In 1971, which we all know was rock’s finest year, John Lennon released what was unarguably his greatest album, Imagine. Vying for the number one spot in Beatles’ solo albums – I’ll still go for George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, but it was a close thing – it’s pretty well all killer, no filler; an artist at his creative peak. Yet there is one track that shocks me, some 54 years after its release. The visceral How Do You Sleep?
The song is a demolition job by Lennon on fellow genius Paul McCartney, in response, so it is said, to Macca’s song Too Many People on his own album Ram. “The only thing you done was yesterday,” sang Lennon. “And since you’re gone you’re just another day.” I’d argue with that, to be honest, because in my view Macca is the greatest songwriter of all time but that’s not the point of this blog. “Oh, how do you sleep? Oh, how do you sleep at night?” That bit is the point of this blog.
I have never slept what you might call ‘well’. It can take ages until my brain, or these days what’s left of it, stops ticking over, unable to switch off. If I wake up at some ungodly hour, it’s ticking over again. And that’s if I haven’t done something stupid or even downright wrong.
Back in 1973 whilst working as a ‘Saturday boy’ in Boots the Chemist in Broadmead, Bristol, I stole a copy of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. I kid you not that I have felt guilty ever since. When I played the album, I could never enjoy it properly because it was stolen goods. I don’t know whether it was due to my upbringing, but I knew I had done wrong. No matter how I have tried, I have never shaken off that guilt. The same applies to a wide range of other things in life. (Later, I bought a copy with my own money.)
Those girls I let down and effectively abandoned, sheer gutlessness and cowardice on my part. Losing contact with my dad and his dad, my elderly grandfather, just at a time he would have needed me more. Falling out with other relatives and friends and never even trying to effect repairs. It’s the guilt that keeps me awake at night. It always will. My dad always told me to not worry about the things that you cannot change, but I am afraid I have done and that, I suppose, has made me a better person (at least I think so).
Now, I am a truth obsessive. In any situation, except when a white lie is unavoidable in order to maintain peace and harmony and not make someone else’s life worse, I try to be honest. I rarely have to think about it. Instinct tells me to be honest, to avoid lying. There are ways of being honest because the truth can be hard to bear, but I have learned to hate lying and liars. These days, if someone lies to me our relationship is irredeemably broken.
Walking away from close relatives was, to my mind, shameful. I could not undo what happened but I could strive to be better. I could either continue to walk away from those in need, or walk towards them. I chose the latter. I will never regret that.
The change began many years ago when a work colleague who was more of an acquaintance than close friend developed a brain tumour that soon killed him. I liked him a lot and one Sunday afternoon found myself visiting him in hospital. The look on his face, a cross between surprise and joy, told me I had done the right thing. That I knew he was dying made no difference. I walked towards sadness, in this case tragedy. I have tried to do the same ever since. It is important to say I have not always succeeded, but I am a better person than I was.
Having made the choice to be there for people, I sometimes wonder why everyone isn’t like that. Or should I say wondered? If I, a clinically depressed fuck up, can be there for friends and acquaintances, then frankly why can’t you? But that’s not how life is. I miss my mum, my dad my stepdad and everyone else who has died during my lifetime but for some reason it doesn’t define the rest of my life. My grief subsided many years ago, not least because of the awful pain and indignity my mum and stepdad in particular endured. Why would I want them to continue to suffer so hideously? Their deaths were a blessing, a deliverance. At least by then, the late 1990s and early 2000s, I was always there for them. That was a better version of me than the one before.
When family and friends are sick in the here and now, I will be there. That’s not me being a spectacularly wonderful human being – although clearly I am! – but because somehow I am better able to compartmentalise the difference pieces of my life. And I am so much better at dealing with other people’s problems than I am with my own.
I didn’t have to think too much about being there for others. Things just click into position. I am still no good at planning anything but given something like a sick or even bereaved friend I now want to be there, just as I want to be at the food bank every week. I may have trained my mind or subconsciously, perhaps, I have evolved into being a better person. Not a perfect one – that’s very obvious: I am a million miles away from that – but one with added empathy and sympathy and rather less selfishness than before.
I certainly don’t want anyone to become more like me. In fact, that’s the last thing I want, but I do wish some folk, and they probably don’t know who they are, would be doers rather than leaving things like friendship, compassion and, yes, love to everyone else. If there’s a friend, or even an acquaintance, who really needs your help, if only for brief company, why wait until, let’s say, a funeral in order to pay one’s respect. I probably do this stuff partly for self-worth, but mainly to be there for others who I like and care for. I’m sorry if this comes across as self-praise and other assorted bullshit. It’s not supposed to be like that. I’ve learned to believe we all owe a debt of love to our fellow human beings.
The internet in general, and social media in particular, allows a convenient get out. Why bother with real, in-person chats and hugs when virtual ones represent the same thing? Except that they don’t. Life can be very tough at times and, let’s remember, no one gets out of here alive so why not leave one’s comfort zone, the unreality of social media, and pay a visit to the real world? It’s very tough, I know.
I don’t know if I sleep better after doing good things than after doing nothing at all or, perish the thought, after doing bad things but I feel better in myself and, more importantly, if I have made someone else’s life that little bit better, I’ll have done my job. Something, I suggest, is better than nothing. It certainly works for me. Anyway, how do you sleep?
