Can Care, Won't Care

There are two things I'm going to write about, and I promise, they link up. That may not be immediately apparent.

One of them is a five minute snatch of conversation I overheard, the other is the focus of my television watching this evening. I rarely watch television really. In general, I doubt its value for money and feel that I can be entertained and informed better by reading but every now and again I'm tired and want to engage my eyes but not too much of my brain. Typically I find my brain engaging anyway and meandering off on its unheard dialogue with the throng of personalities and perspectives on TV.

There are endless of those, Amanda Platell for instance, who I think should do the dignified thing and fade graciously away, taking their inane, unsupported, bigoted, self-righteous tripe with them.

I can cope with them sounding like the idiots they are, but it worries me a little when I see someone I like who's doing something interesting who then says something totally idiotic and somehow that fragment of idiocy remains in the final cut. I am talking about Charley Boorman describing Iran as 'slightly segregated' for women and observing that it would 'definitely be better to be a man' in Iran.

I am no expert on Iran, I haven't travelled there or studied it in depth but I've watched a couple of documentaries and read and re-read Persepolis until it practically fell apart in my hands. So, nothing profound but, surely, I feel, enough to be furious at this understatement, which didn't sound particularly ironic.

I had really been enjoying watching Charley until that point, at which it struck me that a lot of people actually need to travel to be able to see further than the ends of their noses and even then they seem to lack the imagination or the honesty to see things for what they are.

It reminded me of a the crumb of eavesdropping I'd picked up when sitting at a table with my friend, her sister, their partners and another friend. This is about the other friend, who I'll call NF. That doesn't stand for National Front, but judging from what she was saying that may turn out to be entirely appropriate.

The bit I caught was her loudly pronouncing that she doesn't care about climate change or her carbon footprint or the environment in general and furthermore, neither does anyone else. I didn't ask her who she's including in 'anyone else' because it sure as anything doesn't include me, probably people whose homes have been flooded in the UK in the past couple of years, probably also millions of people living in vulnerable regions all over the world in greater poverty than I have ever experienced. After all, they're the ones who take the brunt.

She didn't care about the extra runway at Heathrow, which segued into a rant about people who receive state benefits, and how she'd be better off if she were to leave work and sign on. I seriously doubt that she'd be better off and in fact would probably get a shock if she were to do so, but this indicated that she can imagine the world beyond her own being, but didn't want to. It seemed to be in direct contrast with Charley Boorman who wanted not only to imagine the world beyond himself but see it and be in it, but then faced with expanded and fascinating borders, offered a benign and facile description of what he was seeing.

He wanted to but couldn't, she could but didn't want to.

Of course it takes major effort to change and compassion to understand the perspective of someone else as well as your own but I don't see that as an acceptable reason not to try. Even without posing this specific question I can be sure that this is how my mum feels and my best friends too. What surprised me about NF is that she's the friend of someone I hold in high esteem and I struggle to understand how that difference can be bridged.

But that's none of my business. The net result is to remind me to pursue compassion and kindness in my own life, because not only must they exist in their own right but they have to counter the accidental and deliberate myopia of others.

Love me, love me, say that you love me. Fool me, fool me, go on and fool me.

On a dark, dark, night there was a dark, dark forum and in the dark, dark forum was a dark, dark thread and in the dark, dark thread someone had written that there is no such thing as too much time online.

It was not a bad post – it was essentially about easing up on oneself about something which may, actually, be productive.

In essence I support this idea: the ‘whole lotta loafin’’ to do anything properly. I’d encourage people to let themselves off the hook and just faff around a bit. Life is short, but if it’s too full then it’s the quiet moments that will be lost.

I began writing a reply to that effect, but then I decided to stop. I cancelled the reply.
I realised I disagreed.

I disagreed because spending too much time on a forum is not loafing. It’s not the equivalent of sitting reading because it’s interactive, and it feeds on itself. The poster feeds other users and they feed the original poster. It’s easy to get carried away and live on chatrooms and forums.

That’s not what I call life, though. It rarely extends beyond the screen and rarely, if ever, involves other members of the household. The effect is of someone being there but not present. It’s like having a junkie in the house (without the drug-taking artefacts). It’s pretty spooky.

So why did I have this sycophantic urge to write a supportive post to something about which I fundamentally disagree?

It’s not an isolated case, either. I generally lack the courage to speak up when I disagree or if I have to openly disagree, I try to make it sound like agreement.

Well, I blame my parents. Actually, that’s not true, I blame myself. I blame myself for wanting to be all things to all people despite knowing that that just isn’t possible, always hoping that I’ll stumble into a kindred spirit somewhere.

So for all my realisation that I was doing again what I’ve done before, the original poster is further along the path to truth (or whatever?) than me, simply by stating what he or she wants to do for his or herself, instead of insisting that everyone else is right.

Faced with a challenge, time and again, I crumble and accept someone else’s version of events that happened before my eyes.

That has to stop.