each other up with messages, video calls and we can even have parties and games together online.

In the novel, the Micawbers, because of their precarious finances, make the most of the moment. They enjoy themselves in the moment as should we. And they enjoy their family and whoever else is with them in the moment, as should we (whether they are physically or virtually present in that moment). This is another way of ‘taking pleasure in all that is presently yours’ as Marcus urges us to do.

Enjoy the moment, enjoy each other’s company (physically present or through social media). And, like Wilkins Micawber, be optimistic for the future, that this lockdown and, more importantly, this most horrific pandemic will soon end. I would call this ‘The Micawber Method’ to surviving the lockdown. I will explore another method in my next blog.

Stay safe and well dear readers!

Ave atque vale – Hail and Farewell! Till the next blog.

If you are enjoying my blog, and have not already done so, please sign up below to receive notification of each new blog by e mail. Just add your e mail to ‘Follow’ as it pops up!

And please do pass on the blog address to others who may be interested.

A selection of previous meditations is also available in audio form as ‘Meditations of Neiulus Aurelius’ ASMR on YouTube.

I would also value any feedback on nzolad53@gmail.com or my Facebook page or Twitter.

Many thanks
Neilus Aurelius