When I was growing up and in the 1980’s there was a Scottish comedian called Bing Hitler (his real name was Craig Ferguson) he went to the United States and was quite famous.
In his classic comedy LP (yes that was a thing younger readers) he talked about how he hated ‘ism’s’.
He did a very funny sketch about it because his most hated ism was someone called George Chism which made a mockery of ism’s itself.
One of the ism’s he mentioned though was nihilism and it always struck me because I didn’t really understand what it was.
If you don’t know the name, I bet you do understand the concept now though.
Looking into a dark future with no sign of optimism and no sign of hope is a pretty horrible place to be.
The narrative begins to write and rewrite itself in bold and underlined, in red and in large font.
It causes people to wake up in the morning with a horrible feeling in the pit of their stomach.
It leads people to drink and to take drugs and to other forms of totally abusive behaviour.
It wrecks your routine, it makes you lethargic, you want to stay in bed or stay inside and hide away from the darkness and future that you’ve written for yourself.
On Friday night though I watched 1917 at cinema club with Stuart.
This is a film I’ve wanted to see ever since I first saw the trailer and then even more so when I saw how Sam Mendes, the Director, had designed filming it and even more so when I realised that it was the stories that Sam Mendes’s grandfather told him having been in the first world war that inspired him to write it and to direct it.
For anyone who was in my previous office of old, you’ll know that I had a photograph of my wife’s great grandfather Leonard Heath who was mentioned in dispatches by Field Marshal Haig and has a certificate to tell us so signed by Winston Churchill.
I have no idea what he did in the first world war to obtain that certificate, but I can tell you that it must have been dark.
1917 is such a beautiful piece of art because it shows us some insight into what it must have been like to be involved in such a terrible, terrible dark time.
I’m pretty sure as you cross the English channel to go to France and Belgium, you felt nihilism.
I’m pretty sure you did when you arrived at the trenches.
I’m pretty sure the people you left behind felt the same and I’m pretty sure in the second world war when the bombs were dropping from overhead and you thought the Germans were soon to invade, that nihilism was the ism of choice.
I’m pretty sure it was dark times for many people in the 1970’s when the power was being turned off on a regular basis, I know it was for my grandparents.
I’m pretty sure it was dark if you were a minor in the 1980’s.
The thing is that we always have times like this, they just have a different name and a different badge.
It’s rough now for many, many people but the only way through is to band together and to talk and to speak and to gain as much humanity as we can and to push back against restrictions which remove that humanity from us.
It’s fine to try to run away from the invisible terrorist but they will be standing outside the door when you come out next time.
Making a break to try and find any form of light or joy or humanity must be the only solution to blow away the nihilism.
Blog Post Number - 2528
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