Tag: ignorance

Life’s Pot Of Gold

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

My eye hurts and I’ve felt a little sore the last two days. I think I need a holiday. Summer is drawing to a close, the numbers of visitors to this little village are ever so slightly decreasing and it feels like a period of time is drawing to a close. With Autumn comes the shedding of leaves as we move into a season of rest and recovery. The hibernation is upon us and with it like it’s time to step back out into the world. It is both daunting and exciting to make another change in life when you have been within one version of existence for so long. I was supposed to only be in this village for two months and that was last October. I won’t be giving my friends the satisfaction of having stayed for a full year but at eleven months it’s not exactly been a fly by visit. I understand more now and have gained an appreciation for a life in one place which I didn’t have before, as well as life already lived strangely enough. Despite being desperate for a holiday and being able to see something new I now know I am capable of returning to a state of existence previously beyond me. Will I miss it when I’m move one. Probably actually yes. But not this exact version.

When in a few years from now the stories of peoples time in lockdown are all out I look forward to reading about them. Of course there will be people who just drank beer, had BBQ’s and got bored but there will be as many who learnt new things and ways of being. When I speak to people here invariably they all say the same thing that they hated lockdown after a while and were just desperate to get back to work. Maybe I have been asking the wrong people but it is also one of the reason’s I know I can’t stay here. I love it very much but I need more, I need to be surrounded by people who want more. Maybe more is unfair because I’m probably just repeating previous mistakes in my understanding and valuing others, I just want different. Something else, something other than this version of existence. The constant search through the permanent existential crisis of life. But nothing is permanent, not even crisis and certainly not ones involving purpose and worth. Yet we continue struggling through them, determined to find an elusive answer we’ve promised ourselves exists. Was the pot of gold not buried below the very tree he was sitting under as he first devised how best to leave in search of prosperity. Despite everything; knowing, understanding and being still remain divided. Can they ever come together?

Yet it is more positive than it sounds. If anything has become obvious from recent events it’s that in life you just keep going. We find joy and happiness in the unexpected but we must be open to seeing and embracing these unexpected. To understand that everyone has a pot of gold out there somewhere but that they themselves already have both the map and the spade is key. First though we must stop trying to use others maps and others tools. With this all becomes exciting once more. It actually is possible. It’s always been possible. It’s just down to us to make it probable.

Being Human

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I must begin with a retraction. I suggested I was hooted, or claxoned, at by two cars yesterday and that I thought not only were the two people being arseholes, that they must surely have been locals too. I was aware that I may have been jumping to conclusions but I was in the mood to do it anyway. It turns out then that I was wrong. One of the guys in the bakery today asked me if I realised it was him hooting at me and it turns out the second incident, the one I enjoyed, not the one which involved the road rage, was not as it first seemed. Probably not as I interpreted it would me more fitting. It’s amazing how often two people can experience the same situation in completely different ways, or people take offence to someones manner when the other person is oblivious to what they were doing. In this incident I jumped to the conclusion it was some ignorant local being an idiot but really there was only one idiot there, the guy from the bakery obviously. Let’s hope I learnt something from yesterday or the only conclusion can be that there is but one arsehole.

I’m trying to think what if anything else I can retract from previous pieces. Surely in over two hundred and fifty pieces I’ve talked a lot of shit, but how much of it was inaccurate and ignorant. The title of this whole blog suggests I misunderstand many things so not only am I likely to have talked a lot of shit over these months but the hooting incident above suggests I’m simply living up to the expectations of the name. I make observations – locals are idiots – I make misunderstandings – it turns out they’re not.

I was listening to something on woke people and anti-woke people today. I would rather eat my own toes than class myself as either of those two things but what they were discussing was the absolutist stances both sides take and while their targets may change their methods and understanding, for example good guys and bad guys, was very similar. Almost dogmatic like religion. I could criticise them but judging by yesterdays incident I’m no different. To generalise a whole group of people, who have done me no actual harm that I know of, and blame this whole group for the actions of one person is just utterly ridiculous. Why do we do it. Why do I do it. To make sense of the world? Am I that simplistic? Are such crude boxes required for my mind to be comfortable. People are ridiculous. I am ridiculous. But I’m human. And fallible. As is life.

Creativity Takes Root

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I’m really enjoying all the creativity people are coming up with while in isolation. I just watched the most remarkable video of a man in a leotard dancing in his garden. Without the virus that moment would never have happened. I was tagged in a live music show this evening, which I only discovered afterwards unfortunately but enjoyed listening to it after the event. Another friend shared her sisters morning fitness class as she is a personal trainer which will give people some much needed exercise and hopefully some new habits. People have already started to put works of art up.

It is early days and people may still be in the excitable fun stage of isolating but for now they seem to be doing all the right things. In time lets see how it goes as they start to suffer from seclusion but the videos coming out of Italy show that even after weeks and an horrendous situation they are still on their balconies singing. There was a video of someone playing Bella Ciao with a saxophone from their balcony which raised a smile. People are worried, scared, bored and in some cases alone but they have found the drive to produce, to share, to inspire.

There is something about being human that shows how well we can adapt to circumstances when we need to. We may be a bunch of soft snowflakes and tough right wingers who both seem to take offence in equal measure but when it comes down to it we seem capable of getting on and surviving when we have to. It is early days potentially and we’re expecting another couple of months of this, fatalistically just waiting…maybe I’ll write about that tomorrow though…but even with that hanging over our heads we find the spirit just to carry on. People shouldn’t be out and about of course but it’s amazing that those who are seem to be smiling and laughing with each other. The initial shock has passed and we’re just getting on with it.

If it’s possible to remain objective within all of this then it would be incredible just to sit and observe how people’s mood as a collective has changed and evolved until now and will do over these next few months. But I’m not objective let’s be honest, I am viewing this through my very own eyes mixed with and confused by a certain combination of fear, bravery, bravado and ignorance that keeps me getting out of bed in the morning and through the day; being happy when I’m happy and sad when I’m sad. Crisis brings people together but it also reminds us while we may have our differences, our base instinct, feelings and emotions are all pretty similar. Carry on people, stay indoors if you can and keep on performing. Keep us all sane and keep us smiling.

An Ignorant Act of War

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What is it that goes through peoples minds when they act in a way which will inevitably have a detrimental affect upon other people. I ask this because all over the news today is the assassination of the Iranian General Qasem Soleimani by the United States. In the UK the coverage is generally subtly supportive or cautious but without ever condemning, which is predictable given the geopolitical framework in which this incident exists. The caution comes from the clear retributive dangers of inevitable actions by the Iranian government. There have been calls from across the world wide spectrum of governance about the dangers of this and calls for the deescalation of further violence. Were this to have happened in reverse the US would have already dropped the bombs in retaliation. This is an act of war and by those same rules the Iranians can justifiably fight back. The question then is that given the consequences whether this is exactly what this current US administration want, and judging by their behaviour since coming to power the answer seems pretty obvious. The Iranians have vowed revenge of equal measure, which would mean killing America’s most powerful General, or Israel’s.

Which leads to Israel. It seems the current US administration have been doing all they can since coming to power to support Israel – recognising the capital as Jerusalem, recognising the illegal settlements in Palestine as legitimate, Trump kissing some holy wall and then licking the soles of Netanyahu’s feet. The Israelis have been desperate to take on Iran for years and successive US governments have always held back from doing so. They’ve finally got what they want. If I was a betting man, the attack from Iran will not be directed at any Americans but straight at the heart of Israel. I just hope that whatever happens civilians are not caught up in it because the only constant of war is that innocent people suffer. If they take out a few Israeli generals well then so be it, they signed up for it and already have the blood of innocents on their own hands.

It is scary though. But is it scary for those making the decisions. And when they make the decisions what do they feel. It is very easy to look through the polarised lenses of good and bad, unfortunately this seems to be all that current rhetoric is made up of. The Iranians are the bad guys, they should die. The Americans and Brits the good guys, they should be applauded for their heroism in defending freedom. I’m making assumptions but I suspect those making these decisions to pull triggers do not think that what they are doing is wrong in any sense of the word. We view these people as evil in some ways but they’re not, they are just trying to make the world, or maybe more precisely their own world, a better place. I think it is important to remember that ultimately in everything people do they just want to be happy. Nobody acts in ways counter to that, not consciously at least, and he might be a cunt, but Trump just wants to be happy. The problem is though that he is going about it in such an immoral and mistaken way that there is no happiness coming for anyone out of this, least of all the innocent civilians who will inevitably bear the brunt of such monumental ignorance.

The Dark Side

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It is amazing the fear we have about writing or expressing things that may be disagreeable. I have been trying now to write up an idea I had today which if I stood by it as a belief could be construed as patronising, elitist and morally skewing in the direction of disagreeable. Ultimately it is half baked and I suspect I don’t necessarily agree with it, however I found myself unable to write it up on here. What I must work out then is why, because if it is simply down to a fear of being scorned and rejected by my peers well that says either more about the failings of my peers, the change in direction of my moral compass or about how I deal with the reality of rejection. While I don’t necessarily think my moral compass is changing I do believe it is evolving, it still retains the foundations I have learnt, but I hope I can say it is growing up and becoming more refined. Like a pendulum though we can go too far as we discover the limits to certain ideas or ways of existing. Perhaps that’s what this is. The other rationale for why I am unwilling to write up a half baked idea that may be disagreeable is that I just don’t agree with it and am unwilling to write up something which I disagree with. However seeing as it is half baked, perhaps one way to bake it is to help my own understanding by writing it up.

Full disclaimer I do not necessarily believe this. But I admit, I did think it. I am human. I just seem to be breaking some unspoken rule about expressing things which we know should not be expressed.

The populace are like children. Some have the ability of a toddler to think constructively, some like a twelve year old who can think for themselves but doesn’t fully understand although is learning to push the boundaries to see what they can get away with and some like teenagers who can think for themselves and are fighting for their place in society but are stuck in that grey realm between childhood and adulthood while being neither, behaving like both and invariable never being treated how they want to and should be. Some people have access to great education while some no education. Neither makes you think but having no education does not help in your ability to form a fully thought out well constructed argument about who you should vote for. The reality is some people don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about yet they have the same voting rights as say a university politics professor. That is democracy and that is one of the beauties of it, if it were not like that then we would have some elitist technocracy which would probably never fully understand the people that it is telling how to live. It also means democracy is not perfect. Democracy is flawed, fundamentally I don’t know, but it is flawed. This does of course mean that I believe my opinion and vote is more important than the idiot reading the tabloid newspaper, and that makes me deeply uncomfortable because I’m not sure I do believe that, although maybe I do and just don’t want to admit it.

I have totally gone off on one. That was supposed to just be able the populace being a varying age of childhood. Perhaps that is just part of it and this then would most likely be a good moment to realise trying to cook half baked ideas on here is not the best idea. I suspect I will come back to this, as well as whether I believe myself to be more worthy than other people.

I am so confused and I feel so dirty. Am I in fact the ignorant one? Or am I finally just trying to see and understand aspects I may not always have been quite so keen to believe exist within me.

Politics

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Ideas come and go throughout the day but as quickly as they go through one ear and into the brain they have a habit of going straight out the other and out of the brain frustratingly soon after. Instead because it seems to have taken over our social consciousness recently with Brexit and now with the general election looming, perhaps before this thought escapes through the exit ear, politics could be worth a little mention.

There was a time when I referred to football, which I am a big fan of, as having evolved into a soap opera for men. Of course now with women’s football increasing in popularity and inevitably one day in quality, as well as women’s participation in the spectacle as a whole, there are certainly some who would class that statement as outdated ignorance. However I stand by it not on grounds of being a stubborn petulant absolutist, but on grounds that the real number of women participating is still most likely lagging far behind traditional male participation, assumption I know, and not that they don’t exist of course but that I am yet to meet a woman who actually really enjoys football, potentially ignorant to believe my bubble of existence is representative of the whole world perhaps, but I don’t give a shit because not enough has changed yet for me to feel content drawing conclusions that it is anything but a soap opera for men. Let’s leave why actual television soap operas are therefore for women for another time. Anyway the point of that tangent and it’s overly qualifying nature is firstly that discord involving something that may offend seems to automatically need qualifying and because it leads into another grossly generalised example of ignorance by suggesting politics is just a soap opera for bossy people.

I have my beliefs and I love to believe they are enlighteningly maleable but inherently they’re probably not. I will however take great pleasure arguing with and attempting to change the minds of other people to believe what I think and therefore do as I do. I am not alone. My manipulated little mind is as lost, confused and scared as all the others out there trying to convince others of something so that we ourselves can relax safe in the knowledge that the little realities we have created are correct and therefore safe. But like any soap opera it is anything but real and with excitement and verve we are going to spend the next three weeks lost in a world of confirmation bubbles and blinding illusion as we vote in the fella offering us nothing other than a different quality of lubricant for the giant dildo they are about to shove up our arse.