Paradoxically

When you can see your blind spots
then your are no longer as blind,
because you are no longer not seeing
what your blind spots once stopped you
from recognising for what it was.  

Unethical Work

Many work for what they achieve
by letting the letting the work ethic
stream them into career structures
that accept them as human beings
and turn them into drones.

Being a drone is what makes
the life of being pushed into debt
in the pursuit of wealth seem liveable

Eventually they become tired drones
and as former humans they keep on trying
but they don't have strength, enough
to keep on being competitive;
they get taken out or pensioned off. 

I will work to achieve less; keep me out of debt.
What I have, compared with others,
let me own outright. No need for jealousy. 

The Omniscience Of Uncertainty

We all like the idea of good health,
and longevity whilst living well
-who would want to live long and badly?

Though that is something we all will,
unwittingly, inflict on other people.

But the Covid has brought us up short
and made us think harder about what we rely on.

Before the virus we had a certainty
and we lived with choice and plenty.
Now, through the science of vaccines, 
we again seek choice and certainty,
but now there is none.

Yes, there is a vaccine,
in fact there are several.
And yes, the jab will stop us
from getting the virus
in limited circumstances, 

But even after two doses
we can still be carriers
who can infect other people
particularly the unvaccinated.

The only certainty the vaccine has given us
is that good science is always logical
and the more logical we seek to be
the more illogical we will prove to be,
and we don't know how little we know
in our assumed omniscience.

The Club With No Name

The first rule of any secret society
is to not talk about it with anyone
whom has not shown the secret sign
that confirms their fellow membership. 

When I was growing up
masculinity was the secret club
that I was denied the membership of.

I had no idea what the signs were
or that having a character that strangers
could not read was the clearest proof of membership.

Men never said how their membership
of this hidden club was proven 
by what was between their legs,
as opposed to what the ladies had,
but that was the least of the many facts
that they strove to never speak about.

In spite of, or perhaps because of, that
I learnt how keep secrets alright.

My secrets were of the sort
where without thinking it though
I was the one who was done to, 
rather than the doer. And masculinity, 
indeed all proper regulatory authority, 
was always much more about the doing
than it was about in any way consulting 
the done to, done for, or done over. 

We hid in plain sight
as men, swollen with pride, 
shared their membership
of their masculinity club with me.

As I obliged them, 
so they signed me in 
and they kept my membership
of their club a secret from me;
they liked my lack of choices.

When finally I could choose
there was only one choice left;
leave forever and never be like them. 

Quote for Holocaust Memorial Day

A German journalist
at the Frankfurt book fair
asked Art Spiegelman
on the publication of  'Maus'

'Isn't it in bad taste to make a comic book of Auschwitz?'

'No' Spiegelman replied, 'Auschwitz was in bad taste'. 

How Capitalism Feeds Itself

and humans are it's carrion.
But Capitalism needs it's humans to be willing
for it's appetite to be replete
for even the short length of time
that humans make that possible. 

My Imaginary Friend

Is a story that everybody knows.

It is a story we all told by persuaders

who want us to do and buy the things

which we naturally 

(and properly) resist doing.
 

This is how the persuader's line goes

-'My imaginary friend does this and that

so why don't you do those things too?'

This is what advertisers resort to
when selling via breaking pretend taboos
no longer works, from overuse.

There are ways out of all this pretence.

The first is the off button, for which

we have to be patient to begin
to enjoy the silence that follows.

The second is to be more selective

about who we accept as our friends

and picky to the point of cynical

about the media we curate and accept.

The last is to accept that the friendships

that are meant to last the length of our lives

rely on us being honest with ourselves

about what we are not, and never were,

for what remains as our lives shrink to endure .

Several Kinds Of Loneliness

When I was much younger,
I 'ran with the hare and the hounds'.

I had a life partner and we lived apart.
Often I looked for life outside of him,
partly because he thought I might return
to him later with some of that life
which might prove strong enough to share.

It rarely worked-but then 'open relationships'
can never flourish in a societies that are that closed
that avoidance is their most popular currency.

It got so that people who did not really know me
but said that they cared would bid me 'Stay safe'
effectively meaning 'Meet nobody but me'
as they considered themselves the acme of safety. 

Now, with the Covid,
they keep their distance.
and rarely ring. 

I am more secure 
than I ever was before 
from being warned 
about how unsafe my life
would be without them.    

It Has Been Said Before But It Is Worth Repeating

Disappointment Is Better When It Is Planned And Prepared For.

'It's complicated' is a phrase that we use
to avoid clarifying our commitments
-or the lack of them-when we are with folks
whose personal commitment one to another

has to be kept vague to maintain a world
(and operate in a two way media) 

where the most we have to offer

is disappointment through distance,

because we are absent friends

in a world where absence is proof of life.

File Under Frustrated.....

It is odd that it has taken me so long
to find the labels by which others find me,
not that they say the terms out loud.

Whether they are the precise terms or not,
look for me under....

Depressed, Gay, Socialist, Attempted Christian
and Long Term Unemployed/Unemployable.

As all these labels jostle and stymie each other,
making me that uniquely low achiever
for brevity's sake file me under Frustrated..............

Slow Proof Of Relativity

And in the times when Covid has slowed down commerce
to a trickle and made shopping for food a chore
where you can't always find what you want,
the sloth perspective on speed is right....

 

Amerika

It has been claimed that for the first time
in many decades not one new war
was started throughout the length
of a single Presidential term.

But a lot of old wars were helped along
and many old conflicts were left to fester,
conflicts where America might have provided
a leadership that stepped warily towards peace.

Meanwhile at home, America focused
on it's oldest and most frozen conflict
-the race based wars it has with itself
in which the non-whites the whites
depend on for their economy to work
were the source of white open conflict.

Here is to next presidential term
with it's set of future conflicts...... 

Under Misrepresentation

In the present democratic deficit
that runs through my country
I have to be careful
about the news I listen to.

It is less that my news diet might become 'unbalanced',
and more that the present day news echoes
rather too efficiently the democratic deficits
that I have lived though in the past,
ones where when it was quite painful
and the better I was under misrepresented
the more it hurt.  

Believe In Less, Believe In Society.....

The cry to 'broaden your choice of media outlets
and listen to the logic of the politics you dislike
to stop your media habits becoming an echo chamber'
is now that familiar that it has gained it's own echo,
as it resides in it's own place in the breadth of the modern media
where the message is heard and repeatedly ignored.

That said, I try to listen to some of those
whose opinions I dislike,
the politicians whom  I feel that
that I  always disagreed with,
though the word 'always' is a trickster there.

Everyone's memory and opinion
are always inconsistent
with what they were in the past.
I can't exclude myself from that.

And to others back then I now realise
that my politics revealed my weakness
-as one who had less I had more invested
than I realised in the politics of redistribution
to those with least-the politics I believed in.

If, as I did not realise back then,
money generates a cynicism around it.
So with my politics of redistribution,
downwards I also sought to share afresh
the cynicism that money brought with it.

There was no way to make sharing more work
without it  becoming believing less in other people...... 

A Little Graffiti Worth Sharing

Because hugs are what the world needs more of....

 

The Vacuum To Come

The older I get the more I am convinced
that what sells best is selfishness,
to the point where selfishness sells itself
better than anything else, alive or dead.

The biggest limit to this sales experience
is the possible fear that selfishness
could be sufficiently successful
that everybody is so selfish
that there is nobody left
to sell being selfish to.....

Wandering Targets

So far the government
of my country have bought
large amounts of Covid vaccine shots
from several different suppliers.  
Further they have set a schedule
for them to be administered
to a public who they have primed
and made expectant.

But within that schedule
danger lurks; weak definitions
for their set targets, variant viruses
that spread themselves more easily,
government spokesmen who will mangle
the statistics of how bad daily events
in the health service are, whilst
being thoroughly believable.

There is no point
in me getting my shot
if the nurse who administers it
is poorly paid, or her skill set
is officially downgraded.

Or if she later loses her job
because her employer
then destroys her vocation
through selling off her labour
to a lower bidder
who will respect her less. 

Uneventfully Yours

Given the way the that Covid
has taken all the sense of event
out of out of human life
and nothing can happen
many more times
more often than before,
then there will two events
left worth sharing with others
who we believe love and care for us,
which remain worth sharing
cards or internet memes about.

The first is commiserations
for those who get the virus,
where the milder the dose
the milder the commiserations
from friends who are keeping their distance.

The second is the congratulations
for those with nothing wrong with them
who win the medical lottery
repeating itself in in their country
as state sponsored medical services
get stretched beyond belief,
and by some miracle beyond their means
they manage to get both inoculation jabs.

When Seeing Is Not Seeing

Why are people so rarely seen to openly fight
against the mental health issues that oppress them?

Because to fight in open sight
they have to see that far past
what obstructs them
that those obstructions appear
as if they were never really there
in the first place.

The Oldest Refusal Of All

The history of being on the wrong side of history
is a long one that has been told many times, 
and has been told about many nations
who refused to see the writing on the wall.

And yet the citizens* of these nations
always refuse to believe it at the time,
nor do many others believe it after.

*These 'citizens' knew they were nearer
to being subjects than to being citizens
but they  prefer the false flattery
of 'citizenship' because it sounds nicer. 

  

Better Pet Care

When you are petting a pet, a dog or a cat,
then pet them with the same attentiveness
with which your pet receives the affection
that you are giving them.

You will be more in tune with yourself
for your being more in tune
with who you seek to be in tune with,
as you and them purr and relax.....   

  

Moral Advice For Those Who Fear Rejection

Which he follows it himself
he partly follows because he knows
that there might well be bad news stories
where he is the story. It is better for him
to find that information in other ways. 

 

What is Humility For?

Historically, humility is strongly linked to 'Christian virtue'
as in so many sermons it is used to make asking for less
a signal of virtue, whether it is sensible to do so or not,
never mind wondering what spiritual health might be
and how easily so many wealthy Victorians imitated
what genuine Christian humility had once been,
and how they never foresaw how imitation becomes self parody.

But there is a real, natural, value to humility
-it means that when the world does not give you
what you wanted, directly, and offers you
only what it wants, then you can understand,
and appreciate what it is that you have been offered.

 

When Is Too Much 'Too Much'?

When fishing becomes a problem
due to it becoming over-fishing
then it seems like nothing,
compared with fishing ports
becoming overwhelmed
and de-natured by tourists
who have nowhere else
to pursue their pointless existence
of having less time and more money
then they have a practical use for.

But the fish no more invite the fisherman
to take too much than the ports invite
the redundant life of the tourists.....

Serious Pleasure

Because if you don't take it seriously
then other people will take it seriously for you
and you don't know where that might lead.

'The Wrong Parents.... '

I was ten when I spoke to a child psychiatrist,
and I only once did I see him in his surgery.

He asked me lots of questions
and just as Mother wanted me to,
as soon as I was sent to the play room
I forgot what he asked and what I answered.

It was her turn next and she took a long time
which I did not mind
-as soon as I was in the play room
on my own I enjoyed the space
by making things with the huge lego set,
which was bigger than the set
I was now disallowed from getting out
in the parental house-playing with it there
took up too much room and what I did
was of no interest to anyone else
when dad wanted the house to be as tidy
as the studios of the television
that he wanted us to watch 
because the television was his plaything.

It is now most of fifty years since I saw the psychiatrist,
in his office and I can picture him still, he was stout
and wore a three piece suit
and had' salt and  pepper goatee beard and 'tache,
and I wanted, but was stopped, from sitting on his knee
-I was 'too old and too big' for that treatment. 

I forget his name and I no longer care
what he said about me, to my mother.
But I know what he said to me about dad and her
before I was officially declared 'maladjusted'
-'Son, you were given the wrong parents.....  '.

Kierkagaard Never Lived Through a Pandemic

But for good and ill he knew terror
and anguish in his everyday life,
as other people proved their foolishness to him
in their misuse of commonplace reason.

Where he found faith to be about an obedience
that was deep thought out, and highly personal,
he also found people around him had no interest.

And for us today we find it hard to believe,
less in the Christianity that he aspired to believe in,
more in how easy it is for any of us to become the carriers
 of the virus, Covid 19, in which it is even harder 
 to obey the rules that stop it spreading.

But the example and absurdity of Kierkagaard's life
could have warned us that to not trust other people
we have first to learn to not trust jn ourselves....

 

My First New Year Card

I think it was meant to illustrate what the last year
has been like, seemingly a climb through the darkness
where you have to have faith when you put one foot
in front of the next on the slow shuffle up the steps,
whilst near-blindly hoping you were looking forward..... 

 

'Sunny' People

must surely have very thick skins
to remain so even tempered
when the bad weather
of other people's moods
is out there and trying to get to them.  

Democrazy (3)

Conservatives might be the political party
in your country most ready to steal an election
through data slicing the electorate, overspending
on publicity and plain telling lies so fast
that nobody can tell they are lies until long after.

But even if they fail to get elected 
they will still be the first and best to teach other parties
how to break the rules for getting elected
on a similarly false prospectus.     

 

'The Love of Money Is...... '

 It is said that..... 

'election campaigns are fought in poetry whereas governance happens as prose.'.

If that is true, for even a few countries
then there is no poetry like the money
that is raised to fight a campaign with.

And if the huge amounts of money
that pay for political advertising
are as poetic as country can get
whilst choosing who should be in office
then it does not matter who is elected
the country is well past being redeemable.

Any government that loves only money
whatever the prose style of it's rule 
is the new root, more entrenched, of all evil.

  

Picture Set Of The Month - January

Rural Ireland is well known

 

for the houses left abandoned

with trees growing out of their roofs

which leave passing travellers to imagine
what sort of life might still be led there
if the buildings were repaired and made habitable.