Recursive Words

I simplified the front page of the blog this evening – returning it to it’s old-school roots. It’s not a magazine, newspaper, or media outlet – it’s a personal journal, filled with the almost daily, forgettable thoughts of a fairly ordinary guy struggling with pretty much the same idiocy that everybody else struggles with.

Yes, I know I filter an awful lot – but then who really wants to know everything?

It’s probably pretty good that we all have filters (well… all except my middle daughter, who seems to have a pretty direct connection with her thoughts and her mouth). If we had no filters there would be no such thing as quiet disapproval, yearning, or liking from afar – which make up much of what it is to be “English” – or to be me, quite frankly.

I am so english at times. An old friend from America once burst out laughing when I did something and said “whoops-a-daisy”. She thought it was just a line from a movie, and then instantly saw me through Hugh Grant tinted spectacles.

Nope. All those tropes from Richard Curtis movies are true. All of them. We worry about everything – particularly what other people think of us, and what to say in a given situation. We root for the anti-heroes – the ordinary folk. We don’t aspire to be something greater; we invariable aspire for no more than to make it to tomorrow without causing too much harm, and to arrive in one piece. We choose the quiet path, and hope to be left alone.

Every time I set forth across the popular social networks, I’m immediately struck by the young people of a certain country who compete in comments to be the funniest person in the room – almost invariably at the expense of the original poster, a minority, or just “anybody not like them”. It’s infuriating.

I’ve withdrawn almost entirely from the “social internet” in recent months and years. It’s almost like I don’t know it any more – even though I helped build some of the early parts of it. It has evolved, and enabled the proliferations of a culture that I really don’t like spending time anywhere near.

I’ve never forgotten Barack Obama’s thoughts while being interviewed at a youth conference several years ago;

I get a sense among certain young people on social media that the way of making change is to be as judgemental as possible about other people.

If I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or used the wrong verb, then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself because ‘Man did you see how woke I was? I called you out!’

If all you’re doing is casting stones, you are probably not going to get that far.

This idea of purity, and you’re never compromised, and you’re always politically woke and all that stuff, you should get over that quickly.

The world is messy, there are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws. People who you are fighting may love their kids and share certain things with you.

The truth is, on the internet everything is simplified, but when you meet people face to face, it turns out it is complicated. It is harder to be as obnoxious and cruel in person as people can be anonymously on the internet.

Anyway.

I didn’t mean to start sliding down that particular slippery slope.

It’s funny, isn’t it – you start out with the intention of emptying your head a little, and before you know it, you’re dredging up speeches. Dangerously close to mansplaining.

I can’t stand mansplaining. I’ve even become averse to writing “you” rather than “I” while writing blog posts. “You” makes presumptions – “I” typically invites disclosure.

I wonder if it’s too late to drink coffee at 10:30pm?