T.S. Eliot's Back Pages

I am reading a recently published  book by Paul Keers called 'A Lifetime of Old Age'. It is a study of the many references to 'age' in his poems . Prufrock - 'I grow old ', Gerontion, Tiresias, Ash Wednesday’s aged eagle, the Magi contemplating ‘All this was a long time ago’, Simeon  and many others.

Reading it, I recall how  later in life Eliot  was happily married. His second wife Valerie is known to have said that all his life 'the little boy in him' was trying to get out, and that his marriage to her for the last few years of his life allowed that to happen. ( See for example Sarah Begley’s 2016 obituary‑essay in TIME , and Aida Edemariam’s profile of Valerie Eliot in The Guardian (2012) - both open in new tab).

I think of the song 'My Back Pages' by Bob Dylan, with its refrain ‘I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now’.   The song appeared in 1964, only a year before Eliot died. 

Dylan’s verses about 'abstract threats / too noble to neglect,' about defining good and bad 'quite clear, no doubt, somehow,' could have been written for the  Eliot of masks, of high seriousness and of spiritual vigilance. The Eliot who lived behind a wall of refinement, who felt  he had 'something to protect', when deciding for example that his faith precluded any notion of divorce from his first wife Vivienne. And for example, after years of a declared spiritual and emotional connection to Emily Hale,  he could not marry her either. And yet the man Valerie describes — drinking Drambuie, playing Scrabble, leaving her weekly love letters — seems to have stepped out of those old pages entirely.

Whether he ever heard the song seems unlikely, though not impossible. It is pleasant to imagine someone playing it to him, if only to watch the faint smile of recognition.

Audio here: 

Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin’ high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
“We’ll meet on edges, soon,” said I
Proud ’neath heated brow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now

Full Lyrics here: 

Logging Off: Reclaiming the Digital World

 

I have just finished reading Adele Zynep Walton’s book ‘Logging Off: The Human Cost of Our digital World’. It is a powerful indictment of so-called ‘Big Tech’ and the proliferation of social media platforms and online forums which have caused a radical societal change – and from her experiences, by no means for the better.

I learnt that Adele Zeynep Walton is young – 25 years old and thus firmly defined as Gen-Z. For her,  the digital world has been a lifeline, a source of income and a creative outlet which developed into a career in journalism. She shows her aptitude for content-creation from an early age.  She knows the environment of which she writes, and it is a revelation for any reader who has not had a parallel experience.  She is the difference between those of us who saw the beginning of the digital age at a time well after the development of some life experience and full development of the pre-frontal cortex, let’s say, and those who had smartphone technology and social media access in all its forms  from teen or indeed pre-teen years.

Yes, we find,  social media helped Walton  build a career in a competitive industry, but it also contributed to the conditions that led to her sister’s death. Her message is stark: the digital world, as currently designed, is failing us.

The book shows how thirty years online have reshaped our lives more profoundly than any previous technological shift. We have built global communities, unlocked new industries and democratised creativity. Yet the same systems that connect us now expose us to harms previous generations could never have imagined — and we are only beginning to understand the consequences.

She argues that today’s platforms profit from our anxieties, insecurities and vulnerabilities. Algorithms reward outrage. Engagement metrics shape our self‑worth. Harmful content spreads faster than support. And while technology companies accumulate wealth, ordinary users — especially young people — absorb the psychological fallout.

Governments are now scrambling to respond. The UK’s regulatory approach shows how difficult this balance has become. Efforts to protect users from harm must coexist with commitments to free speech, privacy and innovation. That’s why journalism and political discourse are shielded from over‑moderation, why the concept of ‘legal but harmful’ content for adults was dropped, and why encrypted messaging cannot be forced open unless privacy‑preserving scanning becomes technically feasible. Regulators want to protect people without creating a surveillance state or choking off small‑scale innovation.

But these compromises also reveal the limits of traditional regulation. Platforms can be fined  billions, governments  can create crisis protocols and impose duties of care — yet none of this changes the underlying business model that rewards emotional manipulation and constant engagement. The harms Walton describes are not glitches; they are features of systems optimised for profit, not wellbeing.

In fact, regulation has barely touched this core issue. Governments focus on illegal content, encryption, or crisis protocols. For Walton, that is a story, but not the main one.  The main story is that the addictive architecture of platforms remains largely untouched. The algorithms that shape our digital lives operate in secrecy, optimised for engagement rather than safety. Until these design philosophies are challenged head‑on, the harms Walton describes will persist.

The real debate is not regulation versus liberty. It is whether we can redesign the digital world so that safety and freedom reinforce each other rather than compete. Protecting users should not require weakening encryption. Supporting free speech should not mean tolerating harassment or exploitation. Innovation should not depend on extracting ever more data from users who barely understand how it is used. These are areas which Walton's book explores with energy and understanding.

But she is also a realist, and knows that value of digital connectivity, and she understands also the generation gap which persists for the older generation, and how the ever-evolving technologies in daily life impinge on the confidence of many.

She tells a particularly  heartwarming story of how she came across an advert in the community press saying, 'intelligent pensioner requires smartphone tuition.' She  immediately felt that she wanted to help. Tony was an 87 year old, intelligent and aware, but unable to use the mobile phone for which had already paid a year of his contract.  In an interview by Emma Wigmore 22 October 2024 for the University of Sussex she says "it just seemed like just the right thing to do. So, I replied to the advert and met Tony. We're still friends today. Over the years, I've taught him how to use his phone, but when I met him he didn't even know how to turn it on, let alone look up bus times, use maps, text, or call people."

Hers, it seems to me , to be a voice worth listening to. She is a realist, but also writes at the core of the problem of how social media and the monetised online world continues to commodify every individual as a product to be exploited. Is this 'liberty'? And if so, whose liberty?

 

Another Sculpted Figure: Beyond Introspection

 

 

When I first saw this seated figure at Waterperry Gardens recently, when visiting with my wife and two old friends,  I knew nothing of its sculptor and still less about the subject. It was simply one of those discoveries that gardens occasionally reward: an object not placed on display so much as encountered unexpectedly. There was no dramatic revelation. The sculpture simply inhabits its place, asking no more of the visitor than a willingness to pause.

I researched a little. I learned that the piece   was Seated Figure (Meditation) by the Anglo-Israeli sculptor Nathan David (1930–2017). Born in London, he first worked in commercial art before dedicating himself to sculpture. Later, living in Israel, he developed a distinctive figurative style that won international recognition. He became particularly admired for his sculptures of dancers—Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev and Anthony Dowell among them—capturing movement with extraordinary grace. Alongside  these works Nathan David also made figures sculpted in repose, where expression arises not from action but from stillness.

Some years ago I attended and wrote about a talk about  Waterperry entitled A Year Behind the Scenes. [ See here : opens in new tab – accessed July 19^th 2026]. The Head Gardener, Rob Jacobs, spoke not only about the many spectacular displays but also about the patient work that sustains them: pruning fruit trees in winter, propagating plants for seasons yet to come, staking, dividing, dead-heading, nurturing young growth and accepting inevitable losses. What visitors admire for an afternoon is the visible outcome of countless hours of attentive labour carried out throughout the year.

Gardening demands a particular way of seeing. It cannot be hurried by enthusiasm or improved by impatience. The gardener learns to observe, to wait, to respond.  

So  Nathan David's Meditation seems  entirely at home at Waterperry. The sculpture is not merely situated within the garden; it participates in the same discipline. The figure asks for nothing dramatic. Its hands rest quietly together. Its posture is balanced but alert. It possesses no narrative, no symbolic attributes, no obvious story. Instead, it quietly embodies the same qualities upon which the garden itself depends - patience, receptivity and sustained attention.

The reason I am writing this now, is that   before I knew either the title or the artist's name, I had already sensed that this figure belonged to the same family as the Spong Man and Barlach's Lesender Klosterschuler, the subject of a recent entry [ here ] of this miscellany.  I find now,  in this light of gardening as attention, a relationship between the three sculptures begins to emerge

The Spong Man appears enclosed within himself. After  the uncertainties of post-Roman Britain, he remains mysterious, his folded posture suggesting an inner life which history will leave behind.

Barlach's Lesender Klosterschuler introduces another dimension. Here inwardness is nourished by reading, reflection and discipline. His bowed head is directed towards something beyond himself. The book becomes both object and companion, suggesting that contemplation is cultivated rather than merely experienced.

Nathan David's Meditation takes another step. There is no book. No explicit object of attention. The figure is simply present. It neither withdraws from the world nor engages with it actively. Instead, it inhabits a state of attentive stillness, perfectly suited to the quiet life of the garden that surrounds it. So here with the Waterperry sculpture , we have  something more, beyond introspection.

The Spong Man is introspective. Barlach's monk is contemplative. Nathan David's  Seated Figure (Meditation) suggests something gentler still: not looking into oneself but looking upon the world with patient openness. Perhaps the better word is attention.

Attention is being  present to what is before us without immediately seeking to possess, classify or explain it. Some truths disclose themselves if we are  willing to linger.