Just a short blog today. I visited Dr P yesterday and had my cancer-fighting injection, so today I feel like crap. It’s worth it, of course, because here I am, five years along from diagnosis day, and I’m doing okay. What’s a couple of days of lousiness compared to years of life? Right?
I just thought I’d better pop my head out of the bunker to ask: are you all okay? What with people bombing Aleppo into a pile of gravel; the Zika virus creeping its way up through South America; people still starving to death in the Sudan and neighbouring countries; IS (or whatever the hell they call themselves this week) still merrily beheading, burning and crucifying people who haven’t got long enough beards or who don’t go along with their version of religion; Japan still bent on eradicating all whale species for the sake of “research”; the arctic circle melting, the Australian Government treating asylum seekers as if they’re terrorists, and the fate of the free world soon to be decided in the USA with two candidates who both seem to be hated by large groups of people…well, I would’t blame you if you were feeling just a little bit wobbly.
After being bombarded on social media, with horrendous pictures of abused animals, abandoned children, victims of domestic violence and disenfranchised (and abused and traumatised) first people’s groups, I find myself feeling slightly depressed. I can distract myself during the day by keeping busy, and in the evening by watching reruns of TV shows from the 90s, but there’s no way of stopping the nightmares.
Then yesterday, after I’d seen the doc, the Old Boy took me to lunch in Port Adelaide, in a tavern by the sea, looking out at the old sailing ships and dolphin cruise boats and little fishing boats. My son, who works nearby, met us there for lunch, which was the cherry on the cake. I breathed in the salt air. I said hello to my parents ashes, somewhere there in the sands on the edge of the sea. I was thankful for the day.
If you’re feeling a bit “how’s your father” lately, a bit flat, a bit wibbly-wobbly, then I recommend taking a few minutes to look at something lovely. Take a deep breath of fresh air. Spend some quality time with people you love, and find something to be thankful for. It doesn’t get rid of all the darkness in the world, but it lights a little candle in the corner where you are.
My son & daughter in law just refuse to turn on the TV these days , only thing is I tell them about something that’s happened and they have no idea of what’s going on in the world. Don’t know what’s better. Knowing or not knowing???
Years ago I used to be very good at finding out things. Sometime between then and now the situation changed. Now we don’t have to find out things, they come at us all the time. The necessary skill for survival now seems to be to filter out what you don’t want to know about. That can obviously be taken to the extreme of blocking out contrary information to what you already have.
The thing we need to watch out for is the algorithms. These are simple creatures that try to deliver us things we might be interested in. They only have one operating principle: more of the same. So if you are getting served up a lot of stuff you don’t want to see, then you must have somehow confided in an algorithm that you in fact DO want to see it. We need to learn how to adjust what we look for so that the algorithms really do only serve us up what we want.
Otherwise your response to what comes in must allow you to deal with it. Today I have been celebrating the Trump ascendency by playing patriotic Sousa marches. I have “The Liberty Bell” on high rotation.
Very wise advice, Ken. I’m sorry I’ve only just seen this. I must have got the wrong algorithms in place.