Negotiating with Neglect

I love a strong black coffee in the morning, and I love a cold beer in the evening. I am sure I am not the only one. However, caffeine and alcohol are diuretics.

A diuretic is something that makes you need to piss. You end up taking in fluids, but lose them all too quickly, leaving you dehydrated. Yet the diuretics are often more attractive to us than what we really need: for example, we need water but drink beer.

We often appease ourselves in this way, with what I call, the diuretics of the soul.

We crave things, but we attempt to sate ourselves with something that falls short of the thing we crave. We crave adventure yet appease ourselves with watching action movies in the darkness of our living rooms. We let others play out the dramas we wish we had in our own lives, while we get to play it safe and appease our desires with poor substitutes.

The thirst of the soul is not sated, only suspended.

When we starve ourselves physically and psychically of the things we need to feel alive, we end up feeling empty and drained. We lose that thing that animates us…our souls! We lose the spark.

What I am talking about is not supernatural, mystical or overly complex. If we don’t get enough good quality water, or enough good quality food, we lose our energy. The equation is just as simple when it comes to our mental health. If we don’t give ourselves the balance that we need, then we will feel flat, down, and lifeless. We all know about the five portions of fruit and vegetables that we are meant to consume everyday, yet, there doesn’t seem to be the same awareness of what our minds need for that same healthy balance.

We need stimulation. We need freshness. We need to play. We need to exercise. We need interaction.

Of course, unlike with food and water, we will not necessarily die if we don’t have these needs met. They are needs of a different kind. However, like I suggested earlier, we risk losing our spark…the thing that animates us…our souls.

I am not saying that we should entirely quit drinking, smoking, eating tasty food, or any of that other stuff we love to do…for life is hard enough as it is, I am simply suggesting that we don’t live on a diet of diuretics, that we stop appeasing our souls with poor substitutes, and start giving ourselves what we need.

And, as a famous rabbi once said…yada yada yada

Self-Esteem Trees

Self-esteem doesn’t grow on trees.

It would be preferable to many of us, if you were just able to pluck some self-esteem from the nearest tree, as if feeling good about our selves were a natural right of every human being, or at least that it should come easily. As is often the case, we want valuable things without cost. We want things that have worth to us, without paying for them. So many of us, are like closet shoplifters, that don’t have the courage to actually steal anything, but resent paying for the thing they want. So, we end up in the aisles paralysed between our conflicting desires.

Pilfering self-esteem as and when we find it from the pockets of life, is a decent enough ploy, but it is a tactic that rewards the minimal effort with a minimal pleasure. You get what you give. And so, there is nothing quite like getting down to business…putting in a bit of elbow grease. For many of us, our esteem, is dependent on someone else. We glue ourselves into relationships where someone else takes charge, and takes responsibility, while we glean off some of the profits, which can never be any thing more than crumbs from the table.

What if we became self-sufficient?

I don’t mean that we become hermits who never communicate with anyone. I am not suggesting that we ought to live our lives free from other people, even though there are times when that would seem idyllic. I am, however, suggesting that the satisfaction of looking after one’s self, far outweighs the satisfaction we might get from letting others do the dirty work.

Self-esteem only comes with sacrifice and hard work. It comes with perseverance and determination, and of course, sometimes we don’t have those, and so we slip back into the quicksand of our more protective selves. The more we slip back, into feeling crap about ourselves, the less likely we are to find the tools we need to change; like rummaging for a nail in a toolbox when you have no torch and the lights have gone out. In this scenario, one can become fixated with the task of finding the nail, and not try to sort out the lighting issue. Sometimes we need to go back to basics…you’d be as lucky to find self-esteem, without looking after the basics of your physical and practical well-being, as you would be to find that nail in the toolbox. Either way, it is no one else’s job to sort it out for us; there is only you, and the journey for your self-esteem is an entirely solitary one.

There is something better for us…not out there…not in the wide blue yonder…just in here. Inside, in that little room inside yourself, where you have those million secret conversations, commentaries, monologues and diatribes that no one else ever gets to hear. Maybe in those conversations with yourself, you can find a nurturing voice. A voice from yourself, to yourself and for yourself; a voice free from judgement and criticism, and free from wish and fantasy, free from the curses that you have whispered over your self for far too long. And maybe, if you find this nurturing voice, you will encourage a movement that will become a few movements, which will over time become the makings of a journey, or maybe nothing as grandiose as that…maybe just a wee trip to some place nicer than you where.

I wish you well for that journey

and, as a famous rabbi once said…yada yada yada

Learning to Limp

Learning to limp

as natural and instinctive

as curling in foetal forms

to dampen the impending

anticipated pain

connected pains

pains of connection

as the tissue of our being

with heavy footfall

weighted unnecessarily by

our own hated burdens

on the

tarmac of our this and that

the frictions and abrasions

inevitable and impending

as certain as the passing

the

blows and grazes

contusions and lacerations

Then the injury

is gone

But loyally

we limp on

For we have learned to limp

learned to

curl

duck

clench

hold ourselves

in ways that give genesis

to their own ailments

and

counter-pains

tightened tendons

strained ligaments

Learning to live unwounded

Learning to live unbroken

Learning to live un-analysed-to-within-an-inch-of-one’s-life

Can be as hard as learning to walk…

For

The

First

Time

and, as a famous rabbi once said…yada yada yada

Love Thy Neighbour

You have heard it said, love your neighbour as yourself, but I say…love your neighbour as they want to be loved.

It may come as a surprise, but, not everyone wants to be loved in the same way that we would like to be loved. Sometimes we care and love, and act that out without regard to how the other person might actually like to be treated. It’s a simple mistake, we simply forget to ask, and just bash on with our caring and loving.

This is often the case in intimate relationships. We can maintain beliefs in mystical connections at the expense of learning how to navigate the quagmire of real communication…real requests…and real listening.

It’s a little bit like buying a present for someone, and mistaking our own excitement about the gift, with the actual appreciation that person might have for it. Traditionally, the receiver has been socially obliged to be grateful regardless of the gift’s suitability. After all, at worst, it was a bad guess, and we all know we can put the rubbish present in the box with the other bits’n’bobs, or donate it to the charity shop.

However, when it comes to loving and caring, this kind of disparity can cause even more discomfort and unease, than an unwanted itchy jumper. Many of us like to believe that when we love another, the other is somehow essentially connected to us, and this can easily lead us to believing that the other is essentially the same as us.

It’s so easy to do, to mix up the pleasure of our loving intent, with what might actually end up being unappreciated, or worse, causing harm…like Bad Aid or Bad Intervention. People who are blindly caught up in the energy of their own good actions can do things that cause harm. Aid organisations injecting huge quantities of free rice or clothing can cripple the other’s economy in this exchange, whilst overbearing interference can undervalue the autonomy of the other.

We can end up caring carelessly.

But imagine this: imagine that we communicated honestly with one another, without fear of causing offence or upset, and suggested the ways we like to be looked after, cared for and loved, even if that meant we’d rather go-it-alone. Of course, the other person is not obliged to conform, but at least it would be out in the open. We could listen to each other’s differences and figure something out…something a little bit better.

And you never know, you might stop getting those itchy jumpers that you hate.

and, as a famous rabbi once said…yada yada yada

Be Blessed

When the road doesn't rise to meet you,

may you find the subtle strength in your sinews

to let one foot fall in front of the other

down tracks untrod

into fresh unknowns

that are only yours

When the wind isn't at your back,

may you find your centre

and summon a gentle energy

that brings intention to move or stay

so that you are not blown by every breeze

When the sun doesn't shine upon your face,

may you close your eyes

and find comfort in the darkness

and an inner flicker of light

that can guide you without blinding you

And when the rains fall hard upon you

may you lift up your face to it

and let it wash you

drench you

until you stop thinking your life

And when you do not feel held

by God or anyone

may you begin to know yourself

in your separateness

and befriend your self

so that you can stand strong in a sea of others

that when they do come to hold you

you do not feel like half a person being completed.

For in the blessing is a curse,

and in the curse

is a blessing

and, as a famous rabbi once said...yada yada yada

Cowboys and Indians

Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is dead. The world celebrates. Some feel a little queasy at the images being shown, but, for the most part, we are happy that this man of violence is dead. His tyranny is over and the world is a safer place without him.

It’s like the best cowboy movie ever:

The goodies killed the baddy. The world is a safer place. We pat ourselves on the back.

Well done!

But wait…hold on a second…is that good enough? Is that true enough? Does that do justice to all the people that have been killed by terrorists funded by Muammar Gaddafi and by Gaddafi himself?

Some think that it does. The simple story told, is where the baddy gave weapons to the other baddies, and the other baddies killed lots of goodies, and so the best thing is for the goodies to kill the baddy. This is justice…isn’t it?

Well, what if the goodies are just as bad as the baddies, but they like to keep our attention elsewhere? What if it turned out that the goodies were arming baddies all the time, and giving the baddies technology in order to undermine the civil rights of the other goodies that the baddy is in charge of? And, what if the goodies like to do business with the baddies as long as it is profitable, and only stop doing business with the baddies when the baddies stop letting them have their economic control of their resources?

If this is the case, then the story of baddies arming other baddies, who then kill goodies…actually applies in reverse to us…the goodies…and in that case, it would be as justifiable for the world to celebrate at scenes of western political leader’s dead bodies being dragged through the streets to scenes of celebratory gunfire. Many of the people that us goodies consider to be baddies, would of course celebrate that. But, I am sure that this idea would horrify us…us the goodies, in our comfy little democracies. Our leaders are unquestionably the goodies in our story…us the loyal citizens, who keep the cowboy story alive.

Of course, at the heart of the cowboy story, is the greatest cover-up in the history of mankind…and most of us find it hard not to revel in the glory of the cowboy, even though he is part of a system of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Those savage Indians need to be curtailed by the honourable man with his six-shooter, leather chaps and civilisation.

WHAT THE FUCK!!

When will we wake up and stop telling the same clichéd stories that are nothing more than a political sleight of hand, to draw attention away from our own sins and shames. We have the audacity to delight in the revolutions of people who want their civil rights and independence…and yet, we, the democratic western world [goodies] have been helping dictators and tyrannies [baddies] violently crush many more revolutions fuelled by exactly the same thing. We sell fighter jets to bomb villagers, we sell technology so that dictators can spy on their own people, we arm the biggest human rights abusers in the world, and we continue to do business, and therefore fund many more dictators and tyrannies, of course that is, until it suits us [the goodies] to do otherwise.

It’s all cowboys and Indians…and massive dose of bullshit!

And, as a famous rabbi once said…yada yada yada

The Day the World Changed

The little boy pokes the little girl. She didn’t do anything, but her vulnerability was just too good an opportunity to let slip by. This was the case on every occasion. When she would walk down the corridor he would slip out a sly foot to make her trip up. He would call her embarrassing names in front of everyone in the playground. One day he even took a pair of scissors while in the art room, and cut a chunk of her lovely blond hair. There was no real reason for it other than opportunity, and the good feeling it made him feel every time he got the upper hand.

It was no surprise then, when one day in the playground, the little girl turned around with her face full of bottled up fury, and kicked the little bully square in the nuts. Despite her small frame it was the most solid crunching kick you could imagine, and the rest of the playground felt it, and pitied the little boy who could not maintain his normal bravado crumbling in tears. They all pitied the little boy, many of them oblivious to the endless months of torment he had dished out to that little girl.

The little boy shuffles awkwardly over to a teacher on duty in the playground and sobs, “She kicked me!!” It’s true: she did. She kicked him very, very hard.

This is a simple little story that I made up, to talk about something far more serious.

Yesterday was the ten-year anniversary of the attacks on the twin towers. But, this isn’t true enough. We tend to remember things in convenient ways, and hence forget, that is was actually an attack on the Twin Towers, and the Pentagon, and more people died on another flight that didn’t make its target. It was more than just an attack on the Twin Towers. A lot more people died, than just those in the Twin Towers.

The western media have been referring to this as The Day the World Changed. But the world didn’t change, and it is this kind of memory that will help to perpetuate all the behaviours that lead to terrible atrocities like this. Calling this, The Day the World Changed, is to draw a handy little curtain of ignorance over any modicum of cause and effect, and fixate on one terrible dramatic event. More specifically, it allows us to fixate on OUR terrible dramatic event, at the expense of any other. Nothing really changed, because the same cycle of violence, intimidation and exploitation has continued for hundreds of years, and to see this one event as isolated from all of this is as useful as calling the terrible event evil. Both responses allow us to point the finger at an evil villain while we wash our hands of our own crimes.

I told that simple little story at the beginning to highlight a very simple mechanic in human relationships, one that seems to be forgotten in the midst of being absorbed in our own sense of pain. Of course, when we feel pain, our attention gets greatly reduced, and we are rarely aware of much else other than what we just felt. But, given time to regain our posture and breathe again, we can allow our minds to take in a little bit of the wider picture, of circumstances and causes, and see where we lie in relation to it all.

To get to the point, it doesn’t take much of a skim through the history books to realise that the western powers have been doing whatever the hell they want, across the world, but especially in Africa, Central and South America, Asia and the Middle East, driven by lightly adorned self-interest. They have at best, simply exploited those people and their resources for economic gain. At best, they have intimidated, bullied and provoked. At worst, they have repressed, tortured, killed, imprisoned without trial and raped.

They have done this for so long that it earned them the title, The Great Satan. Many westerners play dumb, and can’t possibly believe why the West would merit such a title, after all, we are beacons of light in a dark world…they are primitive, we are civilised…they are underdeveloped, we are advanced. Of course, this obliviousness can only exist if we maintain a mind that never enquires beyond Big Brother, and Eastenders. It can only exist if we blindly accept what we are told without question, keeping the childhood belief in the benevolence of our authorities and governments, who only do what is good, and only do questionable things in extreme circumstances.

I am not a conspiracy theorist who thinks these attacks never happened, or that the American government orchestrated them to justify strategic interventions, and what would normally be unacceptable legislations.

I am also not trying to undermine the genuine feelings of loss that people felt. Three thousand people are three thousand people: it was an undoubtedly terrible thing to happen. But, I am saying that it would be better for us, not to get so absorbed in our own pain that we forget the obvious history of our relationship with the rest of the world. If we keep behaving the way we have, we will just feed more and more anger and resentment against us, and create armies of people whose rage will warrant even more terrible things. Even if we stopped being the bully today, it would still be understandable if there were a long legacy of hatred and bitterness toward us.

The west has been a big bad bully for a very long time, and eventually, out-gunned and out-financed, some of those that suffered at our hands, let out their rage. They refused to be at the mercy of the West without a struggle and they found a way to fight this fight.

We have recently watched the Arab Springs, the Arab uprisings in North Africa that most westerners have revelled in, wishing success and victory for the rebels. Yet, somehow, we don’t put two and two together, that we have been the corrupt regime that has held the rest of the world to ransom. We have been the tyranny that has imposed our agenda on others, regardless of what they desired, and policed this regime ruthlessly.

The behaviour of the west in relation to the Arab Spring is exactly the kind of behaviour that has been detested by others for so long.

The Western powers, shake the hands of a mass murderer [Muammar Gaddafi] one day, and the next they denounce him and send in the jet fighters, wanting him arrested for crimes against humanity. The crimes against humanity of which they speak, were committed before the Western powers showed up, more than happy to shake his hand. They were shaking his hand because he is the key to large oil reserves. Historically, the Western powers, have only cared about human rights when has been in their interests to do so. Now that some other group will come to power, the Western powers are all hovering around like vultures, waiting to see who they need to pay-off to get the lucrative oil contracts.

The West loved Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, and were reticent to let him go. They praised his stable regime, while he had his armies cracking down on the crowds who wanted nothing but their civil rights. Of course they changed their tune when they felt it was too late. If the West really cared, it would have sent its fighter jets to Bahrain or Syria…but those initiatives wouldn’t have been as lucrative as the action against the Libya they once snuggled up to.

The British, for example, are well experienced at being the oppressive regime, and it wasn’t that long ago when they were shooting people who wanted nothing more than their civil rights. Typical of a tyranny, these marches for civil rights were banned, and so these people were breaking the law, and a criminal is a criminal after all and needs to be punished. Imprisonment without trial along with torture, were used decade after decade against these people.

Tactics used by the British in Kenya in the 1950s, were used in Northern Ireland. They colluded with their enemy’s enemy, helping them to do their dirty work, and getting them to do their dirty work, and making sure they got away with it, so that they didn’t get their nice uniform bloodied, and so that any trails of evidence would never trace back to the hierarchy.

If we take our minds of our throbbing balls for a moment, we might feel a little bit of pity for the other person’s pain. We might have a moment of revelation and realise that a response was inevitable. If there is to be change, there needs to be honesty. If there is to be honesty, there needs to be genuine enquiry. If there is to be genuine enquiry, we need to be willing to suspend how we like to think of ourselves, and maybe listen to how others perceive us.

Let’s learn from our mistakes.

Let us put two and two together.

Let us make the world a better place to live.

For there is no better tribute to our dead than that.

For there is no better gift to the living than that.

And, as a famous rabbi once said, yada yada yada