Thoughts on Thursday: BREXIT IS CANCER

I know that I said, I'd do by best to avoid inflammatory political discussions, but this one's pretty major.

So, the inevitable has happened, parliament has voted overwhelmingly to pass article 50 and now we can move on with the talks for the UK's exit from the EU. Brexit will be happening.

The closest analogy I can think of of is someone dying of a long-term illness. We know that they are dying and that they will soon die, but still when they die it is still such a huge and painful shock. Don't get me wrong this isn't the death yet, that will come when Brexit is finalised, but this is certainly the confirmation of the diagnosis. Sorry to have to tell you this, but it is Brexit...

With the inevitability of Brexit, however long it takes, comes the inevitability of a Scottish independence vote and this time it will, I believe, be overwhelmingly FOR independence. Perhaps the one thing that kept prudent Scottish voters against independence the first time, was the desirable status-quo. The union was strong, the UK was a solid member of the EU, it seemed that choosing chaos, even if that meant independence was not as desirable as maintaining something that seemed well-developed and long-lasting. 

That now has completely gone, the only certainty is right-wing Tory rule from London, and ask any Scot if they'd like that! I can see a 80% or higher voting for independence next time.

Labour or any opposition party (outside of the SNP in Scotland and only in Scotland, they are ignored at Westminster and in England generally) have failed to enliven the remain position. Any mention of Labour is liable to be a negative one by the media and it also has an unfortunate tendency of covering over any Tory or Brexiteer nonsense that should have been properly analysed instead, pure coincidence I'm sure! For example, today we hear all about Labour's problems - Corbyn failing to hold his party together - not a strong enough leader (whatever that means) - bloggers posting that they wouldn't vote Labour right now, lots of hand-wringing about what an opposition part should be doing, and on and on. Dozens of stories.

That the Conservatives have hired a Daily Mail journalist as their new chief spokesman, gets only a cursory mention and not one that goes into any detail. Now, the Daily Mail isn't Breitbart you might think, we're not nearly as bad as those terrible Yanks, but this bizarre attitude of "it's not so bad here, compared to X" seems like delusional ignorance. Yet it goes on time after time, Trump is a gift for the Tory government as the British people seem more motivated by his insane ramblings than our own politics. Where are all those young people that marched Monday night, in demonstrations organised that day over Trump's immigration ban executive order, when their own parliament quietly cuts it's own throat and throws their futures away?

However, misdirection is what has got the Tories in power, so they're not going to stop now. Why talk about your own policies when you can simply point at the opposition and the media dutifully follow.

Tory party spokesman quoted on the BBC on the night of the vote:

Forty seven Labour MP's voting against the article 50 Bill shows Labour can’t speak for themselves, let alone speak for the country. They’re hopelessly divided and can’t even agree whether they should back the Bill to implement the decision taken by the public to leave the EU.
What we do know is that they aren’t interested in controlling our own laws or immigration and are completely out of touch with ordinary working people.

What has this to do with anything? Why is the BBC quoting this? Mentioning Corbyn's failure to unite a Labour party that were split (by his three-line whip) between following the party and serving their constituents (many of them representing areas that voted Remain) is highlighting and normalising the denigration of the opposition, is that what parliamentary democracy is about? You can disagree with your opposition but the attacks aren't meant to be personal or dismissive. Indeed, there's actually nothing here about why this is a bad thing. What, not everyone in the party totally agrees with what they've been told to do? GOOD, that's the point of democracy and now you're meant to all discuss this and come to some sensible conclusion by using logical reason while bearing in mind your electoral responsibilities, i.e. there is a moral obligation to think how what is decided will effect people in general or in specific cases. To merely dismiss your opposition only helps increase the public's disaffectedness with politics (i.e. they're all the same; corrupt and useless, why bother getting involved?), which is obviously not what an incompetent governments wants at all! No sir!

Have no doubt, UK politics is in utter disarray presently, with no general idea of what is wanted or where they are going. The WILL OF THE PEOPLE cretins like David Davis parrot day after day, the will of some of the people during an advisory referendum. As A.C. Grayling says,

[T]he nature of representative democracy, in which MP's are meant not to be simple messenger boys and girls reporting their constituents’ sentiments, but informed and rational agents acting on their behalf in their best interests by getting the facts and examining them carefully, seems to have been forgotten by MP's, and not known by the public.

So, what's so bad? Maybe the end of EU membership, the end of the UK, and the end of parliamentary sovereignty, isn't so bad. It's not like anyone's going to do anything about it anyway. Everyone return to work, pay your taxes, nothing to see here. That's what the people in power want you to do, if you're not looking, not caring, then it's easy for them to line their pockets and walk away from the bonfire they started (like Cameron and Osborne did). It's high time we started holding politicians to account. A lot of people who voted Leave did so to show their dissatisfaction with the current administration and more precisely with the style of politics we have now. It was certainly easier than getting off their arses and doing anything thoughtful about it, but then what are the choices if all you can see are the limitations that the various bureaucratic governments (Tory then New Labour then Tory again) have laid out for you. Basically, it works like, if you're on their side and you play their game, you'll be alright chum. With the added bonus of class and racial social limitations (and gender and sexuality too!) but we're not meant to mention that because it might look like we're complaining and my mate has a big house and he left school with no education, so that's alright isn't it? I mean,  he's got a big telly and a wife and kids, what else do you need in life? It's all fine here, I've changed my mind, Brexit is great because there's nothing else for it anyway. You don't need fairness, you've got a telly.

Capitalism. Ending all hopes and dreams since the industrial revolution.

Bear patiently, my heart; you have suffered through heavier things ...

Words on Wednesday: ancient wisdom for contemporary fears

So, I have passed through the storm of January as expected. If you are still reading, you have my thanks. The world, as always, has kept on turning and people have kept on being foolish, mean-spirited, kind, and forgiving in equal measure. Such as it is, always in balance, except when the foolish and mean-spirited are the one's in power. In those times we have to think...

1.

This too shall pass

این نیز بگذرد

īn nīz bogzarad

Phrase from a fable of the Sufi poets, Attar of Nishapur or others, which relates to a king who asks for a ring that will make him happy whenever he is sad. After consideration the sages craft a ring with this phrase, which has the unfortunate side effect of depressing him whenever he is happy too...

Or, if you prefer...

גם זה יעבור

gam zeh ya'avor

A Jewish folktale that relates to King Solomon.

2.

Take courage, my heart: you have been through worse than this

τέτλαθι δή, κραδίη: καὶ κύντερον ἄλλο ποτ᾽ ἔτλης

Odyssey 20:18

Not so much, all is immaterial and will eventually fade, but rather 'hold on, you'll have your time soon.' In Homer's case it is a time for vengeance against the evil deeds he has suffered.

Full context:

His anger was roused, and he pondered in his mind, whether he should chase them down and kill them, or leave them to sleep with the arrogant Suitors one last time. He growled inside, like a bitch guarding her vulnerable pups, ready to fight on seeing a stranger. He growled inside with anger at their evil ways, but striking his chest he restrained his heart, saying: ‘Patience, my heart. You endured worse than this when the Cyclops, with his huge strength, ate my loyal friends: yet you held firm until your cunning released you from that cave where you faced death.’

Such were his words of self-rebuke, and his heart obediently steeled itself to patience, but he still lay tossing this way and that. Like a paunch filled with fat and blood turning in front of a blazing fire, twisted about by the man who roasts it, eager to see it done, so Odysseus turned from side to side, considering how to tackle the shameless Suitors, one man against many.

5

I've never written directly about my friend, who died on this day five years ago, but I have mentioned him on several posts, as he has inspired work and thoughts so regularly with me. This is because I am thinking about him and our conversations we shared on a fairly continual basis.

So, this is about Thomas, this is a remembrance of him.

I met Thomas in 2005 in Lampeter. Something that feels so very long ago, but also feels immediate and personal. If our connection with an event; our concerns, our care, our ongoing relationship with a time help keep it present and in a sense contemporary then a great deal about my time at Lampeter and especially time shared with Thomas is still current to me.

Thomas was a disarmingly friendly and honest person.

Now that it comes to it, I'm not sure I want to share everything about the history of my friendship with Thomas in detail. That's not really the point and, indeed, I'll end up only romanticising it. Making it into a story, rather than the truth and this must be about the truth.

So, let's start again. What made me write this?

I still feel sad for those who never met him, I don't mean the majority of the planet earth's population, but for my own friends, many who have known me for a long time, without ever knowing or meeting Thomas.

I think my original thought in writing this, was for them, to describe why this person, this stranger to them, has had such a huge impact upon my life. In many ways, his life and subsequent death have utterly altered me, but perhaps they cannot see this. After a while we see our friends in a perpetual image that we have shaped for them and it would take something drastic to change our minds about this perspective.

I mean, I'm not totally different, I still identify in much the same manner I did before. I'm still mostly sad, often angry, and always flippant. (You might think I'm a calm person, but if you do, you don't really know me very well.)

Perhaps I'd hoped people would be able to tell that I carried this trauma within me automatically and therefore treat me with all the appropriate solemnity and respect, but that's never the case, I've experienced this more times than I care to remember.

We cannot read each other's minds, even those we care so much about. It's perhaps because we're all such good liars, and I'm a tremendous liar. It isn't a boast, indeed, I'm ashamed about it. This is why Thomas was so important to me. He was hopeless at concealing his emotions, mainly because he didn't really try to and I don't want you to think he was saintly in his behaviour. He had plenty to feel angry and depressed about and although he coped with that better than anyone I've ever met, still he got sad and angry about things. Mainly other people's inability to see reason.

Also, I cannot describe Thomas himself, only my impressions of what he meant to me, but then that's my point here and I think Thomas would laugh at me for describing him so, and one should laugh (you cannot curse the darkness away), but this is my melodrama and I can cry if I want to.

You would cry too if it happened to you... (with thanks to Leslie Gore)

Anyway, what else could I or should I tell? Ah, yes.

Perhaps it's unsurprising to hear that my first reaction to Thomas' death was anger.

Anger at the world, for being a world wherein this can happen, where the good do indeed die young and the corrupt live long ignorant lives, where the whole thing keeps on moving, when what I wanted was for everything to just stop, because for me, everything did stop at that moment when his wife, now widow, told me that he had died.

Then anger at myself for being overcome by paralyzing emotion, for not being able to help those that needed help... more than me. This has become something too, guilt at my continuing grief, guilt that I still feel this so strongly five years later, because I'm not the widow, I'm not the parent, I'm not the life-long friend. I'm just someone who knew him for a while and I know this self-destructive thought is just that. That, in actuality, I knew Thomas at a pivotal period in his life and that I helped play a part in that, but that doesn't stop my feelings of guilt, of being a fraud, because I've never managed to live as openly as he did. Although I try.

I've been told, by philosophers no less, that I take things too seriously. Although admittedly they were analytic philosophers. Obviously I consider this to be incorrect, but I have deliberated upon it and thought about what I would be like if I were less affected emotionally by things. Not me, is a simple enough answer, which is appealing in a sense.

Life, after all, goes on. For a time. It has a habit of doing so. There are plenty of minor things to occupy one's mind so that you'd never need think about this ever again, so why do you persist in doing so? Is it just a love of suffering?

It is because, although it does sometimes make me deeply upset, it is also something that gives me hope, makes me feel human, and quite often makes me feel incredibly happy and lucky to have known such people as Thomas.

So, I think I've said everything I can say presently and I'm aware I still really haven't said that much, perhaps there's nothing I can really say to fully convey what it meant to me to lose someone like Thomas. It seems to get harder as time passes because memories fade and isn't that really all I've got left of him now? In a sense perhaps, but I also feel the time we spent as friends influenced and changed me and I feel that I carry part of that with me, for as long as I remain me. That's the part that's hard to say, I can show it, because it's me, but the stories I could tell you are only that. They can't capture the 'what it was', they are only giving my romanticised perspective of events. So, I persevere carrying this frozen fragment of a friend, when what is always wanted is the existence that is no more. The time that has passed and can never be again.

21

Dear Dad,

You died twenty one years ago today, at about this time, although I wasn't there, I was on a bus coming to see you.

I was 17 then and not nearly a man. Perhaps that is why you withheld so much from me, you thought I wasn't old enough to have those talks with, but when were you going to do it? It's well past too fucking late now, isn't it?

So, yeah, I'm angry. I'm still fucking angry, 21 years later. Not that you died, but with you. I'm angry with you dad.

I never knew you. I'll never know you. I'll never know why you didn't talk to me. Not when I was a child, but when it mattered, when I was a teenager, when I was a young man.

It's that you didn't try that really bothers me, or perhaps you did but some internal conflict or doubt stopped you. For me, all I'm left with is; wasn't I good enough or worthwhile enough, wasn't I considered articulate or intelligent enough?

You've left an imprint of your personality upon me; the miserableness, the sarcasm, the love of solitude, respect for nature, but most of all, the short temper and the boiling pit of anger.

You were an angry man too, weren't you dad?

I remember you smashing things, or storming away and denying with delight the possibility of a calm resolution to whatever small thing had upset you.

What made you angry dad? Was it your father? The fact that he never fucking spoke to you? Imagine that. Imagine just being left, with no help, no advice, no kind words, fucking nothing. No wonder you were angry.

I was sick of being you. Trying to do the things I think you'd want for me. Indeed, I did stop. I stopped years ago, when I was 25. I remember realising that I had nothing to prove and no way to fucking prove it to you anyway. I started thinking for myself properly. I often think that you're the reason I decided to study philosophy. To consider the 'good death'.

You didn't die well did you? If we're given the time to 'put our house in order' before we die, and many people don't get that chance, you should take it. I don't think you did, but perhaps I just wasn't included. Were you protecting me? Or were you just protecting yourself from having to actually talk about your own death to a young man? Or was it talking about your life that was the problem?

Will I do any better, could I be a different father? Hopefully, I'll get to answer those questions, but the potential of failure fills me with fear. Is that what stopped you, dad? Fear?


Dear reader,
Perhaps this all sounds unfair to you. After all he was there; he wasn't earlier deceased, or in prison, or runaway, or on drugs, or abusive, or violent. He did teach me to respect nature and naturalness, to appreciate art and music, to regard working hard at something you value, and probably many other things too. Perhaps it is unfair, perhaps this is just based in my anger, perhaps someday soon I'll learn to live with it or work past it.

New Year - New Direction (sort of)

Firstly, a very happy new year to you all. I hope it is a happy, creative, and fulfilling year.

So, I'm not announcing a major change in my blog, there will still be most of the same things, but I also want to focus on one area and draw away from another.

Moving towards: As I've mentioned previously, I have been creating a fantasy world inspired by the work of a dear departed friend and others. This has not stopped, although I have not blogged about it. Whether this is merely a personal project, or serves as the basis for a game (a co-operative story) with friends, or the basis for a story or series of stories (the unlikeliest chance I would start and finish a novel, even one based in my own flights of fancy), remains to be seen. I would like, however, to 'finalise' some of my thoughts and ideas about the 'world' and its history, the occupants and their histories as species, the description of the societies, the mythos of the world, and so on. Some of these are, just like the previous list, descriptive historical fiction (as it were) but some of my other ideas are specific to how it would work as a game. I often think about game creation, when I was little I would invent card games that only I would play and I wish I'd written down some of the rules. You get bored of solitaire as an only child...

Anyway, expect many more posts about this un-named world and the un-named game in a project that I've loosely titled "LeCraft" after Ursula Le Guin and H.P. Lovecraft, the two biggest influences on my creation after my friend. I'm pleased to say that this temporary working title has already been described as "shit" by JJ. So, it stays. Ha!

Moving away-from: I spent a great deal of time, if not completing posts concerning politics, society, and the myriad of problems related, then just worrying about them. Last year was and, I have no doubt, will prove to have been a turning point in World history. I can perceive a great many problems arising; here in the UK, in Europe, in the USA, and elsewhere across the globe. Therefore, I could spend this year as I ended the last trying to remain a voice of reason, to argue against injustice, to hold untruth to account and various other self-inflating bombastic nonsense descriptions. All this thinking accomplished for me was a very deep depression, which (I believe) led to a very real and very unpleasant illness that lasted the entirety of December and bloody ruined Christmas and Hogmanay.

At one point last year, I began taking to answering people's comments on public posts on Facebook. Although sometimes I felt this accomplished something, mostly it did not. I even started 'helping' friends by telling them what to do with their lives. I started correcting blog-colleagues in their personal essays. Now, perhaps sometimes it was a 'correct' argument that I made, but was it necessary, what it helpful or worthwhile? For me, ultimately the answer was a definite NO. It made my concerns grow, not shrink, it made my interfering attitude more strident, basically it made me more of a person that I would never want to be.

Therefore, expect a great deal less of personal political essays. Some perhaps in response to the ongoing disaster that is UK society or World relations or the belief in truth. However, I'd really like to keep sane, so this will NOT be a focus for me this year!

I’m not going to bury my head under the sand and witter on about my fantasy creations to the exclusion of reality. This is not my point in creating such a world. All good fantasy, and it’ll be a bloody miracle if mine is any good, should highlight the flaws and strengths of the writer’s contemporary society and if not directly then through a hope for something better. Something positive that we could be. A thought experiment for a society that had power thrust upon them and they still chose to be good.

Well, let’s see how it goes.

All the best to you all
C