Been wandering around in a daze of unreality the last few days. To have two friends go in six months - and similar circumstances - is unnerving; I can't quite stop the superstitious side, the little voice that wonders who might be next. Also the fact of this young man's life, unlike the other: this one was younger, unmarried, no children, no girlfriend even. All potential. So well liked. But with little tangible left behind, little legacy, you begin to wonder how long before he is an anecdote to us. A name, a photo. And finally in the years from now a twinge at most. Age shall not weary him, no, but our imperfect memories will forget.

And yes, I wonder about myself. If I was that third person what would people remember about me?

Yesterday in one of the broadsheets was published a list of things that I, as a woman, should have achieved by my thirties. What would ordinarily be weightless fluff suddenly felt morally offensive. I should have amassed a shoe collection? Been taken to lunch by my boss? Negotiated a pay rise? What the fuck, people? What the fuck? I hope no one in real grieving - my friend's mother, say, or those female friends closer to him than I was - saw that article. We are being told by no less than the paper of record that the gold standard of human achievement amounts to buying pointless garments with the dosh you earned in your pointless job.

Here's a scenario: at your funeral, do you want people to say thank goodness she hatched a plan for her own business before she died? I mean, really?

Not for the first time am I ambivalent about our first world problems. Not being able to afford a mortgage, yeah, not super. Losing your 25-year-old child, another fucking planet of hurt.

I don't mean to imply in the face of awesome human suffering that our worries are meaningless. But it is increasingly clear we have lost sight utterly of what constitutes an actual, real concern, what it means to be a good human person, how to live. We call cleverness with investments virtue and luck in the stock markets intelligence. And I'm not saying knitting your own yoghurt is the way forward either - in many ways, the locally-sourced/green/frugal schtick is only replacing one consumerist paradigm with another, because it is still a way of measuring the value of your life by what you have and how you spend.

What I'm saying is... I don't know what I'm saying. I don't know if it is better to be a good human in the ways that are traditionally admirable (raising children well, not hurting others) or whether, in the long perspective that is the age of the earth, what we do matters at all. What I do know is that if I am remembered for anything I do not want it to be for having spent loads of money on shoes.