Tag: rhetoric

A Power Play

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

There is one thing I enjoyed about not keeping an eye of the rolling news stories and it was that I got less caught up in the party political soap opera of Parliament. We live in a sensationalised world, not just the constant need to excite through 24/7 news channels but through the algorithms on social media that feed us constant anguish and thrills. They know what makes us tick and they’ve tapped into it. It’s so easy when writing this blog just to go onto a news website or see what Facebook has to say, and find enough material in one article on politicians and face masks for example to write something suitably scathing about dithering so called leaders bumbling their way to an end result we don’t notice because we couldn’t actually understand what they were saying. You see I’ve just done it there. It’s just too easy. They’re not inept, they’re incredibly good at what they’re doing, but it’s also obvious and therefore a treasure trove of things to write about.

At what point though do we stop listening and just get on with life. I’ve touched on all this before of course, it’s impossible not to bring up certain themes over again when writing every day. But when do we ignore the theatre of democracy, accept the demos are impotent and watch the shit show go on regardless. I feel powerless, these last five years politically have been incredibly trying and demoralising. Scotland voted no to independence from Britain, England voted yes to independence from the EU and England voted no to the first leader in generations who actually seemed to want to make positive changes to society for people. Instead we overwhelmingly got Boris. As you can see I think we are being dragged down by the English but I’m also wary of putting a single egg in a nationalist basket even if it is one promising liberation over subjugation. Politics has moved to the right and while there are signs of it’s coming back to, well, the centre-right, I am not filed with confidence.

Which means I am at the point of being defeated. Or maybe I already have, maybe that happened ten years ago when I naively thought myself an environmental activists and nothing changed. Of course I’m not defeated, I wouldn’t be writing this if I was, but this is no rallying call. I’m not all of a sudden going to build some ramparts and run up them. It is an acknowledgement though that there are people out there, people much smarter and with far more determination than me fighting for and enacting change. There’s a reason we don’t have a twelve hour work day and it’s not because of keyboard warriors like me. But then again everyone at all levels is important, even those blindly repeating lies and rhetoric in the cesspit at the bottom. If I believe in a holistic approach to the health of our bodies, why not believe it for the health of our societies. We are not just a series of strata within a hierarchy of power, that is not a healthy society. That is power, that is personal self-interest and that is exactly what we are hooked on with party politics. How can society nurture it’s people when it’s leader’s focus is ultimately themselves. While it is time to take the power back, it’s probably more the time to readdress our understanding and relationship with power generally. It is just a word and a concept after all, it’s down to us what we make of it.

A Tall Tree In A Dark Forest

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

I was lying in bed this morning feeling frustrated. I’ve not been sleeping as well as I usually do and that usual is to close my eyes and suddenly the alarm is going off nine hours later. I’m not sure why I’m not, but for whatever reason I find it understandably annoying. The frustration I suspect is like a wind that gives the fire oxygen but it’s a lack of something that’s the kindling.

I’ve led a reasonably interesting life so far, been to a few places and met many faces. I don’t really feel proud of it like it’s some accomplishment despite the positive response I get when I tell some people. There is certainly a lack of contentment and despite how it may appear I feel a constant drive to achieve things. I often see some of my friends or really successful famous people and I’m envious of their lives. They seem to have a success I don’t. Careers, homes, families and bank balances yet I’m thirty four and my instincts have rejected all of these things until now. In fact I still see the futility of some of them and I know the things they have sacrificed to achieve them, things I’m seemingly still unwilling to as I plan my next adventure. Can we adventure forever though? We can’t eat our memories, we can’t shelter under them and eventually we just become those repetitive old travellers others avoid because all they have is their stories. I don’t often tell my stories unless they come up as a relatable anecdote, I don’t want to be that person.

So why the frustration? I hope you don’t feel me to be self indulgent with this piece but it’s simply I know expressing thoughts like this can help others with their own thoughts. I’m not saying my thoughts are anything special but more that I’m not unique and we all suffer the same things just through different eyes. The frustration stems from a lack of something in life as I said. I’m not sure if it’s a home because I have one now and it’s great and safe but it’s not going to bring me happiness on it’s own. Maybe it’s a family? A wife and kids. Again I’m unsure of that, although I don’t doubt it would be nice to have a woman in my life. Perhaps it’s just wanting it all, or more precisely wanting an idea of how I imagine it’ll be.

I was thinking that for all the knowledge I’ve learnt over the years; meeting wise people, reading wise texts, experiencing moments of understanding; I still don’t seem to put much of this into practice in my own life. It would explain why it is still knowledge within and not wisdom. The only thing I’ve learnt is that unlike twenty five year old me I try to avoid giving wise enlightened advice or talking in that empty way people do when they think they know it all. I feel an immediate inclination to end the conversation, or I’ll carry it on but sometimes it just feels stupid. I know it can impress people, and you see people taking it in but it doesn’t feel real. Unless you start living it it’s just a series of empty words.

A series of desires about something we imagine we want and a series of empty words then. I know the rhetoric about contentment and desires but I’m not content and I still desire. I know the words that give the impression of a level of enlightened but I feel as far from enlightened as I’ve even been. This is the frustration then. Why what I know doesn’t correlate in any way to how I act. This is why I feel confident I can say this aloud and it will resonate with others, another thing I know is that others don’t act on what they know either. Perhaps it’s just part of being a fallible human. Perhaps we just need more than knowledge of words. This drive to achieve life, live it to whatever fullest version we choose. Again this is just an idea of a desire. I think I need to end this here because I can see myself going in circles. The answers aren’t attached to my tail. Maybe the answers aren’t attached to anything. Maybe there are no answers. Perhaps that’s what I’m missing, but what does that even mean? Just empty fucking words again.

A Three Point Piece

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

I suspect I’m going to attempt to talk about too many things in this piece, three to be precise, but I’ll try anyway. I should probably stop wasting words telling you this though. To start with I feel it necessary to be critical of yesterdays piece. My issue is that there seems to be a certain immaturity to how I write about politics, and most likely when I talk about it too. This is evidenced I feel by an excessive amount of rhetoric and the danger with this is that not only is it, in my eyes at least, a sign of immaturity but is also a sign of a bad argument, a lack of understand an argument suitably in depth and also perhaps a sign of being a bit of an idiot. I hope I’m not an idiot but I know theres a good chance I would accuse others of such things were they to write in such a manner. Ultimately I’m not happy with it. I could have written it better, made better points and made them in a more evolved way. The problem with not publishing these yet is that I am unable to get your (constructive) feedback, but if anyone ever reads back on these I would love to know what you have to think.

The second thing and third actually were inspired by my avoiding writing this and procrastinating on facebook. Greece is burning again and having lived there for three years, give or take, on and off, I feel a connection to it and a sadness at the continuing trauma that is the Greek tragedy. I may have lived in Exarchia, the anarchist run neighbourhood in the centre of Athens, but it truth I never really integrated and always lived fairly anonymously within it. The new right-wing government has seemingly followed through on it’s threats and has spent the last six months closing down squats. Tonight is the eleventh anniversary of the murder of a 15 year old boy by a police officer, who was coincidentally let out of prison a couple of months back, so expect the streets to be a war zone once more. I love Greece but it’s run by dangerous morons, who are elected by scared morons. Nations seem to repeat events and behaviours throughout their history, Greeks have spent the last hundred years killing and suppressing each other. I said Greek tragedy, but perhaps it’s more of a black comedy. Just not for any of those involved.

And finally, a meme I quite like and thought worth mentioning. Quote ‘The deer isn’t crossing the road, the road is crossing the forest’. It is all about perspective and until we change our perspectives on how we view each other, the world around us and the natural world we are a part of we are going to continue missing the point. Missing the point of our own existence and dragging down the remnants of the harmony that we not only stopped seeing but refuse to see and seemingly have lost the ability to even comprehend anymore or ever again.

That is all.