Roshan Doug: I’m downing tools for the break
Caveat: don’t read this column if you’re hoping for something good to happen like the characters in Waiting for Godot.
Don’t read this if you’re harassed at work, snowed under with deadlines or your boss is screaming down your neck.
This column will probably do nothing but depress you.
And the reason is today I’ll be breaking up for a few weeks of vacation.
And although I haven’t booked a proper holiday, I’m, nevertheless, rather looking forward to fostering that collision with an insipid state of nirvana – that indifference to duty, routine and responsibility.
From Monday onwards no longer will I have to sit through a series of meetings, or have to complete articles or sift through reams of research. Nor longer will I have to ‘sell’ a proposal, take endless calls or get peeved with people in the underground.
I can simply do as I please.
From next week – and in the words of The Prisoner – I am not a number; I’m a free man! I can wake up when I want, sleep when I want.
And what I see and hear whether in print, radio or television will be taken at face value. It will be viewed from the point of an independent soul, and not from the view of a captive, wrapped up in work, in thought and writing.
I won’t be analysing the contents or weighing up their value thinking ‘how can I put a personal slant around this issue of inflation – now at an all-time high’ – or ‘what anecdotal piece can I write that might engage the readers about the price of petrol or the plight of public sector employees and their proposed pay rise?’ And I won’t be thinking, ‘how can I try and create some empathy for this woman whose canoeing husband went missing years ago only to emerge out of the blue like a forgotten relative who’d been in a coma?’ or, – heaven forbid – illustrate and explain the cause and nature of credit crunch and the failings of a market economy.
No not me – I will be relaxing. At 3 o’clock this afternoon, I’m taking off my opinionated critic hat and replacing it with the humble hat of nonchalance.
For a month or so I’m just simply going to listen to the news and current affairs programmes for the sheer enjoyment and not because they might be useful for a paper or a feature I’m writing.
I’m going to see films and go to the theatre and watch performances and view them not as intellectual thespian exercises but art for art’s sake. No more pandering to artists and media people who say ‘dahling’ during intervals with a glass of chardonnay. Once again theatre and films will become the products, the tools of entertainment not social pretensions.
And this morning, I was thinking – what a wonderful position to be in. And, honestly, even now as I think about it, I can almost sense a glow rising inside me, almost as if I can picture myself unshackling my mind from the drudgery of work and pseudo-academia.
Well, almost.
Because if last year is anything to go by, I also know that all this is just wishful thinking.
The truth is that as much as I’d like to – and as much as any journalist might want to – you can’t shake off your natural instinct to look for inspiration for a poem, a story or an article.
