Meditations on the Abyss

The title of this blog really should be "The Rut/Grove Syndrome" as life is somewhat like a record. Either you are stuck in a rut and your record is somewhat scratched or you are in a groove. Of course not all lives are pressed on 180 gram vinyl and not all our labels are as glamourous as Island, EMI or Polydor but may be Harvest Heritage, Fame or even K-Tel.

No matter.

The thing about life is it's inconsitancies, just like the pops, whistles and occassional bits of fluff that inhabit our particular notch in the record of life.

For example when you get a letter worded so that it's intills a sense of doom on a Friday at 5:30pm when the office you need to contact to sort the mess out closed at 4:30pm and doen't open again until Monday morning at 9:30am. It kind of puts a bit of a downer on the rest of the weekend. However in my case the error is theirs not mine as I have evidence to back up the fact that I have indeed been complying with the request referred to in the letter. In fact not only have I been comlying I have done more - infact I have paid earlier then requested and more than was required on two occassions. Now they tell me that according to their records I havn't paid a bean - hah!!! Stuff them - their mistake - they can wait. So I decided not to let it ruin my weekend. So far, so good.

Having watched another four episodes of Star Trek Voyager season 4 (one of the better seasons) I empathise with those people who feel a sense of utter lonliness and detachment from the rest of humanity - however I have used that detachment to my advantage to see the world and the things going on in it much more clearly than most other people - I would hesitate to label them but it seems to me that some people are more "mundane" than others - no finger pointing here at any one specific individual. How others choose to lead their lives is of no concern to myself except when their sphere of influcens intersects my own. I suppose I have never been able to form particularly lasting bonds - I guess that everyone lives in their own unique world where they have a different perspective on how they see things working and what they choose to have influence them.

"To live on as we have [immortal] is to leave behind joy, and love, and companionship, because we know it to be transitory, of the moment. We know it will turn to ash. Only those, whose lives are brief can imagine that love .. is eternal. .. You should embrace that remarkable illusion. It may be the greatest gift your race has ever received." - Lorien to Ivanova, "Into the Fire", Babylon 5

So are you in a groove or a rut?

Well there are no online quizzes to help you decide that - what colour you are based on a selection of questions some of which don't apply or have your true answer doesn't quite cut the mustard. Somehow it feels all a bit like self-psichiatry. As we view ourselfs in a way no other can do our perceptions of ourselfs are likewise biased even if we stand there yelling at someone else that in factr the opposite is true. No one person can view themselves through the eyes of another and sometimes our foibles and odd habits are as unusual to someone else as dressing up as a chicken and wandering round shopping precincs squaking for no apparent reason - you just gotta hope that they're getting paid good money for making an idiot of themselves in public.

The philosposhy must be each to his own talemts and co-operation can be obtained through mutual activities and common goals.

Although some of those goals are less than worthy. If you get a populace to give their freedoms away freely, however tit is done, returning them is the last thing on your leader's mind.

It is a sad state of affairs when people are sent into situations not of their own making and asked to clean up their own leaders mess and then to die for nothing. To see the face of a mother who has just realised her son died for NOTHING. To ask the poor and jobles to help defend a country when the powers in charge would not even entertain the idea of enlisting their son in the military.

Humanity is a doomed race only becasue at the end of the day the "inner ape" will eentually take over and violence will ensue. I suppose you are expecting someone to do something about this situation. Tough. Live with it. That's Life. You're a human being. Accept it. You are no more capable of understanding than a sparrow would be at underestanding Arisdtotle if he leactured at you until he fell of the branch.. There are things that human beings just do not understand.

Ahh - I hear you cry, but science.... or but religion.... or but ......

But nothing.Face it. The unlovely truth is that we have no more progressed than have Crocodiles. And Crocodiles have been around a lot longer than we have. Latest estimates put the origin iof our soecies at about 4 million years old. Dinosaurs lived for 65 million years and look what happened to them. Oh for sure the planet was hit by a rather large asteroid and their brains wer no more biger than a grapefruit but still enough to make you think what you would do if someone...oh I don't know....let's say invaded your country for a spurious, even made up excuse. What would you do? Your shopping malls are being bombed, houses destroyed, innocent groups being infiltrated by the intelligence community. Your book group, for example, the one you go to every week. It might no be books, it might be the gym, or the stamp club or any other ordinary activity - suddenly has become sinister, suspicious.

Every day your governemnt sifts through every work spoken on mobile communications, spies on you, photographs your car numberplate. They need to know when you've gon to the toilet and they can see a cigarette packet from five miles out in space.

Ever wonder why? Ever stop to think where to draw the line? Do you even know where that line is and even if it's there does anyone care that it's being crossed almost daily by the people you entrusted to run the country on your behalf. You pay their wages, surely you should have some say in the decision making process?

Oh but no, becasue you've vested them with power and they only return it in token kind by manipulation, devious and covert organisations.

Ahh but you might say that all of that is for your own benefit, so is a poke in the eye with a sharp stick - at least to sokme - maybe becasue you disagree with them or hold aternative views or...or....

Eventually they will win becasue you have already been subverted but don't realise it - or you think you do - either way you're now in a state of paranoia so complete they could tell you your next door neighbour is a terrorist or paedophile or something else and you believe it - hook, line, sinker, riverbank and fisherman.

And if you fight against it?

"It is a magnificent idea. A daring, and splendid idea. In doing so you will see things no human has seen before. It will be fun. Assuming you are not vaporised, dissected, or otherwise killed in an assortment of supremely horrible and painful ways. Exciting, isn't it?" - Draal to Sheridan, "Voices of Authority", Babylon 5

Rut or Groove - you decide, but do it quickly as you may not live to regret your decision.