What really matters?

Compared with the life and death issues dominating the news - chiefly Georgia of course - much of my life seems pedantic and peripheral.

I've spent most of today doing 'useful' work for which I am well paid - but is it necessary, leave alone essential? Has the sum of humanity been enhanced? Has it done anything to stretch me, fulfill me or satisfy me?

The only honest answer is 'no'. Yet this is a day that will never repeat. And whatever I have or haven't achieved today, I soon cannot improve on it, as yet another day will turn to greet me.

And that day may turn out to be largely the same.

Why do I put with this? Why do I sit at my desk resolutely refusing to recognise that I'd be far better off as a human being if I spent the afternoon weeding the garden not 'working'?

This evening I'll do probably the only useful thing I will have achieved today - and that is to drive over to Luton to collect my son from the airport, returning after a week in Germany. Unlike me he's spent the week examining conflict resolution. No doubt he has something to say to Georgia and Russia right now.

How do I move beyond my rat race existence?

Part of the answer must lie in a rejection of the system that has entrapped me - wealth accumulating consumerism (also known as poverty inducing exploitation).

Part of the answer must also lie in listening to the young who seem to have an instinctive grasp on reality (like I had once no doubt).

But part of the answer must also lie in the recognition that I am a fallible human being. I can't change that, but perhaps I can instead begin to recognise more forecfully the importance of embracing the spiritual 'other' in everyday life.

Such as valuing the conversation in the street that delays me momentarily from my rush to the shops but saves me for eternity (?) from ceasing to be human.

It is time I started to stop and stare. To be still and know.

Dave Ford