Well, its now March and we are still locked down and I am getting rather in need of...well, getting out and about really. It’s been some time since I have travelled anywhere and this is so unusual for me. This is more like confinement rather than lockdown and if it’s getting to me I dread to think how it is affecting the less stoic individuals in society.
There's a lot of news around mental health, crisis and the like and its good to hear it coming out into the open, but some people do seem to enjoy being the victim and wallow in the story too much for their own health, and ironically, well being.
I realise I may sound unsympathetic and I’m not, I have empathy for where they find themselves and I know it’s hard to get out of that hole. I’ve been the martyr, the one lost in my story of wow and loss but as I qualified and learnt more about the human psyche, I realised this makes the whole situation worse.
By turning towards the Present and working towards a Future, not staring deeply into the Past all the time, we can move on. We can get over everything if we choose to and there are so many people out there capable of teaching these skills, they are worth seeking out. Even talking about the Future and plans you’d like to make will add the flesh to the bones of Desire and start stripping the power of the Past back where it is, the Past.
What’s the phrase? The Past can only make you stronger. So true, so very true, and in my experience, not only stronger but so much wiser too.
What I learned was there is a great deal of difference between breaking down and suffering from depression; the former we can work our way out of, the latter invariably requires medical intervention before strategies can be learned so as to avoid the body sinking into its unbalanced state.
I deal with the whole thing by concentrating on what I am going to do next. I am ever the optimist now, booking adventures away from home, seeking out new places to visit, exploring my love of art, nature, music and anything which grabs my attention, bringing pleasure to this brain of mine. I love wandering, travelling on trains and buses, staying in hotels and just being nosy. These days I really don’t have time to be depressed, I make sure I have things to do or things to get excited about. My latest is a trip back into the Arctic only this time I am going even further up the Norwegian coast to the very top and hunt for the Northern Lights, seals, whales, birds, wow, just everything. Stand at the edge of the fjord where the whales were brought in to be butchered and cry at the cruelty of it, visit the hamlets up there and of course go into Tromsø. So excited I can feel me bouncing up and down and squealing inside.
Racism has hit the news in a big way too and I am so glad it has, it is something I have actively worked to reduce. For all those years I taught secondary students I worked hard to get them to appreciate there is no difference with how someone looks, walks, talks or the fashion they wear, underneath we are all pretty much the same. Some of us enjoy the outdoors, others enjoy skate and snowboarding, whilst others would rather stay indoors and write poetry or prose, paint a mural or record music. We’re all different but fundamentally the same.
One of my closest friends is part Irish part St Lucian I think it is. Anyway, it wasn’t until we were in a local cafe close to where I live, I noticed hostility toward him. We’d invariably met in London, had a great day together exploring art galleries, museums and vegan restaurants and to be honest I’d not noted his skin tone. Why should I? We shared so many common interests it is irrelevant to me. He always reminded me of an Irish gypsy more than anything. He walked, dressed and talked like one. He is itinerant too travelling between London, Germany and Ireland showing and selling his art in galleries. He’s very talented and starting to get a following which is really great.
Then we met near my home and I suddenly became aware. Honestly, I hadn’t noticed before and was thoroughly ashamed of the people in that cafe and pretty damn ashamed of being a white person too. Last thing I wanted to be painted with was the same brush as those ignorant people.
It never ceases to amaze me how all this animosity to each other stems from a simple neurological sorting skill of same or different; if you don’t understand the concept then watch early learners as they learn to make friends. Initially they sort for sameness; a head, two eyes, and the desire to have fun, then a new skill is taken on, that of sorting for difference and its from here acceptance and denial is born.
“I don’t like you, you’ve got funny teeth”
Its the time when bullying starts, separation into friendship groups begins and the formation and cementing of gangs, clans, bonds, love affairs, hatreds, fear, bias, and all the other nuances of the, “you’re different from me” that builds over time and is reinforced by family values.
Why do we need it? Well, to be honest its a hang over from primitive times when we stuck to our clan or extended family group for security and why we invariably bred with them too.
Yet again, the position of women in society has raised its head and with twists and turns which started tragically and ended with an aborted vigil in London which was so ridiculous it was almost comic. How a vigil for the death of one woman at the hands of a man turned into the man-handling of women, the very act most of us fear every day.
I was on Twitter and a feed caught my eye; a man raising cane at the prospect men could be villainised by women and they should learn to live with it. Oddly, it made me so tearful, mainly with the exhaustion of this argument, I shut him up with one tweet which he couldn’t repudiate. As I said, I wasn’t sure when my fear developed but it might have been when I was pushed against a wall and felt up, or a car cruising to a stop and asking me how much for the night. Or was it the attack on the Tube as a gang kicked me to the floor for my bag or then again the knife attack, or could it be the gun held to my head? Silence. Hopefully he might think on it, but I doubt it.
Sadly, with sexual intercourse occurring in the way it does, man enters woman, then the domination will continue by those males who get a kick from doing just that.
Bring on the Dominatrix in all of us I say.
It made me contemplate the whole inequality thing and how if you are not white Caucasian and male then you fall into a hierarchy of positioning which is very much a hang over from days of yaw. For a society which prides itself in being civilised, its very backward in my opinion. We are all homo sapiens adapted to carry out our tasks with differing skill sets. Shouldn’t these be used to their betterment and success not their detriment and segregation? Shouldn’t we celebrate variety rather than bow to the power of a singular-type ruling? Lets face it, look at our governments, if you are from the West, what do they mainly consist of?
The weather’s been a bit odd hasn’t it, what with snowing in Italy and Greece, the almost Arctic conditions which hit parts of the USA, the black outs they suffered and loss of water supply because it was so cold. And yet those is the Arctic have the converse problem of permafrost melting, seas not properly freezing and them not being able to sustain themselves let alone the other mammals who live there. If there is anyone who can cling to the notion that mankind hasn’t had a hand in the changes we are experiences then they are suffering from a very large blind spot, or is it a delusional level of arrogance that says we can do anything because we are Mankind, home sapiens, the top predator?
Mm, I must admit when I look dispassionately at the species, Mankind, I see it as a plague of locusts literally raping the land of every resource it can get its little grubby hands on and sadly, Mankind has the technology to dig very deeply for it too and not thinking this will have a geological effect someday is not only short sighted, but irresponsible. But then, I genuinely think the NIMBY attitude drives a great deal of this stupidity.
Where or even how we gained the title of Man Kind I will never understand, let’s face it, we are far from “kind” to the earth or to each other are we?
I am one of those people who can lose herself in gardening, the natural world, ecology, climate and continual learning. I have been so grateful for that outlet during the three lock downs. Jobs I needed to do, wanted to do and generally decided would be a good idea to do are now in the process of completion. I have all but finished the back garden [as far as painting the allegorical Forth bridge will allow], found a gardener who is interested in plants [a rare thing these days round here] and is keen to work with me, turning my little spot of heaven into a lush Eden.
I have planned routes to walk in Kent and almost wish I had a dog to give me the courage to step out further along them as they look so interesting. Hey ho, such is life and the fears which come with experience.
So the important date for us in the UK is 29th March, maybe, if we’re lucky, if everything goes according to plan that is. Fingers crossed and I’ll be out those starting gates like a greyhound only I won’t need a rabbit to get me going, just a bus ticket a shopping bag and some money in my pocket.
Hoping everyone is staying well and hasn’t had to face a funeral in the recent past. Let’s keep our fingers crossed for warmer weather, weddings, picnics in the park and outdoor events.