Why a window? 1

In some way or other we are all outside the window looking in. If we are honest, we all have periods when we feel ignored, like bystanders, looking through a window into a room where the real actors are getting on with the day's work. For some, this is fine, but for others, particularly at the moment, when the world appears to be falling apart and people feel afraid, being outside can be dangerous, as Carol Ann Duffy (Education for Leisure, from the 1980s) made clear:

'Today I am going to kill something. Anything.

I have had enough of being ignored and today
I am going to play God.'

Don't misunderstand, it's not a question of being apathetic. I'm passionate enough about life to get involved in politics, music, literature. Being outside one can often see things that would be ignored from inside the group. Crowds or organised activities so often steamroller the individual. When anyone talks of organising other people there's always a sickening smell of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four warning about obsessive, central organisation gone mad:

'If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face.' Okay, today the picture becomes a reality TV show and the boot becomes a Jimmy Choo shoe, but the point remains the same.