It is a lovely day for late November. Still a warm sun and blue skies. Malta is a good place to chill these days. You do have to wear a mask when outdoors so I’m finding walks less enjoyable. There is a strange suffocating feeling that despite three weeks of practice has yet to shift. But if you sit at an outdoor café with a drink you can take your mask off and breathe in the sun and the sea. This particular café is right on the shore overlooking the sea. Quiet and well away from the busy road. The staff are what they call in Northern Ireland dour but okay. There is zero customer service apart from the wiping of tables between visitors to attempt to make the zone Covid-free. For that I am grateful! But my request for a decaf cappuccino at the counter, no waiter service here, is met with a shoulder shrug that is faintly dismissive. My uncle once described his accommodation on the island as baa – sick (basic) and somehow the pronunciation in a thick Northern Irish accent makes it sound even more rudimentary than just the word on its own. Sometimes changing the order of words can be even more effective than an accent in accentuating the power of a well-used phrase. When I was at school my friend Caroline never used the label ‘litterbug’ to describe those who dropped any litter in her presence. Instead, she would scream at the offender “bugger litter!” This was much more effective and generated a bigger response from the target of her venom.
Mind you I’ve been conscious of how venomous so many exchanges seem to be these days when insulting language has become routine. Watching online content even from news outlets has become unexpectedly abrasive. It seems the world has embraced extremes and whether it is politics, religious or social etiquette there’s been a coarsening that irritates.
Even the mainstream news has invective targeting world leaders, insults traded between opposing political sides, details of sordid sins of the powerful or the perverted or those who manage to be both with equal relish. Major events worthy of a headline are relegated even if that happens to be genocide or famine.
It is as if the media, in general, has become a grotesque Punch and Judy puppet show with sticks being brandished and insults shouted in piercing tones “Oh, no he didn’t! Oh, yes he did!” All the while in the background human suffering around the globe goes unnoticed. Centre stage are these characters that neither inspire nor uplift but leave you feeling vaguely unable to look away and strangely satisfied that you have not sunk to their low-level. When, the show stops, and the puppets are all packed away we are forced to contemplate our own endeavours and feelings. Exactly what value have we accomplished in this day? What are the relationships we have with those around us? Have we, like the puppets, become all show and tell? Fixated on the superficial and befuddled as to priorities?
Some say there is nothing like a pandemic to focus the mind on the real priorities in life. But history tells us that just is not the case. Most major pandemics and plagues were accompanied by tidal waves of ignorant prejudice that meant minorities were targeted as scapegoats. This sickness of “othering” allows anger and despair an easy way to vent. Like the husband angry with his wife who goes outside to kick his dog in frustration. Such inappropriate responses can feel like a maelstrom that carries societies into dangerous waters.
Fortunately, there have always been heroes who held their footing in dangerous tides. They sensed the undisciplined dictates of a frenzied mass and choose a different path.
Some paid for it with their lives like the woman mathematician Hypatia born in the 4th Century AD who was a philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician, living in Alexandria, Egypt, a part of the Eastern Roman Empire. She was a great teacher and a wise counsellor much loved by pagans and Christians alike in the city. Hypatia taught students from all over the Mediterranean at the Alexandrian school which was famous at the time for its philosophy and she lectured on the writings of Plato and Aristotle. Two of the greatest philosophers of the age. Aristotle was Plato’s student and colleague for 20 years at the Academy in Athens. The words of these wise stoics echo down through the centuries and still inspire respect today. What a privilege and illumination it must have been to be educated by someone as brilliant and erudite as Hypatia on their writings.
“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.”
Aristotle
“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”
Plato
She excelled in mathematics and was also an extraordinarily talented astronomer. Early writers recorded that Hypatia was "exceedingly beautiful and fair of form". Unfortunately, in those dark days, there were many who were afraid of the light that Hypatia brought. A mob of religious fanatics attacked Hypatia's carriage as she was travelling home and dragged her into a church where they stripped her naked and murdered her using roof tiles, cutting out her eyeballs before dismembering her. What an incredible loss to society at a time when her abundant skills both intellectual and compassionate were so needed. Fortunately, it is Hypatia who is remembered and appreciated by history, not the mindless zealots that took her life.
People like Hypatia remind us that behind the Punch and Judy show, with which we are all mesmerised, lie many such examples of nobility that resonate within us. They tell of human fortitude and steadfastness in difficulties. I find myself hugging the memory of such people close. They feel a safer lifeline to hold to in dark days. Most of all, because they awaken in us, our desire to accomplish something today and to reach out to those around us with more compassion and awareness. We are all here for a reason not for show. So, before we like the puppets, are put away in a box at the end of the show let’s do and say something worth remembering. In the darkness, we must learn to find the light.
“step out of the darkness into the light and onto this far-extended Path of Truth.
The Báb
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