Counting the Blessings.

I was just watching Sarah Jarosz singing Annabelle Lee again (I posted the video a couple of weeks ago, but it’s here if anybody wants to see it.)

I wasn’t so much listening to the music this time, but watching the performers, especially Ms Jarosz herself. I watched the body language, the facial expressions, the movement of eyes, and the said lady’s subtle smiles when something obviously pleased her.

Two things came home strongly. Firstly, just how individual human beings are in comparison with the rest of the animal kingdom. Secondly, how lucky we are to be living in a relatively liberal and secular state where the freedom to express that individuality is almost unrestricted.

I might well complain about the deficiencies in our system and those who run it. I might complain about the excesses of corporate greed and the mind control the corporate world attempts to exercise over us. I might complain about the superficiality of suburbia and the cult of celebrity. They are, after all, worth complaining about.

But I’ll still take this against grinding out a so-called life under the totalitarian dictates of a despot, a fundamentalist religion, or an innately repressive political ideology. Coca Cola might try everything in its little book of tricks to persuade us all to drink two bottles of their flavoured water every day in order for a small number of rich people to become even richer, but at least we don’t get abused, imprisoned or executed if we decline to do so.