To Be or Not To Be Oneself, That is the Question

I was working on my laptop with the tv on in the background when the tone changed suddenly and it was announced that HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh had died. The newsreader’s voice cracked with emotion as she repeated the statement. My first response was a pang of sadness that he died just short of his 100th birthday - I’d read somewhere recently that he really wanted to reach that rare milestone. Then I felt a little sadder still to think of his wife of 73 years, how hard it must be to lose your partner after all that time together. I thought of my friend who just lost her husband, my step-dad who lives alone since my mam died and many others I know who have gone through that heart-wrenching process. I felt a few tears spring up, processing these thoughts, conjuring scenes from the film Up. I listened to some of the stories being told about this person that showed both good and bad things said and done over his 99 years. I went for a walk with a friend, carried on with my work day and in the evening watched Gogglebox, an episode of Barry then picked my daughter up from work. The radio was playing songs like The Greatest Love of All interspersed with interviews about and with Prince Philip including one in which he said something along the lines of “you can only be who you are, some people will always dislike and disagree with what you do and say, so just do your best in any case and be true to yourself”. The next morning I sipped my coffee and read through the news and social media, where there was an absolute explosion of vitriol, complaints, jokes, memes, fond memories, plaudits, accusations and arguments. Pretty standard for a Saturday online in 2021 perhaps, but it was definitely ratcheted up a few notches. The BBC had set up a special Complaints form on its website due to the number of calls from people raging about not being able to watch their usual shows, there were angry tweets about robbing old folk of their daily dose of soap opera, how showing wall-to-wall news of the death would affect mental health while questioning why there had been no similar TV fanfare for 150,000 Covid-related U.K. deaths. Some people took time out to announce proudly that they couldn’t care less, some were appalled at other people’s reaction, some alluded to his widow now being single and had a stab at dark humour, others criticised tv channels that had dared to vary their output. All this threaded through with personal stories often ending in laughter, from people who had encountered this man personally, many having partaken in the eponymous DoE Award scheme. How some considered him a god and others a devil. This range of reactions to one high-profile human’s death gives weight to the approach of not worrying too much what people think of you. They’re all valid if they’re your own personal reactions, borne of any number of factors. It is impossible to please everyone and there’s a good probability you will enrage some whether intentionally or otherwise. Things you do or say in life that make you imperfect and sometimes plain repugnant. But the ability to just keep going, to continue to perform whatever duties and responsibilities fall within your purview, surely counts for something. If I had been born or married into royalty I wonder would I rail against it, work to bring it down from within, because it was a bizarre, unequal and antiquated creation? Would I tirelessly work to improve the lot of others and redistribute the wealth that accompanies Royal status, standing up for non-Royal citizens everywhere, while dismantling my own family’s position? Would I perform the role flawlessly, delivering a perfect example of diplomatic behaviour at all times throughout 73 years of duty, in an attempt to perpetuate and strengthen the system? Who knows...

I do know that the advantages I was born with compared to countless others - for example I’ve always had a home, enough money coming in to eat well, squander a bit and live comfortably, a good education, the opportunity to go to University, freedom to travel, to make mistakes privately - have not led me to abandon them in order to redistribute those benefits more fairly elsewhere. I’ve accepted these advantages gratefully and tried largely to make good use of them - having made plenty of mistakes and abused some of the priveliges in ways I prefer not to dwell on too often. I’ve tried to be kind, tolerant, think of others who have less, never drop litter, respect the planet, be charitable. Had I instead been a better person, become a missionary or a charity worker among the poorest, never done or said any of the less kind things I have been guilty of over the years, would anyone actually think better of me? Why should I care?

Two days later on Twitter most folk have moved on, mourning fresh celebrity deaths, alternately advocating kindness and blaming society for these deaths. Snow lies on the ground, unusually for this time of year. It’s a strange old world we live in.