Tuesday, September 09, 2003

All you good good people

There must be a time
Between the well meaning
When the good will come out
And start the healing

You won't know
How well you've played
Until you've won

And if at first you find
You can't imagine
How good can heal
When you've got nothing worth healing

You won't know
How well you're made
Until you're down
And all you have is gone.
Embrace - The good will out

You know, it sounds awfully old-fashioned these days to suggest that good, feeling good, doing good, even wanting there to be goodness is, you know, a good thing. But I do have faith in people, in the goodness that lives in them. I haven't let the times leach that faith away, although gawd knows it takes a battering every day. It needs only awakening - I won't stop believing that. Every now and then, something inspirational is needed to keep the flame burning.
This album did it for me. I was down and approaching extinction when I bought it.
I will never forget rolling across the Deccan plateau on a slow, slow train, maybe an hour after dawn. with my Walkman (all trademarks are blather blather, whatever the right thing to say is when you use a trademark - although my Walkman is actually a Walkman ) shutting out just for an hour the sound of the wheels on the rails (no sound from the others in my carriage but their breathing), and the soft intro of the Good will out piling in... the lilt of the guy's voice... the soaring coda... the sheer heartfulness of it. Gospel for the godless, almost.
A couple of days later I met Mrs Zen in Chennai, our marriage was back on track, and I knew I wasn't wrong to have faith in myself.
Mind you, before you get to thinking that's a disgusting, soppy ending to a disgusting, soppy post, you should know that a week later I ruptured a disc in my back and had a week alone in a sweltering hotel room to reconsider the goodness of life.

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