Has your take on, your approach to, the world changed over the last eight years or so? When I look back even five years, I’m astonished at how trusting and optimistic I was, despite a lifetime of being done the dirty on, on a regular basis.
Gaslighting, would-be paedophiles, stalkers, gropers, rapists, peeping toms, willy-wavers, thieves, liars, insulters, belittlers, hypocrites, bullies, lashers-out, malignant narcissists, pathologically-jealous-yet-themselves-unfaithful boyfriends, misogynists, those priests and other abusers of power, false friends, the passive-aggressive. You name it, I’m a woman and – like most women and many men – have seen it all.
In some of my work, particularly in SE Asia, I’ve seen photos and videos I can never unsee. Not with all the mind-bleach in the world. Things I’ll never describe to another living soul, so you can continue to live without knowing some things even exist.
Yet on I blithely sailed and, despite being judgmental in nature (INFJ), still willing to give people the benefit of the doubt the vast majority of the time. Like a kicked puppy. I was raised to be a people pleaser and to always want to be liked, to care about what others think of me, and I suppose that tilted my lens and radar. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve long been very Britishly sarcastic and sardonic at times, in a way some find sharp, cold, or offensive. But always essentially this person, for those who cared to look.
But then came 2016 onwards. Like a scouring blizzard.
Trump. Brexit. Visiting Dira Square in Riyadh at last, on my penultimate day of three years there, seeing boys having late-evening bicycle races over old bloodstains on the tiles. The way so many people found it an inconvenience to protect the lives of others during the pandemic (and still do, as it’s not over – so now more than ever, via denial). Seeing so many people falling down insane conspiracy rabbit holes, and that being deadly for some of them. The government just letting people die or be maimed.
Returning to the UK and seeing what had happened here since 2010 while I’d mostly been away. The rancorous, destructive things that happen when you let predators rule.
Learning of over a million people killed by austerity by 2019 alone, yet few – even progressive journalists – wanting to know or care. Twice as many Britons as died in WWII at home and overseas, via ongoing government policy, which has also decimated and asset-stripped our public services. The process is now underway at local government level too. I tweet about it desperately all the time, trying to get anyone to see. The democide. The deliberate acceleration of what always happens to the poorest in the pursuit of profit.
Then I watched The Spider’s Web and everything I ever thought I knew about democracy changed in an hour flat. It’s like a conspiracy theory except it’s not a tinfoil hat theory, it’s real, and narrated by people in the best position to verify that.
There is no real democracy. There never has been.
And yet. And yet. I still believe it’s worth fighting for one. That it could exist. That if enough cared they could make it so. It’s one reason I love my current work so very much. We envision and work towards this every single day, separately and together.
And I still believe this, below. You being here helps me do that. And doing that stops me from tipping into pure misanthropy. Yes, I’ve changed in recent years. An ex-puppy. But maybe that’s a good thing. Not more cynical, or hateful, or despairing. Okay, sometimes despairing. But not defeated. Map your life and see the light. See the evidence of Leonard Cohen’s truth: cracks are how the light gets in. Thank you for being the light. You, and art. And my own map. Thanks to the enduring numinous.
Be of good heart my love. Their days are numbered. There is light pouring down and out around this planet in great magnitude. Waste not your energy in all the negativity we are bombarded with from all sides and look up! ✨✨✨✨. You are love and are loved 🙏🧡✨✨✨
I despair at trying to point out the wanton destruction around us since 2010. Still I don’t give up hope. Otherwise what else is there left.