Biden And The Trumpet

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When we – the Brits – had our General Election last December I got excited. I even got caught up in it a little. Deep down I don’t think I ever really expected Corbyn to win, there were just too many things against him such as half his own party, all the other MP’s and the entirety of the mainstream media. But I had hope. He was a man offering something different to this neoliberal shit show we as a people have been enduring since before I was born with the election of Margaret Thatcher. He seemed to actually give a shit about people and that it turns out is an extremely rare quality in a politician, at least a successful one anyway.

I watched some of the debates between him and the Conservative candidate Boris Johnson. There were moments the whole thing frustrated me, mainly Johnson being his buffoonish self but I was also frustrated with Corbyn for not just turning round and calling him a total lying prick. He didn’t even call him a buffoon. Corbyn it turns out was a man of integrity, he refused, even when it could have benefited him. Last night, Joe Biden had no such problems.

I didn’t watch the whole debate because I’m on Greek time and have better things to do than rise at whatever ridiculous time it would have been. I did watch the highlights and I know that makes it seem even more exciting than it really was, but wow, it was exciting and offensive. Trump behaved as everyone expected him to. He behaved as he always has. Biden didn’t seem to expose his aging mind, which is the main accusation levied against him. He also didn’t get a chance to with the constant interruptions, and constant may even be an understatement. That was no debate, it wasn’t even an argument, it was two men shouting at each other.

Trump was clearly bullied when young, probably by his father, about being dumb. His response to the smart jibe was classic “I’m like the smartest President in the history of Presidents” as he convinces nobody but himself. His “Stand back and stand by” message to the far right Proud Boys was concerning. It definitely seemed like an order to mobilise and be ready. But then Biden is awful too, it would be like voting for Keir Starmer and the only thing worse than that would be voting for Boris Johnson.

But this is politics now. Trump is a star of reality television and politics nearly everywhere has already gone down the cult of personality route, why not take it further and turn it into a reality television series. It’s great entertainment though, that is the truth. He get’s good ratings. American politics is going to have to completely reinvent itself after he’s gone because they can’t try and make it even more exciting but it can’t become boring either. Some middle ground respectability just to give everyone a break and a chance to breathe. It even makes our politics and politicians seem credible, and they’re not, not even in the slightest. There are five weeks until the election, the game has now really begun and it’s going to get messy(er).

To Re-Take The Debate

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The Coronavirus Act will likely be renewed this week. It will mark six months since it was initially pushed through. It was supposed to last for two years but this was reduced to six months, I can’t remember why exactly, some kind of outcry over the obvious I suspect. The current discussion is whether the act itself should require a debate and Parliamentary approval before it is renewed. The Government unsurprisingly says this is not necessary and is simply delaying something of total urgency while nearly everyone else seems to think that something which gives quite alarming powers to the police and which limits our abilities to think and act for ourselves should actually be talked about a little. Even with the Tory rebellions expected it will still likely pass once more.

What I’m confused by slightly is how any discussion of civil liberties is unfolding. For the last six months the people who have been fighting the idea of being told what to do, be that movement, the wearing of masks, types of interactions, closing of businesses, are the right wing. The libertarian right wing to be precise but still they have managed to get the attention of many others on that spectrum of society. The left wing though, and that includes left wing libertarians, are no where to be seen. Any discussion of lockdowns and suspicions around this virus have been incredibly one sided, from a political spectrum at least. While the reasons may differ surely there are enough on the left concerned with attacks on our civil liberties.

It could simply be the method of approach. Undeniably there have been plenty of articles on more left wing websites about the dangers of present government policy. It surely can’t just be anyone on the left and in the centre believes this is a very real virus and we all need to adopt these measures to combat it, and that on the right people don’t believe it’s true and are willing to go to great lengths to argue it. I admit I am grouping an awful lot of people in what seems like three rather large and cumbersome boxes, but it makes understanding or explaining it from a political perspective far more straightforward.

It may be a capitalist economic thing pushing on the libertarians. Why the left are so health conscious though confuses me, are they that learned and educated. Ultimately it just appears even this debate has become polarised and not just in the forced clumsy way I have attempted here. Without endangering anyone or being irresponsible, it may just be time to retake the debate. Change the narrative slightly. We can question the motives of government and not give a shit about the economy reopening. That’s an angle I could get behind. I don’t want to go out onto the street with thousands of others to protest but it can’t be a bad idea to try to control or at least influence the debate as it’ll go on regardless.

Suicide, Abortion and The Donald

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One thing with writing in here each day is that it makes you take notice of interesting stories or news you discover online. Usually that evolves into an entire piece but sometimes two stories can become one. Sometimes I just want to make a short comment on something without having to turn it into a whole piece. When I do I risk dragging it out or am forced to spend time researching something enough to write a decent article. That isn’t always the case because if it’s politics or football I’m straight in there. Suicides in Japan though, what the hell do I know about that. But this being the internet, I’ll make a comment…

I was going to make some kind of statement about suicide being part of Japanese culture. Or at least that we’re looking at a situation in Japan through western lenses. However Japan only has the thirtieth highest rate of suicides in the world, above it are half of Africa it would seem and other countries like Belgium, Uruguay, India, and Russia. Importantly though South Korea comes in tenth and while the two countries culture and history are different I will make a potentially ignorant statement and suggest Korean culture is the closest to what is an incredibly unique one in Japan. Again, as per previous pieces, national and cultural stereotypes are stupid and a waste of time but we make them anyway for the sake of understanding. Perhaps it’s the link to Samurai killing themselves which makes us think it’s so high or the stories of Japanese overworking. Saying that Koreans are even guiltier of that apparently which may explain the higher rate. Anyway, this whole suicidal ramble was in response to a series of seemingly high profile suicides in Japan recently.

And then Trump, fuck the man’s pushing everyone even closer to a second civil war. I mentioned this fear previously and when I asked an American friend about it it was dismissed as something just going one in certain parts of the country. But still, a new Judge on the Supreme Court that will tilt it even further on a conservative slant. The likely affect on abortion rights, or Roe Vs Wade. It is happening everywhere seemingly but America is becoming even more divisive with every big moment. This election coming up is potentially going to be like a bomb going off. It’s not too crazy to envisage a civil war. They do have a history of such things. It is still remarkable that religion plays any part in the slightest in politics or how a country exists. I guess it affects cultural behaviours and then political ones too. The accusations thrown at the Middle-East, Islam and Sharia Law seem infinitely hypocritical.

Staying on Trump, the news that he only paid $750 over two years in taxes. Sounds like he needs a better accountant. That and him making losses all these years. I won’t feign surprise, that’s how these things work. It will have little bearing on an already entrenched vote. He has incriminated Ivanka though, her being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in consultancy fees while also being on the board is an entirely illegal act. That should be interesting although they don’t take down their own, not properly anyway. And ‘they’ are not divided by Democrat and Republic leanings. That’s just the game for us to play.

Fishing

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I’ve gone and taken up a new hobby. It involves fishing. Not me fishing of course, I tried that once and as I didn’t immediately master it, I dropped it from things I might do twice. It does turn out though that I’m really good at sitting in my car and watching others fish. I mentioned the other day about my surprise at seeing a relatively young and attractive woman fishing, it turns out I was correct as she was an anomaly but as I’m not here to watch women I don’t mind. I have no idea what anyone is saying and know they look at me slightly bemused, perhaps they even discuss who this strange tourist in his car watching them is. Perhaps they don’t give a shit. This being Greece they likely don’t give a shit.

I’ve so far not seen anyone catch anything. I’ve also not spent hours sitting and watching so likely that’s more of a reason than much else. It got exciting once when it looked as if I was about to witness my first catch but all that happened was someone caught their other line. As I write that sentence it makes me think I should probably go out and make some friends. Relative excitement shall we say.

It could be that it’s just fun relaxing by the sea. I know I’m sitting in the car but genuinely I quite enjoy sitting in cars by places. I don’t always feel it necessary to get out. What am I going to do, walk around for a bit, stand somewhere and watch or maybe even sit somewhere and watch. At least I’ve got my comfy car seat and a holder for my beer. It’s much easier to sit with the laptop and write this in a car too. Maybe I should get a chair like the fishermen and sit beside my car. I might feel the necessity to buy a fishing rod then though and that would change the entire nature of this experience. When I get bored and need an upgrade maybe.

One of the fishermen is vigorously making himself a frappe and watching me. This is Greece after all, nosey bastards. It’s really hard making national stereotypes when everyone acts as they feel fit. Perhaps that can be a Greek stereotype, doing whatever the hell they want. Why must we take the unknown out of the world by putting people in boxes though. The unknown is scary I guess, it makes us feel safe to box it up. Like being scared of the dark, the unknown without lights. If we can box an entire people then what can be safer than that. It seems a little ignorant though, and I can say that as someone who has done that far too often in the past. It might just turn out people are people. What a whole new world of discovery that would involve. But anyway, enough of this. Back to the fishing.

That Feeling

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I was feeling a bit deflated. Football will do that to you. This was nearly not going to be a piece on getting that feeling about things and what it means. I just did the television version of leaving the stadium early. Brighton scored a last kick of the game type equaliser against my team and I switched it off. I never do that. In the end it wasn’t the last kick because we went up the other end, got a corner, a penalty and with the actual last kick of the match scored the winner. Football, bloody hell. I had the feeling we would hold on before they scored. I even challenged what feels like an unspoken rule to never openly predict even to yourself that something is or isn’t going to happen that will benefit your team. I taunted myself in the belief they wouldn’t score because I was so convinced my feeling was spot on. It was going to be the basis of my entire argument in this piece.

Football is great for getting that instinctive feeling about something. I got the feeling Maguire was going to score our initial equaliser earlier in the game just before he did and that set me off. In truth there have been loads of times I’ve got the feeling he was going to score and it’s come to nothing but I’ve homed in on the one time it proves an idea I want to believe in. The truth is though that we do get instinctive feelings about things and they come true. I have no idea what it means and despite there being an infinite amount of books out there with theories I doubt nobody really knows. Trust your gut, go with your instincts.

We have some of the best days and the best adventures when we do trust our guts and go with whatever momentary instincts we feel. I have had some fun as a result. Just imagine we lived every day like that though, it would be a type of carnage for sure. It would certainly be exciting, if not frustrating too. The constant lack of rational actions. But then people seem reasonably irrational in their actions already. Maybe I’m just too rational, think out each situation too much and never trust my gut feeling and which ever flow it could take. Well I trust it today just before we had a goal scored against us. We did go up the other end and get one ourselves so maybe I was right, but also maybe I wasn’t. Really I have no idea. I’m not sure I’m connected along the earths meridian or energy lines to a football game thousand of miles away. Maybe I’ve just watched enough football to know or understand the likely outcomes. Look at me trying to rationally break it down. You see that’s where I go wrong. Got to stop trying to understand things and just go with it. Go with that feeling. It certainly makes life more interesting, maybe I should experiment a little with that for the next few days.

Well Blue Me

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I’ve found a new thing to class as possibly the worst job ever. I mentioned sanding the boat yesterday and discipline. Well I managed to discover a little more discipline today, not as much as I hoped but more than the day before. It’s a process so I’m not unhappy with that. I am unhappy about sanding a boat though. It is simply awful. The goggles steam up, the suit is hot in the sun and so on. What makes it worse is the blue sanded paint just gets everywhere and even when you cover yourself you still end up covered in it. Yesterday Smurf is back again. Throw in the fact you sweat and it opens pours but the stuff stings. It’s actually toxic too which is concerning but I doubt it’s so bad it’s going to do me a lot of long term damage. But it stings and I’m not happy. It’s such a shit job. Now I know why boat yards charge so much. Give me a door that needs sanding anytime. I will never complain about such a thing ever again. Thankfully it’s going to be raining tomorrow so I’ve no chance of feeling I should be doing any. I’m not even half way yet either. It’s certainly taking long enough. Fuck this. I need a drink.

Well tempting though it is I haven’t done my minimum four hundred bloody words yet. My face is still stinging and it’s now night time. This is nearly worse than toothache. I have one more hull to do and there will be no messing around next time. I’m not sure what the opposite of life affirming is but this feels like whatever I imagine it must be. I wonder if it’ll finally make me ‘do something with my life‘ if only so I don’t have to ever do this again. But I will, I know I will. I’ll get a boat myself one day and it will be in a condition that warrants this kind of work needing to be done on it. Fucking boats. This whole swanning around and drinking gin thing is such a fallacy. Maybe it’s time to buy some rum like a real pilot. It’s the pirates life for me then. I was thinking if I ever lost an eye and was still sailing would I be able to credibly wear an eye patch or would it just make me look like a twat. Probably both a twat and credible. Doubt that would stop me though.

To Become A True Disciple Of Discipline

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It can be hard finding the discipline to do things you don’t want to do. There has been some discipline involved in writing this every day. I am a little surprised, I am less than two months from the one year finishing line and still going. It’s not a stubbornness that has got me this far but certainly once you’ve put a certain amount of energy and emotion into something it can be easier just to carry on than stop. The public shame of stopping also plays a role and there’s no coincidence I published originally in this knowledge. Creating a habit of easier just to continue than stop is also easier said than done.

Currently a catamaran in a boat yard in Greece is my home. I am fixing a few things that need fixed and waiting around for a professional to fix the odd thing I can’t or am probably better off not trying. There have been moments in which I’m happy to get on with things but sometimes, these last few days have been a challenge. One job I have to do is antifoul the bottom of the two hulls. It turns out that the painting part is going to be impossible for now as it must go in the water shortly after being painted. It’s not going back in until probably April next year. I can prepare it in advance though. That means the dreaded sanding. I hate sanding. I have sanded plenty of things in my life and I hate it.

It turns out sanding a hull is even less enjoyable than normal. You need to be fully decked out in a protective suit, a mask and goggles. This is for my health which is important but the goggles don’t seem to do much judging by my facial resemblance to a smurf – the hull is blue – and it gets bloody hot at this time of year. Throw in the fact the previous layers are proving rather difficult to get off and I am aware I don’t want to sand too deep so in itself it is pretty challenging. The point is that requiring the discipline to get up and do the job has been an issue. I have struggled. Yesterday was good in a way, although frustrating as it rained and I had to stop, I at least had an excuse. Today though has been a lovely day and the only obstacle has been myself. This is discipline, or at least another type of discipline, one requiring a different type of effort to that needed for writing in here. You think you’ve taken steps learning something but it’s a case of then discovering the thing you think you are getting to grips with has an infinite amount of variety.

I have discovered though that like everything we just need to look at it all one step, or one day, at a time. If I look at the entire two hulls it becomes a huge task and a hugely off-putting one at that. If I just say today I will sand for the morning or until X o’clock then suddenly I am more inclined to crack on and see the morning through. Like everything, if we ignore the enormity of any task or issue and take it one day at a time it all seems much more manageable. I say that, the theory sounds nice, I’ll let you know how I get on and whether I’m simply talking out of my arse once more.

A Toxic Storm

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I sit tonight with thunder and lightning as a backdrop of sorts. I say of sorts because I am in a taverna and despite attempting to position myself looking outside there are still too many lights and people around to feel the full affects of such weather. In fact all these people and children kill any mood I felt prior to entering. There is always something atmospheric and intense with thunderstorms, especially those in hotter countries not used to rains all year round. The intensity is understandable, I imagine if they could measure the energy build up inside a storm, they probably can, maybe that’s what weather balloons do, they would discover it to be powerful. I suppose it is that strength which creates the burst of electricity that is lighting. Is the lightning a release though, is there a decrease in energy once it has struck. Can we compare this to the human mind?

I can use Greeks as an example. It is probably a little ignorant and lazy. Greeks are known for let’s say having an argumentative character. It is a lazy stereotype but for the sake of this argument, let’s assume it is true. It has felt when I’ve been embracing elements of this culture in the past, that the loud arguments have been a form of release. That sometimes we wouldn’t even be arguing over something we were actually angry about but simply looking for this excuse to release a build up of energy. The stereotype about the Greeks then is lazy because this is clearly something done by all, this is a game played in Scotland too for sure. The point is though that this energy must still go somewhere. I don’t know what happens once lightning strikes. What happens to the power that fires towards the ground. The power in an argument is hardly visible but you feel it and you hold onto it, perhaps it’s the same with the lightning strike. This I clearly don’t know.

I do know arguments though and I do know that I am capable and therefore others too of holding on to that energy. We see the other person relaxed and happy after their release but we’re a quivering ball of someone else’s anger. Our own toxicity levels increasing in the moment. Perhaps this is why some people are described as toxic. Toxic substances poison just as toxic people do too. We can’t ignore the fact if others do it to us then certainly we do it to others too. We can’t just spend our lives avoiding those we deem toxic in the hope of not becoming part of some cycle though, this is no way to live life. We must learn to live and not absorb, don’t take in their bullshit. See it and brush it off. I’m not sure why I got into this. I just wanted to talk about thunderstorms. It’s amazing how the mind wanders and relates.

Philosophy Now’s Question Of The Month

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In the earliest days of this daily thing I’m doing, this experiment shall we say, I made suggestions for things I would write about. One suggestion was to answer a question from a magazine I subscribe to and don’t read enough of, Philosophy Now. It involves an evil and confusing question roughly every two issues which means four months and I think I may have answered one at some point on here although I think I didn’t give much of a shit to make it decent as I knew I had missed the deadline for entering. This one though I’m going to enter. I’ll still write it on here in my usual half arsed and rushed way first though just aware that I’ll be sending it in too.

Does History Progress? If so, to what?

Time certainly progresses. I feel slightly older today than I did yesterday. Of this I am fairly sure, or at least I have convinced myself of this truth. In that case yesterday is now history and the day before yesterday is older history. Yesterday though, the day before wasn’t as old as it is now. However is that history progressing, it still feels the same now as it did yesterday just a little fuzzier. Perhaps it’s evolving but that’s my memory that’s evolving not necessarily history itself.

What is history though if not just a series of memories. Even the version we write down only captures one take on events and that is open to interpretation. What happens when this version loses it’s appeal, the fashions of the modern age deciding they don’t like the historical narrative and give an event a new one. Surely then it has progressed to something new. Again it has evolved, but does that mean it has progressed. We must looked then at our understanding of the meaning of progress. To advance, to go forward. These are positive notions surely but histories changes don’t always feel positive, advanced or even evolved sometimes. What happens when they go sideways or backwards. Hitler made changes to the history of his country while he was in power, did they progress? For him they did, but now history would suggest otherwise.

So history can make subjective progress? Again that’s a version of an event. Objective history on the other hand cannot, but then we can’t say there is such a thing as objective history. It is only ever a story and someone must always be around to tell that story. So subjectively history progresses, but to what? I guess that depends on whatever the subject decides they want it to. Or we just accept it will always change into an infinite amount of possibilities and the change itself can subjectively be called progress. Not in the moving forward sense of course but in the something other than it was five minutes ago sense.

And that is my answer. I find them quite challenging if that’s not clear by now. I’m sure the one I did before was a little bit of a ramble with too many rhetorical questions too. I suspect rhetorical questions are not always a good thing, or at least too many of them. The other approach is to make it dry and over explain but you’ve only got a maximum of four hundred words and the other answers people tend to send in are not formed in that way. Like everything it is simply practise, everything is always practise.

Renovating The Mind

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Depending on how we live life it can appear that our existence is just one long series of bubbles. I’ve left my previous bubble in other words and found myself in a new one. I say too about how we live our life because for some they only ever experience one bubble. I don’t suggest that is a good or a bad thing, it is just another experience. The two versions of experience can allow us to put differing importance upon a variety of things. For the last ten months I have been working in a bakery making pizzas, driving vans and doing some renovations. In that time I existed in a little village by the sea. It was very difficult not to get caught up in all the little drama that involved and I both thrived on it and was broken by it. Now I’ve followed a familiar path I know and moved on. I’m in Greece living in a boatyard with the intention of doing some work on a boat. Shall we say renovations in a different form, of boat and mind. My bubble is changing and evolving into something else. I am rediscovering different types of importance.

As I look back on these previous months I realise how much I got caught up in an entire world of small things. That isn’t to say they weren’t important because clearly they were at the time. Some I wish in hindsight I hadn’t got so involved in or reacted to in the ways I did, but all it shows is how easily we can get lost in the worlds we inhabit. In a way it could be argued as a good thing, was this an example of me living in the moment. The intensity of the bubble representing how present I was. In truth I know I wasn’t that present as I spent large chunks of the time fantasising about being anywhere else. But that didn’t stop me putting value on what I was experiencing. Now having left and with the time to step back from it all it seems so unimportant. All the things that caused anger, stress and anxiety. What were they for, what was their point and why did I allow them to engulf me.

This is one reason I enjoy moving so much as it allows me to be able to observe things in at least a physically detached way. Mentally I am still not objective but I can see now having left that the fears and stresses were not important, at least not in the way they felt at the time. This detachment then allows for perspective. As I said it isn’t to entirely devalue these moments but perhaps it’s about being able to better understand our own reactions in them. I was thinking recently that surely old people should fear nothing having experienced so much and survived it all. Evidence suggests otherwise but theoretically I like this idea. It fits then with the one that this chapter I have just stepped out of was challenging but I survived it. Maybe not intact but I survived it still. Any damage can be understood, resolved and released, used as experience if and when similar arises in the future.

I know this is entirely about me but my intention is to use my experience and hopefully help another understand their own. We’re never as unique as we like to think we are and simply see, understand and experience moments in our own ways. I take from others my own version of their version and someone else will do the same of mine, relating it in a way that they can understand and learn from. Is understanding and learning not the whole point. Everything else is just a tool for that end surely. One more thing to help us unlock the key to step from one bubble to the next. Another brick in the development of understanding.