2. Of Beauty and Consolation

Something impressed me about Roger Scruton: he was throughout his life a man searching for an ANSWER. He says that he felt himself quite apart from others. You can sense that this longing to arrive HOME, makes him a vulnerable man, someone sensitive and almost an unprotected child looking to rest in his mother's womb (he speaks about a divided and broken house, when he was young, much discussion and misunderstanding). There seems to be honesty in his dialogue: he opens himself and exposes his vulnerability - this is not normal in most adults. You understand that he made a long journey, most of it by himself, lonely, struggling to feel comfortable in his skin and in the world around. It is a testimonial. You don't get better after hearing and seing it. It may open some wounds. All this is because he goes through so many difficult subjects. To have FEAR of living, fear of abandoning a career for instance, or fear of having friends (!), or even of having enemies.

Consolation comes from what? It does not come from running away; it does not come from wine for instance; it comes from living through doubts and making a way, a synthesis. He speaks about the Beethoven Quartets and how it is a way of trying to reach a PEACEFUL RESOLUTION after the conflict. Some people have never succeeded in doing this: Lenine and Hitler for instance did not, and have spread ther inner conlficts to the world in the end.

He says that he has discovered his SERENITY and found love next to his wife.

Even though "The Hours" is a beautiful film, it is also disturbing. Through different parallel stories you see the inner anguish and suffering of different people. The depression of Virginia Wolf leaves her no space for others. She is in a dark realm and there is no compromise possible with others. You cannot shut your deepest you. This search for your inner SERENITY is predatory: you will do whatever it takes to save yourself. It is very modern and I would say a story that I have seen so many times around, for example with many couples that break up.

Does this search come to an end with a peaceful state, or are there people who will be SUFFERING for ever with no consolation?! 

Depression is terrible and very difficult to get out from. But there are ways not to go into it. Resilience is important.