As a writer once said, we love the earth but we don’t get to stay. So why not have a decent sunrise or two while we’re hanging around?

From Swan Peak (2008) by James Lee Burke

Do you ever have those days when it’s a struggle to shake off enveloping gloom? Of course you do! And at such time it is no good whatsoever to remind yourself that you are very lucky, compared with most people in the world. Inevitably each human being places himself or herself at the centre of the narrative, and when things go wrong in your personal life at the same time as world events feel terribly threatening….well, sometimes it’s hard to get out of bed, isn’t it? That’s how I’ve been feeling since the death of my little dog Bonnie, closely followed by the Islamofascist atrocities in Paris. These days I wonder what happened to my ‘glass half full’ philosophy of life. As the wonderful poet Fran Landesman wrote: ‘All the news is bad again, kiss your dreams goodbye…’ (from the Ballad of the Sad Young Men).

So why did I choose to put this quote from James Lee Burke at the top of my Daily Mail column? I’m a huge fan of Burke’s Dave Robicheaux novels and have devoured four this month. In some way you might think that the world of wickedness he writes about would make life even more depressing, yet ex-cops Robicheaux and Purcell wage their fight of good against evil, and that is a narrative we need – as good always triumphs and the bad guys get blown away. Hooray! This is archetypal and remote from wishy-washy sympathy for the devil.

But Louisiana man Dave Robicheaux is a philosopher as well as an avenging angel. He bears witness to beauty wherever he can and will always celebrate the love of family and friends – which gives a powerful motive for fighting corruption, crime, hatred and evil. He clings to what is good because of all his experience of the opposite. That’s where this simple quote comes in. Who can disagree with it? Now sadly it so happens that many people do not ‘love the earth’ because they are hell-bent on despoiling it…but let’s leave that bleak but true thought aside, just for the moment. Life is short, Dave says, and so we should make sure we have some good times while we are here. ‘Seize the day’ – yet again! Notice he mentions ‘sunrise.’ That word invokes cleanness, somehow, as well as the hope of what a new day may bring. I like the word ‘decent’ too. Although it’s used casually (as we might use ‘OK’) it also carries with it ideas of honourable behaviour (‘doing the decent thing’) and generally accepted standards.

Without those standards we are all doomed.

But they are always under threat.

Therefore, like Dave Robicheaux, I cling to the people I adore and the countryside I love and the way of life I prize – and vow to shake off this miasma of anxiety that envelops me and to celebrate each new dawn.

While I can.