Beautiful photos, thanks. Spring has been exceptionally beautiful here - more beautiful than I can ever remember, and the flowers are incredible. They are in total abundance. A daily walk just in the suburbs and one is greeted with the most amazing colours and smells at every turn.
I re-read your linked post with the scroll of drawings by your children. Before 2020, my phone was full of photos of holidays, work conferences, and family. After 2020, it was documenting hell on earth via news headlines. There has been a distinct fracturing in my life and it is difficult to comprehend that it is nearly 5 years later. I feel (and look) a lot older, and very, very sad.
It's a rather common feature, if my phone picture gallery is any indication.
I do think that something broke, but I deny, categorically so, that 'they™' get to have that much of say over my life.
Now, I'm not saying 'they™' won't, or didn't, or will not once more try to coerce us; but there's a line, in the sand, in your mind, wherever you chose to draw it: hold it. On your side of the line is your life, your humanity, your soul; on the other side, well, you know what is there--evil.
It's always been like this, I'm afraid; the past 4+ years have merely mainstreamed these demons; I do take solace in my wife, our children, a good friend, sunshine on a late September day, even something as tiny and seemingly insignificant as…a bug.
I'm, too, older today, I feel a bit older than my age, but the one thing that remains is: the truth, and this is what we're called upon to hold on to.
ED, this was such a moving comment in its simplicity. It made me cry, and I had to wait a while before coming back to respond.
The contrast between our lives - as they were, and the ruins now left behind is stark, and I feel exactly the same way.
I too am not the same person I was in 2020. I've aged 10 years, I've gone from having not a thing wrong with me physically, to all sorts of conditions now entrenching themselves. And a visibly-deteriorated home environment, which I realise is a perfect reflection of my inner state.
“Fractured” perfectly describes the fall. I'm not quite at “shattered” (not yet), but it's like breaking a familiar, beloved heirloom plate; you can glue it back together but it's never going to be the same again. The scar runs from top to bottom. It's visible. And now forever-broken.
It isn't the battle scar of a successful open heart surgery (more like the hideous scar of an autopsy, where your vital organs have been severed, then put back in, inside a plastic bag, to give the appearance of normality).
But it isn’t. Nothing will ever be normal again.
I sometimes think how much easier this all would have been, had I been part of the 80% blissfully unaware, who have now moved on.
For me I know I will never move on. There is no returning to who I was. In the place of “life as I knew it” is a seething, smouldering rage I don’t think will ever die down or go away (and I got off comparatively lightly, with ‘only’ a broken, estranged family). I can't imagine the anger, and the hatred, and the despair consuming those who had their careers, or home, or spouse, or child destroyed.
There are not enough words in the English language to adequately convey what I feel about the people who did this.
And about those who blindly cheered it on, ultimately sucking the life out of all of us.
We have not been allowed to grieve because there is no narrative.
In a war, there is a general narrative. Bombs drop (even if it is friendly fire) and people are killed. Everyone sees the bombs. We build memorials and remember the dead and grieve together.
Now, the narrative is: 'everything is fine. In fact, what happened was a great success.' This is why we are fractured. There is no narrative.
Today I attacked my garden in such a fit of rage that I exhausted myself and collapsed. There is no outlet for my grief under the lies, and I fear that it will one day consume me like fire.
And I hadn't thought of it in those terms, but that's exactly what it is - unacknowledged grief. Couple that with an internal raging fire, and eventually it explodes outwards.
I remember a few years before Covid, after a domestic with my sister, my quiet, hard-working, humble BIL similarly took out his rage on their garden with a chainsaw and just completely destroyed it.
I don't know how this ends, but by denying it they're building a powder keg.
Oh gosh I hear and feel you. You’ve described it in such a great way the upside down turning I too found in my life. Indeed so very very sad. I cling to the silver linings of finding other likeminded genuine folk and yes as the share - treasuring the moments
Hence the worship of ideals (instead of living them), and the ugly-fication of everything:
The simple yet complex beauty that just exists for no reason or cause (barring mythological ones) makes, to the social engineers, the very rich, the powerful and so on and on. . .
. . .that beauty, quietude and simpleness makes all their strife and toil and labour and all they hold up as ideals the same way the donkey follows the carrot affixed to a pole in turn affixed to its back - it makes all that completely pointless and meaningless to them.
Imagine investing all that life sitting in lectures, board meetings, learning the game, eating shit and being kicked in the teeth for years as you ascend the ladder so you get to pass it on downwards, and then when you start preaching your gospel to The People, the best you can hope for from normal people is a disinterested "Meh. Good for you I guess but I'm not interested, nor am I impressed".
Imagine the bile and hatred this engenders within, since they lack humility and humbleness before existence, that simple [Is] despite them.
This is the driving force within, that causes them - no matter what -ism or creed happens to be the paradigm they meld with - to destroy and wreck and ruin everything. This hate that you are not impressed, do not acquiesce just because, do not live according to their diktats, and that you are perfectly content and happy and able to get by or even thrive without their salvation.
I've seen it in mikro-format, and makro: old friends who question "How can you stand to live like that?" when we were impoverished due to neither me nor my wife being willing to eat shit and violate our ethics for profit or career.
The rage when I simply answered: "It's your choice what you do, make it consciously and live with it without excuses or rationalisations, and let us do the same" was indescribable. In one case, it almost came to blows that we could live a happy and contended life on less than 20 000:-/month net income, and afford to donate to a school-for-poor-children in Ghana (a vetted charity), and not feel any anxiety about not "keeping up with the joneses".
To say nothing about the man who quit all ties to me when I simply explained to him that he owns nothing more than what he can carry and defend using force. I think to this day the only reason he didn't dare hit me (he was inebriated, which in my book is no excuse) is that he knew I would hit back, and that I fight like a rat.
Well, didn't that little text of yours kick my internal hornet's nest of thoughts. Well done! ;)
Thank you for sharing; I have little to add, but perhaps one of my guiding principles: it takes a lot to be offended, and the beauty of the English language here is that one 'has to take offence', i.e., it requires action on your part.
Not taking offence is a kind of secret weapon in this war; a lot of the BS thrown our way is designed to trigger a reaction, and by refusing to get offended (which, typically, also involves emotions) you're denying your adversary a quick win.
I am struggling with the contradiction of the breathtaking beauty of nature and the existence of so much evil. We must cherish those bug and flower and sunshine and forest moments, they are a great source of strength and balance! Cheers to Norway!
Beautiful photos, thanks. Spring has been exceptionally beautiful here - more beautiful than I can ever remember, and the flowers are incredible. They are in total abundance. A daily walk just in the suburbs and one is greeted with the most amazing colours and smells at every turn.
I re-read your linked post with the scroll of drawings by your children. Before 2020, my phone was full of photos of holidays, work conferences, and family. After 2020, it was documenting hell on earth via news headlines. There has been a distinct fracturing in my life and it is difficult to comprehend that it is nearly 5 years later. I feel (and look) a lot older, and very, very sad.
It's a rather common feature, if my phone picture gallery is any indication.
I do think that something broke, but I deny, categorically so, that 'they™' get to have that much of say over my life.
Now, I'm not saying 'they™' won't, or didn't, or will not once more try to coerce us; but there's a line, in the sand, in your mind, wherever you chose to draw it: hold it. On your side of the line is your life, your humanity, your soul; on the other side, well, you know what is there--evil.
It's always been like this, I'm afraid; the past 4+ years have merely mainstreamed these demons; I do take solace in my wife, our children, a good friend, sunshine on a late September day, even something as tiny and seemingly insignificant as…a bug.
I'm, too, older today, I feel a bit older than my age, but the one thing that remains is: the truth, and this is what we're called upon to hold on to.
ED, this was such a moving comment in its simplicity. It made me cry, and I had to wait a while before coming back to respond.
The contrast between our lives - as they were, and the ruins now left behind is stark, and I feel exactly the same way.
I too am not the same person I was in 2020. I've aged 10 years, I've gone from having not a thing wrong with me physically, to all sorts of conditions now entrenching themselves. And a visibly-deteriorated home environment, which I realise is a perfect reflection of my inner state.
“Fractured” perfectly describes the fall. I'm not quite at “shattered” (not yet), but it's like breaking a familiar, beloved heirloom plate; you can glue it back together but it's never going to be the same again. The scar runs from top to bottom. It's visible. And now forever-broken.
It isn't the battle scar of a successful open heart surgery (more like the hideous scar of an autopsy, where your vital organs have been severed, then put back in, inside a plastic bag, to give the appearance of normality).
But it isn’t. Nothing will ever be normal again.
I sometimes think how much easier this all would have been, had I been part of the 80% blissfully unaware, who have now moved on.
For me I know I will never move on. There is no returning to who I was. In the place of “life as I knew it” is a seething, smouldering rage I don’t think will ever die down or go away (and I got off comparatively lightly, with ‘only’ a broken, estranged family). I can't imagine the anger, and the hatred, and the despair consuming those who had their careers, or home, or spouse, or child destroyed.
There are not enough words in the English language to adequately convey what I feel about the people who did this.
And about those who blindly cheered it on, ultimately sucking the life out of all of us.
We have not been allowed to grieve because there is no narrative.
In a war, there is a general narrative. Bombs drop (even if it is friendly fire) and people are killed. Everyone sees the bombs. We build memorials and remember the dead and grieve together.
Now, the narrative is: 'everything is fine. In fact, what happened was a great success.' This is why we are fractured. There is no narrative.
Today I attacked my garden in such a fit of rage that I exhausted myself and collapsed. There is no outlet for my grief under the lies, and I fear that it will one day consume me like fire.
It's beginning to feel like that.
And I hadn't thought of it in those terms, but that's exactly what it is - unacknowledged grief. Couple that with an internal raging fire, and eventually it explodes outwards.
I remember a few years before Covid, after a domestic with my sister, my quiet, hard-working, humble BIL similarly took out his rage on their garden with a chainsaw and just completely destroyed it.
I don't know how this ends, but by denying it they're building a powder keg.
My greatest fear is that nothing will happen and it will disappear into history like 9/11 and the millions murdered in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Unfortunately, that seems the more likely outcome as most are currently in the 'bargaining' stage of grief (i.e., hopium).
Oh gosh I hear and feel you. You’ve described it in such a great way the upside down turning I too found in my life. Indeed so very very sad. I cling to the silver linings of finding other likeminded genuine folk and yes as the share - treasuring the moments
Hence the worship of ideals (instead of living them), and the ugly-fication of everything:
The simple yet complex beauty that just exists for no reason or cause (barring mythological ones) makes, to the social engineers, the very rich, the powerful and so on and on. . .
. . .that beauty, quietude and simpleness makes all their strife and toil and labour and all they hold up as ideals the same way the donkey follows the carrot affixed to a pole in turn affixed to its back - it makes all that completely pointless and meaningless to them.
Imagine investing all that life sitting in lectures, board meetings, learning the game, eating shit and being kicked in the teeth for years as you ascend the ladder so you get to pass it on downwards, and then when you start preaching your gospel to The People, the best you can hope for from normal people is a disinterested "Meh. Good for you I guess but I'm not interested, nor am I impressed".
Imagine the bile and hatred this engenders within, since they lack humility and humbleness before existence, that simple [Is] despite them.
This is the driving force within, that causes them - no matter what -ism or creed happens to be the paradigm they meld with - to destroy and wreck and ruin everything. This hate that you are not impressed, do not acquiesce just because, do not live according to their diktats, and that you are perfectly content and happy and able to get by or even thrive without their salvation.
I've seen it in mikro-format, and makro: old friends who question "How can you stand to live like that?" when we were impoverished due to neither me nor my wife being willing to eat shit and violate our ethics for profit or career.
The rage when I simply answered: "It's your choice what you do, make it consciously and live with it without excuses or rationalisations, and let us do the same" was indescribable. In one case, it almost came to blows that we could live a happy and contended life on less than 20 000:-/month net income, and afford to donate to a school-for-poor-children in Ghana (a vetted charity), and not feel any anxiety about not "keeping up with the joneses".
To say nothing about the man who quit all ties to me when I simply explained to him that he owns nothing more than what he can carry and defend using force. I think to this day the only reason he didn't dare hit me (he was inebriated, which in my book is no excuse) is that he knew I would hit back, and that I fight like a rat.
Well, didn't that little text of yours kick my internal hornet's nest of thoughts. Well done! ;)
Thank you for sharing; I have little to add, but perhaps one of my guiding principles: it takes a lot to be offended, and the beauty of the English language here is that one 'has to take offence', i.e., it requires action on your part.
Not taking offence is a kind of secret weapon in this war; a lot of the BS thrown our way is designed to trigger a reaction, and by refusing to get offended (which, typically, also involves emotions) you're denying your adversary a quick win.
I am struggling with the contradiction of the breathtaking beauty of nature and the existence of so much evil. We must cherish those bug and flower and sunshine and forest moments, they are a great source of strength and balance! Cheers to Norway!
And avoid looking at 'modern' art and architecture: they are designed to crush your spirit.
‘The world has become so monstrously grotesque’ is so true and They want humans to transition into monstrous grotesque’s.
The bug is beautiful.The Nature around us is breathtaking.
We human forms are beautiful.Our spirit ,resolve and life force is persistent.
Well put.
I suppose 'modernity' makes us less and less human.