Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london
Everyone is chucking in their 10 pence worth trying to explain what happened in the U.S elections whilst trying to predict what it will now lead to so I’m not going to add to that fresh pile of shite just yet but after a week of despair ridden photographs and frankly depressing world events I will leave you with this positive (ish) perspective…
and this too shall pass..
we are in the midst of autumn here in England and there is nothing like the seasonal change to remind you that our world is made up of a constant cycle of death and re-birth. The leaves change colour because they are having the very lifeblood sucked out of them for the self-preservation of the tree that gave birth to them. And it is in these final moments of their existence they never looked more beautiful.
Everything is in flux and fleeting. A momentary burst of life followed by death. And then it begins again. In another form. In another time. In another universe. They think now that there are universes being being born all the time (article here) so in the scheme of things does it really matter that a bigoted buffoon is going to have his 5 minutes in this one? The good news is that as Obama’s stint proved, the president doesn’t really have any genuine power. America is run buy the senate and congress who are owned corporations and they will continue to do as they please regardless of who is in the hot seat.
The Earth is a blip, the human race is a blip and Trump is a blip on a blip on a blip. This is supposed to make you feel better by the way. Its not? Feeling worse? Ok. Soz. I always find zooming out to the universal scale is somehow soothing but its not for everyone. It does create a sense of insignificance but I see that as a positive and much needed in these ego driven times.
Maybe this might help. Alan Moore, the novelist said:
“The world is no more than an aggregate of your ideas about the world, of your ideas about yourselves. It is the vast mirage, baroque, and intricate, that you are building as a shelter from the overwhelming fractal chaos of the universe. ”
Ok maybe that isn’t quite as jolly as it sounded initially but I think ultimately what he is saying is that we get to choose what we think about, what we dwell on. And it is whatever we focus on is what feeds and grows. Trump grew because we looked at him & fed him. The more we paid attention to him the more powerful he became. Every meme, every article, every parody just fuelled the beast and made him stronger.
As the ancient chinese proverb says, if a Trump falls in the woods spouting a load of hateful bullshit and no-one hears it, does he actually make a sound?
We must understand that if we constantly shine a light on the negative aspects of society, drive in large by what is relentlessly pushed in our faces by the media then that is what will grow. Its tough not to think about the horrors of the world I know, especially when things seem hopeless and the forces of darkness seem to have taken over but our realities can be shaped. It is in our control. You have the power to decide what occupies your thoughts, even if you think maybe you don’t.
I guess I am saying all this to myself as much to you as am trying to stay away from staring into the abyss. And I am not advocating blind chirpy optimism in the face of hellishness. This is not about saying everything is fine and putting a fake smile on and pretending. This is about taking control. About shaping the world we live in and ourselves.
I read that our brains are intrinsically lazy so if you have a much repeated thought the neurons will literally grow closer together and reduce the size of the synapse so that the neurotransmitters have less of a journey. What you think about actually changes the physical structure of your brain. So the more you think about something the more your brain will want to think it simply because the thought has less far to travel. This is why our repetitive thought patterns become so entrenched. So if you can alter the shape of your brain just with thoughts then surely you can shape the world around you in the same way….just a thought.