Tony and Barbara Holden ‘resilience’

Well. Tony had bronchitis for a month. Barbara was diagnosed, after an X-ray, with osteoporosis. The back pain is to do with a cracked vertebra. So, more tablets all round! And yet much is good.

But far too many humans (certainly according to the media) persist in bad judgements, hatred, violence (abuse, racism, wars). Meanwhile global warming (hottest May temperature in the UK ever) and very nasty diseases (Ebola and the rest) wait in the wings for their time to enter centre stage.

We notice that there are many people and organisations being positive and creative at every difficult point and every testing issue. They are urging care for each other, developing projects to safeguard the planet and humans, negotiating at every level to check individual violence and end our long-running wars. Some are confronting the misuse and illegal use of power and the ongoing policies of autocrats and dictators.

And, we would say that, insisting that ‘truth matters’ is crucial. As Bernard William’s writes: “There has to be a difference between what things are like if it is true and what things are like if it isn’t [‘Essays and Reviews 1959-2002’ (2014)].”

We know that you weren’t all helped by our quote of Samuel Becket: “fail better.” But we do hope we can encourage each other with this poem’s idea of being ‘resilient.’

Tony Holden poem ‘resilience’

“In psychiatry, ‘resilience’ is a term with a clinical meaning used to describe a person’s ability to cope with stress and trauma. // Much remains unknown about how resilience actually works, but whatever it is, my mother had it.” (Siri Hustvedt ‘Mothers, fathers, and others’ – new essays page 31 – 2021).

Sometimes, you’ve often heard it said,

“Everything is simply too much!”

It’s not only IT, science, the world, change -

Not even being old and ill -

It’s the sheer impress of the other and otherness

With their complexity, wonder, strangeness

Over against {my self agency} - my desire

To survive, be fulfilled, say yes.