This evening following the Liverpool University Drama Society's production of 'Playhouse Creatures', we went home, drank tea, and discussed the relative responsibility that nature and nurture plays in making you the person you become Our discussion, as all of the best are, was inconclusive. But it did make me think of this poem:
'This Be The Verse'
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.
Philip Larkin
Larkin was clearly a miserable old bastard, but his cynicism rings true.
Life is just one never-ending 'to-do' list, isn't it? I recently started making lists again in an attempt to eradicate that 'things are endless slipping away from me' feeling. Making lists got me thinking, life is a list. We have to go to school-check, go to university-check, get a job, get married, get a mortgage, get a pension. But within each of those categories there are sub-categories, it has to be the right university and the right job, and you have to have the right balance between work and play. What's so strange is that we all have a notion of what is 'right' yet no of us have any idea where this notion comes from. Ultimately, we draw up these standards for ourselves, often far beyond our capabilities, and then wallow in depression when our unrealistic expectations never materialise or work out the way we imagined.
