Column | It is clear what it really is about. However?

So many thrushes at once? That’s impossible? No, they are not thrushes. They are copper wicks. Nice! I say and that sounds perfunctory, but I also really like it. From behind my desk I now see a lot of scrambling outside, a wren rustling on the ground, wrens are like mice so fast and small and hey, a black redstart and the great tits are so busy – spring is not only nice because of the warmth and leaf, but also because so much life returns. Not that the robins hibernate in South Africa, but you can now see them hopping around much more freely. They seem to be mean rotten birds, but they are very disarming. Those are the worst of course.

Recently I was visiting a dietitian in a hospital. A cheerful woman who enjoyed her work, although she was not happy with the tiny, windowless cubicle in which she had to perform her duties. You never think about it that way when you visit doctors in neon-lit windowless consulting rooms, or see nurses in cubicles taking blood, putting people under machines—that they have to be in those rooms all day. Yet they usually do their job with great pleasure.

At the end of their lives, people always say that love or the beloved was the most important thing, said pulmonologist Sander de Hosson when I spoke to him for NRC. “In 100 percent of the cases.” I believe so. But does it always apply? Would, let me name someone, Pablo Picasso finally say that the woman on duty was the one around whom his life revolved? Not for painting? Hmm, you’d take him for a poseur even if he were dying—unless we assume that at the end of the day people only speak the truth, the one, deep, great truth.

From the fact that most people on their deathbed attach the most importance to love and closeness, the conclusion is often drawn that we should spend much more time on that throughout our lives because apparently that would be what really matters to us. After all, no one says that she would have preferred to sit in a sunless cubicle even more. No one takes the last pride in delivering the highest possible return to shareholders – so go do something else. Look at what really matters to you!

Also, no one will say that she loved seeing redwings in the garden. Or to have written a poem. Or to have understood a difficult text, or to have worked very concentrated for a morning or to have had a good laugh with friends.

On the radio I hear commercials in succession inviting me to choose my ‘favourite’ songs, to visit ‘great’ exhibitions, to watch the ‘most beautiful’ films and to benefit from the ‘highest’ return on my investments ( with such an understanding warm voice that tells me that then I can do a lot of beautiful things for my loved ones).

It is quite a modern anomaly to ask people to enjoy themselves in the superlative degree all the time and display strong preferences all the time. Of course, the people you love are most important – but that doesn’t make the rest of your life unimportant.

What is “most important” in your life right now? With the gun on the chest you really make choices. But that doesn’t say much about all those days without a gun.

By the way, there is now a thrush. Nice!