I wrote this book twenty-two years ago when I was a mere fifty-three. I’m older now, no wiser, and still feel exactly the same.
I called this my anti-novel. It was a diatribe, a record and a stream of consciousness. I love it!
Extract: 53 and imploding
53 and imploding eBook : goodwin, opher: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store
I am a watcher. I spend a lot of my time watching the people around me going about their life and looking for some signs of intelligence, understanding, planning; even a few hints of consciousness might be a novelty. I can make no sense of it. I can see no sense in it. The more I study them, all caught up in their tiny lives, the more they appear like termites in a huge termitarium, building ever more grand mounds, rushing around doing important things earnestly, importantly, frivolously, while a forest fire rushes towards them. I look around at the different mounds and see that they really believe each one will last forever. I look back across a huge flat plain of history littered with mounds that did not last forever. We live in the outer atmosphere of the sun.
I am the watcher. I don’t expect much. Some purpose would be nice, perhaps an aim or two, something to work towards, some greater purpose than self-aggrandisement. After all there’s enough to get your teeth into. We could set about proving Jesus wrong by eradicating poverty. We could make a fool out of Malthus by solving the population problem. We could save all those hundreds of thousands of species destined to die. We could end pollution, solve the energy crisis, transport dilemma, end all wars or simply protect the erosion of our environment. Oh, there’s no end to the possibility and scope that we are presented with. On the face of it we are, of course, doing precisely that. Pompous politicians set out plans to tackle this problem and that, seven-year plans, ten year plans. But I am the watcher. I see the money being siphoned off, the pockets being lined; I see the extravagant life styles as those that purport to be solving the problems set themselves up; I watch the political juggling as they build and protect their power base and defend themselves. One set of politics against another – intrigue – manipulation -dirty tricks – undermining – power struggles – wealth – opulence. Amidst it all the purpose is lost and the problems mount up. Nothing is solved. We act like termites building bigger piles, seizing thrones and gaining followings. In amongst the amassing and gaining the problems go on and we continue to prove fucking Jesus right.
I am fifty-three. I am comfortable and secure. Perhaps that is the problem? I’ve got something to loose. I can see those seconds ticking. I can see them. The ones that have ticked and the ones to be ticked – they have conspired to trap me here.
How the fuck can you be happy?