蜜芽传媒

From Dr Jim Harris, Art Historian:聽
These last few months have been a time for sober reflection. By this, I don鈥檛 mean that I stare mournfully in the mirror every morning wondering why running versus beer is always a win for beer (although I do). Nor do I mean that over the past few months I have always been sober. (I have not.)聽
Rather, I mean that like many people, I have been Taking Stock. And what stock-taking has revealed is that I am a clich茅: a sourdough-baking, fixie-riding, laundry-obsessing, WhatsApping, Zooming, blog-posting, plant-watering, tv-bingeing, South-London-lockdown clich茅. I do not like it.聽 There鈥檚 nothing wrong with sourdough but I have started to feel like a small, shallow, stereotype of myself. And worse, instead of dismissing the thought, as I probably should, I鈥檝e let my self-examination slide towards a rather morose introspection that has me worrying about the kind of person I might actually be, based on my wildly fluctuating mood in these bizarre times: not just a comedy centrist Dad but a moody, self-indulgent, impatient, intolerant, lazy so-and-so.聽
None of this is good. In the Bible, a man named Job subjected himself to a very serious personal audit after being told by his friends that he must have done something wrong for God to be testing him in the way that he did. But Job was not convinced and, after looking carefully at his life, he said this: 鈥業 know I am not what I am thought to be.鈥� It鈥檚 a simple, yet tremendous, statement of self-belief. 鈥業 know I am not what I am thought to be鈥� is a rallying cry for anyone (and I鈥檓 certain I鈥檓 not alone) who has felt diminished and purposeless during lockdown and furlough. It鈥檚 a rallying cry for anyone who has ever been judged unjustly, by others or even by themselves. It鈥檚 a rallying cry for anyone about whom a lie has been told. Job was right.聽聽
We are not what we are thought to be.聽 I believe we are what we know ourselves to be, irrespective of mood, circumstance or the prejudices of others. So next time I confront the centrist Dad in the mirror, I鈥檒l try to look past the sourdough stereotype and see who I really am.聽 After all, there鈥檚 no reason why sober reflection shouldn鈥檛 also be kind.