Purgatory

No one likes being stuck in a most boring place for very long. Thankfully, we are evolved enough as a species not to have to sit around picking fleas off, swatting flies away or fiddling with our private parts in moments of ennui. The enterprising human being has developed coping mechanisms that can be applied in most tedious situations. 

Reading has worked well in many of them - a copy of e.g. Moonfleet secreted within the covers of a bible can help pass many a long hour in church for a kid; Hostage, Raid On Entebbe or Skyjacked make a super way of getting through those idling hours in airport departure lounges; The True Story of Harold Shipman is a boon when stuck in a GP's waiting room; Animals Without Backbones (Vol 1) can prove an indispensable companion on those occasions when polite attendance is required even though all the relatives are snoozing belly-up in armchairs in front of the fire; and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is the ideal title for the reading group that convenes nightly on the New York Subway. 😉

And then, in cases where reading matter is inappropriate or unavailable, firing up the imagination is a decent option. Daydream, fantasize ("She said the man in the gaberdine suit was a spy"); construct an internal dialogue (arguments for and against socialism); make mental lists (all fifty US states in alphabetical order, the name of every boyfriend or girlfriend you've ever had, chronologically); and if silence is not a requirement, recite a poem, sing a song or whistle a little tune ('The Great Escape' is a big favourite).

Where there is insufficient imagination to be fired, simply observing the world go by can be an arresting and rewarding experience for those with sufficient patience for the task. Props occasionally help, like a pound coin superglued to the floor, taking a pet rat, snake or spider on a train journey, or talking to your own reflection in a window (a more theatrical variant of the internal dialogue). These latter carry an advisory warning! 😆

In one respect, it's so much easier not to be bored in these digital days, although conversely the attention-span and boredom threshold appear to be considerably lower in post-millennials. What with the prevalence of  iPads, iPhones, iPods, Nintendos, Playstations and X-boxes, no one need ever have an excuse for being bored anywhere - and to be perfectly honest, I struggle to remember the last time that I was.

Of course, it's different when you're dead...

You'll have gathered there's a decidedly satirical edge to this Saturday's blog. So join me in suspending disbelief in 'the afterlife' and take a closer look at Purgatory. I hope the clever road sign amuses you as much as it did me.

The original Roman Catholic concept of Purgatory was of a temporary station between earth and heaven where the souls of people who had lived good lives went through a purification process - presumably to rid them of all last traces of 'original sin' - before they entered Heaven. Think of it as a final decontamination chamber before stepping forth into Paradise. The notion that all souls went through Purgatory before being routed to either Heaven or the other place is a mistaken one. Bad souls have always gone straight to Hell. 😱

Catholics were very hot on this dogma of Purgatory, which presumably had its root in ancient myths, such as the Greek concept of worthy souls passing through the River Lethe (the river of forgetfulness) before entering Elysium. It was even possible to pay for prayers to be said for the dead to help ease their passage through, a nice little earner for Catholic bishops and priests. Dante devoted a whole third of his 'Divine Comedy' to Purgatory. Other branches of Christianity were less sold on the idea. It fell out of favour with the Eastern Orthodox church in the late middle ages and was never really taken seriously by the various strands of Protestantism, being officially denounced as "the Romish doctrine" by the Anglican Church.

Stripped of its religious connotations, purgatory in modern parlance has come to mean a temporary state of personal difficulty or suffering "of which extreme boredom is but one example".  We asked a hundred people: If Purgatory were a real place, where would you find it? Our survey said (top five answers): Milton Keynes, Britain After Brexit, Tesco Supermarket on a Sunday, the Museum of Brands, any Cricket Ground. 😁 

For a poem this week (another work in progress, because it's been such an exciting footballing Saturday - well played you Seasiders), I'm riffing on that biblical quotation "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."

Boring Unto The Heavens

Bezos and Musk are playing rich man's tag,

first and second wealthiest men on a planet

of one hundred and seventy sovereign states. 

The sum of their fortunes would place them

in the top fifty nations. So Bezos-Muskland,

population two, worth four hundred billion!

Obscene personal wealth that's far in excess

of Earth's poorest fifty countries combined.

 

Points for symmetry though. Their pet hobby

a race into space, these golden fools, dollars

to burn, egos to feed. It's just as well perhaps

that half the world can't read. What sense in

such narcissistic greed, escalation of zeroes

exponentially in that towering treasure pile?

It might as well be wasted on a plan to pass

the proverbial camel through a needle's eye.

Thanks for reading, S ;-)