Some cultures believe that illnesses and disease are caused by evil spirits. Djinns.
Which is not to say that a sprite from the underworld suddenly appears in the steam from your freshly made mochaccino and curses you with gonorrhoea and a dowager’s hump.
(Trivia lovers among you might be delighted to learn that Microsoft Spellchecker’s suggestion for gonorrhoea was Gomorra – is God talking to me via Windows 7?)
It’s more that the disease itself has a personality. The disease has a presence on the same spiritual plane as us.
Ooh get back in yer coffin Derek Acorah!
It sounds farfetched (hey, welcome to my blog!) but I can concur with this belief through my own experiences.
When I was about 9 I came down with a full-blown case of measles. I was delirious for about 4 days. I had constant nightmares and fever dreams. Measles is not a nice disease. Frankly I’m amazed that some parents avoid the MMR jab thinking that the risk of measles is somehow less of a concern. It’s not. Measles can blind. Measles can kill. Measles is truly horrible.
But that’s a separate topic.
On the last night of the fever, just before it broke I sleepwalked for the first and only time in my life. All I can recall of this incident is the feeling of slowly becoming conscious again as I walked in front of the mirror in my bedroom. It was recognizing myself that actually woke me up. Not that I was technically unconscious. My eyes were open. I was talking to myself. In a language that definitely wasn’t English. And the personality that was doing the talking definitely wasn’t mine. It wasn’t me who had been running the show up to this point.
Most of all though, the thing I remember most, is how evil I felt. Pure, pure, almost orgiastic evil.
When I made eye contact with myself in the mirror the other personality vanished. It just went. The fever broke and I collapsed onto the floor to be carried back into my bed by my parents who must have been disturbed by the noise I had been making. After that the recovery began and I slowly got better.
Now, years later as an adult, I think about this experience often. And it makes me wonder. Occasionally I’ve considered going to a hypnotherapist to see if I can be regressed back to that night to see what can be discovered.
But then I always think to myself: maybe it’s better to let sleeping dogs lie. Some boxes just shouldn’t be opened.
So.
Was it demonic possession? Does measles have a spiritual presence and a personality that can be interacted with? It could be argued that the capacity to be evil is in all of us even without a disease but I ask you: how much evil can a 9 year old boy contain? And when I say evil I’m not talking about naughtiness or wrong doing; I am talking proper, full-on, Biblical style, pure evil.
Interesting questions, eh?
Next time you have a cold or a case of the flu... and you’re “not feeling yourself” for a few days... well, maybe there’s a damned good reason for that.
Sleep tight.
Showing posts with label spirituality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spirituality. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 02, 2012
Thursday, August 09, 2012
Amish Country
On occasion I feel a yen to adopt the Amish way of life.
These occasions usually coincide with a BBC documentary about Amish people being broadcast on TV but it is precisely this battle against my more superficial tendencies that gives the desire such weight in the first place. I get sucked in. I get immersed. For the space of an hour I believe that I too can lead a simpler, plainer, more Godly existence. That I too could raise a barn.
The thought of doing away with gadgets and electronics and the world wide web, I confess, has an appeal.
No more mobile phones. No more slavish umbilical-like connection to the internet. No more Facebook. No more Twitter. No more Viagra emails. No more links to nude photos of Keeley Hawes that at best don’t work and at worst install Trojans onto my hard-drive.
Life could be so much easier. So much cleaner.
Not that it would be totally without its complications. The documentary I watched last week stuck in my mind because of Mr Amish’s (I forget his name) admission that he had to fight constant internal battles to keep control of his own lust. For that reason he had imposed the desire upon his wife that she did not wear low cut or revealing tops. And by low cut or revealing tops we are talking about a single button being undone at the top as opposed to a V-slit that plunged all the way down to her barn-raisin’ vajazzle.
This was the man’s own wife, for Heaven’s sake. Surely you’re allowed to feel a little lust for your own wife? Surely it is a prerequisite to the marriage contract in the first place?
It was at this point in the documentary that my fantasy broke down. It was at this point that I realized I just didn’t possess the necessary spiritual and physical dichotomy to love someone but to consider any kind of physical expression of that love as being at odds with my spiritual development.
I guess I’m just too steeped in sin and the ways of the sinful world. Curse me and my irredeemable libido!
Giving up the internet and games consoles is easy. Any fool can do that. The real test is plainly cultivating a desire not to shag the person you’ve fallen in love with even though having kids is, spiritually, a good thing.
I know, I know. I’m over simplifying. And I truly don’t want to be glibly denigrating the Amish way of life because part of it definitely does attract me.
Back in 1996, during a whistle-stop tour of America and Canada’s East Coast, I actually visited a real life Amish town. Intercourse, it was called. And without a drop of irony too.
I kid you not.
I can remember we were allowed inside one of the houses though told not to speak to the occupants and to behave with a quiet sobriety at all times. I felt extremely self conscious. We’d been informed that the Amish frowned upon any kind of adornment or needless decoration on their clothes and there was I, dressed in a leather biker’s jacket with tassels down the arms and a painted design on the back, and my lapels literally festooned in badges. Hey, I was in my twenties, OK, and more tasteless than I am now.
I remember feeling ashamed as the Amish woman went about her chores – putting a pile of freshly washed clothes through a mangle much the way my Nan did when I was a kid. I daresay she didn’t give me a second look – Lord knows how many tour parties had marched over her porch that week alone – but I felt petty, stupid and of no consequence. I felt foolish, vain and, paradoxically, deeply shallow.
It left a lasting impression on me and I stopped wearing the jacket and badges soon after.
And now whenever I read about or watch programmes about the Amish way of life I feel a small internal tug, a slight beckoning towards the ideal. And Lord knows there’s enough about modern life that repels me so I have a force driving me from behind too.
But I can’t quite reconcile myself to the complete Amish lifestyle. Not really.
I have a tendency to rather enjoy low cut and revealing tops. Alas, that internal battle is lost before it is even begun.
My mother always used to say I was born in a barn (because I’d never close a door behind me as a kid).
Sadly, I very much doubt I shall die in one.
P.S. Just as an aside: this is my 900th post...!
These occasions usually coincide with a BBC documentary about Amish people being broadcast on TV but it is precisely this battle against my more superficial tendencies that gives the desire such weight in the first place. I get sucked in. I get immersed. For the space of an hour I believe that I too can lead a simpler, plainer, more Godly existence. That I too could raise a barn.
The thought of doing away with gadgets and electronics and the world wide web, I confess, has an appeal.
No more mobile phones. No more slavish umbilical-like connection to the internet. No more Facebook. No more Twitter. No more Viagra emails. No more links to nude photos of Keeley Hawes that at best don’t work and at worst install Trojans onto my hard-drive.
Life could be so much easier. So much cleaner.
Not that it would be totally without its complications. The documentary I watched last week stuck in my mind because of Mr Amish’s (I forget his name) admission that he had to fight constant internal battles to keep control of his own lust. For that reason he had imposed the desire upon his wife that she did not wear low cut or revealing tops. And by low cut or revealing tops we are talking about a single button being undone at the top as opposed to a V-slit that plunged all the way down to her barn-raisin’ vajazzle.
This was the man’s own wife, for Heaven’s sake. Surely you’re allowed to feel a little lust for your own wife? Surely it is a prerequisite to the marriage contract in the first place?
It was at this point in the documentary that my fantasy broke down. It was at this point that I realized I just didn’t possess the necessary spiritual and physical dichotomy to love someone but to consider any kind of physical expression of that love as being at odds with my spiritual development.
I guess I’m just too steeped in sin and the ways of the sinful world. Curse me and my irredeemable libido!
Giving up the internet and games consoles is easy. Any fool can do that. The real test is plainly cultivating a desire not to shag the person you’ve fallen in love with even though having kids is, spiritually, a good thing.
I know, I know. I’m over simplifying. And I truly don’t want to be glibly denigrating the Amish way of life because part of it definitely does attract me.
Back in 1996, during a whistle-stop tour of America and Canada’s East Coast, I actually visited a real life Amish town. Intercourse, it was called. And without a drop of irony too.
I kid you not.
I can remember we were allowed inside one of the houses though told not to speak to the occupants and to behave with a quiet sobriety at all times. I felt extremely self conscious. We’d been informed that the Amish frowned upon any kind of adornment or needless decoration on their clothes and there was I, dressed in a leather biker’s jacket with tassels down the arms and a painted design on the back, and my lapels literally festooned in badges. Hey, I was in my twenties, OK, and more tasteless than I am now.
I remember feeling ashamed as the Amish woman went about her chores – putting a pile of freshly washed clothes through a mangle much the way my Nan did when I was a kid. I daresay she didn’t give me a second look – Lord knows how many tour parties had marched over her porch that week alone – but I felt petty, stupid and of no consequence. I felt foolish, vain and, paradoxically, deeply shallow.
It left a lasting impression on me and I stopped wearing the jacket and badges soon after.
And now whenever I read about or watch programmes about the Amish way of life I feel a small internal tug, a slight beckoning towards the ideal. And Lord knows there’s enough about modern life that repels me so I have a force driving me from behind too.
But I can’t quite reconcile myself to the complete Amish lifestyle. Not really.
I have a tendency to rather enjoy low cut and revealing tops. Alas, that internal battle is lost before it is even begun.
My mother always used to say I was born in a barn (because I’d never close a door behind me as a kid).
Sadly, I very much doubt I shall die in one.
P.S. Just as an aside: this is my 900th post...!
Friday, May 11, 2012
The Scourge Of The Gaming Classes
Maybe there is something wrong with me? Lord knows I found it difficult to fit in at school. But me and computer / videos games have always suffered a rather ambivalent relationship.
Not even “love/hate”. Its more “occasional like/hate”.
I hate the way they suck you in. The addictive quality to them. The way they impose on you fake, spiritually unfulfilling goals and aspirations. The way they give you a false sense of achievement when all you have done is sit on your arse for hours on end while real life and real opportunity has passed you by.
Most of all I hate the fact that what they truly steal from you is not your energy, or your intellect but your time. Your precious here-for-one-time-only time. Little slices of your life stripped away and tossed down the drain. If Poe were alive now it wouldn’t be sleep he’d be railing against. It would be the high tech soporific of the computer game.
I’ve had friends whose every waking thought, whose every financial expenditure and decision was influenced by the addict’s need to keep up with the latest computer games. Books and magazines were read for clues and cheats and “Easter eggs”. Online resources were tapped into with the dedication of an anti-government insurgent. Entire evenings and weekends were given over – not to interacting with friends or family; not to furthering the requirements of intellect or spirit; not to forwarding long-held dreams or life goals – but to trying to get their elf avatar to level up to High Elf Chieftain or slay a warrior class Orc.
And then they’d return to work on Monday bemoaning their lot in life and wondering why things – why their life in particular – never changed. Why they never seemed to actually do anything like other people seemed to.
And then they’d shrug their shoulders and spend the next few hours boring me with tales of how they’d escaped from some digital dungeon, slew a virtual dragon and earned so many electronic groats they were practically millionaires.
Gah!
Not that I’m completely without sympathy or understanding. I’ve been there; I’ve been sucked in. I’ve tasted the bittersweet sugar of game addiction. In my early thirties I got sucked into The Sims for a few months. I can recall the annoyance of having to obey the dictats of real life – go to work, see friends, eat meals – when all I wanted to do was play the game. All the time. It was like I was bewitched. Possessed.
But I cottoned on pretty quickly that the game had merely created a desire in me that was made of vapour and atoms so intangible Professor Brian Cox would cream his pants if ever he saw one.
Each time I gave up time to the game I was stabbing my dreams and ambitions in the back. Actually, worse than that. I was neglecting them; starving them. Letting them die through abandonment.
So I went cold turkey. I stopped playing.
More importantly I threw myself back into real life.
I took myself back to University. I started writing seriously again. I allowed real life ambitions to take me over.
I’ve never regretted it. I let my Sims friends die and found I did not mourn them.
And now, if I play any games at all, they tend to be cathartic shoot ‘em ups that can entertain me for no more than 20 minutes at a time before I get bored and switch them off. An instant hit. No commitment necessary.
I hurl any need for escapism into my writing.
But the hatred of full-on gaming stays with me. Which, in a family full of enthusiastic gamers, must make me a difficult beast to live with. I have no sympathy or truck with “but I just need to do this and then I promise I’ll finish...” or “I won’t be able to concentrate on anything else unless I get to this level...”
Responses like that make me want to smash the game consoles up; makes me want to shoot them chock full of holes with a plasma rifle or a photon cannon.
Now.
If they invented a game that allowed me to do that... then I would quite happily become addicted.
Not even “love/hate”. Its more “occasional like/hate”.
I hate the way they suck you in. The addictive quality to them. The way they impose on you fake, spiritually unfulfilling goals and aspirations. The way they give you a false sense of achievement when all you have done is sit on your arse for hours on end while real life and real opportunity has passed you by.
Most of all I hate the fact that what they truly steal from you is not your energy, or your intellect but your time. Your precious here-for-one-time-only time. Little slices of your life stripped away and tossed down the drain. If Poe were alive now it wouldn’t be sleep he’d be railing against. It would be the high tech soporific of the computer game.
I’ve had friends whose every waking thought, whose every financial expenditure and decision was influenced by the addict’s need to keep up with the latest computer games. Books and magazines were read for clues and cheats and “Easter eggs”. Online resources were tapped into with the dedication of an anti-government insurgent. Entire evenings and weekends were given over – not to interacting with friends or family; not to furthering the requirements of intellect or spirit; not to forwarding long-held dreams or life goals – but to trying to get their elf avatar to level up to High Elf Chieftain or slay a warrior class Orc.
And then they’d return to work on Monday bemoaning their lot in life and wondering why things – why their life in particular – never changed. Why they never seemed to actually do anything like other people seemed to.
And then they’d shrug their shoulders and spend the next few hours boring me with tales of how they’d escaped from some digital dungeon, slew a virtual dragon and earned so many electronic groats they were practically millionaires.
Gah!
Not that I’m completely without sympathy or understanding. I’ve been there; I’ve been sucked in. I’ve tasted the bittersweet sugar of game addiction. In my early thirties I got sucked into The Sims for a few months. I can recall the annoyance of having to obey the dictats of real life – go to work, see friends, eat meals – when all I wanted to do was play the game. All the time. It was like I was bewitched. Possessed.
But I cottoned on pretty quickly that the game had merely created a desire in me that was made of vapour and atoms so intangible Professor Brian Cox would cream his pants if ever he saw one.
Each time I gave up time to the game I was stabbing my dreams and ambitions in the back. Actually, worse than that. I was neglecting them; starving them. Letting them die through abandonment.
So I went cold turkey. I stopped playing.
More importantly I threw myself back into real life.
I took myself back to University. I started writing seriously again. I allowed real life ambitions to take me over.
I’ve never regretted it. I let my Sims friends die and found I did not mourn them.
And now, if I play any games at all, they tend to be cathartic shoot ‘em ups that can entertain me for no more than 20 minutes at a time before I get bored and switch them off. An instant hit. No commitment necessary.
I hurl any need for escapism into my writing.
But the hatred of full-on gaming stays with me. Which, in a family full of enthusiastic gamers, must make me a difficult beast to live with. I have no sympathy or truck with “but I just need to do this and then I promise I’ll finish...” or “I won’t be able to concentrate on anything else unless I get to this level...”
Responses like that make me want to smash the game consoles up; makes me want to shoot them chock full of holes with a plasma rifle or a photon cannon.
Now.
If they invented a game that allowed me to do that... then I would quite happily become addicted.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Aping God
I'm about to get all serious on your ass.
After I watched the show on Monday - en elegant tour through the current evidence of man's development from ape-like hominid to tool-making homo sapien - I thought I'd give Dr Alice's blog a go on the BBC web site, especially as all my emails to her seem to bounce back these days (just a problem with her junk mail filter, I'm sure).
I started perusing the comments left by others (purely to scoff and scorn at their pathetic attempts to court this good lady's attentions, naturally) and was instantly horrified by what I found.
Now I need to be careful how I express this because I like to think I am a fairly tolerant person when it comes to other people and their beliefs. I'm not in the habit of denegrating people for their religious choices. If you want to go and live in a Yurt and weave yoghurt as an offering for the old god's that's up to you; your vegan diet means more roast chicken for me on a Sunday. Live and let live, I say, in this life and the next.
But surely Creationists are the most dumbassed people in the universe? I thought they were purely an American breed (sorry, America) but no, it seems, they exist (solely by the will of God and nothing at all to do with evolutionary imperatives) in the UK too.
There were several comments which (if I can paraphrase) ran along the lines of: yes, Dr Alice, you are very pretty and this show was beautifully photographed but you do know science is wrong and we humans did not eveolve from apes or come out of Africa but were created by God somewhere in the vicinity of Israel, don't you? Shame on you for not pointing this out to your viewers!
I confess my first instinct was to throw a couple of verbal molotov cocktails into the mix and set the blinkered world-view of these idiots alight but then I thought: what's the point? What is the point of trying to reason with these people? They wilfully ignore the crushing weight of scientific evidence stacked up against them. Worse than that. They go on and on about The Truth and yet when they are presented with it they see only the work of the devil.
How can you argue with people who think like that?
What scares me the most is that in this so called technologically advanced, civilized age of ours there are still people who cling to medieaval beliefs with the passion of the simpleton. The world is flat. The sun orbits around the world. And man is not an animal but is special and alone in his spiritually.
Gah. It honestly makes me spiritually sick.
It's the old dilemma, isn't it? Do you take religious texts word for word or do you accept that they were the products of a darker, much harsher, less enlightened world and therefore appropriately filter out the wildly imagined and the guesswork and retain the spiritually relevant? But then we have the problem of one person's interpretation being held above that of another.
But isn't this what is happening anyway?
The only difference betweeen religion and science is that religion purports to proclaim the whole truth without facts or evidence to back it up; science acknowledges it doesn't know the half of it but can prove what it does know.
In the final analysis, I'll cast my vote with science - though am keen to point out this does not mean there is a lack of spirituality on my part (but the details of that are my business).
Did man descend from the apes? The only evidence against it is that you never see apes fucking each other over or killing each other because of conflicts in their religious beliefs.
Maybe 'descend' is the operative word, here, eh?
Go in peace, people. Go in peace.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Talk To The Hand ‘Cos My Tweets Ain’t Listening
There was a brief moment back in late 2010, early 2011 when I was a little predisposed to be in love with Twitter. I’d Tweet something every day. Offer it a little sugar. Bestow upon it a little love.
Throw it a bone.
But it felt unrequited. My pebbles disappeared below the surface with barely a ripple. Nobody really responded.
Maybe I wasn’t using big enough pebbles? Maybe my wit was nothing more than granite chips compared to the atmosphere bending meteorites dropped by other Twitter users?
Who knows? I felt that any effort expended on Twitter was like trying to teach a pig to sing. The relationship was never going to be music to my ears and there was frequently too much shit around underfoot.
I didn’t delete my account though. And I realize there is something weak and inconstant about that. I just couldn’t make a clean break. Hell, I thought, I could still use Twitter. Treat it like a Parisian whore and pimp it out when I had something to sell. Another blog post. An ad hoc witticism. A sneery dig at those dolts on The Apprentice. I’ll use it and abuse it and then shove it back into its electronic box.
An unloved tissue.
So it’s a constant surprise to me to learn that I continually pick up new Followers. Every month more and more people elect to Follow me. Some of them I have heard of – fellow bloggers and writers and the like. They’re fine. They’re good. Welcome aboard, chums, just sorry about the disappointing fare I am offering. But most are...
I am at a loss as to how to describe them. A gallimaufry of weirdos? A ragbag of misfits?
Yesterday a Spanish restaurant in Sussex who specializes in Tapas added itself to my Followers list.
Why? Why would they do this? I have never been to Sussex. I have no plans to visit Sussex though I hear it is very nice. I’ve nothing against going but if I did go it would not be to go and eat Tapas. I don’t eat Tapas in my home town. I’m not going to travel a hundred miles to eat it elsewhere just because some faceless catering exec on Twitter is Following me.
And then there are the self-help crowd. There are dozens of them. Tina Sparkle and her Healing Womb Crystals, Warlock Bryan and his soul cleansing runes of Mordor, Russell Grant and his magic flamenco shoes who will help you dance your way to enlightenment and a gestalt therapist’s couch. The kind of people who, if I saw their books on sale in the Health, Mind & Body section at Waterstones, would make me want to heave up all over the hard-backed edition of The Pirelli Calendar 1960’s To The Present Day that I had concealed under my duffle coat.
Plainly they read my bio on Twitter and the first thing they think is: Christ, this guy needs some spiritual help; I will offer my services free of charge in bite-sized 140 character chunks for him to consume throughout his soulless days at the Satanic mill wherein he works.
Now, they might be right in the their analysis. Maybe I do need spiritual help. Maybe I do have too much anger and negativity in my lymphatic system. Maybe my chakras are more blocked than the botoxed pores of Victoria Beckham’s face.
But if I need my soul saving by Twitter then, frankly, I am beyond all hope of ever being saved by anybody and not even some magic crystals basted in the intimate juices of Tina Sparkle are ever going to be able to help me.
Ever.
I am this close to deleting my account.
This close.
But... erm... I wanted to pimp this blog post so, you know, I might do it tomorrow.
Throw it a bone.
But it felt unrequited. My pebbles disappeared below the surface with barely a ripple. Nobody really responded.
Maybe I wasn’t using big enough pebbles? Maybe my wit was nothing more than granite chips compared to the atmosphere bending meteorites dropped by other Twitter users?
Who knows? I felt that any effort expended on Twitter was like trying to teach a pig to sing. The relationship was never going to be music to my ears and there was frequently too much shit around underfoot.
I didn’t delete my account though. And I realize there is something weak and inconstant about that. I just couldn’t make a clean break. Hell, I thought, I could still use Twitter. Treat it like a Parisian whore and pimp it out when I had something to sell. Another blog post. An ad hoc witticism. A sneery dig at those dolts on The Apprentice. I’ll use it and abuse it and then shove it back into its electronic box.
An unloved tissue.
So it’s a constant surprise to me to learn that I continually pick up new Followers. Every month more and more people elect to Follow me. Some of them I have heard of – fellow bloggers and writers and the like. They’re fine. They’re good. Welcome aboard, chums, just sorry about the disappointing fare I am offering. But most are...
I am at a loss as to how to describe them. A gallimaufry of weirdos? A ragbag of misfits?
Yesterday a Spanish restaurant in Sussex who specializes in Tapas added itself to my Followers list.
Why? Why would they do this? I have never been to Sussex. I have no plans to visit Sussex though I hear it is very nice. I’ve nothing against going but if I did go it would not be to go and eat Tapas. I don’t eat Tapas in my home town. I’m not going to travel a hundred miles to eat it elsewhere just because some faceless catering exec on Twitter is Following me.
And then there are the self-help crowd. There are dozens of them. Tina Sparkle and her Healing Womb Crystals, Warlock Bryan and his soul cleansing runes of Mordor, Russell Grant and his magic flamenco shoes who will help you dance your way to enlightenment and a gestalt therapist’s couch. The kind of people who, if I saw their books on sale in the Health, Mind & Body section at Waterstones, would make me want to heave up all over the hard-backed edition of The Pirelli Calendar 1960’s To The Present Day that I had concealed under my duffle coat.
Plainly they read my bio on Twitter and the first thing they think is: Christ, this guy needs some spiritual help; I will offer my services free of charge in bite-sized 140 character chunks for him to consume throughout his soulless days at the Satanic mill wherein he works.
Now, they might be right in the their analysis. Maybe I do need spiritual help. Maybe I do have too much anger and negativity in my lymphatic system. Maybe my chakras are more blocked than the botoxed pores of Victoria Beckham’s face.
But if I need my soul saving by Twitter then, frankly, I am beyond all hope of ever being saved by anybody and not even some magic crystals basted in the intimate juices of Tina Sparkle are ever going to be able to help me.
Ever.
I am this close to deleting my account.
This close.
But... erm... I wanted to pimp this blog post so, you know, I might do it tomorrow.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Power
Power is a funny thing.
It’s not something we would all automatically put at the top of our wish-lists(unless we were megalomaniacs) – I’m sure freedom, good health and more money would all be first choices for most of us and we’d fling those down without too much thought.
But don’t they all in a way represent power?
Power to do what we want, when we want and with whom we want?
Maybe power is the wrong word? Maybe what I am really talking about here is self-determination? The power to choose every aspect of our lives for ourselves. To not compromise. To not negotiate. To not have to settle for that which we know, for us, is less than perfect.
I’ve been thinking about self determination a lot over the last few days and have decided I want it at the top of my wish-list. Or at least in close second place - maybe keep good health in pole position because it seems damn silly not to but, yeah, self determination... it’s up there with the big boys.
More money would certainly be nice. More money would be great. To not have to work for the man (or the woman) ever again would be fantastic. Freedom too is a fantasy ideal of utopia. To do whatever I like without recourse to anybody else. I’m going to do A, B, and C with no questions asked.
But let’s face it; more money and true freedom don’t really exist. No-one is truly absolutely free. And loads of money just creates as much of a prison as no money at all.
No, self determination is the key. And for that you don’t need money or the shackles of society being cast off.
You just need the right mind-set and the will to take it for yourself.
You need to know what you want and what you don’t want. And I have been thinking about that a lot over the last few days recently too. There are certain environments, certain people and behaviours that I just cannot make peace with anymore.
I know what I don’t want. I know what I can no longer stomach. I know what makes my soul sick.
Now it’s time to discover what I do want. It’s time to acquire good health for my soul.
And self-determination seems a bloody good place to start.
It’s not something we would all automatically put at the top of our wish-lists(unless we were megalomaniacs) – I’m sure freedom, good health and more money would all be first choices for most of us and we’d fling those down without too much thought.
But don’t they all in a way represent power?
Power to do what we want, when we want and with whom we want?
Maybe power is the wrong word? Maybe what I am really talking about here is self-determination? The power to choose every aspect of our lives for ourselves. To not compromise. To not negotiate. To not have to settle for that which we know, for us, is less than perfect.
I’ve been thinking about self determination a lot over the last few days and have decided I want it at the top of my wish-list. Or at least in close second place - maybe keep good health in pole position because it seems damn silly not to but, yeah, self determination... it’s up there with the big boys.
More money would certainly be nice. More money would be great. To not have to work for the man (or the woman) ever again would be fantastic. Freedom too is a fantasy ideal of utopia. To do whatever I like without recourse to anybody else. I’m going to do A, B, and C with no questions asked.
But let’s face it; more money and true freedom don’t really exist. No-one is truly absolutely free. And loads of money just creates as much of a prison as no money at all.
No, self determination is the key. And for that you don’t need money or the shackles of society being cast off.
You just need the right mind-set and the will to take it for yourself.
You need to know what you want and what you don’t want. And I have been thinking about that a lot over the last few days recently too. There are certain environments, certain people and behaviours that I just cannot make peace with anymore.
I know what I don’t want. I know what I can no longer stomach. I know what makes my soul sick.
Now it’s time to discover what I do want. It’s time to acquire good health for my soul.
And self-determination seems a bloody good place to start.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Between Heaven & Hell
(1) because it's a "minority interest" post - many of my international readers won't have watched Ashes To Ashes (or it's forerunner Life On Mars) and (2) those of you that have will be behind the UK in its scheduling of this show and I really don't want to ruin the ending of the entire series and franchise by peppering this post with spoilers.
Which is going to be damned difficult to do. But I am going to do my best.
To say this has been (for me) the best TV drama on UK television for a long time is an understatement. It has everything: humour black and rich, action, eye candy, ethics, politics and, best of all, a spiritual element that manages to be profound without being crassly in your face or in favour of any one single religion.
My biggest fear about last night's final episode was that the writers might mess it up. They might deliver an ending so horribly contrived and squeezed into as many tick boxes as possible that it would ruin all that had gone before it much in the same way that The Matrix sequels contributed nothing more to the original idea except to leave a pointlessly sour taste in the mouth. I'd heard stories of how the American version of this show had folded after one series and they had tied all the loose ends together under a premise so preposterous it could have been lifted straight out of a Red Dwarf plotline. In fact it probably was - everybody wakes up on a spaceship to find they've been living in some kind of computer generated virtual reality world. How horribly flat and devoid of any kind of spirituality.
The whole point of Life On Mars / Ashes To Ashes, aside from questioning our political and ethical views of what is acceptable, has been to make us question the nature of life, existence and, yes I am going to say it, the human soul.
I wanted an ending that honoured that very fundamental premise. I didn't want a gimmicky "you've all been dreaming and have woken up in the shower" type conclusion. I wanted the answers - Who is Gene Hunt? Who is Jim Keats? What is this world they are in? Why has Alex stopped receiving communications from the "real" world? And what happened to Sam Tyler - did Gene Hunt really kill him? But I didn't want the answers to disappoint. I didn't want them to cheat me of all this show has meant to me or all that it has promised me to be.
A tall order then for the show's writers.
For me personally, they exceeded my expectations. They gave me the answers and the answers were right. They looked right. They felt right. They were right. They worked. Suddenly it all made sense and seemed so obvious. All of it, from Gene Hunt's cowboy posturing to Jim Keats' infernal machinations. And the final denouement? As obvious and inevitable as a copper going down to the pub after a difficult case has finally been laid to rest. Should have seen it coming, mon brave.
So without giving it all away for those of you yet to watch the final episode: have no fears. The ending is everything you could want it to be. The revelations about Gene Hunt's true identity are both tragic, poignant and ultimately triumphant. Evil is defeated. And the good guys - all of them - get to go home.
It is an episode - indeed an entire series - that resonates with a sense of the eternal.
I wish it could have lasted forever.
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