The light house keeper

Subject: The light house keeper

It's funny how serious we are about our knowledge and understanding of things. As if our insight is anything more than a glance across the landscape in front of us. The assumption is we see and understand so much more than we do when in fact we are blind as moles to what is happening around us and particularly, to us ourselves. We see life as a shortsighted person sees the page of a book, we know there is something interesting, something useful, something we should know but for the life of us we can't bring the page into focus.

Much of life is bland routine, each day a repetition of the last and often driven by someone else's need and our desire to fulfill them. We are tied up in the noise of other people's cries and struggle to find solutions where in fact there are none.

When I was young I used to think the lighthouse keeper, cut off from shore by an angry sea was one of the most romantic jobs possible. His attention closed to only the need of keeping the light burning, accepting the rest was out of his control. He sat eating his food listening to the gale and the sound of the waves crashing on the rocks, his isolation provided both a focus and a blur as incomprehensible nature raged around him.

Carrying this proverbial lighthouse around these days in our head is difficult now they have automated them but the allure is still there, the self contained simplicity, ones actions driven  by night and day with the terrible power of the sea on ones very own doorstep.

When we are so incompetent at dealing with our own troubles it's not credible that we think we shall be any good at understanding anyone else's and yet we have the hubris to think we can. We look for solutions, we ponder our own condition and cast around for answers where often there are none. Isolated in our own lighthouse, we see each other only by the illumination each gives and recognise each other only by the periodic flash of light as the housing rotates around the beam, flash flash blank flash blank message is received and understood purely as identification whilst so much more escapes us.   Everyone has their own code, their own sense of illuminating their presence but if the information we wish to deliver is encrusted with innuendo and allusion, a protective armour against misunderstanding and ridicule, then the lighthouse is only a refuge on a stormy night.