What matters?

 

Penguin Cafe

I went to see them at the Howard Assembly Rooms last night. A wonderful adventure but that isn't the point at the moment. They played an old number, 'the sound of someone you love who's going away and it doesn't matter'. You can hear everything collapsing, rhythm going, melody going, key going, sense going. And then it picks itself up and starts all over again. 

'It doesn't matter' doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, it means it doesn't have a material effect on my life.

Women's lives had a material effect on the economy in the UK in World War 1 and so they started to matter and women, eventually, got the vote.  Black lives matter in the same way - the question is, do black death's hurt? Does the death of Queen Elizabeth II hurt? Does it even matter?

I don't think I agree with John Donne:

No man is an island, Entire of itself. Each is a piece of the continent, A part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less. As well as if a promontory were. As well as if a manor of thine own Or of thine friend's were. Each man's death diminishes me, For I am involved in mankind. Therefore, send not to know For whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee.

simply because I cannot envisage 'each man'. Even if what he says is true, I could not bear to be diminished to that extent.