No Choice in the Matter.

Water, water everywhere. Cold, dirty water, flanking the road on both sides and running like a mountain stream. Water falling constantly from a leaden sky through the whole of the dark day, leaving ugly pools on the land and making the earth too sodden to work. And the cold east wind continues to hold station as it has for the past two or three weeks, showing no sign of backing or veering for the foreseeable future. The east wind is the one which invades my house with impunity, making it even colder than usual.

They said this would happen – the climate scientists, that is. They forecast that climate change would likely result in UK winters being less cold but wetter. So which is preferable? Hard to say really. For my part, I’m becoming a wimp who would relish living in some area of the tropics which has no hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, or active volcanoes. Not much chance of that, and still I don’t envy people who live in California.

A Note on the Night Window.

I stand washing the dishes in the cold kitchen and look at the window facing me. It’s black against the deep darkness, and smeared with a sopping veil of unwanted condensation which hides the view to the embankment and its host of white snowdrops. Flecks of rain run mindlessly down the outside, driven there by a cold wind from the east. It deflates my mood to a degree I find surprising.

And then I think of the birds and animals trying to rest out there with no protection from unfriendly elements. I hurry to lower the blind to remove the view from reluctant perception. This is the curse of the HSP.

(The blind is white, by the way, chosen to reflect more of the artificial light back into the room. Small mercies are welcome.)

Finding Gnosticism.

When I was in my early forties I found my interest in matters spiritual coming to the fore. It had started as a child when I was a committed Christian, but had begun to slumber (though not die entirely) when I entered my teen years and found my questions – of which there were many – not being satisfactorily answered by my church’s vicar. (I expect it was why he offered no regret or resistance when I decided to back out of being confirmed. The confirmation procedure required preparation classes, and I was probably proving to be a right pain in the rectum.)  But to continue:

My later upsurge in interest took me well away from exoteric Christianity and towards the richer, more complex Vedic tradition, and on the way I came across Gnosticism through reading a book called The Lake and the Castle by Arthur Guirdham. At that point I thought that Gnosticism was a religion in its own right and was a sort of transition from the Judaic approach towards the Vedic one, the result being that it lay somewhere between the two.

Last night I watched a documentary about The Marsanes, one of the ancient texts found with others at Nag Hamadi in Egypt, and discovered that Gnosticism is certainly not a religion. On the contrary it is effectively anti-religion, seeing all such organisations as self-serving power structures designed to establish control and order over the masses, thus keeping the human race trapped in the low material world where the power of the Demiurge (the God of the Old Testament) holds sway. Gnosticism, on the other hand – and the Marsanes in particular – seeks to explain the nature and content of the many realms of spiritual reality which rise above the level of the material one with which we’re familiar, and on which we strut and suffer. (And that leads me to wonder whether that was what Mount Olympus was meant represent in ancient Greek mythology, although the documentary didn’t say so.)

So now I’m better informed. Another little lesson under the belt.

*  *  *

But then this afternoon as I was walking down my lane, having been to the top to clear a particularly efficacious road drain, I saw two women chatting on the school car park. They were evidently late comers from the school run and had three boys with them, aged I would say between six and nine. The kids were running about on the grassy embankment, giggling and pushing each other and simply having fun. And they had a dog with them which was joining in and also having a whale of a time. And it occurred to me, as it always does in such situations, that life in this densest of realms sometimes isn’t so bad after all. It’s an old bleat of mine, I know. (And the two mothers smiled and waved.)

Declining an Upgrade.

I watched a documentary last night, ostensibly about the rapid rise in the development and use of technology, and how the concept of the ‘upgrade’ has become a central feature of life. But that was just the start. It went on to examine the phenomenon whereby the upgrade principle no longer applies only to the machines, but to the people who live and work in a 21^st century developed culture. In the case of people, the need to upgrade means requiring increased effort, stress, and productivity in order to produce increased wealth.

(Side note: And who are the main beneficiaries of this increase in wealth? Why, the tiny number of mega rich people of course.)

Several illustrations appeared on screen, and the one which most touched my own sensibilities showed two paths running into the distance. On one was an unbroken line of people hurrying forward at ever increasing pace in order to maintain their status as upgraders. On the other was a single hooded and robed figure walking steadily. That was me.

I have no desire to upgrade in that sense. I’m not the type to be seduced by baubles, bangles, or beads; nor the incessant tugging of lifestyle accessories and wealth. I want to discover the meaning and purpose of life, the origin and nature of consciousness, the truth behind the concept of reality, and where the dead go (if anywhere.) And I’m sure I’m not alone, although meeting another non-upgrader seems to be all but impossible in my situation.

And so I resolutely side-step every pressure to upgrade myself, even though the system makes life ever more difficult and inconvenient for a person walking on the wrong path. Examples of those difficulties occur nearly every day now, but I think it’s worth dealing with them as best I can. Maybe when I die some higher power will tell me I was right. Or maybe they won’t.

Counsel for the Cryptid.

I watched a video last night on one of the few YouTube channels I consider genuine and objective. It was about the plethora of sasquatch encounters in the south-west corner of Arkansas close to the borders with Louisiana and Texas.

At the end of it a sobering, and not unpleasant, impression conveyed itself to what I like to call my mind. Many encounters were covered and well documented, but in none of them did the creature show any inclination to seriously hurt a human, even though they could easily have killed one or two. The only highly aggressive action occurred when one of them jumped into the back of a truck and smashed up a couple of motor bikes. (Which I’ve wanted to do a few times when off-road bikers shattered my enjoyment of bucolic peace.)

That being the case, is it fanciful to suggest that the saquatch really does exist, and that it is a peaceable creature which just wants privacy and freedom from the human animal which so likes to make a lot of noise and takes pleasure in killing things for the sake of recreation? It might even be vegetarian because I watched another credible video once (set somewhere in Eastern Europe or Russia I think) which told of a young boy who ‘befriended’ a sasquatch by giving it apples. In fact, I’m tempted to wonder whether the sasquatch and I might just be on a wavelength.

And I discovered only today that there have been saquatch sightings in some of the remoter parts of the UK which have extensive forests. That was heartening. I’d guess that the woods and copses in my piece of England are rather too small, otherwise I might develop the habit of leaving a few apples along the footpath.

An Echo From a Far Off Past

There was a news report on the BBC this morning about the storm which passed along the south coast of England last night. It said that the old pier at Teignmouth in Devon had been damaged, and also that part of the railway track on the ground above the high water mark had also been damaged and rendered temporarily out of commission.

It took me back to another January day many moons ago when I was travelling by train to join the navy at Dartmouth Royal Naval College. I was seventeen years old and that was the first time I had left home, so I had mixed feelings about the experience. It wasn’t so much leaving the home environment which troubled me; it was leaving my old life behind: my friends, the girls, the parties, the camp fires, the fun, and the freedoms, especially the freedom to be who I was without being subjected to a system which sought to take proprietorial control over my life.

I remember sitting alone in a carriage looking out of the window as we passed along that very stretch of track. The day was dismally dull and damp with a heavy swell rising and falling on the dirty brown sea. The water looked startlingly close to the wide rock ledge along which we were travelling, but I assumed that the engineers would have known their business and there was nothing to raise concern. Nevertheless, my mood grew sombre and I wondered whether I was doing the right thing.

I really do remember it so well. It’s even entered my mind many times down the years, and so it felt strange to see it all echo back to me many decades down the line of life.

When Friends Become Enemies.

Trump is raising a few eyebrows over on this side of the pond. His latest irrational invective feeding into the redneck myth that the USA alone won WWII, coupled with what was effectively an accusation of cowardice directed at British troops in Afghanistan, has not gone down well. Several eminent British historians including Sir Simon Sharma have gone public with the opinion that the USA is no longer our ally, inviting the notion that the UK, along with the rest of Europe, is fighting a proxy war against America. Maybe it will reach a point where all American citizens domiciled in Europe will be constrained in internment camps as were the Japanese during WWII. (I’m kidding, of course, but what an interesting bit of irony would be granted to the history books of the future.)

And then there’s the issue of Trump and the ‘Peace Board.’ This is so transparently hypocritical that it’s almost laughable. It’s pretty obvious that the big man is not happy with a multinational organisation like the UN, and instead wants the world to be regulated by the USA with himself in charge. He’s beginning to resemble the worst of the Roman emperors, so maybe it will take the US equivalent of the Praetorian Guard to show him the way out. (And I’m not entirely kidding about that one.)

It’s interesting that we’ve been talking and worrying about the prospect of a third world war for a long time, but not until Trump started dropping the ball on every pass did we imagine that the combatants might be the USA and Europe. I wonder what Russia and China would do then. And I wonder what part Japan and India might play. Scary, isn’t it? Let’s hear it for the Praetorian Guard then. I’ve been thinking for some time that the American military top brass might be the best remedy to rid the world of this turbulent President.

A Bit Downbeat.

The Shire today has been a place of dark skies and dirty water. Lots of it. And what I thought of writing about Trump isn’t worth the effort.

*  *  *

But something’s bothering me. I’ve paid to have a direct cremation when the time comes for me to leave this earth, and that means no funeral. On the one hand, you see, I consider funerals to be a waste of money because only the decaying remains of the body are in the coffin. The person has gone. On the other hand, a funeral is a way for people to say their final goodbye to somebody who mattered to them, and there are nine people who I would like to say goodbye to me. They are my daughter and her six children, Mel, and the Lady B. They’re the people who matter to me.

Now, dependent on the manner of my demise, there’s a reasonable chance that Sam, the kids, and Mel might have the opportunity. They might even be present when I leave. But the Lady B? Not very likely, is it? The best I can hope for in that regard is the conveyance of the fact.

‘I hear Jeff died.’

‘Jeff?’

‘The man who used to live up by the school.’

‘Oh, that Jeff.’

I suppose it’s a goodbye of sorts.

The Stink in the Atmosphere.

The very air we breathe these days seems to be suffused with the name, the face, and the blathering of Donald Trump. He’s become a bad smell – incipient, intrusive, and insufferable. I for one am becoming sick to the back teeth of his omnipresence on the news pages and YouTube recommendations.

I note one historian on YouTube drawing parallels between the political situation in 1930s Germany and the USA under Trump. That might well be true, but I see relatively little similarity between Trump and Hitler.

Hitler was a leader and a bully; Trump is no leader, just a bully. Hitler had charisma (dark though it might have been) where Trump has none, except to those addle-headed Americans who count their worth in the number of guns they own, and many of whom are probably descended from good white men who once used live black babies for alligator bait. Hitler was hard-edged, where Trump is blubbery. And Hitler had excellent speech writers who could rouse the masses of whatever political persuasion. All we get from Trump is lies, threats, overinflated ego, and juvenile rhetoric dribbling from his mouth like so much regurgitated stomach bile. The only parallel I perceive between Hitler and Trump is that they’ve both been said to smell bad. I categorise Trump more in the Mussolini mould, and maybe he will come to the same end one day (although that’s unlikely unless there’s a major war which nobody with any sense wants.)

So what do I do every day when my major worldwide input comes from the BBC news and YouTube? Skip over it quickly, I suppose, picking up the basic facts, and hope there will be an end to it one day. As I said in an earlier post, I don’t have a great deal of faith that such will happen. The feeling is growing stronger that we are slipping into a darker, more dystopian place. Let’s hope I’m wrong, or in my case that I have relinquished this mortal coil before it gets too bad.

Fearing a Consortium of Bullies.

The world’s attention is currently on America and the schoolyard bully known as Trump. Europeans are outraged at the proposed land grab as you might expect, but our PM in the UK, Mr Starmer, is taking a conciliatory view in order ‘not to provoke President Trump.’ And so the schoolyard bully goes unchallenged yet again. We did it with Hitler in 1938.

And it seems pretty obvious to me that Trump’s given reason for stealing Greenland is not so different than Putin’s reason for invading Ukraine, and yet the dunderhead gets presented with a peace prize for something or other. It’s positively surreal that a man determined to take somebody else’s land and threatening military action to achieve his end should be given a peace prize. What killed the concept of sanity?

But maybe there’s a broader point to be considered. Attention is currently focused on Trump, but I suspect that he’s just the current highlight in a broader, world-wide movement to force humanity into a more authoritarian future. I fear I can hear the drums of dystopia just over the far horizon. Suggests a ditty, doesn’t it? Can’t be bothered.