I was walking home yesterday from the gym here in beloved Totnes in Devon. The fruit and veg wallah came out of his shop and called out to me: “Christopher, there’s an article in today’s paper about you with a photo of you in Afghanistan.”

Why did I walk straight into the news agents to buy the Devon newspaper?

I live in a small town. The other day I heard two people talking about me in the Barrel, my local coffee shop. I did not recognise the two people talking. I found my body starting to lean over in their direction to catch the words. If I lent much further, I would have toppled over!

Hearing the word “Christopher” from the other table became a distraction from my reading a remarkable and truly exceptional novel, “Alone in Berlin” by Hans Fallada, the German novelist who died in 1947.  Incidentally, the novel focusses on the theme of protest and captures succinctly my whole view of human responsibility, no matter what the circumstances and apparent futility.

Why is their such interest in “I” “me” and “my?”  Since we are so interested in our “self,” then surely we should go on retreat to know more about our self, participate in groups for self knowledge or meet one to one with a skilled psychotherapist.

Do the views of other people about ourselves matter more than our view? (the photo in Afghanistan was taken in 1967).