This idyllic Saturday afternoon in early August, with flamboyant flowers flourishing in the lazy windswept fields, delighting in the supreme satisfaction of nothing to do and nowhere to go, having vacated the apartment with Chef engaged in this evening’s culinary enterprise (assured to be a hit judging by the mouthwatering whiffs from the oven), the sun blazing brilliantly and highlighting the distant fluffy white clouds, my car windows open and the wind buffeting throughout whilst listening to a curious album called Fisherman’s Friends One-and-All by Rupert Christie, I saw on my GPS screen the name of one of the compositions, “What we overcome”. Without listening to the meditative music, the title alone intrigued me.

Unquestionably there are those who are bluntly acquainted with the idiom, “What we overcome”. A brief search on the internet discloses seemingly limitless sites addressing the exact topic, many adding the words “We are” precedent to the uncompromising subject. The addition makes the issue no less difficult but instead more compelling. At first it had me recall those whom I know who have suffered significant loss or peril. Then I asked, “Haven’t we all endured obstacles to overcome?”  Surely the prescription is not assigned only to some but not others? Yet, while this may be true, my conclusion was not so much the select absence of difficulty but rather that not everyone faces seemingly impenetrable barriers.  Sadly I suspect some barriers cannot be overcome except by psychological defeat (which may or may not be sufficient to avoid the inhibiting markers).

My subsequent broad reflection was that none of us is assured to escape interference. The inevitability of sour days is certainly not beyond either comprehension or plausibility. This however did nothing to enlarge upon my aimless scrutiny.  Abstract possibilities are for me never adequate strength for cultivation.

More penetrating is the isolated theme of recovery. In a world fraught with inexpressibly complex environments, many of which are vastly insinuated with indescribable outcomes, it is only possible to address the topic seriatim. Nor may the matter be addressed from afar. My assessment is that only upfront coincidence is of any consequence. Regrettably my estimation is that even the most heartfelt sympathy does little to assuage a dilemma. This of course predicts the critical question whether we succeed to overcome our hindrances; and then follows the manifestation of what indeed we are?

Philosophically the contemplation of what we overcome perhaps speciously attracts the predominantly argumentative and strictly elemental question of what precisely it is that we are overcoming? That is, the investigation assumes a variety of ways in which to codify the bottleneck. This may however precipitate a foil and indignity upon the calamity. It is not always possible to redirect or divert a question merely by rephrasing or alternatively characterizing it. Nor ultimately is it simply a matter of dismissing the perceived peril either by ambivalence or outright disregard. In the context of such hopeless stigma I know of no answer.

Accordingly it seems to me that the more exact conclusion is not what we have overcome but how we overcame it? In this regard there are countless narratives of those who have performed admirably in spite of whatever blockades may have been in their path. It is that to which I prefer to connect; that is, the determination not the inhibition, the favour not the fault, the how not the why, the success not the behest.