In one direction a characterless street with cars whipping by in a constant stream;in the other a vast sea of identical desks. I feel like a character in one of those Sixties futuristic movies, in which all eccentricity and character has been expunged from ordinary life, to create a Brave New World of equality, security and safety. Every desk is identical. We are not supposed to keep personal items on our desks. We are not supposed to eat at our desks. We are to swipe in and out of every door. We are restricted and bossed-about at every turn, removing all sense of autonomy. There is no-one against whom to rail - only a faceless They who have decreed these things.
And what has all this to do with the writer's life that I am chronicling, sporadically, in these pages?
Everything.
The loss of status, the loss of identity, the loss of difference - these sap the vital spiritual juices, the little supposedly irrepressible spring of self-esteem that allows the writer to believe their voice worth hearing. Here, in the heartland of barren business efficency, it is only barely possible to cling on to the sense of self, the essential egotism that is the engine of art.
Engine stalled, hence no activity.
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