In Quadrant, Dalrymple reflects on the obituary of a colorectal surgeon who died of cancer at fifty, finding in the man’s selfless devotion to his patients a rebuke to his own less purposeful life as well as a puzzle about why a world populated by so many excellent people remains in so lamentable a state.
I find myself veering, or careening, between complacency on the one hand, and despair on the other. If I tell myself that my life is perfectly satisfactory, I accuse myself of callousness or indifference towards all the suffering millions in the world; if I tell myself that the condition of the world is catastrophic because there is so much suffering in the world, I accuse myself of humbug, since I know perfectly well that I take many pleasures, including that of my forthcoming lunch, and that, in my lifetime, I have known many more good people than bad. I feel that I ought to have an indubitably correct attitude, like a tightrope walker high above a circus ring, but I find that it is beyond my ability to find one.