Tag: friends

Meditation 44

As I sit here beside my candle, watching the steady flame, I am thinking of Marcus Aurelius, the inspiration for this blog. It is wonderful that we are able to read his own ‘Meditations’, which he wrote over 1,800 years ago and in a paperback edition too which is readily available in bookstores or even as a kindle book!

Though they were written in Latin and I have therefore been dependent upon a translator, yet he seems to be very present to me as I read them, as if he is really speaking to me despite the centuries between us. How far the real Marcus is reflected in these pages or how far it is the Marcus he would like the reader to see, I, of course, will never know. But there is an honesty and a genuine humility in his writing that makes me think he is truly present in his words. For one thing, he never mentions his military successes, whereas, for instance, his imperial ancestor, Julius Caesar, wrote extensively and interminably about his in his ‘Gallic Wars’!

I dare to hope that something of my own self is reflected in my own meditations in this blog, that I am present to you the reader through my writing.

During the months of lockdown since March, we have been present to each other in many different ways, thanks to digital technology, and in ways that Marcus could not have dreamt of. I say ‘being present’ because in these dark days, it hasn’t just been a case of contacting friends and family and acquaintances, but it has also involved being present to them as a support and encouragement and to share anxieties which may have meant spending a little more time than usual with them on a call.

There have been so many ways through which we have been present to others, not just the phone or e mail but through texts and group chats, and visually through FaceTime, WhatsApp, Skype and of course the new medium of Zoom.

Video calls on whatever platform have enabled us to see who we are speaking to, which has been so important and a great comfort, as for several long months we weren’t allowed to meet friends or possibly even family because of movement restrictions. Looking at my emails, I think that texts and video calls are replacing the personal e mail to friends and acquaintances. I might be wrong about this – it may be that people just don’t want to write to me anymore!
FaceTime, WhatsApp and Zoom were new to me at the start of lockdown, but as someone who lives alone, they have been another lifeline for me (as well as calls, mails and texts) once I got used to them. In the early months, it was wonderful to be able to have a video call with my family, to see them as well as talk to them and of course my close friends too across the country and across the world.

However I must admit that I found triple conversations and a three way split screen difficult to handle on the small screen of an I phone! The smaller screen made me feel constricted. I am much more comfortable and relaxed with a Zoom call on the wider screen of a laptop. Maybe my big personality is more suited to a wider format! I would certainly have been at home in one of those wide screen epics of years gone by. Perhaps I could have played Marcus Aurelius (as Alec Guinness did in ‘The Fall of the Roman Empire’ and, less successfully, Richard Harris, in ‘Gladiator’).

I have had such a variety of Zoom calls in these recent months, a committee meeting or two, two lectures with the Dickens’ Fellowship (of which I am a member), a series of group meditations and one memorable evening when I spend two hours chatting with my dear friends David and Peter, while we drank our bottles of wine on our respective sofas in our homes across London from eachother. It was digital decadence! However, it does seem rather silly at times: talking to a laptop screen which then talks back to you! It’s like being in an old sci-fi movie without the dramatic and earnest conversations from screen to screen!

In a video call our friends or family are there but not there. They are present to us but not physically present. I must confess to being saddened sometimes when the video call was over, and in a way that I wouldn’t have been if it was an ordinary audio phone call. It is the fact that you can see family or friends (which is wonderful) but they are not really present with you in the room. So when the call is over and you wave and end the call, there can be a sense of loss, an emptiness. A video call can never replace being with that person or persons. Nevertheless, it has been a comfort, indeed a marvel, in these dark months we have been going through.

Another comfort to me has been the streaming of theatre productions online. These have been from the archive of the National Theatre, the Royal Opera and Royal Shakespeare Company. Over the last decade, these companies (and others under the National Theatre umbrella) have streamed live performances to cinemas and a selection of these performances have been streamed in lockdown on BBC I player and YouTube and are therefore quite recent. They have filled quite a few evenings for me and I have been able to catch up on productions I have missed. One advantage of these filmed performances is that the cameras enable you to see the actors close up, which may not be possible from where you are sitting in the theatre.

One of these productions was Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ in a performance from 2019 at the new Bridge Theatre, by Tower Bridge on the Thames. I must admit that having directed the play five times and seen as many if not more productions of this play, I felt a little jaded about it as it started. It turned out to be an exciting, very funny and spectacular immersive theatre experience. The Bridge Theatre is able to change its seating for whatever production and had taken out the stalls seats so audience could stand while the play took place on a series of platforms and also above their heads as there were actors on trapezes above them at times. (‘Oh to do something like this in my school drama studio,’ I thought to myself!) The rest of the audience were seated in the circle on three sides. As is customary at present, there was some gender swapping of roles: Oberon and Titania, King and Queen of the Fairies, swapped lines for instance which created some hilarious situations. But the production was highly detailed and the text was very clear so Shakespeare was well served by this energetic company. Most important of all, it had warmth and was life-affirming and was magical (as all successful productions of this play should be).

I have mentioned in a previous blog (when I discussed seeing Wagner’s Ring Cycle of 4 operas at the Opera House) that a successful theatre performance creates an invisible ring binding the performers and the audience. This production of Shakespeare’s ‘Dream’ created that invisible ring from its first moment until the riotous final curtain call. There were many moments when I too, sitting in my armchair at home, felt part of that ring too. The experience was all embracing. What an achievement for the director Nicholas Hytner and his actors.
But they were only moments. Because I was not physically present in the audience. I certainly wish I had been last summer. As the play was nearing its final act, I began to feel saddened in the midst of the joyous atmosphere of the show. For our theatres are closed and I am missing them. We do not know when they will re-opened or when an immersive production like ‘The Dream’ with actors moving, running and dancing through the audience will happen again.

Much has been touted about Zoom and other platforms being the way forward while coronavirus and the threat of it remains with us and beyond, when we are back to a kind of normal. There has been talk of digital lessons in schools, webinars and digital lectures in university and other educational institutions, digital conferencing etc. In certain situations this may be a way forward. But we must remember that nothing can replace the physical presence of a person. And we cannot let digital communication distance us from eachother and break the bond of our common humanity (which the production I have discussed so potently celebrated). We are social beings which means being physically present to eachother.

There are times on summer days when dark clouds appear and stay there in the sky. It seems as if the sun will never come out again. But it will and does. I am sure we have had those moments in these recent months, when we thought the dark clouds wouldn’t go. Well lockdown is beginning to ease and the sun is peeping through the clouds. We are able to move around more and see more of eachother. I have been able to visit my family in Leeds and friends in the London area too. I have been able to visit an ‘old friend’ the National Gallery (as another friend of mine puts it). But more about these in my next blog.

Ave atque Vale – Hail and Farewell – until 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

The days stretch so far into the evening at present that there is little need for a candle beside me as I write this meditation. Or perhaps I should wait till much later and the dead of night to get into true Marcus mode. I should switch off the lights and let my I pad keyboard be lit by candles or oil lamps or both as Marcus’ own tablet would have been. Indeed, I should not be using an I pad at all, but parchment or vellum and a stylus or quill. Then an army of scribes could copy these words onto individual scrolls and my trusty horsemen cold gallop away into the night to deliver them personally to each of you.

Perhaps it would mean more to you, to receive a scroll personally than to have this meditation pop up in your inbox or on Facebook. Dare I say it, perhaps you would read it more carefully if it were a scroll in your hands. But I am sure, dear readers, that you do read these meditations as reflectively as I write them. I trust that you do and I am honoured that you read them at all.

Isn’t it true though, that our reading skills have declined since digital communication has taken over our daily lives? We are forever skim-reading rather than digesting the information properly. I have noticed this when reading a book. I read too quickly because of my digital reading. Moreover, I do not recall things I have read as well as I used to. You may say, ‘Be realistic: it’s your age!’ That may to some extent be true, but as a medieval monk prophetically observed ‘Whatever finds an easy entrance into the mind is as easily lost.’ Our medieval monk, (William by name) could be referring to skim reading when he writes ‘easy entrance to the mind’ and so the information is ‘easily lost’ because it is not read slowly and therefore understood properly.

But before you could read the scroll with my mediation written on it, you would have to wait for its arrival by horseman. I suppose you have to wait anyway as I do not write these meditations every day. I think it is almost three weeks since the last one.

In these days of texts and e mails, we do not want to wait. We want an instant reply. We are grown so impatient. We expect an almost immediate response to our message or e mail. I certainly do: but then as I am retired I have little else to think about. Perhaps we sometimes mix up texts and e mails in our minds, because an e mail reply usually takes longer to compose than a text. Although it has been pointed out to me that some of my texts are as long as a paragraph in a Victorian novel. I of course make no apology for that. I would rather express myself rather than be compressed.

In these last months of lockdown, our patience has been severely tried. We have had to wait. We have had to wait until we are told it is safe to go out and return to some kind of normality. Whatever we have thought about the government’s decisions, day by day, we have had to go along with them.

Hopefully this waiting game has made us a little more patient, gentle and appreciative of others. Therefore, hopefully we will not be as impatient as we used to be for a reply to our e mail or text! Perhaps we will be more reflective and meditative even. Hopefully it has made us more grateful for our health and for our loved ones and friends and more aware of others in the community and in the world at large. Hopefully, as a nation, we will not forget the lessons we have learnt through experience as we ease ourselves out of lockdown and emerge into the future. This is the fear that several friends have shared with me. I sincerely hope it will not be so.

Then the waiting will have been worthwhile!

Ave atque Vale – Hail and Farewell – until 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