Beginnings

You are not going to like this

You're not going to understand

You're not going to be able to appreciate my view .

In short, you're not going to be able to deal with this.

This blog is getting too vanilla.

Read no further. 

Spare yourself. 

Stop. 

Now.

But this has been a week for suicides, hasn't it?

I don't think a week has gone by when I've read of so many. 

Chance probably.

But what we learn about the human condition comes from the reaction to suicide.

The only thing still in the game. The reaction of the living.

When I started this blog half a decade ago, pretty soon after, I included an excerpt from Walter Koenig regarding the suicide of his son. It was one of the few entries if not the only one that I recall. 

(Oh.... I did a poem as well, about the sea which was OK too despite some sloppy scanning in the early verses).

He spoke with passion and emotion and heart. I remember it as though it were yesterday.

I've quoted its message in my own head 1000 times.

"Reach out. Extend a hand".

And I haven't shirked.

I've done it every time I have found an opportunity.

And I have made opportunities where they did not previously exist.

I have implored others, even those in pain,  to do the same because I know that by giving they will receive.

Not riches.

But what they need.

Yesterday, I learned the recent story of the "celebrity barrister" and "Champage socialist" Michael "Moneybags" Mansfield. Google his love of money and you might convince yourself that he is single-handedly responsible for the removal of legal aid for the people who need it. 

It's up to you to decide whether he is smooth, slick and charismatic, or a disgusting, immoral greedy shell of a man, but the sins of the fathers are not the sins of the children.

His TV interview told of his daughter's suicide three months ago.  

Highflyer. Everything to live for. The usual. 

But what's interesting, to me at least, is his interview.

Emotionless. When you had a chance to reach out to people with emotion.

Inarticulate in its solutions. When you had a chance to reach out to people with a new type of articulation.

So he arranges a public talk. Why? It's not time to talk yet. It's time to listen. To learn.

The why, of course, is because that is what he is. 

When you are an E flat you play E flat. 

Even if agony begins with A. 

Medicine has a counterpart to this character.. the crusty arrogant consultant surgeon. I'm not saying it's a fair stereotype, but it's real.

Mansfield chose to wheel out another depressive celebrity, Ruby Wax who talks about little else these days, to illustrate cachet.

Sometimes you have to understand vulnerability by embracing it. And if you present it when you are ready, make sure you do as good a job as you can.

I could go on.

His approach is a missed opportunity. This clinically sterile legal approach might suit the court room.

But the courtroom is not life.

Life is not that stage.

Not today.

When you have a golden opportunity, and all the money and power in the world from a lifetime of big fat bills, you need to look at yourself.

Do it before you go on Newsnight. Take all the time you need.

But if you want to know how it should be done.

Go on Star Trek first.

I know this isn't a competition.

But this matters. 

And there are a lot of ways of getting this wrong.

I've shown you wrong and at the risk of duplication I will show you how to be more effective.

By leaving the final word....

If you don't like my style, that's fine. 

Get angry at me. 

And when you're finished, find a way to help.

This isn't magic.

I can talk with you about that at length if you wish. 

But this isn't it.