Reflections on a Heron

Grey Dawn (SA/2022)

 

 "O melancholy bird on a winter's day ..."

 

 

As I've said before on this blog, those of a philosophical disposition have always appreciated that grey is the most beautiful of colours in all its neutrality; one which has long played an important role in fashion and art. Those who perceive only an absence of colour lack sophistication and subtlety [1]. 

 

Thus, whilst it's nice to wake-up to a sunny blue sky overhead, I wasn't displeased this morning to pull back the bedroom curtains and see a grey heron sitting on the roof of the house opposite against a grey sky. 

 

Surveying the world in all its stillness and silence, this elegant bird eventually flew off with slow, controlled wingbeats, its long legs trailing behind it, mosquito-like, and its long neck retracted into an S-shape; a creature from another time.  

 

Happily, herons are still quite common - even in the UK, one of the most nature-depleted nations on earth, having lost half of its wildlife and plant species since the Industrial Revolution - and, thanks to their inteligence, they can adapt fairly well to city life [2]. 

 

Hopefully, therefore, they'll be around for millions of years after mankind; just as they were around for millions of years before we evolved on the scene.     

 

 

Notes

 

[1] See the post 'Sing if You're Glad to be Grey' (16 Oct 2015): click here. 

 

[2] A large population of grey herons can be found living in Amsterdam, for example, and seem to be well-adjusted to urban life in the Dutch capital. See Julie Hrudover's photographic essay in The Guardian (5 June 2017): click here.

 

 

Sing if You're Glad to be Grey (On the Desire for the Neutral)

Last night, at dinner, a woman told me I was a colourful character. She meant it as a compliment (I assume), but if there's one thing I don't wish to be it's a character. 

People who have character, don't need to be characters; in the same way that people who have a certain vital intensity don't need to be seen to be larger than life. Characters, and individuals who are larger than life, are invariably just dullards behaving in a loud and boorish manner; the sort of people I try to avoid. 

As for being colourful, even that's something I find troublesome. These days, I aim for a certain achromatic neutrality or greyness and to be a man without qualities, like the mathematician Ulrich, in Robert Musil's (appropriately unfinished) novel; ambivalent, indifferent, lacking any essential self and viewing the world in all its vulgar excess of colour and violent enthusiasm with cool analytical passivity.

Those of a philosophical disposition have always appreciated that grey is the most beautiful - for most noble - of colours. During the Renaissance, it played an important role in fashion and art; Rembrandt, for example, had a palette made up almost entirely of complex shades of grey. 

Those who associate grey with boredom and conformity and perceive only an absence of colour, lack sophistication and subtlety. Let them wear their blues and browns in order to display their character; men in the know and men of style still favour a grey suit (light in summer, dark in winter) and understand like Roland Barthes that it is the Neutral alone which escapes and deconstructs the black-and-white binaries that structure meaning and produce the arrogance of certainty in Western thought and discourse.