Doing more to help NHS staff

It's heartbreaking and also disgusting to read that this is taking place on top of everything frontline NHS staff have had to endure. It's not right at all. 

Intentionally instilling fear in care workers who are risking their lives battling to save critically ill people is verging on being domestic terrorism. 

More of us ought to do more and speak up, or at the very least question the evidence and engage in civil discussion, when we see our friends or family in our news feeds proclaiming COVID a hoax like they are some misunderstood prophets.

The silent majority's continued reluctance to become visible on facebook or to make themselves part of an online response which could help improve the online climate for us all is becoming more obvious each day. 

It's just too easy allowing headlines like these to stream down my feed like entertainment and for me to be all compassionate and understanding in the story's thread, and then when the moment's passed turn a blind eye to a mate's status update declaring that masks and ventilators kill. You have to activate yourself at some point.

All Art Is Coded

What do you mean when you say that all art is "coded"?

That there are fixed unchanging relationships between the working elements present in any artwork and the specific meanings or interpretations they present to the observer?

I just don't understand how you can assert such a bold statement like, "All art is coded whether the artist is conscious of that or not". How do you know this? Who was it that discovered or proved this was the case?

If everything the artist produces, and everything the observer sees can be decoded and explained through a political lens, are you then implying that expressions made by an artist for which no code exists cannot therefore be regarded as art? Or do you think that there is no such thing as artistic originality because everything which exists has already been coded?

All just sounds a bit finite and closed and pointless to me if that is the case.

There is a limit to what can be coded because there is a limit to what language can speak about. Beyond that limit or boundary is the domain of the ineffable or the intangible. The space/arena where things can only be known through our consciousness directly experiencing them, because language and its heavy handed grasp on reality lacks sufficient subtlety to faithfully encode what is there.

My artist friend used to say that "everything has already been done" and that "there's no such thing as originality", and he did a good job of proving that point with his own work! He was just going through the motions. He brought his assumptions to life and made them real.

Even if everything is coded and nothing new exists anymore, you have to live life as though that simply isn't the case, and things that have never existed before can be brought into the world purely because we were able to conceive it. Thinking otherwise just leaves me with a sense that I'm pottering around a jail cell in circles.

I agree, I think that nearly anything can be looked at politically and the way they're looked at will vary from person to person.

Democracy Doesn't Need Protecting

There's There's something about the kind of rhetoric in the headline below which has been getting my goat more and more over the past months, but especially during this particular period of Covidual convalescence. I prefer my goat to be left well and truly alone.🐐

"Democracy is under threat and we need to 'protect' it".

Things that are threatened, that have value, ought to be given resources so that they can fortify and strengthen themselves and therefore are then able to fend for themselves. A sense of having autonomy works wonders for one's sense of taking responsibility.

Instead, help strengthen an entity's own immune response to those externalities that pose a threat, rather than waste time and effort trying to fight off the never-ending influx of baddies on its behalf.

From what I've seen, people who have delegated themselves to be the newly established 'protectors' on behalf of someone else, always end up asking them some form of payback sooner or later, because this 'protection' you're getting from me isn't free you know! and it's this ongoing 'protection' which prevents the thing under threat from growing stronger.

Capitalist societies are constantly legitmising the idea of the necessity of heroes. Capitalists love heroes, because heroes don't demand to be paid in order to do what they think is right, and capitalists love it when people do the right thing and don't demand to be paid for doing it. about the kind of rhetoric in the headline below which has been getting my goat more and more over the past months, but especially during this particular period of Covidual convalescence. I prefer my goat to be left well and truly alone.🐐

"Democracy is under threat and we need to 'protect' it".

Things that are threatened, that have value, ought to be given resources so that they can fortify and strengthen themselves and therefore are then able to fend for themselves. A sense of having autonomy works wonders for one's sense of taking responsibility.

Instead, help strengthen an entity's own immune response to those externalities that pose a threat, rather than waste time and effort trying to fight off the never-ending influx of baddies on its behalf.

From what I've seen, people who have delegated themselves to be the newly established 'protectors' on behalf of someone else, always end up asking them some form of payback sooner or later, because this 'protection' you're getting from me isn't free you know! and it's this ongoing 'protection' which prevents the thing under threat from growing stronger.

Capitalist societies are constantly legitmising the idea of the necessity of heroes. Capitalists love heroes, because heroes don't demand to be paid in order to do what they think is right, and capitalists love it when people do the right thing and don't demand to be paid for doing it.

The Activities That Are Helping Me Most Through The Pandemic

The activities that are helping me most through the pandemic all seem to involve the restoration of some sort of environment, be it internal or external - as well as trying to find new ways to reach out to others who are struggling which feel less obvious and draw less attention to the seriousness of what's happening.

Self-medicating with Netflix story arcs and living vicariously through the journeys of other people's lives, whether real or fictitious, hasn't helped much. They've been like nice sugary treats in between meals and I already made the mistake of thinking I could sustain myself on boxsets early on.

But I finally got round to putting up the bird feeder I've had sitting there for weeks, and made some food for it at work which is roughly 75% insect suet and smells 100% rank.

One robin has approached but then did a u-turn in mid-air!