I feel the chill this morning of nearly October

 I feel the chill this morning of nearly October. I reflect on the process of aging. I think of being 62 in April. Mortality and age is a process that affects us in many and varied ways. Some like Tony Benn and Bertrand Russell spot the oceanic and collective tides thatt takes us through the cycle of existence. Others become parodies or is it a pastiche? of our half rememembered experiences we call maturity. Some become ever more aware of our shadow or our Id. Others run from our deeds and our actions and project them on to others.

In the uncertain early morning when we awake restless and concerned with ourselves and those we love we are all prone to denial and darker thoughts. We construct a history of possibilities, a chronology of concern and the fears of what will come as the days shorten and the cold grows. Yet like the shamanic groups of our past we know too that spring will come again. Like Hegel ww learn to look at events and time as a process that endures and changes. The inability at times to see both the light and dark within ourselves is our bughear. I reflect on the classification of us all into distinct typologies imposed upon us by the powerful..

As we age we should see ourselves merging with the pulse of human experience and hope. In Manchester the frightened Tory Gammon sleep through the conference dreaming of a simpler binary world. I read comments from someone describing themselves as left of centre yet defending the arch Blairite Margaret Hodge as almost saintlike. They ignore of course the PFIs and the Iraq war, they ignore the refusal to redistribute wealth and the disappearance of ideology.

Yes as we age it is so easy to deny ourselves, our edges and our blind spots. Yet the antidote to this is to look beyond and build hope for those who are coming next while we find hope for ourselves only then do we refuse mortality and truly live and our prejudices are overcome. We make the moment of now as the one that truly matters. Of course we can sleep through it or take action...a tale of age and decline or a time of the celebration of the collective...we all must decide.