Just Sit Down And Read

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It is very important not to speak on behalf of others. To say people do this or people do that, we like to imagine these things because we have recognised others acting in specific ways. In reality it is a two-fold mistake because if we do recognise these actions in others then we are generalising, and we are unaware that we recognise these behaviours because they are most likely things we recognise in others from ourselves. This is an over simplification and I suspect is just an example of one or two things, which I am then using to make sweeping statements in the very same way I derided others for above. The point of that incredibly long winded intro though was not to highlight that I clearly still don’t grasp the importance of only having a small word count, but to lead into making my own sweeping statements generally, using my understanding of myself to justify them.

I have spent much time reading today as I never went to work and I feel pretty pleased with myself. I have been suffering, as I mentioned in the past, from a form of readers block. Not only have I struggled to sit down and read, to do this intensely enough to focus on a book long enough to avoid forgetting about it has been impossible. Add to that the fact I have even gone against everything I previously believed and viewed the whole art of reading as a pointless endeavour, it is not too much of a stretch to say it has been a weird time recently. There have been periods in my life when I haven’t read much at all and others in which I can’t put a book down, one after another. Why that is is unclear but having been someone who has moved around a lot and spent a few weeks to a few months in different surroundings it is safe to say our environment plays a huge role in what we choose to do as a hobby.

There have been many moments in life when I have been frustrated by this constant chopping and changing of interests. Recently for example I have been frustrated with myself. There have been plenty of moments when I’ve killed time drifting from one piece of nonsense to another online. I should be frustrated because it is a waste of our finite time, but perhaps it’s also necessary to help us enjoy and appreciate the more important moments. The point I’ve been working up to from the beginning though is that it may just be okay to in this instance read loads and then not at all because as long as we’re always doing something, we will be doing what we enjoy. If I were to force myself to read and not do whatever that other productive thing is I would see reading as a chore and an ordeal. While I don’t deny there will always be a little effort required to find the discipline to sit down and do things that require thought, even if we really enjoy them, there must always be enjoyment in them or for me it defeats the point. It was good to read today, I found the time and I enjoyed myself. I read for the pure pleasure.

To link in with what now feels like a rather pointless first paragraph, I am making wild assumptions that everyone is just like me. They frustrate themselves when they are not doing the things they think they want to do, that they feel they should be doing. Instead they’re doing other things but perhaps not quite as intensely as they would be if they weren’t constantly imagining they should be reading. There was a point to the first paragraph although I now pretty much disagree with my own sentiment from it as I’m aware that not everyone does what I have just described. I will however leave it in so that the thought process from A to B can be clear for all to see. It appears it is okay to change your mind. What you say once need not be your belief forever more.

Teach Me O Wise Leader

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There once was a man called William T. Riker. He was a fictional character in Star Trek, quite a popular and well known one apparently. There was also another man called William E. Riker, he was less fictional and created his own city called ‘Holy City’. He was a cult leader who also happened to be a conman and a white supremacist. Now is not the time for his story, I recommend either you check out his wikipedia page if you’re boring or listen to the latest episode of ‘The Dollop’ if you have a spare one hundred and two minutes and like jokes. In short though the city itself was at it’s height in and around the 1920s, 30s and 40s. It became a white supremacist theme park of sorts, people gave up their wives to him and he seemed to thrive on people’s attention. It was based upon his teachings of God, his love of Cadillacs and the ability to make money from selling fuel and access to peep shows. He also ran for political office multiple times and failed miserably each time. To put it simply he was a total character and he died a grumpy old man at the age of ninety-six. The land still contains one of the original buildings and was sold recently to Robert and Patricia Duggan for six million dollars. Robert Duggan recently made three and a half billion dollars selling an oncology drug and is a very wealthy man. He also donated twenty million dollars to The Church of Scientology making him their largest financial donor.

What I don’t understand, amongst many things, is how someone can look at that land and it’s history, I assume recognise it was once owned by a crazy cult and then turn around without one iota of irony and give twenty million anything to what is also clearly a crazy cult. The Church Of Scientology is based upon a science fiction novel, my brain does not understand the complexities of the human mind sufficiently to understand what it is that allows people to ignore that overwhelming fact. At least the Bible has fear built into it and large enough numbers to give it credibility in the minds of pack animals. When people started believing in the Bible we barely had science and still believed the world was flat…he says with a hint of irony. It also tells you that while money might be useful it’s clearly not the answer as people embrace whatever it is that Scientology has to offer. Do people living in the niche bubble of the super wealthy really have such lives devoid of the reality that we know, they see truth in a cult like Scientology? All the money in the world and they’re still searching for answers and happiness. Saying that we can’t dismiss the possibility that Scientology actually is the answer and that they allow themselves to appear to anyone who wasn’t denied the contact of a mother as a baby as crazies to keep the riff raff out. It’s a possibility but I’m sticking to the laws of probability here. I’m sure were I to give myself more time and read some psychology papers, if anyone has any please email them to me, that point out the everyday things I most likely do that are comparative to the offerings in a cult. Money, celebrity, power would probably feature but I would love to know the things I’m completely unaware of, the things I’ve been brainwashed not only into believing but so brainwashed I am unaware they are even things. Isn’t the mind wonderful. Now believe in mine for it is God. And give me your wife if you have one.

A Trojan Of A Virus

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History will tell us any event of a large enough scale will have an effect capable of making changes of if not a permanent basis then ones which last for a considerable length of time. The First World War for example set in motion a series of events that led to our present day societies, that was a huge moment but one which can show the long term effects of something we can never go back on. In more modern times the attacks in New York on the eleventh of September have led to an entire region of this planet being completely destroyed and changed, in many ways it is a before and after event.

When you have such moments there are inevitably changes within your own society and in the immediate aftermath of this the Americans allowed their government to push through a series of draconian spying laws. These were justified on the basis that they would offer protection against another attack. How they are now in reality I don’t know but I doubt they have disappeared, more likely it’s just an example of shifting baseline syndrome. We in the UK had similar and this was amplified after we had a few bombings, the government introduced the Snoopers Charter as it was known by everyone except those trying to push it.

On a less invasive level, in China during the SARS outbreak; one Chinese businessman recognised the necessity of a new approach to online shopping which revolutionised how the Chinese interacted with shopping online. With this Coronavirus the Chinese have relaxed laws around online pharmacies so that not only can you get medicine but you can chat to doctors online and get prescriptions too. This is proving to be incredibly popular and successful, and while it is unclear yet how this online industry will operate once Covid-19 passes, it is highly unlikely they will return to how it was prior to the outbreak.

While I may no be sure of the veracity of the Coronavirus, it is undeniable that it is becoming a worldwide phenomena if it isn’t one already. I’m not denying it’s potential seriousness but I don’t doubt it will pass. What though will the long term results of it be. Italy is currently in lockdown, it is almost inevitable Britain will be in quarantine at one point. We have no idea what it will do to the local economies let alone the world economy. What affect will it have on the supply chain. Will people reevaluate how they store food and supplies. Will we view governments with any credibility when they try to convince us they’re capable of upholding their end of the social contract. Are we just witnessing a New World Order Trojan Horse moment as I saw on a meme today. I have no idea to any of these, but if it continues at it’s present pace there is no doubting there will be some permanent changes we can only recognise in retrospect. These don’t have to be sinister, they could be innocuous, innocent and boring but it will be interesting, assuming I survive, to be able to look back in ten years and observe the changes. I doubt we’re witnessing a before and after moment but certainly there will be something that exists after the event that wasn’t here before.

Do We Plan Positively?

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There is something incredibly satisfying about making plans. I have never fully worked it out but I suspect like I mentioned a couple of days ago it is all about taking ourselves out of the present and into some dream fantasy land. Perhaps this could be a slight continuation of the other piece although I’m lazy to reread it to check, but I’m sure it mentioned not being in the present and I remember something about happiness just being around the corner. In a way this then is exactly a continuation piece because plans are nothing more than imagining a future event we would like to happen which surely, unless there is a specific reason, is going to be the best possible version that could happen. When we plan do we imagine ourselves happy, I would have always thought everyone does but then I know from conversations or more precisely; slightly argumentative debates, that I misunderstand depression for example. When people suffer from depression, or specific types of depression, do they imagine a future event happening with either a negative outcome or them being unhappy in that future moment. If so there must be no escape.

For me I have always imagined myself positively, or at least I assume I have. Do I imagine I’m imagining myself positively but relatively I’m actually imagining neutrally. Relative to what though. What if I am just imagining myself neutrally and that is what I base every present moment against, does that make my life nothing more than neutral. What is the base level, the fantasy or the present reality as our skewered eyes view it. There are no answers for that right now but I am planning on observing my own thoughts and how I place them on a scale of success. What is the outcome of that, am I imagining myself succeeding in these observations or am I left confused and clueless at the end. If I’m honest I imagine myself somewhere around seventy percent successful, which is a little miserable considering it’s my own fantasy, although probably realistic. The pragmatism of old age.

Is that better though. To have a plan for some future event which you are in your mind being realistic about. Perhaps this is just something we work out through experience but then that also means I only aim for seventy percent success. Should I aim for one hundred percent and potentially be disappointed, or will that higher aim actually result in me getting eighty or even ninety percent success, not what I aimed for but higher than my so called ‘realistic’ but which is now looking like a defeatist target. And if the depressed person expects to fail but has a little success higher than they expected does that bring them positivity or do they just view that through the prism of depression. Does that prism create a failure in observations. In truth I do not know. And also in truth it appears I am going off tangent from my follow up about being present and making plans to loads of nonsense questions and getting confused about depression.

I was going to tell you all about my lovely plans for the summer and how they’re probably going to change because everyone is going to be in quarantine soon and all flights will be grounded. It was going to be on the futility of planning and it ends up being nothing more than escapism from the present but all I can do is leave you with what this was going to be and try and digest some of those confusing questions I asked myself. I can’t even remember what I was supposed to be observing now. Something about success rate and being realistic I think, well there’s no harm in dreaming.

A Media Corona Love-In

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For anyone who has read many of these over the near four months it must have been now since the first one, they will have realised I don’t hold the mainstream media in very high regard. This piece is only going to further the previous sentiment. I was listening to the radio in my car earlier, for the last week or two it has been on in the background when I go anywhere, BBC Radio Five to be specific about the channel, and they were just like ever day it would appear, discussing the Coronavirus. Now this is not a piece on whether the virus is real or how dangerous it is or isn’t, but I would like to focus on it’s coverage in the media.

Last week all they were talking about was how deadly it was and how it was going to kill everybody. They obviously did not say that last point but this was implied by the heightened and sensational coverage they were giving it. There were episodes describing how to wash hands and the necessities of perfect hygiene, some of which I actually mentioned in a piece last week. Today in response to the populace freaking out and stockpiling anything they can from the supermarkets, they held a phone-in on the this issue with people calling in who stockpiled and those who disagreed with it morally. The point was they were being critical of people stockpiling and questioning what was leading people to do it.

Clearly the official line and message they were being told to push was no longer that you’re in danger, run for the hills or fear bacteria everywhere, you’re completely in you right mind to be neurotic; it was now that stockpiling is out of order, unjustified and you’re a bad person for doing so. Phone-in’s it appears are simply ‘Comment’ sections on websites or Twitter for those with ears, of course it is moderated but it helps to be heard if you’re a little sensational. A few people called in to defend their stockpiling, but finally one person called who reminded the presenter that the media must expect people to do this when all they’ve been hearing for the last few weeks is that they’re either going to die or be quarantined for eternity. He called out the very people he was talking to. They brushed it off with some kind of non-answer topic changer and the debate carried on.

It couldn’t have been more to the point. People who suggest this virus may not be as deadly as we’re being told are called irresponsible but we don’t seem to be hearing much about the irresponsibility of a media machine creating panic simply for click-bait and attention. How are people supposed to make sensible and informed decisions on something which could turn out to be deadly for them or their loved ones if they never receive balanced and credible information from what for many people is their only source of news. To sensationalise and then not only act surprised once people panic but be critical of them because it sells more stories and airtime. How people believe a word these charlatans have to say is beyond me. Why I still listen is even further beyond me.

The Present & Desire

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I was thinking today about finding balance in life. I’ve probably mentioned it before but it always appears to be something that alludes me. In one moment I’m dropping everything and running off on an adventure, and the next I’m craving the stability offered from a home that if I’m honest I’ll struggle to create because I’m always running off on the adventures I yearn for after too long in a stable home like environment. Now either that’s an inability to find balance between the two or it’s an example of someone not being happy with what they’ve got and always believing the green happiness grass is just around the other corner. It’s also just an example of someone who wants it all, and probably another few examples of all sorts of things. For the sake of this though lets stick to the idea that I am unable to find the required level of balance.

There once was a time in life that like everyone else I believed that if I just did, saw, bought, met, went to x, y, z then happiness would be sure to follow. I was not conscious of that belief but certainly it was unconsciously there playing a part in my decision making. I am not suggesting for a second I’m some enlightened being who has managed to rise above such things because I still crave all those things in my own little pursuit of happiness but am aware that with their receipt I won’t be taken around some magical corner that happiness was simply hiding behind. It is also probably most likely that accepting this will bring me closer, as well as not actually looking for it in the first place, but as I love missing the point in the moment and clearly only know it intellectually I’ll continue this self-defeating quest.

By not constantly imagining the answer is around some instant corner nobody has ever seen let alone looked around, we must surely stop craving these extreme changes in life, such as finding the answer in some foreign land or by the hearth. Importantly also it takes away from the present, in that you’re neither in the foreign land or at home if your mind is always looking out for some hypothetical feeling of happiness it imagines it should be experiencing. You forget to actually enjoy the place you’ve made the effort to go to or the contentment and security of home when you take the time to relax. I suspect were we to enjoy these things properly we may stop craving them so much when we don’t have them anymore. Have you ever drunk that last mouthful of coffee without realising before looking in the cup to find there is no more and feeling unsatisfied. Compare that to really taking the time to enjoy and appreciate that last mouthful; you are content with what you’ve had, you feel satisfied. Why would life on a larger scale be any different.

Maybe And Probably Not

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How do we really know. Fixed absolute ideas of how things were. What if one clue to histories truth was lost and now we determinedly believe an inaccurate story. We miss one piece of the jigsaw, now we cannot see what once was. What if all we need is this one piece to confirm what many suspect but none can prove, do we dismiss entirely the possibility that this may in fact be the true story and not the one we think we know. When do we learn to question. Who do we trust to ask the right questions. What if we already have the piece but refuse to believe what it is showing us, at some point we need to accept, but do we ever do this as final. Should we.

And then our ideas in general. Our beliefs range far and wide. Think of all the philosophers out there disagreeing with each other. They can’t all be right but seemingly each one is. Each set of eyes view their own truth. In that case what is right. Do we have objective truths, how about one truth. Did that truth change when a new piece of the jigsaw is added and what happens when some accept it and the others turn away. If the greatest minds cannot agree, what hope are we.

How do we know the truth about scientific explanations or medicines. Both may be true at this time but new truths are constantly discovered and newer truths again. Always missing the point as the only truth being the inaccuracy of the old and therefore the latest too. How many letters behind my name are required before I can credibly speak these words. We never accept anything as final says the scientist or doctor before professing an absolute belief that they are right and you are wrong. They have facts but can they ever be true.

How do we really know that what we believe in politics. What if we are wrong. Are we strong enough, and arguably are we smart enough, to take a step back from what we believe and think we believe, see these beliefs for what they really are and readdress them. Can we do this objectively or will we be forever tarnished by the inaccuracies of existence. In these subjective times that have existed for eternity, we will never know as they run for another infinite millennia.

How do we advance society and people, and what really is the best approach to running a community. What if we’re wrong? No one person is the same yet we box the pack away into the very same space the world over. Who are we to tell others they are doing it wrong when we have never checked to see if we’re doing it right. Are we doing it right. Am I doing it right. I don’t even know what right is. I definitely don’t know their right.

As religion pokes it’s empty head around the corner we decide to not even entertain.

But to all I say maybe and probably not. Let’s start from there.

No Platform For Amber

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Amber Rudd the former Home Secretary was no platformed today at Oxford University. She was due to give a speech on women being involved in politics but it was pulled at the last minute. Apparently it was due to her involvement in the Windrush scandal when she was Home Secretary, it was the issue she resigned over. I would say she isn’t missed but with the current incumbent being Priti Patel she is not looking like such a bad thing. However, Patel may be an abhorrent human being but perhaps her utter incompetence may work as a blessing in disguise instead. I am probably playing a little bit of identity politics at the moment which is of no benefit and i’m slapping the back of my hand as I type.

No platforming is an interesting approach to dealing with an issue. To prevent somebody having a platform to speak stops that person spreading their message or it prevents someone with a disagreeable past legitimising themselves with an agreeable message. I imagine Amber Rudd’s message about women being involved in politics may have been slanted in favour of some of her ideological heroines but it’s likely the message itself wouldn’t have been overly disagreeable so we must go with the later that she was attempting to legitimise herself.

The contentious side of no platforming though is that it can potentially inflame issues over people being free to speak. I don’t mind Milo Yaniwhateverhisnameis or some other people with messages I find deeply disagreeable being no platformed but I am not always convinced people are unable to make up their minds for themselves. Judging by Brexit, Trump, Salvini, Orban and Boris Johnson, I should probably be slightly less trusting and naive but I am always aware that I may just be wrong. The danger is that you are preventing debate and I love debate. Is she the kind of role model I want leading the debate though?

The issue too is whether you are just playing into the persecuted narrative the Right try to portray by being no platformed. By silencing them they can blame others as big bad wolfs and poor little them but all it does is highlights how they’re just children blaming others and throwing a tantrum. The accusation is that by no platforming, people are just silencing dissent in a hypocritical way and of course there will be examples out there that prove that, as well as many that prove it utter nonsense.

I don’t believe in the idea that by silencing certain people all we do is give them more of a voice. This argument was used for why we shouldn’t have another referendum on Brexit and will be used on why we should let people speak. In truth though we shouldn’t always let people speak but for me that is more down to whether theirs is a message calling for people to suffer or merely an ideological disagreement. Those in Greece right now taking to the streets and attacking anyone different to them do not deserve a platform, they have no legitimate message. As bad as she may have been in power, and even though her actions led to controversies like the Windrush Scandal, there seems to be something different about no platforming Amber Rudd. I may disagree with her, but she’s not so extreme that I’m unwilling to allow her words to fall onto the ears of innocents. However it was specifically the UN Women Oxford UK Society which invited her and then cancelled which means they are well within their rights not to legitimise herself and make her some kind of role model to women. I enjoy hearing contrasting ideas that can lead to the opportunity for rational debate though. It is fun to disagree. We mustn’t become scared of allowing people the opportunity to express things we may disagree with. Balloons pop and that will only ever be messy.

Humane Rats

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Today has been a day of discovery, I learnt a little about rats. These little critters seem to provoke the most remarkable terror and fear in people. Understandably this probably dates back to a time when we died of bubonic plague, or for those unfamiliar, think of a coronavirus that wiped people out, gave you boils and was spread by rats. However now the chances of catching anything from a rat are rare and you’ve got more chance of being eaten by your cat. Saying that I do remember as a fifteen years old opening the bin in the dark and one jumping out at me, I’m not ashamed to admit I screamed and ran away. Doesn’t make it any less irrational though.

It appears though rats are pretty cool once you get over yourself and get to know them. They laugh when tickled which comes out as a type of ultrasonic chirp. Apparently they bond with their ticklers and search them out to continue playing with, they’ve even taught them how to play hide and seek. They enjoy themselves. They’re capable of reliving past memories and planning routes for future use. They reciprocally trade goods with each other and have a system of favours in which the favour need not necessarily be repaid in the same currency. They respond with something close to regret when they make the wrong choice, have been taught how to use tools to access out of reach food and have been able to outperform humans in some learning tasks.

Remarkably they have shown signs of empathy too. They refused to press levers to access food if it resulted in another rat getting an electric shock, as well as walk down certain tunnels in a maze if the result was an electric shock to another, this became extra prevalent had the mouse experienced the shock themselves already and knew what was coming for the other rat. Similarly if they themselves have experienced being drenched in water they’re more likely to rescue another rat from drowning and will rescue a trapped rat when they themselves can escape to safety. Even humans don’t do that, maybe we need to readdress this word humane we seem to have elevated onto a pedestal. Rats seem to care about each other more than we do.

In a time long past now, we as a species used to commit the most heinous of experiments on chimpanzees until we realised they are incredibly similar to us. There are now laws protecting them but there are still none protecting the rat. They have decided they didn’t learn enough from experimenting on chimpanzees and have now replicated many psychological experiments on rats too. They have raised some rats away from their mothers and in social isolation, the result being a shrinkage in the area of the brain responsible for emotion and affiliation. They managed to create mentally ill, traumatised and emotionally suffering rats. While we admit they’re close enough for us to use as models for human psychopathologies, the accepted wisdom is that they’re far enough away for us to relate to them and empathise, unlike chimpanzees and other primates who remind us of humans.

The rat genome has been fully sequenced for fifteen years now which has led to major advances in our understanding of how genomes work. We have made breakthroughs in our understanding of cardiovascular disease and obesity, and because their social nature mimics our own, behavioural and psychological studies too. Researching on rats clearly has benefits and many people would use this as justification for the continuation of such work. We understand the moral argument otherwise we would just do this testing on humans, we don’t even use chimpanzees anymore. We may have learnt to fear rats and I’m in no rush to cuddle one but they’ve been shown to be sentient beings with rich emotional lives. If we are such an advanced species why do we continue to suppress our own emotional bond with other sentient beings. Maybe that’s what advanced is, the ability to switch it on and off when it suits us. Perhaps it’s time for a new and updated definition of humane.

What Is Your Price?

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How much would it cost for you to….? Is a game played by adolescents and usually not a very pleasant one. Does everything have a price though? That is the question. I heard our time being discussed in this way once; to work out if your job or whatever it is that takes up you time was worth it. You must put figures on the various things you do so let’s say part of your job required climbing in drains or hurting kittens, what would you need to be paid to do that. You then throw in whether the time away from home is sufficiently recompensed, how much would it cost for you to not get home until after you children have gone to bed for example. In that case you are being asked to put a value on an element of raising the children. Do the benefits outweigh the costs. Ultimately that is how it equates to everything, do the financial benefits of climbing in drains outweigh the grim costs of stinking of shit. Something like that though we can get used to but can we put enough of a cost on never seeing our families and growing distant from our wives.

You can take it a step further. A fracking company wants to come into your community and hydraulically frack for natural gases. Now you know that will potentially cause damage to the local water and risk earthquakes, what cost would you put on those inconveniences. How about they offer you two hundred thousand pound, thats a decent sum of money, would it be suitable recompense for risking your water being polluted to the point you can’t even shower in it? It’s possible you may just use a fraction of that money to buy a rain water catcher and use that for showers, problem solved. How about if this company also pollutes the river which you use to catch your fish to survive on. What kind of price can you put on that? Is there a price to having one of your few sources of food and water damaged, life changing irreversibly. Does that price change when you have children and realise they’re not going to be able to catch the fish to survive off. At least you have cash in the short term, but really if it affects your whole existence then was that worth it.

If you had asked someone prior to the industrial revolution when work was less regimented and you did what was required while also having a higher level of self-sufficiency all round; whether they would sacrifice their time and freedom for the benefits the industrial revolution has created, there is no guarantee they would accept it. What is the price you put on you time. We work forty hours per week, if not more but for what. We may gain from many things but we also lose out on many others, all these things we have put or had a price put on for us. What price would you put on the continued destruction of this earth, and would it change if that was in regards to what price you put on that for the suffering of your children. If there is a price for anything then surely there is a price for that too. Can we really put a price on progress when it isn’t clear that we even know what it is.