Living

From different years... all in the past ten at least...

Something strange happened to me today - this morning I was reading a post about Irish Women Writers and then it struck me that I suddenly felt this upwelling of hope once more. It has happened really quickly. It started last night sort of. When I did the last post about suffering and acknowledged how I had come through the fire which had been brought on by an email from Anthony. I realised how I had cut myself off from feeling anything, even as recovered from my wounds through suffering - there is literally no other way to heal than to suffer. Suffer and time. And then I realised how relieved I felt I had done it. To stand in the truth. To no longer be smothered by the horrendous situation I had found myself in. To be able to say I am not carrying this burden any more.

Than today, I realised that the last three months - since the New Year - has been so fucking hard. Whether it was the last throes of the divorce process, or the horrendous dire lack of leadership, or the prospect of nuclear war hanging over us, or the cost of living crisis... whatever it was it was shite. And now - now we have entered spring and we are past the madness. And speaking of leadership...

What exactly do they teach in those Harvards and Yales - where government heads and political hopefuls are sent to hone their leadership skills?

It is clear that whatever they teach it is not working. Look at the state of the world. Do they teach them to hold prestigious ego boosting summits? Do they teach them to network with tyrants? Do they teach them how to alienate the people they are supposed to be helping and working with? (The deplorables?) Do they teach them how to tweet? Do they teach them how to continue to believe that they live on an infinite planet? To make laws and rules which benefit millionaires and billionaires? Do they teach them how to sleep at night when whatever is left of their conscience bothers them? If they teach them how to create a legacy for those who need it the most and to help preserve public spaces and share resources, it is really not evident. 

It is then left to the communities and the little people to fill in those cracks while they sit in their private jets and clap each other on their backs all the while churning out meaningless papers and holding stop gap meetings which amount to nothing. Do studies and surveys when it is clear what has to be done. It is truly, truly baffling. 

So to those places which churn out Masters in Administration or Governnace or whatever it is they churn out - the uselessness of it all - like economics departments in 98% of universities... university education in this respect has failed us. Instead of making the world a better place, it is clear that it has either not helped at all or accelerated the mess we are in. I don't even know what to say. In any case who are the people who teach on these programmes? Toxic failed maniacs like Kissinger or the Clintons, or the fig leaf minorities like the Obamas... who are these people? The University has no Degrees. 

I know this is the kind of fighting talk that has gotten me ostracised and excluded, but I do not care. The evidence is all around us. Is the world a safer, better place for the vast majority of the people who live in it? No. No it is not. And for the people who USED to be ok, it is decidedly much more precarious and dangerous.

So let that be an end to the rant for today. It is a topic I do come back to from time to time though.

But look at the amazing life I have led. It has been a patchwork of beautiful things. Because I made sure it was a patchwork of beautiful things.

So really, say 15% of my life could have gone better and of that 15% I was only responsible for about 10% of it being shite because the rest of it was all someone else's fault. Literally. I don't usually do blame, in fact I quite like taking responsibility for bad things even if they aren't my fault, but yes, I would say on 10% of that 15%  so what is 10% of 15%? that's 1.5% of the crap in my life has been shite because of me. I think mathematically those are pretty good figures. 

There are other parts of my life which are the rough and tumble of making mistakes based on my personality - but by and large, yeah. I am in the process of sorting it out. Being someone who can't keep my mouth shut is an issue but I am getting pretty good at that. And also I have recognised the paranoid, angry streak which is so amply demonstrated by Pa and Ma and I am trying to get to grips with that. The reason I want to sort that is is because I really don't want to end up being an aggressive nasty person when I grow up.

It seems strange to be here, 10 years since I began this journey and feel like I have pretty much understood quite a lot of things. I have changed my opinion on SOME things, and I have understood that more work has to be done. I also feel like this streak of horror in me is almost one of the last things I am able to sort out, to control on my own.