Don’t just seize the day – repossess it from thieves
CARPE diem! This is a Latin exhortation that calls for us to seize the day. I am writing this on Father’s Day 2017. So far, so good. But I wasn’t awoken this day by the sound of my alarm clock. It was a WhatsApp message that woke me. It was a pre-packed garish techno-confection wishing me a happy Father’s Day.
It had jumped the queue of my children who – hopefully – had intended to seize the day to acknowledge my paternal status.
But they have been beaten to the gong by this usurper, this intruder that had stampeded into the slumberous Sunday morning ambience of my bedroom.
In the space of 17 minutes since waking up, I had been wished “Happy Father’s Day” by at least 29 Whatsappers, with the predictable certainty that others were waiting with fingers poised to press the “send” button.
This is good, I hear you say. Why are you carping (pun intended)? Because I write a weekly column. I do not wave flags. Or torch railway carriages. Or start revolutions. I start conversations.
I try to redefine that which we take for granted. I try to reawaken the fires inside ourselves that make us unique and, which, sadly, we forget to rekindle each day. I try to renew the clichés that stultify the freshness of our conversations.
But all the meaningful things we mean to say to each other have been commodified. We have canned wishes for the days of the week, for the whole spectrum of the human experience.
This includes even the most secret and private thoughts we share with very few people. (Ask Helen and Penny.)
Even our sacred texts have become little techno-sound bites which have colonised our time for meditation. There are instant solutions for everything. And we have become slaves. A quick glance at a ready message and on we go with the hurly-burly of profit-chasing.
Stop for a moment to hold a loved one’s hand and say: “I love you.” Bend down (if you still can) and look into the face of your grandchild and say: “Have a piece of my pancake.”
Do not delegate a humane gesture to the faceless touch screen of your cellphone.
There is no medicine as powerful as the human touch. A gesture is more beautiful than a barbiturate. We have an almanac full of “days” which celebrate aspects of our young and free republic. But we are no longer free. We are enslaved by the “holy days” which have become political holidays.
This has reduced our productivity and justified our polecat status. So don’t seize the day. Take it back from those who have seized it for profit. Take it back for real acts of love. Or for acts of real love. Happy Father’s Day. –actabisher@gmail.com