Being what?
The Barfleur, it seems it is only thirty years old, it seems older. Google says it once snapped the chain of the Sandbanks ferry, today Poole Harbour is exited without incident.
Awareness of being on a boat is undeniable; the walls and floors are vibrating as the engines of the vessel power us toward Cherbourg; a wake runs from the stern in the unusually calm waters. The ferry spends most of its time neither in one place or the other; a self-enclosed world where there is nothing to do except wait.
Being on a boat recalls again Stoppard’s lines from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead on being and being.
“You can’t not be on a boat.
I’ve frequently not been on boats.
No, no, no… what you’ve been is not on boats”.
Hamlet’s erstwhile friends are caught in a discussion on being as action and being as existence.
But being comes in many forms; neither Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are drive to refect on beng as identity. They are Renaissance men, internationalists who move easily from one nation to another; if they are Danish, it is by accident of birth and not through conscious choice.
Being as identity belongs to a world of realpolitik of which they are no part; it is part of the world of military strongarms like Fortinbras, not the world of intellectual loftiness in which Hamlet lives (though that does not bar him from the odd spot of wanton killing).
Being as identity recently came to mind while walking toward Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, the unlikely venue of the rugby European Cup Final. Ahead walked a couple wearing Offaly Gaelic Athletic shirts. I observed to the person whom I walked beside that it seemed an unlikely place to wear an Offaly jersey. He expressed doubt, then caught sight of the name of ‘Glenisk’ the county sponsor, across the backs of the shirts.
To wear an Offaly jersey in such a place on such an occasion pointed to a keen sense of what being as identity means. The couple’s shirts were not like the replica soccer shirts worn by children who have never been near their club’s stadium; they were a declaration of identity, ‘I am of Offaly; being of Offaly, I am declaring my allegiance. Those who wear soccer shirts cannot make such a declaration; unless you live in a particular corner of south-west London, you cannot claim, ‘I am of Chelsea’. It is as inconsequential to one’s identity as me wearing an Aviron Bayonnais rugby when I am not Basque and do not live in Pyrenees-Occidental.
As the Dorset shoreline fades into no more than a dark blur on the horizon, there is a nagging question of what being British means. What is signified by the passport in my jacket pocket, now required on every journey? What national stories and traditions now hold the place together? What does being British mean?
You can’t not be on a boat. Ultimately, you can’t not be anywhere; identity must mean something, but what?
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