Circularity

It is easy to be ahead of the trend,
particularly when you have lived it before,
as a slightly different experience,
but you had forgotten. Then, accidentally,
you find that is coming around again... 

So That Is Why I Never Became A Parent...

I thought the fish would help the baby keep quiet and calm...

I Am Glad

I am just not very good at being an adult,
particularly when I know how much
they like telling children what to think,
not even how to think it, and discourage
being pressed to relearn for themselves.

My creativity is mostly for myself,
and is about being well disorganised.    

The Art Of Bad Listening

As a child I had strong feelings around ideas of defeat,
any relief that victory gave when it came was always brief.
Both sets of feelings were reinforced for going undiscussed
so naturally defeat stayed with me far longer than victory.
It took me decades to realise that so much of what I felt
came from living with people who listened very badly.
What I needed from them all was empathy,
what I got instead was others imposing solutions
for fear of themselves doing without. They made the fear
so ordinary that we did not know how deaf we were.

Now I have learned, I try to be aware and reasoned.
Whether people listen and acknowledge the same,
or listen and don't acknowledge me, covertly blank me,
I know to not care too much. Bad listeners are legion....

Follow The Money

First class lies are what we get from Politicians
when they insist that that should travel in luxury
as part of being seen to live well,
as they are the advert for their country.

The reality is that such luxury
 is a sign of the distance they like,
which in private they admit they need,
to keep away from the noise of those they lead.

They clearly fail to see how when these images
of being distant through travel go around the world,
others will misrepresent the country of their origin.

Thus our leaders become poster children for an immigration
they despise, because where the world poor see wealth abroad
they want to follow it, and will accept being pushed it's direction.
As it was, and is, in the way of all remittance economies....

On Friendship

If we can learn to be positively polite
to people we only sort-of like
then maybe our respect will deepen
for the people we ought to know better.

Ourselves....  

The Election Poster You Can Trust

because 'democracy is the least worst choice we have'-Winston Churchill 

Non-Binary Social Relations

Monogamy presents itself as being the best in mutuality
that two people could ever give, and as natural as can be,
though best not ask about the monocultures in which it thrives.

Polygamy is different; How it is seen depends who we listen to.
Women who accept it like the variable arrangements,
some say 'I cope better with the man for just half the week;
their absence the rest of the time leaves me closer to my children
and gives me room to be sociably strong in my own strength'.

The man will say 'I like having wives; I choose what I tell them,
and tell them different things at different times. They don't know
how little they know about me, how opaque I like to seen to be,
they don't even about each other.'. I tell them 'Is ignorance bliss?'
They don't know that is the most they are going to know about me.

And if all that jive does not pass muster then concider
the community shame that is pushed upon the widow
who resists the pressure to remarry. This leaves local women
unreassured that their husbands won't stray. Oh! Jealousy!
Insecurity will make them blame the widow for being 'loose',
but the married men attracted to her will be absolved for lacking self control.

Which then is 'the weaker sex', for being more 'forgiving' under duress? 
Would the gender dynamic be just the same,but reversed, with polyandry?

Being non-heterosexual myself I like to have friends of both genders,
alas too few who are the opposite of me, and a front door to keep the world out.
But I still want to live in a non-procreative, supportive, loose buddy-ship.

Travel Through Technology Is Often More Technology Than Travel

The wars in places modern americans can't find on a map are proof of this...

Narcissism, Hypocricy, and Catharsis

  Lazy as I am, one of my bug bears is lazy thinkers. Many of  them I know like the label 'atheist', as applied to themselves. How do I see them? One word they use a lot is 'hypocrite', as used to describe other people in whom they find inconsistency. As far the evidence goes, they show little comprehension of the origins of the word.

  'Hypocrite' was the greek word for an actor. many reading this will be familiar with the symbol of two masks facing in different directions, one indicating sadness another happiness. This was the sign of the mix of tragedy and grief characteristic of Greek drama. 'Hypocrite' is used quite a lot in The Gospels to describe the attitudes of particular priests of the Jewish faith who looked two ways at the same time. To The Romans they appeared to be loyal to the Roman State on the terms it demanded, and in the other other direction the priests encouraged a localism, a loyalty to the soil they lived off, through serving in the temples and going through their rituals on behalf of the people. Rituals which the people paid for, prayed for, and expected to continue. This is theocracy as representative democracy, as proved by the offerings and prayers made in the temples. Votive offerings as votes for God. Whether we recognise them or not every human has their ideas about votive offerings, rituals and votes. Such actions create and uphold societies.

  Whether greek, roman/jewish, or any other period far later in history the idea of the two faces looking in different directions remains the same. The conflict between pain and happiness the jews faced was deepened by such a singular idea of a single omniscient diety when compared with the actions of the gods of foreign military powers who seemingly defeat the people who believe in Him through sheer strength. 'Theatre of war' was no mere metaphor. Atheists I know of use 'hypocricy' with no acknowledgement of the historical twists in the use of the word, using it seemingly at best as a symptom of their distress at the lack of consistency in their world. Or like a swear word....

  'Hypocricy' is like 'narcissism'; both are big words declaring big ideas, and contain myth and story to boot. When either or both are misused to simplify life it is at the expense of nuance. Both are greek and describe the working of a mind and consciousness that engages with recognition whilst being troubled, and not entirely clearly or with success. Greek theatre was partly designed to whip up election fever. In ancient Greece elections were direct, voting was between equals and elections were held whilst hosting theatre and sport festivals alongside the vote. It was like having an election and having a theatre festival, whilst putting on The Olympics as well.

  Modern politics has a lot of theatre in it, and whilst modern theatre often creates a sense of catharsis, a release of the emotions-as does sport for many, both are relatively apolitical unless playwrights and sportsmen deal with directly political subjects and characters. Playwrights usually deal with politics in the relatively distant form of potted biography and satire.

  Narcissim is the process the struggle to recognise yourself in your reflection. Many representative democracies have that difficulty for those that believe in them. This is why many of the led call their leaders hypocrites for being inconsistent with some image the leader has projected, which was not backed up by actions.

  There is a recognition in calling political leaders 'hypocrites', and alas an all too short lived catharsis..... 

The Wayward Pulpit

The first rule of Hell
is that those who put others
in the queue to go there
don't know where they are
in said queue themselves.

The second rule of Hell
is that those who embrace
it in lieu of youthful rebellion
make good cover for the place
as a permanent solid state
long after any hormonal rush;
a choice of life beyond redemption.

The third rule of Hell
is that it will deny alternatives
to it exist, and make a vanity of rationality
which quietly flatters those on whom it calls.

The fourth rule of Hell
is that it is never decieved;
it is here to decieve others,
whether they are willing or not,
and prefferably unawares.

This message will destruct
when you close this window.
That is when your real li(f)e resumes
and you are free to set
your own rate of self destruction.
  

Forty Years Is Not Long

in the electoral cycle. If you don't believe me
then measure the distance from Ronald Reagan,
B movie actor, crony of McCarthy, a very minor wit,
and a good man to deliver speeches he could never write
to Donald Trump, heir to a building empire, reality TV star
and a man who openly lives in a world driven by social media
who is never short of fresh stunts to stunt peoples attention span.

But, like the people who's attention he is always reducing,
what he lacks is any real interest in the effects of his actions.

Past In Recovery, Present Imperfect, Future Watchful....

Nobody I know has a perfect past.
Nobody I know has a perfect present.
All the humans I know expect the future
to be less-then-pristine.
It has taken me decades of effort,
and of living in comfort beyond belief,
for me to reach my present state
of conditional, and cautious, optimism.

As of now, I would be very happy
were I to be sent to Hell
in the handcart of my own creation,
for the benefit of whoever needs me there.
But it seems that now I am ready to go
nobody is willing me to go there.

Having struggled this long
I have to ask myself, yet again,
what more must I do to help them?


  

Why Is It Dangerous To Believe In Aliens?

Because if you live in mainstream America,
where television peddles such fantasies as 'normal',
then the salesmen in gun shops will sell high velocity weaponry
by telling you that not only are those aliens real,
but they are out to get you. The aliens that is,
not the salesmen-though they have agendas too.

The hardware that is sold sells on the basis
that when the aliens find you, then powerful guns
will be your only means fit for halting the progress
of these dangerous foreigners from outer space.
If you don't believe me then look at this.

Selling guns through the fear of meeting people
that you will never meet-because they don't exist-
is so far beyond belief it is unbelievable; the delux twist
on the self fulfilling prophesy that is 'The Zombie Apocalypse'.

What nobody has yet devised is a Hollywood entertainment
where the aliens manufacture guns, selling them with the strapline
'Because other people are the aliens... '. Who would know
what to believe about whom if such a film were it made?

We Have Been Warned....

Though to be fair, dark humour may also reflect a darkness in the world.....

Victorian Values

Charles Darwin neither invented nor discovered
how animals compete with one another to survive.
On his voyage on The Beagle to the south seas
he began his studies by reinterpreting Lamarkism.
The more he looked and thought, and took samples,
the more-through the ideas of Thomas Malthus-
his understanding found something wholely new.
 
Alas he could not have foreseen how his science
would lead to wholely new arguments to justify
the inequality and misanthropy between humans,
where the rich trod on the poor to maintain their wealth,
because such steps were 'natural'. And in the next century
false victimhood would further falsify his science for it's triumph.

If science rewrote history the way Christians once did,
then 1809, the year of Darwin's birth, would be Year Zero.
B.D. would be Before Darwin, A.D. would become After Darwin,
and The Good News would be about how well the purest science
proves that the wealth of the powerful is their right,
particularly when it justifies the poor being poorer.
Because Capital and Capitalism are just like nature,
and advantage is everything in competition,
both have to be defended at all cost to the losers.

Beneath the fur both all is red in tooth and claw
and everyone and everything is beyond redemption.

Empires Are For Spoiled Children,

the offspring of those who are so insulated
for being in control of their society
that they don't for one moment realise
how well they are doing in this world;
they are the ones who send the orders out
to those who are to be ordered about
who can have no real comprehension
of where their orders have come from.

Constructive Labelling

NSFW is an acronym that indicates
that the content that follows is openly sexual,
cruel, or otherwise lacking in decency and taste.
It is employed to warn users of the internet
of content which is likely to soil, or corrupt,
their minds, particularly when viewed repeatedly.
Many users actively enjoy such corruption.

But in these times of  high unemployment
and employment being high tech and remote
with management apparently automated
I wish employers would redeploy the letters
to tell governments that the ill should stop
apply for jobs and be left on benefits;
the gain for the rich scapegoating the poor,
whether said poor are worthy or unworthy,
is no longer enough to make it worth the poor
applying for jobs they were never going to get.

Employers and government should, instead,
let the illness of the ill be proof of their unworthiness;
let them be safe, kept cheaply at a distance far enough
from the rich so that the poor can get on with being poor
without false exepectations of change being raised.  

The Empire's Old Clothes

Who knew it? Britain's greatest modern export
is not some well made highly skilled industrial product,
but the used domestic goods and second hand clothes
that British households leave to charities with use in them.
What the charity does not put in their shops they sells to dealers
which is how the goods end up in eastern europe,
where many locals can't make a living through work.
They want to go where the clothes come from
because futures seem more assured there.

Once examined, the best clothes get snapped up by dealers
for reselling on the local ebay. The remaining good clothes
are further resold to dealers based in the African continent.
Whatever is left gets shredded, turned into briquettes
 to fire the furnaces which power the nearby concrete works.

No wonder so many migrants attempt to enter Britain,
when they see the quality of goods we reject, little realising
that the very rejection of so much proves how false we are. 
      

Time Out Of Mind

Escape is never easy, and returning when you need to be back is the hardest part...

Pegs And Mirrors

Polytheism permits it's believers as many behaviors
as the society they are part of need represented through their gods.
In such a place every deity has their own narrative
which reflects the complex gender and family relations between humans.

Their pantheons become halls of mirrors,
where people recognize themselves, but only dimly.
Cynics, atheists, and modernists will mutter
'anthropomorphism as tradition' to describe this,
whilst being blithe about the limits that their beliefs
set upon any society they happen to be part of.

But what of monotheism? The old alternative...
Men are never more singular than when fighting wars.
In the singularity of war warriors and their god become one. 
Their spoils as victors was not just the captives they took home
but the forced conversion of their enemies to their belief.
This leaves far less room for the deity to be a symbol
who reflects gender, choice and inconsistency in society.

Repetitive Brain Injury

I have often been aware of being drawn
towards ideas and people I know I don't want,
and I would not not know how to handle
were I immersed in them. And yet....
I continue to be both drawn and repelled.

A close friend who has PTSD understands this well,
and calls my condition 'repetitve brain injury',
where the brain repeats the injury caused to it
long ago as if acting out old emotive memories,
of injury simultaneously caused and denied. 
  
He often feels himself retreating from situations
when the perfectly legal misbehavior of certain people
did him a damage he can neither repent of, nor forget. 

How Often Do Films Lie?

In the analogue era they lied
twenty four times per second.
In the digital era they lie so fast
that the human mind cannot count
the rate of deceit, and gives up trying.

Love Is Accepted Easiest When It Is Misconcieved....

It is a popular misconception
that we can buy an effective obedience
through the ownership of one person by another.
It becomes further misconcieved when call it 'Love'.

When on the name of jealousy and secrecy
we block the exits of those we say we love,
should we be surprised when they respond in kind?
It happens all the time. Much rarer to find
are the riches in the companionship of equals.
Honesty gives the free choice of staying or leaving,
and choosing the right distance from which to connect.

My Favourite Time To Be Half Awake

is breakfast because it time for strong coffee, or magic.

Modesty Publishing

is when we publish what we think
to the world without ever expecting
our thoughts to be acknowledged,
respected very much, or acted upon.
Something like this blog really.....

Patriotism Is The Opiate Of The people

Black red and yellow were the colours of the stripes
of the flag on the shoulder of the shirts I bought
from on Army Surplus stores when I was in my 20's,
when I was living in Poor Town, North Lincolnshire.
I knew they were the colours of the East German flag.
In the limits of my education I thought they meant
'Through the night and the blood comes the light',
though I have no idea where the phrase came from.

I am sure East Germans were told until it was ground into them
that the black in their flag represented the Nazi past,
and growing malign power of the united German States
from 1870 onward. The red represented the Soviet Socialist army
who rescued them from Hitler, Roosevelt and Churchill,
in what they were taught to call 'The Great Patriotic War'.
And the yellow was the light of the GDR, the state
that succeeded after the war. Little could they, or I, know
that a truer light was yet to come, within a very different Europe.

The Electoral Process

I can't mind 'free thinking'.
But I worry when the thoughts
which gain the greatest public praise
appear to be free of all internal process and logic
-particularly when they deny all the consequences
of what might happen if their thoughts were enacted.

Southern Accents?

For as long as state schooling has been mandatory
adults have suspected that what schools teach children
is 'How to not be yourself for the benefit of other people'.
What many adults realize less is the role of accent in the process.

People from every region in the UK train to become teachers,
and the more Northern, Scottish, Welsh, or Irish their accent
the more they are pushed through training and job interviews
to speak in Southern English tones, as if such speech patterns
were the accent of the self elect, who pupils should aspire to join.

If in the UK division is by social class and region
then in America it is the patterns of black speech
which stand in for 'working class' and 'uneducated'.
The whiter the manner of speech the more
socially successful the speaker will surely be.

And probably the less you would trust them with your money.

Be Careful What You Listen To

Softly spoken magic spells
may assuage any number of ills
but they will not help us face reality.

Out With The Old, In With The Looks-Like-New

Much of the Atheism I have failed to understand
owes far more to folks dumping pasts they believe
they never lived - back yards full of metaphors -
only to find said back yards refilling with something
less coherent. As these changing pasts repeat on them
the repeats prove that what they threw out was stronger.

For when folks pass of some shiny new ignorance
as the latest wisdom the pretense becomes all too clear
-they have been where many others have been before, 
and deny the route back is still there, all too close behind them.