Spare a tear for the altruist
December 24th, 2008 at 7:59 am (Thoughtful)
This poem is all about the downside of getting involved with a cause. It’s about the evenings and weekends spent giving up a social life; how that irrevocably changes your life; and about the vision you create of an end goal in order to keep yourself going.
The setting to imagine is an empty meeting hall. You know the sort — basic wooden trestles; folding chairs; chipped paintwork. The final celebratory meeting has ended. The caretaker is folding the chairs and trestles. The table on the stage is still festooned with posters and leaflets. The revellers have gone on to a pub and to enjoy the spoils of success and the lonely campaigner, now decades older, tired, takes one last look around at the scene and wonders what it all did for them, and why they actually gave up so much.
