Substack Musings

An update from my very warm brain

I have just scrolled through a long document on my computer I titled ‘Substack Musings.’

It’s a grab bag of often unfinished thought pieces about a very wide range of topics. It’s not impossible that one or two of them may find their way onto my public Substack, but I am confident most of them will not.

One of the ways I work out what I think about a topic is by writing about it. I’ll sit down and type for 10 minutes, read it back and think, ‘Am I really that angry and unfocussed?’ Or ‘Why am I so triggered by something stupid a person I don’t know and will never meet has said.”

I will then let that essay fester for a bit, while I rethink what it is I want to say, and then generally delete it.

As with all of us, I also try to work out my feelings or opinions about a topic by discussing things with a very select group of long term friends. They will often have a completely different take on any topic than I have a rock solid opinion about, and my grip on that opinion will often falter.

That might make me sound like a hopeless-wishy-washy-accept-anything-middle-of-the-road-loser-liberal-tosser. If that is the case, so be it, because I have met so many people from across the political spectrum who have tied themselves in knots of contradiction and hypocrisy by firmly sticking to one hardline political opinion over decades, when the world changes beyond recognition around them.

I do not hold the same notions and ideas I did in the 1970’s, not because I have sold out or become more conservative, but because the world of the 1970’s is now literally history and very few of the challenges facing the human race then are the same today.

Okay, the environment we all share and Israel/Palestine, those two are exactly the same and the arguments surrounding them will continue for the next 55 years.

So, some of the topics I have written about and then thought better of are about religion as it relates to Palestine and Israel, that will never see the light of day, I’ve written about fox hunting, the Murdoch extremist newspapers, paying tax, the private education system in the UK, the third runway at Heathrow airport in London, the future dominance of the Chinese car industry (safer ground there).

I have written about fragile masculinity, the formation of the Third Reich and the tech bros of the mid 2020’s, that might go somewhere more interesting and most recently the unspeakable pleasure and privilege of being able to spend time in Australia in January and February.

(I’m currently sitting at my sister in laws outdoor dining table in a pair of shorts and a T shirt at 6:45 in the morning, wait for it, while it’s cool enough to be outside.)

Yeah, rub it in.

But, after all that writing and thinking, I can’t help but come to the conclusion that churning out strident, angry rants and responding, or worse, reacting to the insanity of certain powerful people does nothing to help restore balance the general mood of anyone who reads my scrawlings.

There are now so many people with a huge mouthpiece, and I will be judgemental here, so many stupid, ignorant people with very loud voices who can dominate our individual head spaces, that trying to add another is very counterproductive.

I am not for one moment suggesting we ignore fascism, because dear readers, let’s face it, that is what is rapidly emerging before our eyes, and it is terrifying, but I also think it’s important to step back, look the other way every now and then if only to remind ourselves that there are positive and amazing things happening in our cluttered world.

The words kindness, empathy, tolerance, modesty have not yet, and must not be expunged. They are equally a part of the human experience as anger, resentment, hatred and revenge are, they naturally get much less attention, but they exist and are critical to our existence.

I’m sure you’ll forgive me if I don’t release a daily screaming rant about all the topics that flood our newsfeeds. It’s a struggle not to get sucked into that vortex of fury and hatred, I am as guilty of doing so as anyone, but I want to constantly remind myself, and anyone who’ll listen, that we have to continue the struggle to find newer, kinder, more tolerant ways of living with each other.