Category: Writing

Information overload – say no longer to that.

Information overload – say no longer to that.

I do not know about the reader but it is fair to say that my brain no longer can cope with what is on offer in this world. The last couple of months, without really realising what was happening I felt increasingly overwhelmed by events. And now, still feeling groggy from what it has done to my wellbeing stock has been taken.

No longer the television news will be watched for any lent of time, or the internet will be visited for hours on end, just to learn about terrorism, war, conflict, division between people. No longer getting wound up by the bruising politicians. This can no longer be a life, it destroys us.

So, all that suffering the world, humanity, creates can no longer be mine, or yours I sincerely hope. The news will be watched very sporadic, the Internet mostly used for creative purposes. 

The known world is in the above context just too bad, boring in its repetitive cruelty. We have to say goodbye to it to have a life.

Politics is death, long live life !

Politics is death, long live life !

If the recent bruising race to elect a new President in the USA has proven something, it is that politics is death, or at least should be.

We can try and understand what went wrong, and let be clear this would have been so whatever the outcome.

All what has happened is that extremism, ugly debate has won. We are all responsible for allowing this to happen. Now we are in a mess, because extremism has won. For the moment.

There are a lot of issues facing humanity and we need wise, serious and genuine human beings to come together and try to address those issues. Politics does not work like that, for politics is about power. It is all too ugly.

You can be anti-establishment but if you are still after power and try to bully your ideas through, you are no better than any politician. Let me be clear there are lost of decent human beings that are also politicians. Genuine people that try to address the dangerous world we have created. People that try to address conflict, poverty and climate change.

The swing towards what is called right extremism is worrying, but so would a swing to left extremism have been. The latter will be in some years time or so be the response to the former, and this is why politics does not work.

We need change, but not the change politicians keep promising.

The change we need is first and foremost acknowledge that each and every one of us is responsible for the mess we are in. So, all  of us can do something to create a future for the children of this world, and generations hopefully to come.

We cannot control nature, but we can destroy it. We can not avoid death, but we can live a beautiful live. And help our fellow humans.

We have a choice, whatever our circumstances, wherever we live. It is hard work, but let’s be serious and do it. Now.

Cancer

Cancer

http://www.frommetoyouletters.co.uk/

Have a look at this beautiful initiative by just clicking on the above link. It is about writing letters to folk that live with cancer. It is so positive, and such a great initiative that it needs sharing. Please feel free to reblog this, and inspire your readers.

I strongly recommend considering this yourself, for we all know someone that lives with cancer.

Be inspired and let me know what you think. More to the point let that friend know what you think, by writing that letter.

Dignified silence

Dignified silence

Millions of words have been spoken and written during the race to elect the next President of the USA. The noise has been deafening and divisions between peoples should alarm politicians and media alike.

This is no game and too many people live in fear. Never the best advisor that is, fear.

It is long overdue that media and politicians show some restraint. Freedom of speech is a great good but sometimes a dignified silence helps a cause better. Wounds need to be healed and divisions turned into acceptance and unity.

America has shown how much work there is to do in this terribly divided world. Let’s get to work and do it quietly.

Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen

This seems to be the year of talent that has had enough of this world. Well, that is one way of looking at it. Bowie, Prince and now the great poet Leonard Cohen. We are told he was ready and that is perhaps all that counts.

The last hour or so, to watch, and listen to his music was beautiful. Then I found Rufus Wainwright singing Hallelujah, together with a 1500 people strong choir. Listening to and watching that one could not help for the tears to stream. There is still hope for humanity.

 

POTUS

POTUS

The best news today is the fact that the race to vote the next President of the USA comes to an end. Well one hopes so anyway. There is not so much to say about this since too much words have already been spoken.

The race has been a tragedy, an insult to humanity. For this we should be grateful as it teaches us that radical change is needed. We humans need to change to enable a better society. Politics does not work, war does not work. We know what does not work so why do we carry on, making more mess. Why do we not care?

The most significant notion is how devised us humans are. Surely, we are all responsible for that. The question is how we can unite.

Race, religion, sex, country of birth; it does not matter, should not matter. But it does, for we fear. We know we do not know.

Whomever is the next POTUS does not matter for it will not bring the change humanity as a whole, or you as a person need. Humans need an inner revolution to change themselves and thus society.

It is hard work, but worth to try and create real hope.

Karl Marx

Karl Marx

Today I finally met Karl Marx, well stood at what is his second resting place at Highgate Cemetery in North London. His first grave was deemed too obscure, too simple by the admirers of this man, who died in 1883. His current resting place was erected in 1954, and his body exhumed from the old, today still existing grave, and reburied in its current, far more prominent spot. The massive head of Marx, his monument, is visited by both his many followers and those who hate his thinking and communism, of which, after all, Marx is an important symbol. Below the head of the thinker the famous (or infamous, depending on taste) words “Workers of all lands unite” can be read.

Standing at the grave my thoughts went back to the time that, as a naive but idealistic teenager, I had a poster of the man on my bedroom door. The attractive aspect of Marx’ thinking to me was simply the word ‘unite’. He wanted the normal folk to unite and be stronger, so there would no longer be poor people. That was just my teenage thinking and even today that seems fine.

An awful lot of unbearable things have happened since communism got a foothold in this world. One would argue also very good things have come from (mis)using Marx’ thinking. Still, I felt apprehensive standing there and was contemplating what the man would have made of it all himself.