when the future is ours to see (to the people)

ned beatty RIP. people will remember him for deliverance but horsemouth prefers to remember him like this.

'our children will live to see that perfect world'

we approach the solstice. 

'horsemouth never quite knows what to do with long and sunny days. it's one week to the solstice and thereafter the machinery of the heavens goes into reverse (summer iz y goin' out as a friend once put it) and yet we will still be in the bright quarter of the year for another six and a half weeks, not until 13 weeks will we be back at the equinox (and at that time horsemouth should be returning to work and whatever conditions may be under the new dispensation)...'

    - school's out, a horsemouth blogpost from 7 years ago today. 

this was the cyclical nature of horsemouth's time (and yet it is no more). horsemouth hitched his wagon firmly to the stars and let the wheel of the year waltz him round, down the long dark tunnel of work and winter, emerging blinking into the sunshine of the holiday. in doing so horsemouth drove the whole cosmic apparatus.

and yet it is no more. capitalism has profaned the contract with labour. capitalism has rendered all that is solid into air. horsemouth is left high and dry  and at something of a loose end.

when the future is ours to see

'the future's not ours to see' the song que sera sera encourages us to sing along. it encourages an acceptance of the vagaries of the world o fortuna. cheerfully.

when the future is ours to see

then we will be able to change it.

horsemouth is introverted and risk averse. he likes to know what he is doing rather than plan ahead. he is also lazy (so he can't be bothered doing the planning). his strategy in life is a mildly tethered drifting. he has clung to the life raft of work to give his life the appearance of structure. what will he be like without it? 

'we know that it is what remains a half-suspected secret for ourselves that is strongest in us' - ivan turgenev, virgin soil. 

horsemouth is about a third of the way into virgin soil, the populists (the followers of herzen) want to go to the people. but they are city intellectuals. they can't understand the peasants and the peasants can't understand them.  meanwhile there is always the temptation to slip back into roles serving the aristocracy. herzen ends up in exile in london. 

horsemouth also finished off pelevin's the blue lantern (a short story collection which has its moments but it is not as good as amon ra). 

meanwhile in feudal japan lone wolf and cub has finished. the quest to kill the yagyu is over. the network of spies destroyed. horsemouth is a little saddened to wave them goodbye (but in a while he can hunt down and watch the movies). 

horsemouth has made the rent for the fortnight (well he was about £2 short). this was a mixture of work (carried out a while ago), topped up with furlough. both are shortly to end and horsemouth will be doubly free. 

yesterday horsemouth assembled some IKEA shelves. left out by developers from a former show flat. he failed to lift the stack of photography books they'd put out before. the shelves are now in the back garden (there being no room in the house) supporting the many bottles necessary for ian's hedgerow wine project (if he should get round to doing it).