... not just me....
Pondering - in fact "pondering" is the wrong word, as is the far far too BIG word "ascetic" - its too clever a word.... even if i, too, use it as shortcut.
One 'does' something: of late especially the last few days i DO waffle-splurge ... ones sort of 'lifestory'...
The doing something in fact frees you to be freer (tidy away loose ends of a weave) so that the thoughts - any next thoughts, are simplified... "that said... Eastern European and Yugoslav society i found so important as without consumerism - all the STUFF... one had access to a more raw human being...that is thus me maybe more than anything else - those raw people i got to know 30 years ago...NO CONSUMERISM to fog the view of them ...."
I had never thought of it like that for myself but splurging that i know that is the best thing to say 30+ years on about my own curious whole-life trajectory
And ...openness? hmmm..... see below
Freer...desk cleared...oh well i have shared some of my own 'insights'....
But left with all one has: "so what REALLY in a few paragraphs is the story of a whole adult life?"
And the simple fact is one simple word: consumerism...
No point harking back to 'better'' times... however i do know from a whole range of places lived and different peoples observing ... fourty years. ALL it has been is a dull story of ever creeping consumerism.
And i know it has only been a negative thing.
In the truly silly ignorant 'public conversation' the last 10 or 15 years in the UK....
it is as if ALL the participants have NO memory whatsoever....
The FACT of UK society 40 years ago... still 30 ish years ago... that UK even i liked, was that the great majority were very very very wary of consumerism. scathing and saw through it all as selfish and showing off and negative in MANY ways....
In my 20s even around fancier parts of London some of the time, the majority were mature and wise enough to often state that consumerism , and then later on 'self expression' through lifestyle things one consumes to SHOW.... from clothing to any form of non human extremity - car to fancy bicycle....
is ALL a disaster. CANNOT end well.... Most people knew that ....
And what has happened my whole life... gradually that absolutely great cast iron wisdom... has been lost.
Its not about 'ascetic' - that word doesnt endear people...(implies elitism)
by saying " i am not part of the 'consumerist' society... one was stating that real 'relationship' and even lighter footpring or ethical living was far more important....
My own unusual trajectory - purely accidental as i was pretty much born a non consumerist... (as my very unhappy parents were the most elegantly new fangled consumerist for many miles - not 'rebellion' simply seeing how it never ever ever leads to peace and healthy harmony....ever...i have never seen that)
And then gradually most societies.. East Europe.... gradually West Europe (some Western places retaining sanity in a different way) simply all dumbed down and let the consumerist model simply overwhelm...
Nothing changed: we - the majority of especially more thoughtful Brits... knew it was anti human and deathly 40 years ago...
And then... 15 years certainly by 7 or 8 years ago this thing of (it is JUST as much 'consumerism' consuming / selling ideas... )
all people must somehow be .... within a framework, of personality 'type' (utter claptrap - and quite inhuman) ... an industry of endless talk about relationships, illnesses, defects in others... dangerously more than 'gossip'... nope a sort of " i am better than you via my 'insights' ... on your 'attachment' style or some other characteristic that the dreadful indsutrialisers of the soul...(Tom Pauls Polly Garchs started as they are COWARDS...and bullies ..) knew they will make money from too, somehow...one day....
Meanwhile.... what is reality? 50% of over 50s i am aware of are utterly lost .... most lonely....
Will die yonger than they may.
Its all assumptions - your 'personality' is x...mine is y....
... essentially to give one person more perceived status than another ...
And guess what hardly a one has LIVED real choice - in short is masturbation for the bored, and confused:
I am not stupid and i know 'pacifism' has many philosophical arguments swirl around it. I made a choice once i still dont know if i was right naive or stupid...but its a REAL choice.... not an assumption about some other lonely persons character
I KNOW one thing that the medium term benefits of just walking away..is never ever spoken of - never..... its a we-must/have- consumed Rambo... or shit tv: 'respect'.. i need respect... i must defend my pathetic little ego ....... (you will generally be invited back to work in the business and the like of any conqueror... that always happens !)
26 or 7 years ago i was offered my perfect job. By a sort of English company - one never really knows with international aircraft and contracts stuff...
As far as i was told the 'company' comprising only a beaten up old Kingair 200 based in South Somalia, and some local (to there) chap who did some business in UK having a contract with the UN to provide this aircraft to do medical emergency flights...
paradise!
A wilderness amazing country. And doing good.... not pandering to elites or showoffs... saving hurt or ill lives.
But then a little later before i had set off " just to let you know ...every few months there may be a nightflight.... with the aircraft lights off...into a bush strip...other side of the border.... i hope you will be ok with that.."
a bit of research - the 'border' concerned into a live mini war ongoing...a call to a pilot that knew a little about the operation: " probably arms... "
BUt then figuring: "could this possibly be a certain operation helping the genuinely oppressed or those facing terrible acts of others? will i even know which 'side' the arms are for..?"
One never ever knows.... ever...
And thus ... with great regret i chose a real hard choice: changed my mind...
And of course what is the point! ... someone else will have taken the job...
I had no fear " maybe illl get a bazooka up the aircraft bum one dark night.."
Simply a fear or knowing ... its absurd but if more of us never ever took part in anything to do with weapons... there may well be less war and people killed by them...
naïve idealistic but....
like consumerism you are either part of it or not...
i do wish a LOT more central and South Eastern Europeans knew WE..may of us did resist it all....
AND the Barbie Dolly Bird way women became OBJECTIFIED....
40 years ago 99% saw through ALL of that....
............
However even if ancient history - 8 years ago i met and spent 4 hours with the most interesting and peaceful man i have ever met...by far...
a writer....serious journalist age 72..
born raised in Russia, his mum a brown women (that alone extraordinary), upper class one of the very few who survived Lenin he had sat on Stalin's knee age 7..his dad the boss of the Lubjanka... he had shot down yanks as an air force pilot in Vietnam...been at the Khyber pass with the invaders where he lost his leg...
the ultimate 'hero' of the Soviet Union....
But.... 3 hrs talk (much of his last 20 or 30 years based in The West - he had a second home in Ludlow) i asked him at the end "what is the one thing to pass on... i mean you WERE the 20th century! you ARE history embodied...!!...one extraordinary fact please..."
"somehow in the Soviet Union and satellite states... i so notice this in the West ! ...somehow there was a much more healthy REAL equality between woman and man..."
this astounded me - was last answer i expected...but i knew he meant it
So many times i tried to engage women on this ... since he told me that.
Obviously they must be of that region.....
But its as if with all their assuming jumping to PERSONAL INSULTING conclusions caught from Brits... they cannot hear THE most interesting question there is!
Consumerism killed ALL debate knowledge passion caring about anything.....
And i guess every East European 'warrior' woman too....
what a dull life.... 40 years ago 1% consumerism... now 99% consumerism...in one form or other
and no one has any good language as to how to stop it
i do
why i wanna rattle out the simple life stuff....
but i need a sidekick
WE KNEW DECADES GO!!!
consumerism causes isolation (affluenza) ... they want it that way to perpetuate it....
and thats 'consuming' lifestyle, ALL matters of appearance, all 'beliefs' all 'differences'... all artificial.
to be cont
