Convergence

I wish I was wise enough to write about mental health. I've had my own brushes with anxiety and depression. You would think that might have given me some deeper insight, a magic key, a red pill. If I found my way out of the labyrinth, I should be able to pass on the red thread, but I don't feel like any kind of authority, or even a voice of experience. It's like an enchanted prison: every inmate must dig their own escape tunnel

The newspaper reports that South Korea has disturbingly high rates of suicide by young people. This is being linked to that society having very high competitiveness for educational and career success, and very high pressure to conform to social norms. In this country, our governments promote 'competition' as an unarguable virtue, pass ever more draconian laws to eliminate dissent, and vilify difference. We also have an explosion of mental illness among the young; you might think we would join the dots?

The conventional answer is to find something bigger than yourself to which you can commit: the party, the overthrow of capitalism, the good life, saving the planet, the club, "live as if you will die tomorrow, farm as if you will live forever". But for a lot of young people, yet to work out who they are and what matters to them, that's a lot to ask. In an age of atomised individualism, where collective entities are disparaged and denigrated, and often in decline, escape from self-absorbtion and self-criticism is not simple

The retreating posts in the picture converge ever closer, apparently squeezing ever tighter, until somewhere in the distance they reach a vanishing point

This vinyard is part of a facility in Oxfordshire, that includes a beautiful walled garden, where people who are recovering their mental health can come and work on something larger than themselves, in quietness and calm, and the healing presence of growing things

Today was a plant sale to raise funds. I spent intemperately - though sadly their wine was not on sale today.

It is here among the vines where we once heard a swarm of honeybees pass over our heads, down towards the poplars in the distance. Racing after them, we saw the magical, life-enhancing sight of the bees disappearing into an empty hive - down there at the vanishing point