Tag: community

Out On The Water

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

I’ve done a bit of sailing. Not loads but enough to be fairly proficient. I could survive I think, I say that despite the failed sailing exam. There were extenuating circumstance with the thirty knots of wind and a crew who had never sailed before, but I must take responsibility for panicking when a navy boat came up behind me in a small channel and me dangerously tacking into the wind, proceeding to get stuck behind an oil tanker as it started up it’s engines and then messing up my reefing as I tried to make the sails smaller. I needed to be better but it was a ridiculous and comedic situation. Anyway, I’ve enjoyed learning so far, it’s a good way to see the world in a whole new way. I hope I get to carry on again at some point once everything has calmed down.

The reason I bring this all up is I was thinking about the weather. It’s really hot and humid. I had to learn about the weather when learning how to sail because, well, it’s quite important. To avoid embarrassment I’m not going to try and explain it beyond that I think we’re moving through a period of low pressure, we should be getting westerlies and the rains are coming. Now I could be wrong but I think I’m right. Being able to read these barometric charts is quite cool in an uncool way but probably only if you’ve ever needed to know how. It’s actually really interesting knowing what weather is coming up by working it out for yourself. It adds another type of practical to the whole.

I’ll never be a sailing wanker but I am fan. It’s a very social way of life. Everybody is living on top of each other, working together, helping. It’s the complete opposite to living life in lockdown isolation. The calm and the space. I’ve experienced community in a few different ways and this is just another version. Mini communities for one week, one month. Strangers coming together with an intensity everyday society cannot match. This is something I actually miss, this intensity of interaction. Working together is something that can be hard because we don’t have to ordinarily. We will become better at it or lonely. You get to really know people. People are real very quickly.

I realise I miss the travelling community. I love the art of sailing but it’s the travelling that gives me the real kicks. I have arrived places I’ve previously been but this time by sea and they feel like whole new versions. You’re viewing everything from a different angle. I’m looking at places around the world I have never previously thought that much of before. I dream of sailing in the Arctic around Svalbard, the Antarctic, the fjords around Tierra del Fuego and the tip of South America. These are magical kingdoms. I can’t imagine there being a better way to explore them. But that will be then, for now I’ll just enjoy this moment and what it brings, I’ll keep an eye on the weather all the same.

The Evolution Of The Elders

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Apparently one in five girls born now can expect to live to the age of one hundred. They will see the twenty-second century. For someone born in the twentieth century that is something I struggle to comprehend without my mind going all sci-fiction. Imagining it will be similar to what was expected in the year two thousand by those in the sixties is probably the easiest way to give you an idea. I could now go into wandering through the realms of possibilities but will resist the temptation. This is more about an ageing population.

We already have ageing populations in many parts of the world. If memory serves me then I think a populace needs two point one children born per couple for the population to maintain an average age capable of working, paying taxes and keeping society going. The idea of per couple sounds like a strange one considering relationships don’t quite work in that traditional way anymore but those statistics were perhaps created when it was more relevant. An ageing population is seen as a sign that in the long term a country will have serious problems but I wonder if this isn’t the wrong way to look at things.

The three phase life that has been the cornerstone of how people lived in the last hundred years is starting to look like a part of the past. The three phases are childhood education, working life and retirement. Childhood education is something that seems to be stretching into our twenties now. People seem less inclined to finish education and settle down into adult life instead waiting until they get into their thirties. Work life is no longer about working for one company your whole career or even one field the entire time. It is now far more common to jump from company to company as well as being possible to change careers in some cases multiple times. These two parts are I believe pretty obvious, people know this because they are living this. I am sharing no groundbreaking ideas.

What is worth addressing though is retirement and the role of people in society as they age. If populations are getting older, one thread that goes around is that the elderly are a drain on society. Does that miss possibilities though? We can’t afford to pay their pensions is a common one. The retirement age in the UK has gone up in the last few years and I imagine if we carry on like this and I make it that far it will have gone up a few more times before I become eligible. Modern medicine, improved diets and understanding of healthy living will keep people alive longer but we need to think about their quality of life. What this doesn’t mean though is improve their quality of life and flog them in the workplace until they – we – drop.

If people have worked for forty or fifty years, they may not physically be capable anymore but they offer something people of younger generations don’t have. There once was a time when communities looked to the elders for understanding and wisdom. They weren’t always viewed as a drain who should be put in nursing homes to wait for death. If we are going to have ageing populations, and people living longer who are unable to work and who after forty years have earnt the right not to, we need to find ways of including these people in a way in which they’re not viewed as a burden. To do this we need to stop viewing peoples worth and value through economic eyes and instead through community based compassionate ones. People of all ages have something to offer. The young can learn from the old just as the old can gain vitality and life from the young. We can see the differing values but first we must learn how. Maybe if we had less old people and more elders we may see a way how.

Maybe And Probably Not

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

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.

Local Councils

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

This was going to be a piece having a little rant at the local council. Let’s be honest it probably will anyway but I’ve lost some of the conviction having thought a little more about it. It is probably worth mentioning that I dislike councils immensely. They seem to be just small time self-serving bureaucrats. There is nothing worse than a local councillor attempting to justify why they gave their mate a deal or attempting to elevate their own importance despite not being able to look beyond their own narrow little view of the world. I was looking at the road outside my parents today and it is dangerous to drive down, the potholes are everywhere, it could be described as off-roading and that would not be an exaggeration. My parents pay one thousand eight hundred pound per year in council tax, which works out as about thirty-six pound per week. They get their recycling collecting every second week and the rubbish collected every alternate second week. The local farmers cut all the hedges locally and if a tree came down in the road they would have moved it before the council even contemplated having to do anything about it. The local power and phone cables are maintained by the power companies too. The council clearly never fix the roads so that means we’re paying thirty six pounds per week to have a bin emptied. They wonder why nobody believes in the credibility of their existence.

However, nothing is ever as straightforward as it seems and this is why intellectually I start having to question my short sighted emotive rant. They also apparently do certain care in the community things around my area. Now while that is one thing, it also mean there will probably be others I’m unaware of. Also, while there are payment bands and people in town will pay more, it does make you realise that perhaps some of the money raised goes towards funding things in the local town which we do use sometimes.

It is frustrating because you want to rant at their expensive incompetence and when you see yourself getting so little back it is justified but that approach is one that merely highlights an endemic problem within society as a whole. We have been conditioned to think so much from an individualistic perspective, it is about what society can do for me. Why should I pay that much when I am only getting those small few things back. We never look to how we can contribute to society or the community as a whole despite the reality that stronger community around us makes our own lives better, safer, stronger and potentially more fulfilling. I still have no time for the small minded council but it is important to have the time for those around us. Sometimes it is important to pay a little more than we may immediately get back because we never know whether we will get it back in other ways at a later date. It is a shame to realise that because clearly I just wanted to shout and I’m not happy that I’ve rationalised this fairly.

Fuck it…total bunch arseholes!! That feels better. Maybe it’s time to dig out that spray can.

Corrupt Politicians

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

I have just been listening to a podcast on which the subject of the American Democratic candidates were discussed. I try not to talk too much about another countries politics because I am not from that country and there’s a chance I may miss some nuance I would otherwise get were I from there. There is one element of politics though that we can freely talk about no matter which country is the subject of discussion. The issue is corruption. Now I accept politics is not unique in suffering from this ailment, all countries have corruption in different forms. I’ve heard since Tuesday that the World Championship Scotch Pie Awards are fixed, not blatantly but there’s a reason the same few bakers seem to win everything. That is corruption. When people profess to being good moral honourable people though, they should be held up to higher standards. I will often criticise charities more than companies when they both do the same thing; there is no pretence with capitalism once you scrape below it’s wafer thin veil but the aid sector pretends something different.

The same situation exists with politicians and I can see why people like Trump because he doesn’t pretend to be a good guy, his whole act is about being a prick and that must be refreshing. People are tired of politicians, they don’t trust them and rightly the establishment is being called out and challenged. Trump of course is the establishment, just as Boris Johnson is, which shows the con job that has been pulled in both countries. However it’s when people like Elizabeth Warren come out with things like this absurd claim that Bernie Sanders told her in a private conversation that he didn’t believe a woman could be President. After giving it the whole good person who cares about people act for months, it is a legitimate response to want to tell her to go fuck herself. The mainstream media have jumped on the story claiming it to be fact, half of the supposed witnesses where not even there. It’s a hatchet job because he is threatening to upset the Democrats and actually get the nomination. It’s like Britain, the Neoliberals in the Labour party actively tried to sabotage the party and prevent it winning rather than see Jeremy Corbyn be elected Prime Minister. Elizabeth Warren has exposed herself as a dirty liar, she is corrupt and after playing the saint who cares card for so long she deserves the inevitable fallout. She doesn’t stand a chance of beating Trump, neither does Joe Biden, who is also corrupt as this Ukraine investigation exposed. Who knows about Bloomberg, but just ask Trump, you don’t get to become a New York real estate billionaire without embracing a little corruption along the way.

Yet we still follow these people. We accept them as our leaders, allow them to take all they want, subject us to a life of servility while not even leaving us with our dignity. Are we scared to stop and say we’ve had enough? Are we so scared of losing our lousy lot in life? Do we fear those below us taking our position? Has the old carrot lie of one day being them really deceived us that much? We vote for laws to protect billionaires but not poor people. That is fucked up. We will never become billionaires, it just won’t happen, we are not voting to protect our future selves. Let’s stop accepting and being complicit in their raping of society and the hurt that causes. Look after your neighbour and your neighbour will look after you, it’s time to come back together as a community. Having looked after politicians and billionaires all these years it seems there’s a distinct lack of them watching our back. Yet despite there being no genuine prospect of change we carry on making the same choice and expecting a different outcome. We continue to imagine that it will be all fine with this new one, he looks like the kind of guy who could lead this country and give us the life he’s promising. He’s definitely not like that other fella…what’s his name again?