Today I feel indignation. Truth is, there has been an undercurrent of this running through my system for some time. I have tried to take a balanced stance in the midst of the Covid19 chaos, attempted to opt out of the extremes and positions of polarization, but, for all of this, there is a sentiment that grows more palpable as the pandemic wears on. This sentiment is indignation. There is no righteousness in the mix, this is pure and clean.
Over what has nearly been a year, themes, schemes and memes have been evident, mistrust has grown to distrust and disgust, and appropriate blame has been placed, and yet, on this wagon rolls, destination, unknown - or maybe not.
And what has brought me to the computer today?
The implementation of ‘quarantine hotels’ for travellers returning to the UK, modelled on the same system used already in other countries, and most likely to be adopted and enforced by more still to come. Mandatory quarantine in a designated facility; guarded by police, meals delivered a la room service, at a cost of £1500 / $2500 for a ten day stay. They probably won’t even unlock the pay per view for this price. 10 days in a room with no fully opening window, you, your small bar of soap, and whatever streaming service you are subscribed to.
Step one: make travel impossible. The governmental line is that this will stop spread the travel of covid and its new mutations, but it is also designed to make the cost of travel prohibitive for most. This mandate is tied together with the warning that ALL non-essential travel, or leaving the home / village / town / state is putting the general public and country at risk, a further liberty that can and most probably will be taken away, as if staying at home, not meeting friends or visiting family members wasn’t enough already. This is not a new tactic. When this is served with a slice of shame on the side - i.e. all who do not observe this are the ‘bad’ or ‘irresponsible ones’- then we have a model of an oppressive and immature system that is overtly using 1950’s schoolroom management tactics on the general populus.
When neighbours or family members are encouraged to snitch on, grass up, alert an appropriate authority figure when neighbours or family members are breaking lockdown or curfew rules, we are beyond Orwellian and straight back in Nazi Germany in the 1930’s. That a present day - albeit Conservative - government of a supposedly libertarian country like the UK would consider the employment and encouragement of this is despicable, and makes my skin shudder and my blood boil, simultaneously. I don’t even have to be in England to feel it, I see it as a model and I see it rippling across the world, as if seeing the future. I cannot say for sure that there is a bigger plan being played out, or whether countries are just copying one another in the hope that they get it right, or don’t get it wrong - but one thing I do know is that lives are being played with and broken.
I had a sense this morning that some of the world’s political leaders care more about their public image in that club than they do about their public image from their ‘subjects’. Trying to prove themselves against one another, to each other, and not look like the little boy in the room of big boys. I see immaturity in their leadership, and little regard for those they claim to be leading.
I see warning signs, the same that I saw long ago. I see my optimism erased by what has become obvious by now. I have become an expert at reading between the lines. I read the newspapers, I read between the words of what is being said by the pundits, the journalists, and the politicians. I see a synchronicity to the messages being conveyed, and what is left out. I see warnings of what is to come, and then, some time later, I see it come to pass. I am sure you see it too.
Hence the indignation - I feel disrespected, I feel like my intelligence is being insulted, and I feel very real fear. Fear that slowly - but surely - the net is being closed. I, and we, are being told what to do. What’s more, we are being lied to - directly and indirectly, as to why and what for. I feel that the combination of the media and the politicians has created a very effective priming system, and this has been honed in the past months, so as to avoid mass unrest or shock. To elaborate, what is suggested or speculated on, by either the journalists or the politicians, seems less like a speculation, and more like an introduction of a topic, or a thought form, a seed sown to prepare the mind of the public, that’s me and you, to accept, with as little fuss as possible, what is already known to be coming.
So, the government warns that more restrictive measures may have to come in, when they already know that they will come in. That international travel is non-essential, that interprovincial travel may have to stop. Disguising these new measures as possibilities, until we have become used to the idea that they are coming into our lives. Maybe the ‘system’ has always been this manipulative, but the veneer has well and truly fallen off, and with it, has fallen many hopes and dreams, which is where the indignation arises - the basic tenet of respect and dignity - indignation is what I feel when I know that my dignity is being assaulted.
I hesitate to speculate, not wanting to engage in that game. But, I will indulge myself, as it is early morning and the world, in my world, is still asleep.
I can see a scenario in which non-essential travel is removed, maybe made illegal for the public good, or made financially prohibitive - maybe both. Then I see the light at the end of the tunnel, or the carrot dangling in front of my donkey nose. I see a vaccination, optional, but with a pretty certificate that entitles me to go on holiday, go to work, see my friends and family, go to a gathering of other people who have been coerced to sell another piece off their dignity and freedom for the right to interact with their favourite people once more (or even go to a guitar shop, assuming there are any left in business).
I am worried this morning. I pray it does not come to this. I pray this madness ends soon.
2020 was the year of the virus.
2021 is already shaping up to be the year of the viruses, variants and vaccines.
I, and many friends caught the virus at the end of last year, and it was pretty horrible, some of us are yet to recover our full health. In some ways, it validated the authenticity of the virus and also helped to eliminate some of the fear that had seeped into the system over the course of the year.
My explorations on this theme led me to understand that what bothered me most in all this time was the slow, creeping sense of oppression that was blanketing me, or most of the world, due to this global experience. I am never one who responds well to the imposition of oppression or oppressive behaviour. I saw that the exchange system has been in play for quite some time; i.e, we unconsciously exchange some liberty for another kind of liberty, and assume that we know what it means to be free. I cried rivers of tears when I sensed the depth of my sadness that I was born into this design, that for all my self-belief that I was free, I was, and always had been a product of a dehumanising system.
Of course, I have known this and have worked on it for many years, but the grief that rocked and shook my body was the realisation that this ‘system’ was my both my mother and my father in some ways. It was the same system my birth mother and father were born to, and it was to the system that they gave me at birth, without even being aware of doing so.
I lamented, in my sorrow, that I could almost unquestionably say that I did not know what it meant to be a truly free human, for all my desire to do so. I feel that many of us have shared this sentiment at some point in the past year or so.
We are a strange animal. We have arranged our lives just as others have done before, we accept much of what was given to us, or shown to us by our family, by our culture, time and place of birth. We accept what is not ours, just as our parents and grandparents may have accepted what was not theirs. Underlying core beliefs that come from where, and whom? From the womb of creation, or the creation of a mind of a man? How does this world operate? We learn the operating system from day one, the objects, the interactions, the way of communicating and complying, what is possible, what is not. I hear people complain about ‘the system’ without examining what part of them is the system, what reliance they have on the system. Pointing the finger and disassociating is not a viable answer. It serves a purpose, but offers no more. I do not have answers here, not yet. Evolve or die, survive or thrive, endure or enjoy? These are my questions, with the other questions of how, why, and what these mean to me.
To those, like me, who are aware that freedom is being stripped away. I ask, in what way are you free? What freedom do you think you have? I don’t mean to encourage melancholy, we have enough reason for that on our plates already. I mean to find my answers. If I was never truly free, then what would or could my freedom look like? How can someone take what was not mine? Or do I mean, more of my sense of freedom is being eroded?
This reads like the answers will be found in The Matrix, but I suspect that more is needed than 3 hours of Keanu Reeves in black leather and some dazzling 1999 special effects.
I should add as a footnote that not every morning I feel this way. Yes, indignation is there on some frequency or other, as are many other things that are working through my mind and system, but sometimes, I feel joy, hope, love for life too. So much grief, so much sadness, loss, and longing. So much beauty in the world at the same time, so much beauty in nature, in the complexity and simplicity of the nature of an animal, a cat, a bird, and I wonder what made us humans so different? I veer towards optimism most of the time, maybe as an escapism from radical activism, or maybe because it is my interpretation of how best to live my life; but these days challenge me to stay in that place. A greater range of extreme emotions has been unleashed through me, the body, the soul this past year, sometimes the waves are hard to manage, to understand, they take me over, under, and wash me up on unknown shores. I used to pride myself on my stability, but this year has seen instability as a byword for the world, the big world and my little world. It mirrors my experience of being in school as a child. Rules, regulations, restrictions, curfews, a lack of freedom, or living within a system that tells you what freedoms you can and can’t have. I feel adolescent rage remembered in my cells and my brain. Adolescent rage that I thought was dealt with long ago - until circumstances in the world conspire to reproduce that experience. And what is a school, especially the type of school I attended, but a micro model of the bigger system, designed to educate little ones how to operate in the system, to manage the system, and to obey the system? How to serve and defend the system. This is colonisation of the mind, and I see these triggers put in place, responses programmed, and options woefully limited in the imagination. How far could you or I go? Right now, I feel there is very little comfort zone, and a lot of edge. In myself I feel extremism and aggression rising up, and I feel the impulse to remain passive also. I feel the expansion of the extremes and it unsettles me, that the facade of equanimity is falling, as is the air of ambivalence or apathy.
The love that I hold for this world, for this life, has been questioned by me at times. There have been many times in the past year it has come to my attention that I love the land, I love the animals, but that I am growing less fond of the people, whilst loving them more. I think it is not the people I like less, but some of the interactions, the way we make it, or have made it, so complicated in comparison to our animal cousins. I have felt more in the past year that I don’t belong here, yet I long to belong here. This past year has seen me walk through some long shadows, some were mine, and some belonged to other people, and, as a general rule, it’s best to avoid stepping on someone else’s shadow, it’s like stepping on a cat’s tail. And, it’s not the first time in my life that someone’s shadow has tried to hurt or cause me harm for stepping on it in a long moment of the setting sun.
The general malaise and discontent has been interspersed with moments of outrageous creativity and self-contentment, and outstanding normality. I guess what I am trying to convey is that the spectrum of my experience of being human is being revealed, life has not been able to carry on as ‘normal’ by any means, and I would love to hope in my more optimistic moments that that is just as it should be, that we can learn, grow, evolve, and most importantly change the notions and narratives by which we no longer serve ourselves, our species and others, and the planet on which we supposedly live.