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Under a train

29/1/2017

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The other day I met some former colleagues for lunch.  I am usually ambivalent about events like this, but these were people I had liked and wanted to see again.  We exchanged news, bridging the intervening years with ease and producing names we beleived we had forgotten. 'Do you remember X?', 'What ever happened to Y?'.  I suddenly remembered Louis, who'd been an Admin Clerk. 'Didn't you know, he's dead?  He killed himself'.  I did not know. Louis was perpeutally untidy, and with a mop of wayward hair.  He was socially awkward but obvioulsy intelligent.  I got the impression that navigating through the ordinary demands of every day was exhausting for him, as was expressing himself.  I remember him laughing but in an awkward way, as if every aspect of communication was costly of his energy. I liked him, and respected his struggle and the effort that getting through daily life seemed to be for him. So in a sense the news was not a surprise, but it was sad.  Later I found confirmation on the web.  He had jumped in front of a tube train at Leyton tube station.  A friend was quoted as saying he had been depressed.  I deeply regretted his being driven to that action, and felt (as I always do at such news) that we had failed, collectively, in some serious way.  The extent of mental distress in its varied forms continues to be under estimated, and our care for each other far too inadequate.
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Belief is reassuring. People who live in the world of belief feel safe. On the contrary, faith is forever placing us on the razor's edge. Jacques Ellul
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