Wednesday, July 05, 2006

A picnic in Tintwistle


I did have a most peculiar evening at the end of this very day. Riding home on my bicycle I bumped into an acquaintance just by curious chance.
He suggested that we go and eat and that we do this out in the countryside on the gentle slope of the nearby hills (I might add not in so many words did he make this suggestion.)
I agreed. I was hungry. I live alone.
Now I know for a fact that this is someone whom I share very little. Its fair to describe him as the most selfish individual I have come to know. The other half of someone who is barely half herself that I would describe as a friend to others.
So off he meanders into the local shop to steal some food for us. He steals. He is not ashamed to be selfish and to steal.
And as it goes on I drive deep into the full countryside and find us a pretty evening light in the town of Tintwistle.
We sit, and eat, and talk of his ideals of which I agree with not a single one. And he raises the issue of moral value and the requirements of one over those which surround them. And he believes in the ideal of evolution. That we exist to compete, to beat others. And I argue and say that this is wrong and drink expensive wine.
And it occurs to me that all the time I am eating his food, and listening to his words, and taking joy which is not mine. And who has done the stealing? I haven’t stolen. I have done nothing. I have done plenty wrong, and I believe this to be one of the most lowly wrongs which I have done. And I am sitting now, with a full belly, feeling decidedly sick with myself. So who has wronged 'more'? And what exactly should be done of this?

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