Ars longa, vita brevis, and all that

I live on a piece of rock which sticks out of the sea in the top right hand corner of the world (as long as you look at it from a certain way). People call it Great Britain.

On this particular bit of rock, and there are a fair few poking out of the sea here and there, so not sure why this is special, the whole idea of nation states has, despite clearly being fundamentally ridiculous, taken hold somewhat.

And, on this rock, Germans tend to get short shrift. Somewhat – nut not entirely –  unreasonable, albeit mainly due to the various unpleasantnesses of the last century.

But despite all the Nazis and Kaisers, they were also kind enough to furnish us with Albrecht von Wallenstein, Kant, Beethoven, Nietzsche, Engels, Marx, the last 17 monarchs of our rock, and a chap called Goethe. Joe Goethe.

Goethe said and wrote loads of really cool stuff – just Google the fella if you don’t believe me – but by far my favourite was the idea that life is short, art is long. He added stuff about judgement, transience and things, but the first bit is the important part.

Art is long. It lasts, y’know? I happen to pop along to a building which has been built on our rock, near to another building on our rock, in which I live. In that building (not the one I live in, the other one) there is a painting called Calais Sands at low water Poissards collecting bait, by a chap called Joseph Mallord William Turner.

I’ve seen it dozens, maybe hundreds of times, and it always, always takes my breath away. It is astonishing. It is beautiful, alluring, strange, immaculate, emotive – it is a work of art. It has been since it was painted in 1830. It will remain so in 2030, when I am 64, and will remain so in 2130, when I am long, long dead.

Thing is, art happens a lot, and it is important. Tonight I watched telly; among the Masterchefs and low grade sketch shows was This is England 86. At first, we (my couchmate and I) would chat. And then we stopped chatting, and just watched. And watched.

We were talking about important stuff, but we stopped to watch this. Because it was more important, because it was art. Because it mattered, and will last. It will last longer than me, than my couchmate, but because we experienced it, we are now part of it. We add our experience to the collective experience of everyone.

Which, I think, is what Joey G was on about. Art lasts, but because it adds and augments every little life it touches, and every life that touches it, makes it last.

So what does this mean for our twitter centric, living in the now generation? Nowt. We are the same. Art lasts for us, just as much as our lives are short, but it lasts because we experience it, and add to it.

Just go and look at some nice pictures, yeah?

Are friends electric?

I tweet, oh yes. I am a fan of the Twitter, and I lob my 140 character or fewer word grenades over the fence of my solitude into a digital universe daily, sometimes hourly.

And I catch a few coming back the way, and a conversation will start, sometimes serious, sometimes silly, sometimes just plain strange. Indeed, on one single follow Friday I was described as surreal by two different tweeps.

Yes I like my Twitter, and have taken to it more than many things I can remember. It has become my social life. And, as someone said the other day, how sad is that?

Well, not so sad, I think, it suits me and it suits modern life. Let’s start with me. I’m an introvert. In the classical Jungian sense, I prefer to be alone, I find company tiring, it uses my energy up. I’ll do it, but if I’m sat in a pub, chances are I’m in the corner with a book rather than with a circle of friends holding court as raconteur.

Ipods, iphones, etc, make us more insular, more remote and introverted. We live in crowded times. The human population grows exponentially, we have less and less space, so what personal space we have we start to value more, and protect more, and keep more.

For me, social life as in going out, being with people, becomes an intrusion. Loud, noisy, unpredictable – you’re with friends now, then who knows who will be next through the door, pushing, shouting, having a go, invading your space crowding you. Human spam, in real life with booze-fuelled anger, Primark trousers and SportsDirect.com shoes and shirt.

Instead, I can talk, chat, be the raconteur, the shining wit – a David Niven in 140 characters or less, on Twitter. I can make friends, as I effectively have, and I can ignore the spam with no risk or threat. I can be alone and with my friends as I see fit and they see fit, just with a thumb on an iphone.

I can offer support and advice, a virtual shoulder to cry on, a daft joke to lighten a day, a surreal rant about our pet rabbits to confuse, amuse, defuse, and everyone I’m following can do the same to me. I follow true geniuses, I follow real, ordinary people with real, ordinary lives like mine, and they are there for me, just as I am there for them.

I’m the modern man, the future. Friends are better, easier, more productive in digital form.

That said, anyone fancy a pint? IRL?