Calton Younger

Anthozoa, a photo by Joel Carnat on Flickr.

'A prisoner of war, historian, author, artist and trustee of charitable foundations, Calton died at the age of 92 [1.1.2014] with several projects still under way.'

'Despite his young life being brutally intruded upon, Calton Younger was defined by his generosity of spirit and his tireless labour  ... his commitment to freeing those oppressed by circumstance.'

'Though, with characteristic humility, Calton is almost a minor character in his memoir of his POW days, his observation in it that some prisoners triumphed 'if for no other reason because they were cheerful, unembittered men' after years in camps, could aptly be applied to him.'

'In hut 40 (of Stalag Luft III)', Calton wrote, 'camaraderie grew slowly, but with great certainty, as coral is built; men drew upon qualitites which were innate but never before needed to the same degree, and the tiny skeletons of ephemeral kindnesses created a structure of unyielding tolerance.'

Calton wrote in his memoir that 'from POW experiences, I learned much and I do not regret those years. Yet it was a very long time before I conquered a restless preoccupation with the past and found what I was searching for ... '

from Obituary by Karen Harbutt, 2014, 'Former prisoner of war who worked for the less fortunate', The Age, 5 February, p. 42
http://www.watoday.com.au/comment/obituaries/former-prisoner-of-war-who-worked-for-the-less-fortunate-20140204-31zfr.html 
 

 

meaning

catch 'er, a photo by jenny downing on Flickr.

'No matter how ruined man and his world may seem to be, and no matter how terrible man's despair may become, as long as he continues to be a man his very humanity continues to tell him that life has a meaning.

That, indeed, is one reason why man tends to rebel against himself. If he could without effort see what the meaning of life is, and if he could fulfill his ultimate purpose without trouble, he would never question the fact that life is well worth living. Or if he saw at once that life had no purpose and no meaning, the question would never arise. In either case, man would not be capable of finding himself so much of a problem.

Our life, as individual persons and as members of a perplexed and struggling race, provokes us with the evidence that it must have meaning. Part of the meaning still escapes us. Yet our purpose in life is to discover this meaning, and live according to it. We have, therefore, something to live for. The process of living, of growing up, and becoming a person, is precisely the gradually increasing awareness of what that something is. This is a difficult task, for many reasons.

First of all, although men have a common destiny, each individual also has to work out his own personal salvation for himself in fear and trembling. We can help one another to find out the meaning of life, no doubt. But in the last analysis the individual person is responsible for living his own life and for "finding himself". If he persists in shifting this responsibility to somebody else, he fails to find out the meaning of his own existence. You cannot tell me who I am, and I cannot tell you who you are. If you do not know your own identity, who is going to identify you? Others can give you a name or a number, but they can never tell you who you really are. That is something you yourself can only discover from within.'

Thomas Merton, 1955, No Man Is An Island, Hollis & Carter, London.  

Sorrow

'Fernando Pessoa'- Richard Serra Exhibition, Gagosian Gallery London, a photo by Loz Flowers on Flickr.

Serra Fernando Pessoa 

'One of the unexpectedly important things that art can do for us is teach us how to suffer more successfully. Consider Richard Serra's Fernando Pessoa. It is encouraging a profound engagement with sadness. The outward chatter of society is typically cheerful and upbeat ... But Serra's work does not deny our troubles; it doesn't tell us to cheer up. It tells us that sorrow is written into the contract of life. The large scale and overtly monumental character of the work constitute a declaration of the normality of sorrow ...

More importantly, Serra's work presents sorrow in a dignified way ...

In effect, it says, "When you feel sad, you are participating in a venerable experience, to which I, this monument, am dedicated. Your sense of loss and disappointment, of frustrated hopes and grief at your own inadequacy, elevate you to serious company. Do not ignore or throw away your grief."

...

Many sad things become worse because we feel we are alone in suffering them. We experience our trouble as a curse, or as revealing our wicked, depraved character. So our suffering has no dignity; it seems due only to our freakish nature. We need help in finding honour in some of our worst experience, and art is there to lend them a social expression.'

p. 26

Alain de Botton, John Armstrong

Art as Therapy

The School of Life

http://alaindebotton.com/ 

 
 

Art as Therapy

'Cheerfulness is an achievement, and hope is something to celebrate. 

If optimism is important, it’s because many outcomes are determined by how much of it we bring to the task. It is an important ingredient of success.

This flies in the face of the elite view that talent is the primary requirement of a good life, but in many cases the difference between success and failure is determined by nothing more than our sense of what is possible and the energy we can muster to convince others of our due. We might be doomed not by a lack of skill, but by an absence of hope. 

Today’s problems are rarely created by people taking too sunny a view of things; it is because the troubles of the world are so continually brought to our attention that we need tools that can preserve our hopeful dispositions.'

p. 16

Alain de Botton, John Armstrong

Art as Therapy

The School of Life

http://alaindebotton.com/