Lessons from the diary

‘Do you keep a diary?” a reader asks. Sorry, I don’t. At least, I don’t keep a diary as such, but if something pops into my head — no sarcasm, please, things do pop into my head once in a while — I jot it down and date it. I suppose that is a kind of diary, isn’t?

Let’s see. Opening a notebook marked 1963, there’s the very topic National Post readers are debating on the letters page this week, showing there’s nothing new under the sun.

“How do you know a fellow isn’t qualified for a certain political office?” was a rhetorical question my father used to ask and answer in the same breath. “Simple. He is running for it.”

As far as Father was concerned, any person who wanted to rule a country, was by definition the wrong person for the job. He never said who the right person would be. He probably doubted if a country could be ruled in the long run. I don’t think he had any illusions about unruly countries, either; he just thought government was a problem with no solution, like many others in the world.

Was he right? Was he wrong? More right than wrong, I’d say, judging by the next item from more than 40 years ago.

The Holocaust Museum was front-page controversy only last week, but the dilemma goes back a long way. “remembering the times you hurt people may make you a better person (I wrote in my diary) but remembering the times people hurt you will only make you a bitter person. That is the problem with anniversaries, remembrance days, monuments, memorials, Holocaust Museums, poppies, prayers, poems and the rest. They tend to make nations bitter, not better.”

Fear of freedom is an old entry, too. For some freedom seems complicated. They believe there are many freedoms that compete, confront and collide. Others think freedom is dangerous, leads to anarchy, and needs to be managed.

Those who say this often offer themselves as managers. “We know all about individual liberty,” they say. “It looks as if butter wouldn’t melt in its mouth, but watch out. Sure, freedom looks innocent now, but it will bite the hand that feeds it. Lucky you have us. Just sign on the dotted line.”

don’t. Just say no. Fearsalesmen aren’t necessarily wrong about freedom, but they’re necessarily wrong about offering themselves as managers. your freedom may need managing, but run a mile from anyone who offers to manage it for you.

Has the press changed much? Hmm. Maybe at liberalism’s high tide, in the days of emile Zola and j’accuse, good media men howled for justice. T hes e days media men (and women) h o wl mainly for blood. A press conference is dracula day at the Ministry of enchantment, where identical zombies in designer shrouds line up to insert microchips into the crania of scandal-seeking missiles masquerading as journalists.

Here’s a more recent entry. A pro-Palestinian group in London gets a warrant for the arrest of visiting Tzipi Livni, then Israel’s opposition leader, for her alleged “war crimes” in relation to Israel’s raid into Gaza. Palestinian mortars and rocket launchers had been firing into Israel for about a year, killing and wounding dozens, before the military invaded to stop them.

We l i ve in interesting times. The depraved feel deprived. Terrorists believe they are entitled to blow you up. If you don’t let them, they take you to court.

Hey, George, are all your diary entries political? They aren’t. Here’s a non-political entry: between the mushroom soup and the fish a noted medical specialist explains that she loves her daughter but doesn’t particularly like her. This isn’t unusual. I expect the daughter reciprocates her mother’s dislike. I’m less certain that she reciprocates her love.

Here’s another: I used to joke that there wasn’t a movie released before 1975 that I hadn’t seen, and there wasn’t one released after 1975 that I had — and it wasn’t entirely a joke.

did something happen to the movies when I turned 40? did something happen to me? both, I suppose. As I was getting older and older, the movies were getting young-

We live in interesting times. The depraved feel deprived. Terrorists believe they are entitled to blow you up. If you don’t let them, they take you to court

er and younger, until we dropped out of each other’s sight almost 40 years ago.

An amateur writer sends me his memoirs. The writing is intelligent, attractive. In all likelihood, so is the man. He describes his milieu accurately — I know, because 70 years ago it used to be my milieu as well. A man of precision and good taste, he doesn’t want to appear subjective or self-indulgent, and therefore meticulously leaves out from his account any personal element that might make it interesting or instructive.

It’s possible to have an uneventful existence in eventful times, I suppose (and vice versa) but why recount one’s uneventful existence in old age? Silly question. It’s when your existence has been uneventful that you feel the need to recount it. After all, who else would bother?

I could feel it, smell it, taste it, touch it, whatever it was. Some dreams are vivid without b e in g memorable. As are some lives.