Gulp!! I prefer to get an mpression of what the world outside is really like by taking a look myself. It's not a good idea or very healthy to have your mind chock full of other people's opinions, speculations and bold assumptions if you're only going for a quick walk around the block.
Increasingly there's a sense for me that people who don't really feel part of the fabric of their immediate community, and rely upon social media and other outletd to help inform their perceptions and views on the general mateyness of humankind - there's a very definite feeling that the world we see on the news and the world experienced walking down the street are completely one and the same now. Joining the dots and making causal connections between the two worlds is just a done thing now. And so the rage you feel rise almost immediately now at having to hear yet another activist, rich celebrity or bank advert proclaim BLACK LIVES MATTER for the fiftieth fucking time today, and it's not even fucking 6pm!!! I mean, really??? FFS!!! Shut the fuck up about BLACK LIVES FUCKING MATTER already will you! You're making me feel like I want to be racist to you just to shut you up....
That kind of simmering anger has been all over show in recent weeks and I'm not a big fan of speaking on behalf of other people I don't know. Could be many different reasons, and the fact that our waking lives already involve arduous daily missions just to ensure ensure our mental selves make it too - forced each morning to ignore, avoid or navigate routes around the pressures, distractions, temptations and humiliations shat onto us from by marketing, advertising and PR machines always busy rethinking more effective carrots for us to increase the yield....
We're not to blame for a lot of the bad feelings we end up taking responsibility and then making ourselves feel guilty for. Having said that, if this is your pressure cooker we're all living in and you are the one turning up the heat then I'm sorry, but you are a full on sadistic knobhead!😂
I've just remembered why I started this status update and maybe I should have mentioned it early. It's just an example of what I was talking about and how the social climate with regards to sensitive topics can change rapidly. Just a few photos.
A couple of weeks back I wrote about a bike I went for in the local woods and my initial concerns even before leaving the house as the murder of George Floyd was all that was on TV at that time. I had a few concerns riding my bike in the woods early in the morning because I'm big and black and just about everyone else in my village is white. Plus I enjoy taking pictures of trees and sunlight and shadows and nature in general, and if a tree looks particularly nice I might stand still and look at it for 20 minutes straight because it's worth it.
Anyway, by the end of my bike ride tears of affirmation were making it hard for me to ride home safely. When I got in I posted the story, with a huge tree pic, in a facebook group for lovers of Britain's Ancient Trees. The group isn't political at all usually, and functions as a kind of sanctuary for those wanting to temporally escape the harshness of reality, but the admins allowed my story and members really liked it more than anything I've ever posted. It was nice being able to resonate with strangers like that, especially considering how charged the world outside of the group was at the time. Some of the messages people were sending really moved me, but as I need at 2 hours just to reply to one person, replying to everyone was never going to happen so I didn't bother starting.
And then just last week, maybe it was one of the admins, I'm not sure, posted a link which may have alluded to or mentioned BLM somehow, I don't know. All I know is that when I popped my head in it was like a brawl in the saloon in Blazing Saddles. The type where you just punch the nearest person standing next to you if you don't have an enemy.
Absolutely brutal it was! Longstanding members announcing their permanent departure from the group like they did it every day. I turn my back upon this veritable treasure trove of glorious oaks, majestic beeches and much more besides! You are all dead to me because I read the letters BLM for a third time in this group. The tranquility of this once idyllic sanctuary has forever been soiled by the insipid skidmarks of reality.
Then the admins pulled the shutters down on the place after someone suggested having a cyber-riot. I'm gonna go and check if it's back online now..
No comments:
Post a Comment