Fair Exchange Needs No Apology

There are many in this world
whose policy is to 'never explain,
never apologise, not for anything.',
who live as if with every explanation
that gets given on their behalf
they need never forgive nor be forgiven.

But with every explanation given on their behalf
they are reminded of what they are missing;
the only folks who need to apologise less
are those who know when and why to say 'sorry';
They know that nobody is above exchanging apologies.

The present day unapologetic
are far from the first to be misled
into self belief, part of their reticence
is about denying the history of error
they perpetuate with every refused apology.

Fair exchange, even of apologies,
will never be a source of robbery.

Immurement

is much more than social isolation,
where the line out is the online life,
though to many
the online life can feel that way.

Immurement is also much more
that talking to yourself all day,
because you don't seek company.   

Immurement (from the Latin im- "in" and murus "wall";literally "walling in")
is imprisonment, usually until death,
where a person is placed
in an enclosed space that has no exits. 

This includes where people
have been enclosed
in extremely tight confinement,
such as within a coffin. 

In the days of religion immurement
used to be a form of ritual sacrifice.

Nowadays the most popular form of immurement
is solitary confinement in a maximum security prison
where those so detached are watched with cameras
and have none of the rights that 'ordinary' prisoners have.

Every country in the world has maximum security prisons,
Some prisons are medieval, others are hyper hi-tech.
The effect is the same whichever era the prisoners get.

This Non-Sporting Life

Every morning my buddy turns his radio on,
for literate company over toast and coffee.

When the station signals the next sports bulletin
he turns the volume down, preferring the silence
to pointless commentaries on competitiveness, 
to raise the volume when all talk of sport is over.

It is not that he is against certain styles
of human speech, sports commentators,
it is more that he is anti pointless statistics
where nobody asks where the lie went. 

The Gravity Of Showbiz and Other Irrationalities

Showbiz has always been unreliable,
such that one of the few reliable adages
it has given to the popular culture is
'Be nice to people on your way up,
you will meet them on your way down.'.

That phrase is like the acronym g.i.g.o.
which is derived from computers.
'Garbage in garbage out' points out
how binary and basic computer logic is.

All actions have consequences,
perhaps only humans believe
that when they set their will
to achieve their end irrationally,
the result will still be what they want
when the result is brought home to them. 

Popular Inattentiveness

'Background television' is very popular.
It is shown everywhere,
particularly in public places
where nobody cares who watches.
It fills the daytime schedules
and takes no effort to enjoy, or ignore.

What worries me about it
is how favourably it defines,
and implicitly encourages,
continuous partial attention;
a partial in/attentiveness
in which human beings
only ever partially give each other
their full attention, and deny
how diminished their attention span is. 

The Migrations Of Language Observed

In the smart new modern media
one phrase that stands out for me
is the phrase 'political playbook',
as used by news pundits
to describe the actions
of their politicians,
in particular the one,
the only, Donald J. Trump.

Of course, the word 'playbook'
is stolen from musical theatre,
where it describe the words
that are set to the tunes
that entertain the audience.

In the 1990's it was said that
'Politics is showbiz for ugly people',
though the phrase has older origins.
How predictable it is,
that one of the ugliest of them
should now be described
by the popular media he despises 
in terms of the showbiz tics
that he has knowingly stolen from.

Oh, that this chain
of words recycled and stolen,
was more reassuring.

Shema

You who live secure
in your warm houses,
Who return at evening to find
Hot food and friendly faces.

         Consider whether this is a man
        Who labours in the mud
        Who knows no peace
        Who fights for a crust of bread
        Who dies at a yes or no
        Consider whether this is a woman
        With hair or name
        With no more strength to remember
        Eyes empty and womb cold
        As a frog in winter.

Consider that this has been:
I commend these words to you.
Engrave them on your hearts
when you are in your house, when you are on your way,
when you go to bed, when you rise.
Repeat them to your children.
Or may your house crumble,
Disease render you powerless,
Your offspring avert their faces from you.

Written on the 10th Jan, 1946 by Primo Levi.
translated from the Italian by Ruth Feldman and Brian Stone.  

Blogger's note; Levi would have written this whilst lost, homeless, somewhere in mainland Europe after being set free from the Nazi death camps by Russian soldiers. He was released from the camp in which he saw so much wilful needless suffering in Summer 1945. He was left, like millions of others who were emotionally and physically burnt out survivors, to find his own way across a burnt out Europe back to what had been their homes. His destination was his home town of Turin, in Italy. The journey took him three years.