I like this post because it is thoughtful and well expressed. Getting old leaves one very aware of one’s errors which as you say can lead towards self knowledge so that change will, of necessity, take place. Regret is therefore a learning opportunity for me but to suffer from hindsight is not useful. I think to be informed by mistakes is as good as it gets. Whilst it is not always the case that I won’t repeat a particular error, one hopes that one is learning! So, the option of regret, and how seriously to take oneself/one’s past thoughts or actions, is useful.
Heron
Karma: 84
Beautifully expressed. It is always reassuring to read stuff which agrees with one’s understanding! My thoughts frequently veer between, ‘I need to say something or watch while they fall deeper into that particular abyss,’ and ‘Say nothing. Trust. They will work this stuff out.’ This post allows for pause, and for me to focus more on what humility looks like.
Based on this one comment I wonder whether you found a way to get round the uncomfortable public speaking thing. Whatever the case, your writing is refreshing, and interesting to read!
Your detailed recall of the stages of thought, feelings and actions you observed in yourself is clearly recounted here. It seems that you were able to soothe yourself through focusing on being in the moment. The ability to detach from /notice what’s going on around you and to choose ‘red car, red car...’ reminds me of my own attempts to focus on a basic meditation ‘rising’ and ‘falling’ of breaths, which is so challenging! It sounds like even recognising changes, for example to your visual acuity, you’re still able to exist in the present moment—that relates, I think, to a meditative state, which engenders calm. Thanks for sharing your insights.
Any monetisation could add to the funds of an agreed /a couple of agreed just causes. This, as opposed to individual acquisition of Good Heart Tokens, seems Goodest to me:)
Thanks for reminding me of my small concern: time-wasting, specifically doom-scrolling on Twitter. I will listen to the book!
Kindness is my favourite attribute. This is good to read!
A great read, some wise and compassionate stuff: reaching such insights will have taken time. Comments will, no doubt, be interesting too! Thanks.
The Google sheet CDP is really interesting: particularly keen to see the development of the sleep tab—sleep records/routines for the whole family could be fascinating over time.
This sounds well thought out, useful teaching for your children. Most importantly, through observing your daughter’s behaviour and attention, you could gauge how able Lily was to attend to/focus on traffic from both directions. The learner teaches you what’s going on; teaching is mutual learning. This post also brings the retrospective horror of walking to school (as a primary aged child 6/7yrs) when the walk, three miles each way, involved crossing a main road. I did not know, (up until I reached twenty years old) that most people saw differently to me. Buses, cars, blackboards, TVs all were very blurry, I figured it was ‘normal.’ Turns out I was always extremely myopic (-10 currently) So, hopefully all children have great eye testing and great eyesight once they’re able to understand the elements of street crossing!
Sure it is essential to differentiate between those who have been tested for COVID and that self-reporting which, in the absence of a test, is another information source. To repeat my experience of becoming ill in the time of COVID 19: I couldn’t get a test in July 2020; I don’t know whether it was COVID-19 that hit me like a speeding train. I still have cognitive difficulties, severe fatigue, continuous headaches, lack of taste and smell, and other new things which have gone wrong physically. I’m waiting for the latest results of brain/spine MRI; I’m without a diagnosis. My reading suggests M.E., encephalitis, Long COVID and possibly lots of things—continued testing thus far provides no answer. I’ve also learned about FND and can see how these symptoms could, in the absence of an actual biomarker, be put under that umbrella. To have one’s symptoms acknowledged matters. Losing one’s fundamental abilities to function is so devastating; reading that such symptom clusters are deemed psychosomatic seems, to the afflicted, unhelpful.
The film of this event is great too: ‘Bogowie’ director Łukasz Palkowski.
This is great! To have posts so clearly read is helpful, so accessible to those of us for whom the auditory modality is stronger. Maybe specific posts, because of high interest/importance/significance/ could be read by a human, not necessarily the author, just because that adds interest.
I was responding to an assertion that the UK had done well in dealing with COVID because of the speed of vaccination roll out. The head of the UK’s medicines regulator said that the authorisation for the COVID vaccine was actually permitted under EU law. I believe him.
It is the case that the UK has a very high rate of infection and deaths compared to other similar European countries. Calls for proven, effective mitigations (repeated by Independent Sage) eg mask-wearing, providing safe ventilation in schools and workplaces, and having a Test, Track and Trace system fit for purpose, have been ignored in the UK.
I do not know about Germany’s mitigations in any detail. I am aware of a much lower death and infection rate there (and in France, Italy and Spain) compared to the UK.
I saw this in 2020:
Germany improves ventilation to chase away Covid—BBC Newshttps://www.bbc.co.uk › news › world-europe-54599593
In spite of one hearing that there are supply shortages everywhere, the shelves are filled with goods and there are no closed petrol stations in the rest of Europe. The UK really is doing worse, it’s as though Brexit has been a supreme act of self-harm.
Lying about driving the length of the country and having days out when you allege you thought you had COVID..… Cummings was involved in making it illegal to move around the UK during a lockdown; this is intentional, and not trivial. Producing multiple stories about one’s actions and baldly stating those lies again from the PM’s garden to a TV crew, to the nation is inexcusable.
When people involved in government lie on TV and in the newspapers, and evidence appears so the liar changes their story, one learns a good deal from that person’s actions.
In a position of power the liar, who has not been challenged by the journalists and is safe within the Tory enclave, may lie ‘for complex reasons involving multiple parts.’
Cummings like any self-serving Tory ( some of whom have been given millions, others billions throughout the pandemic) remains untrustworthy. Even though he went to a lot of trouble to muddy the waters the fact remains, his words cannot be trusted.
Cummings says there were lies told and ‘dirty tricks’ used by Leave and Remain during the referendum. There is evidence of illegal activity and multitudinous untruths told by the Leave Campaigners, where is any evidence of Remain resorting to this?
Being given multiple platforms and outlets to speak truthfully and to admit he broke Lockdown rules, Cummings is a man who chose to stretch and alter his lying strategy. If caught out he has repeated the lying just changed the details. Cumming’s behaviour is unconscionable.
I like the elements of both ‘3. Country Fingers’ and ’39. Housing Hill,′ They sound cool; like they’d work well by allowing us to meet our biophilic needs, and optimise for separate spaces plus a communal hub. Thanks for sharing this delightfully opinionated read; ideas on how to build housing and encourage healthy communities seems vital.
Being first to roll out vaccines is not enough, other European countries have managed to keep more people alive, and created safe environments—mitigations such as masks and clean air being the norm. Covid cases yesterday 13th October, 2021.
France: 1,120 Spain: 1,277 Italy: 1,561 Germany: 4,872
UK: 40,224
Thanks. Good point.
Cummings and honesty...I have a real problem with this idea; Cummings presents as the archetypal, self-serving liar. The repetition of denial regarding one’s words or behaviour, with frequent changes in the actual substance of that denial, does not make it true. Is Cumming’s ability to obfuscate so exceptional?
I remain a Remainer (never thought Brexit a good idea, its popularity was largely dependent on misinformation and xenophobic rallying, combined with disadvantaged, ignored swathes of the least advantaged drawing attention to their plight by flexing a weakened muscle).
Here in Northern Ireland one may still watch how the unfinished business of Brexit, in terms of the NI Protocol, sold by Cummings & his Conservative friends, is working out. As in the rest of the UK, Brexit has been handled in such a way that there are serious shortages of workers (eg abattoir operators, careworkers, nurses, lorry drivers, fruit pickers etc the lists go on exacerbated by years of austerity and Tory rule) and goods; the decimation of freedom of movement means no more opportunities for ease of working/studying /research/expertise or collaboration with our EU neighbours, and there’s also the matter of excessive import and export paperwork which has resulted in businesses going to the wall. All of these problems are a direct result of Brexit: all economic research predicted the deterioration of economic well-being and industrial growth, and yet such prospects were ridiculed as ‘fear mongering’ by Tories, specifically Cummings in his role as advisor to Johnson et al.
When one considers Cumming’s own behaviour, in both words and actions, as he sold the UK public the myth of ‘Brexit benefits,’ there appear to be multiple irregularities.*
[*https://www.politico.eu/article/15-things-uk-vote-leave-promised-on-brexit-and-what-it-got/]
Nowhere more clearly can one see the truth of Cumming’s character than through his own behaviour, and the subsequent manipulation, and obfuscation, he employs to ensure he remains unaccountable.
In what has come to be known as ‘The Scandal of Barnard Castle,’ those things Cummings said he meant and did, have been reported in multiple different iterations by himself, and by his wife, ‘Spectator’ journalist and Commissioning Editor, Mary Wakefield.
Instrumental in formulating Lockdown Rules, Cummings broke them along with his wife and then proceeded, over a protracted period, to tell various stories about their actions and how they were ‘blameless.’
The UK media published an account of Cummings’ first version of events regarding possibly contracting COVID and travelling from London to the North East of England thereby having broken Lockdown Rules. Cumming’s wife then published a different account in ‘The Spectator;’ Cummings proceeded to hold a special press briefing providing yet another account at Downing Street’s Rose Garden; his wife recorded a different version for BBC Radio 4. Most recently Cummings said via Twitter that the real reason for his behaviour was that he felt he and his family were not safe in London. Cummings wriggled as he lied, as he repeatedly failed to admit that he had broken Lockdown rules.
To attempt clarity: Cummings broke the very rules he helped put in place when UK citizens could not leave home for anything other than work, no visiting dying relatives, in Care Homes or hospitals. The formats in which he brazenly lied with the support of Johnson, and through manipulating the media, is deeply concerning as the facts of his misinformation have not been conveyed to the public via mainstream media. There appears to be no holding government officials or ministers to account, the more they say something the more ‘true’ it is.**
Cummings has no interest in truth-telling. If one wilfully conjures stories in order to present one’s own actions and intentions, over time, in the best light, one is simply a charlatan. Cummings wants to be seen as rigorous, rational and insightful, cognisant of that which matters to humanity at this moment in history. He attaches himself to those capable of rigour while he is capable only of unseemly politicking.
Thank you for sharing your insights, and love of her poetry. Ignorant of her work I kept coming across her obituaries. Wiki provided an outline, you have provided a refreshing depth and clarity around her work for which I am grateful.
Glück, at a first glance, is generous with her thoughts
‘Honor the words that enter and attach to your brain.’
‘The unsaid, for me, exerts great power.’
‘Birth, not death, is the hard loss.’