Or should that be have? Hm that all depends doesn't it, on whether it's a picture they're taking, of say a current situation, or a view that's already formed, as in held and stood firmly by and not developing as the circumstances it applies to further develops.
Got that? Right, I'll continue...this notion of a smallish view is not the workings of my mind, but that of George Bernard Shaw, although I have to say I do agree, if not wholeheartedly then with at least three-quarters of my ponderous heart. The top right-hand chamber remains unconvinced, and is more confident that England as an island, as a people is less insular than it might have been in Shaw's days; that we do look outward though we still might not comprehend or react until a minor event, some ricochet from a bigger catastrophe, natural or man-made, has hit us. Square in the eyes, hard on the chin. Except that when it does our outrage and the action we demand is disproportionate to the actual happening that jolted us from sleep.
There were people dazed and confused during both World Wars too, or so I've read. Life, of a sort, carried on, even though 'their boys, their men' had gone to war. News items were read of and put aside, unless of course said catastrophe going on elsewhere, mostly on a continent across the sea, suddenly intruded upon and interrupted a man's breakfast, then all hell broke loose. Shaw wrote of this in a preface to Heartbreak House, which set my mind whirring: did that really happen? War, brought home, caused an almighty stir of the likes we see on social media, and gave the men in the trenches a good laugh, because of the over-reactions to what was to them (and can only be viewed in hindsight) a trivial consequence. A single bomb falling and upsetting a man's egg cup was an unworthy side-show to their own hardships.
The anecdote could however be a fiction used to good effect by Shaw, his point still clear to me years on: that like religion we cherry-pick our views of the world and how big or small we make it, or at least that's my understanding. Perhaps I've misunderstood (it wouldn't be the first time) or made of it what I wanted to make it, and we all do that don't we: align our steadfast opinions to any topic, and prior to the issue being raised in conversation – public or friendly – so when the instant comes our stance is fixed and nothing will sway us? Our view might get more entrenched, or there might, like a set jelly, be a couple of momentary wobbles until it returns to its fixed position: upright or slightly leaning to one side.
A good example of this, in practice, is the common-held view of those we consider wealthy (although our measure of wealth is subjective) which can include: those born to a life of seeming luxury, those who make everything they touch turn to hard cash and amass properties and other material goods, and those who suddenly have a burdensome life relieved through some sort of windfall, that a lot of money automatically solves every problem and makes all whom it benefits instantly happy and evermore contented.
It doesn't. It cannot. But that you cannot know until you've for some reason or another been in that wealthy category, and no, I've never been, to my knowledge, thus categorised, but then would people tell you outright if they'd made that assumption? Probably not. It's not an observation you draw attention to or discuss with whomever is the perceived demonstrator unless they care to admit it openly; no, you just observe quietly or mention it in passing to others, when, of course, the subject's out of hearing or not in the vicinity. The actual having of money, as in figures multiplying in an account somewhere, has the power to make life comfortable but also has the power to possess, and in turn make you want to possess: residences, items and people, evoking unappealing qualities as well as attracting them.
The point being that your view, whatever position you take as I've already stressed, depends on where you start from or where you've got to in age and experience.
Picture credit: Conversation Piece and Self-portrait, 1910, Spencer Gore
