Tuesday 14 January 2014

Grow A Pair

Sometimes, the amount of stupid in the world makes my brain bleed. Take David Milliband for example, and his declaration that the middle class are in crisis. Thing is, we're actually not. To call it a crisis would be to misunderstand what the word even means. So I may be less affluent, and my pension worth less, and I may even have to work a bit longer. I am, at worst, inconvenienced. Crisis is about being hungry, homeless, lonely and in poor health. Crisis is something dire and frightening. Crisis is not simply having less than you may have had before. When I hear people in authority belch out such sewage it alarms me. Where is the common sense, the honest candour, the methodical evaluation of evidence? Does everything have to be reducible to petty political points scoring and Kleenex grade soundbites? Apparently yes. So let me make a suggestion. Let's recognise how fortunate we are. Let's not assume that we are somehow deserving of some pre ordained standard of living. We're not. We never were. More than that, let's be just a bit grateful that we weren't born in the Sudan, or forced to live according to some bronze age religious creed. Despite having a little less we continue to enjoy levels of affluence and liberty alien to those born a generation or two before. And I fear that we have become so soft, so expectant and so belicose that we render ourselves unable to cope should a real trauma arrive. Once upon a time we British would have baulked at using words such as crisis with such feeble minded ease. We would have deemed such bleeting as absurd. Perhaps we should embrace a similar lack of tolerance towards those who speak so glibly, so weakly, and with such disregard for the meaning of real words. People of Great Britain, stand up, get a grip, and quite frankly grow a pair.

Thursday 9 January 2014

Status Update

Ok, I admit it. I'm out of the habit. Haven't really been writing much. Haven't actually been thinking much, to tell the truth. All to do with my commitment to spending less time thinking about life and more time just living it. I'd forgotten how to enjoy the art of simply going with the flow, and now I've remembered I'm finding that I quite like the peace that comes from thinking less. Last time I checked I had readers in over 50 countries, which I guess isn't too bad. But I never really did this for anybody's benefit but my own. In the event that anybody is remotely interested I'm doing just fine. Actually better than ever. I've become quite fond of living in the real world and I'm committed to spending most of my time here. I don't rail and moan about religion any more, because I actually don't give a damn. Let people believe what they want. I've flushed it from my system, and I'm the better for it. Family life is good, and my relationship with Joy has hit new heights. We've reached new levels of understanding and intimacy, and we are both focused on being everything we want each other to be. I'll never understand why some couples seem so willing to settle for second best, or become so bogged down in routine and convention that they starve each other of the very thing that made them strong in the first place. Big mistake, people. Huge. Are you really so happy to settle for less? Still, none of my business. Anyway, this isn't really a blog. It's more of an extended status update. Life's good, and I'm in a good place. I'm planning to keep at that way.