This is a danger we’re all acquainted with. Seneca also wrote on the shortness of life:

Just as travellers are beguiled by conversation or reading or some profound meditation, and  find that they have arrived at their destination before they knew they were approaching it; so it is with this unceasing and extremely fast-moving journey of life, which waking and sleeping we make at the same pace – the preoccupied become aware of it only when it is over.

The last few months of life have whizzed by and haven’t been at all bad, but part of me is conscious that I can’t – and certainly don’t want – to keep up this pace. There is, as the old Stoic would agree, more to life…

I’ve got a holiday coming up soon, after which I hope things will drop a gear or two. The book should also, finally, be coming out so that should be interesting. When I consulted the I Ching about its prospects, I ended up with the Trigram Opposition... which doesn't particularly bother me to be honest. Fortunately there is not one called "Indifference"!

So some things to look forward to, although, as I keep reminding myself, it’s not about the looking forward, but the here and now (which of course I’ll bear in mind when I receive my next outrageous deadline).

In the U.S., there's not a sense that other people are looking out for you. It’s based on hyper-individualism, and if you can’t find health care, then you’re not trying hard enough.

EGB: That’s why we call our record Declaration of Dependence. It’s to give depending on other people a better name.

 Is the record at all about your relationship as musicians? About you needing each other?

EGB: A lot of the time, I know that a song was written about some other person, but I feel that we are singing about each other. That’s a smart thing, because the relationship that we are in is very similar to a relationship you’ll have with someone you love, like a girlfriend-boyfriend situation. So, you might be writing about that, but it totally fits with talking about the other person in the band. It’s about the same things.

The most famous declaration of dependence is "I love you," but we can never say it. Everyone knows the Declaration of Independence, which is maybe the basis for capitalism. “We’re better off without you,” that’s what it’s saying. The great paradox is that we all seem to lead our lives in the direction of finding someone we love. And we use all of this technology -- we always find ways to connect with people and be dependent on other people. But we’re saying that we want to be independent. But the truth is that we want to be part of something, that we are important, that someone cares about us, and that someone would be sad if we left.

So happy Dependence Day all, and happy birthday me!

Our society is mentally ill. All societies are to a greater or lesser extent – France, for example, famously has a something like a quarter of its population on Prozac. The United States appears torn between unreflective belief and Liberal self-loathing. Italy has the mother of all mother complexes. Iran? China? Japan? Germany?

So what of Britain? I think its got over the Empire. Class certainly reared its ugly head again at the recent election, but it’s actually so out there it’s less a dysfunction than a disability.

No. I think England’s problem (and it is England in particular, as the Celts have hang-ups of their own) is bulimia.

England is a country torn between avarice and disgust.

Between 1979 and 1997 the Tories stripped the public sector – the NHS was run-down, taxes kept low.

From 1997 until a few weeks ago the Labour Party built the sector back up, reinvesting in services.

Yet now the pendulum has swung back. Services are about to be slashed, along with taxes. If you are in work, you might get richer. Just don’t get ill, unless you can afford to do so.

Britain is like a bulimic, gorging on Big State then evacuating it behind the potted plant.

Perhaps beneath the surface the Reformation rumbles on – we remain divided between Calvinism and Catholicism, individualism and community.

Calvin, originator of the Protestant work ethic, preached salvation through hard work. Our wealth became a measure of our virtue (it is one of those ironies Luther’s disgust with the Catholicism’s sale of Indulgences led to a faith that placed commercial gain at it’s summit).

Yet our communal, Catholic legacy pulls the other way. We feel ashamed of our greed, worried about our services… even, now and then, the fate of those less fortunate than ourselves.

So expect our state to re-inflate in another five years, or 10.

Walking along the Embankment this week with Andy, I showed him the Battle of Britain monument which vividly depicts the nation pulling together against a common enemy.

Of course in 1945 the same nation voted for a radical Labour government which created the ultimate big state. It took until 1979 for Margaret Thatcher to seriously try to reverse it with her vision of a kind of America.

But we can neither live in the past, nor pretend we are another country.

If we want to strike a kind of balance surely we need to calm the cultural currents that seethe beneath our consciousness; reconcile the best, rather than the worst, of our religious traditions.

Calvinism’s sense of individual accountability with Catholicism’s indispensible community, perhaps.

Now what does that remind me of?

Seeking to draw what consolation I can from the Liberal-Conservative victory in the recent General Election, I am reminded it is a life of surprises.

As Prefab Sprout put it:

Darling it's a life of surprises
It's no help growing older or wiser
You don't have to pretend you're not crying
When it's even in the way that you're walking

Few "progressive" voters really believed the Liberal Democrats would actually go in to coalition with the regressive forces of conservatism, despite what the Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg had warned.

Indeed subsequent polls indicated that most Lib Dem voters, on a scale of 4:1, wished for a coalition with the Labour Party.

Yet how much was this actually a case of wishful-thinking?

The Liberal Democrats are the oldest political party in the UK, next to the Conservatives.

Formerly known as "Whigs" they were traditionally the party of the "bourgeois" - the business community - in opposition to the Conservatives, who represented the old order, the landed gentry who wanted to keep things as they were (conserve-ative).

The pair of them argued it out until the turn of the 20th Century when another force arrived on the scene - socialism - and with it the party of the work force (ie, those employed by the bourgeois) which became known as Labour.

The Liberals, who were given to promoting a dynamic business environment (often to the detriment of their labour) not least by pressing for more "liberal" laws that challenged the old, conservative order were squeezed.

It became a two-party race between Labour and Conservatives.

Until now.

Seeing things as they actually are rather than the way many of us (including some Lib Dem MPs it is fair to say) wanted to see them can help us understand why the coalition came as such an unpleasant surprise to so many.

For example, many voters had come to associate "progressive" with the "Left", hence made an automatic association between the Lib Dems and Labour, and the inevitability therefore of a coalition.

Yet "progressive" itself perhaps meant something different to both parties - for one symbolic of an approach that reflected the concerns of the bourgeois, to another of policies that prioritised those upon the lower rungs of society.

In which case it made sense for the Lib Dems to go not with Labour but the Tories, with whom they shared similar views upon the size of the state and environmentalism.

So I don't think, as some have suggested, the Lib Dem leadership deceived their supporters, but I think some of their supporters may have deceived themselves.

The evidence was in front of them, if only they chose to see it.

It may be a life of surprises, but surprises seldom "just happen". If we are surprised, it is usually because we have not been paying sufficient attention, or perhaps we have sought to see the world not as it actually is, but as we would like it to be.

What else are we choosing not to see?

Watching the legendary footballer sobbing as he realized he had broken his Achilles tendon and would not make it to the World Cup, I felt real sadness. Not just for England’s World Cup chances but for the man himself, whose serene attitude exemplifies a kind of oneness at odds with the fractured celebrity-culture the Beckham “brand” paradoxically embodies.

It has not always been thus. His early wunderkind career was characterized by a brittleness that reached its Cavalry during the 1998 World Cup Finals when he was sent off for lashing out in a match against Argentina. He subsequently attracted much of the blame for England’s elimination from the competition. An effigy was hung of him outside a London pub and his performances were met with boos for years.

Yet in the face of this opprobrium the footballer transformed in to a figure of calm and fair play. He told the Guardian:

I could have done interview after interview to try to explain myself, but doing it on the pitch counts for more… In that sort of situation you can either go home and cry, which I felt like doing at times, or you can come out fighting… I worked hard at it, to get where I am today.  

Beckham is known for his rigorous training regime, commitment to the art of football. The multi-millionaire could have wound down his days at LA Galaxy were it not for his love of the game and desire to get in the England squad – hence his move to AC Milan to stay in shape, just as US players like Galaxy teammate Landon Donovan are seeing out the season in England’s Premier League.

One of the things I like about Beckham is how his marriage to “Posh” Spice Girl Victoria (in fact every bit as working class as him and raised down the road from me, as it happens) appears to have hardly changed him at all. He has cheerfully acquiesced to Victoria’s preoccupation with fashion, enjoyed it clearly too, adorning himself with tattoos like a Maori warrior, but has rarely sought the affirmation celebrities so often seek. He has nothing to prove, no interest, plainly, outside his commitment to his art. For all the Gucci trappings, David Beckham remains an “uncut block” bobbing along with the river’s flow.

Now of course he has hit the rocks, risks being pushed under – his very meaning called in to question. I hope however his inner-resilience, the sense of self he has cultivated through adversity will stand him in sufficient stead to weather the storm.

Back in the late 1990s, when he was approaching national pariah status, a church put up a sign reading

GOD EVEN FORGIVES BECKS

David would do well to reflect how true this turned out to be, and how a kind of resurrection remains within the grasp of us all.

So religion is the new rock and roll, and not just of the radical hellfire preacher/ bearded fundamentalist variety – a sure sign is that cool people are coming out religious. In England original comedy rock and roller Frank Skinner continues to ride the rock and roll wave with religion, and another rock and roll icon Michael Moore beats the drum in the states.

Trouble is, I was never actually a great fan of rock and roll. I used to live in a big house with a rock and roll band on the top floor, a dance collective in the basement and an indi band (well, me) in the middle. How our neighbours loved us.

While the dance collective had the cred, the rock and roll band had the monster record deal and all that came with it, which to me (and the pasty-faced dance boys in the basement) was mostly represented by gorgeous girlfriends in leather trousers.

Rock and roll! But despite the looks, the hype, VIP suites and free champagne, after a while (a pretty long while, admittedly) we began to quietly accept it was all actually a bit… well, dull.

Even the pretty women, once we had become acclimatized to the aesthetic, turned out, much like the band’s songs, not to have very much to say.

Which is why of course rock and roll has not been rock and roll since around 1973. Instead it has largely been manufactured rebellion gauged to generate dough. Beneath the sturm and drang beats a heart of utter conformity.  

Indi on the other hand has always been something else. Indi was derived from the “independent” cottage industry nature of the record labels, often put out at cost (or by the band itself) because no big record company would dream of taking the risk. The highlight of most Indi bands careers was to get airplay on the late John Peel’s show.

John Peel, God of Indi. I’m sure you’re up there somewhere, lining up seven minutes of free-form electronica by a trio from Zagreb.

Indi was art for art’s sake. Words in Indi usually added up to something. Many bands now considered mainstream broke through from Indi – the Smiths, the Cure, Orange Juice, the Pixies, Nirvana etc, despite the Industry. Many more live on in my iPod, played to exhaustion unknown by their creators, most of whom now doubtless have “proper” jobs, mortgages and so on.

So if religion is the new rock and roll, Unitarianism to me is the new Indi. It’s unconventional, sometimes quirky; it’s not afraid to say the unsayable, think outside the box. It doesn’t yell rock and roll, whoop and wave its shirt about in the air. It’s the skinny, dark-eyed kid in the corner at parties who actually has something interesting to say, the kid who’s going to leave town someday and amount to something. Not yet though – it’s wedged against the wall with a few oddball friends, largely overlooked.

Contemplating the latest bout of politics at the office, I resolved that rather than get drawn in I would attempt to cultivate a more “religious” attitude. I imagined a more detached me; forgiving, unencumbered, quite possibly a bit smug too.

I warmed to the idea, wondered how practical it would be; realized the more I could afford to adopt a religious attitude essentially depended upon the less I needed to “care” about work.

By “care” I don’t mean doing a good job, or the work itself, which I care very much about, but the actual need to do so – in short how much I needed the job.

I realized that I was able to contemplate a more spiritual attitude because I was approaching a position financially where – partly due to savings, partly other possibilities – I did not need to rely on this particular job as my sole source of income. So I could afford to “care” less and thereby cultivate a better me.

It has always been thus, but it reminded me of the fundamental role financial security plays in our spiritual lives. Of course the poor are often among the most religious and spiritually generous, but equally I suspect there is a particular advantage in having reached the summit of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

Gandhi’s poverty grew out of his life experience – built upon privilege. But would the man who did so much to champion the cause of the “untouchables” have chosen this asceticism had he been born of “untouchables”? More – had he been born of untouchables and somehow managed to improve his status, would he have chosen the trappings of poverty over wealth? Having laboured so hard, would he even have had the space to explore his spirituality? Instead would his truth be born of the grim realities of poverty and his determination never to return to them?

Not that I want to diss Gandhi (heaven forbid!) but I think we all have a tendency to underestimate the influence of wealth upon spirituality, and the implications of this – how economics can influence access to that higher aspect of ourselves. I believe Schopenhauer had this in mind when he wrote poverty is slavery. 

This for me is the key reason why religion is indivisible from social action – not out of pity, or even physical need, but because a life not fully lived is an inherently poor one. 

Politics matters, although office politics I will henceforth attempt to rise above.

While I can afford to.