"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee".
These words of John Donne’s are just over 400 years old, but the phrase ‘no man is an island’ seems particularly relevant right now. As much as we might feel a desire to draw away and isolate or protect ourselves in times of fear, stress or danger - we are all, ultimately, together in this existence of ours, and it is when we work together inspired by feelings of compassion and connectedness that we really show what ‘humanity’ is. Donne wrote this work when he was seriously ill in 1623, and I find it heartening that he must have reflected on what life is really about and found comfort in the thought that we are all part of a larger whole, and that breaking this whole into parts makes us poorer for it. Reading the news in 2025 is a pretty depressing experience, and much of the sadness I feel at times is not from my diagnosis, but from wanting to show and feel love and acceptance in a world seemingly consumed by hate and intolerance.
My cancer diagnosis was over two years ago now, and the consensus is that everything is stable. This is a good word in the context of stage 4 or incurable cancer; it means that life can, as much as is possible, go on as normal for the time being. It seems logical that a serious cancer diagnosis might encourage one to become more selfish and inward thinking. If your remaining time is probably going to be limited, then let’s focus on ME! But I don’t really feel this. I revel in spending time with loved ones, but I sometimes find myself sitting somewhere experiencing a clear feeling of connectedness. Not just to people, but to everything. Whilst falling short of being a ‘religious experience’ it is spiritual. Now, way back at school, I was passable at Science. As in I passed Science. Having taken the alternative pathway of studying English, I still find science fascinating despite not really understanding quite a lot of it. So I find it absolutely stunning that science informs us that around 98% of the atoms in a human body can be replaced in about a year, meaning that a person's body is not material but rather a dynamic, ever-changing structure. What’s more, by applying maths to this idea - not my personal maths by the way - (which is another feather to my school-based mediocrity bow), calculations show that not only do we each have hundreds of billions of atoms that were once in everyone else's bodies, but we have approximately 1 atom in our body from every breath that every human has ever taken. (Source article - Forbes) We are literally all connected and part of each other! Naturally, this means we are or have been a part of Ghandi but also Hitler. Both Tommy Robinson and Greta Thunberg. Every immigrant or refugee or asylum seeker, every Muslim, Hindu, Christian, every Antifa or environmental activist and right-wing agitator. Simply… everyone. Taking a step back and attempting to truly understand this makes racism and xenophobia seem a little, well ridiculous and irrelevant, don’t you think?
So alongside my light reading, I can also attribute my current emotional, mental and physical stability to having counselling sessions as part of the support offered to cancer patients by Macmillan. I had 12 sessions, and I waltzed in there with an open and inquisitive outlook with no real goal in mind other than to chat, find out more about myself and more about human psychology. It was a fantastic experience; educational and illuminating, and I would recommend it to anyone who might be considering counselling. Obviously we talked about my situation and feelings, how myself and my wife are doing and how to deal with the challenging aspects of living with cancer that I’ve tried to explain in my other blog posts - coping with uncertainty and the passing of time; risk factors, statistics and the problem with prognoses; what it means to fight, and also about what it means to live a meaningful life. You know, trivial small talk really. But one of the most interesting and enjoyable elements of counselling for me has been learning more about the theories and psychology of how we work. Of what it means to be a human. One analogy or metaphor which we talked about and which resonated with me (as an English teacher; metaphors are my bread and butter) was the theory that all people and organisms strive to grow, and the extent to which we grow or not, and which parts of us grow or not are down to different factors. These factors are the environment; the soil in which a plant is rooted, access to water and oxygen. If the environment does not fulfil the needs of the organism then growth might be stunted in some way, or perhaps the organism will go into a dormant state until conditions are right for it to grow again. This is called maintenance, and in humans we might find that parts of us are just being maintained or decline under conditions of stress or hardship. But as we all at least strive to grow, other parts or elements of us might thrive or develop. The scope of interpretation of this is, of course, huge. It could be relationships, the actual process of learning a skill or ability, the self growth discussed at great length in myriad self help books. It forced me to consider: what kind of person am I? What kind of person do I want to grow to be? And I think my answer is, now more than ever, someone who is ‘good’. I am aware that this is a vague and nebulous concept, so I’ll elaborate; for me, ‘good’ means to be thoughtful and compassionate, to try and help others. To try to be calm and understand how other people feel, and to engage in measured discussion or debate if we have different views. To be respectful of others - whoever they are and wherever they came from - and of this world which is our shared home. After all, on an atomic level, we are all connected to one another.
It’s a hard task, and one which I can only ever be making progress towards (currently, I’d grade myself a C+). But the concept of being good seems so at odds with the world and the myriad conflicts of different kinds portrayed in the news, that it can’t help but make me feel a little helpless. Dystopian fiction - which itself often uses elements of historical events to project contemporary alarms - instructs us how people’s fear, anger and resentment can be managed and channeled. Orwell’s 1984, which he wrote in 1948, has the ‘two minutes hate’ where the kind of middle class workers of society are encouraged to forget their oppression and vent all their hate and frustration at the enemy, which in Orwell’s book is the ‘traitor’ Emmanuel Goldstein. Various types of propaganda are used by The Party to ensure that Goldstein is targeted for this outpouring of bile; images and film footage, questionable facts, and making him a reliable source of blame for any societal problems. It is hard to think of this and not make a connection to the current effort to demonise migrants, asylum seekers and refugees in many sections of the media. Give people a marginalised group to blame and then it takes the heat off the real enemy, right? I think most of us, in our heart of hearts, know this. But millionaires like Tommy Robinson, Nigel Farage and Jeremy Clarkson are lauded for talking ‘common sense’ whilst quietly earning huge amounts of money from donations, businesses and investments. Farage - the highest earning MP by a margin - is especially egregious as he slyly conceals the extent of his earnings despite this being a legal requirement of an MP. The growing evidence of cruel, callous racism from his schooldays has not exactly endeared him to many of us, but it is also worth pointing out that he has averaged £48,000 a month since last July in his non-MP roles. A month! Yet he points an accusing finger at asylum seekers in self-catered accommodation trying to live on less than £200 a month. ‘Well I earn my money’, Farage would say ‘and they get handouts and freebies’. Which is all very well until you do a little delving then uncover such gems as his 5 nights at the Hilton in Milwaukee and bill of £3000 all covered by an American right-wing PR firm so he could attend the Republican National Convention last year. Nice freebie there Nige! What grates with me is the inability for some people to engage in reasoned, measured discussion about it. No-one is claiming that there isn’t a problem with unchecked and rising migration to the UK of people who are not initially allowed to work so must be supported by the state, but conflating refugees, asylum seekers and ‘legal’ immigrants into one group and labelling them as scroungers who are leaching a load of benefits from us and laughing, is simply incorrect. As Jonathan Swift once wrote - you cannot reason a person out of a position they did not reason themself into in the first place. With all this anger and blame, resentment and fear, where is the room for goodness and humanity?
I am fortunate enough to have travelled extensively, and to have lived in Vietnam for many years. Every country has its problems, and many of these are invisible to the tourist or non-native. But I have been amazed at the generosity, goodwill and sheer friendliness of countless locals in some of the poorest countries on earth. What is it about having very little in the way of money or possessions that allows people to show such contentment and happiness, such helpfulness… such ‘goodness’? There is something fundamentally wrong with a society that teaches its citizens to work and work to have more, to hoard it and to self-guard it, and (what’s worse) to be suspicious and angry towards others who are perceived to take or be given what these citizens have worked so hard for. I can’t help but feel it is a trap that many people in especially the Western world fall into. Perhaps it is also difficult to reason oneself out of negative feelings of suspicion and sometimes hostility towards foreigners who seem to be bringing strange cultures and beliefs to one’s country when you haven’t experienced different peoples, beliefs and cultures yourself. Whilst many of us are not able to travel as much as we’d like for a multitude of reasons, in the 21st Century a form of ‘travel’ can be easily and comprehensively achieved through film, TV and literature. My hunch is that those most angry about the supposed decline of ‘British’ culture due to immigration, are those least likely to either travel, read, or watch much beyond the safety zone of English-speaking cultures. Mark Twain’s quote “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness…” is relevant as it is our direct person to person interactions that most powerfully build empathy. Whilst it wasn’t exactly searingly honest and educational programme making, Channel 4’s ‘Go Back to Where You Came From’ succeeded in forcing individuals with strong anti-immigration views to feel compassion and empathy when they actually met some of the refugees fleeing countries such as Somalia and Syria to hear their harrowing stories. It is much easier to feel anger from the safe distance of your own home.
So coming back to Donne, he recovered from his illness in 1624 and achieved fame as an eloquent and powerful religious preacher during the final seven or so years of his life. My illness is not currently terminal, and although I don’t really have (or want to have) a prognosis, I might not see out the next ten or even five years. The church is not for me, so I won’t turn to sermon writing like Donne did, but I do share his sentiment: we are all connected as part of a much greater and vitally important whole. Please… let’s act like it.
