Monday 12 October 2015

Something misunderstood

I woke up before dawn this morning and started listening to the radio. Exacerbated through lack of sleep, my worries about what is happening in the Middle East which is creeping ever closer to Europe are getting very troubling, especially as Russia becomes more involved and more isolated.

So I turned to your posts for solace, but even Cro's biscuit recipe couldn't sooth me. Yael's grandson's attempt at beating the Chinese at their own game - actually, someone else's game - didn't help, and by the time I got to Rachel's post I was ready for the verbal beating which she handed out to all of us before she went to work.

Years ago when I first started writing this shit, I had worked out that the blogosphere is - in the main - populated by the over 50s who use it in a vain attempt to temporarily escape the horrors of the world, and so we all come away with the impression that everyone else's lives are peaceful, creative and fulfilling compared to our own.

The ups and downs in the blogosphere usually involve factors such as whether or not your cake has risen, but occasionally someone will snap and gabble out worries and vitriol as if talking to their imaginary therapist, and the rest of us huddle together and coo gently to the troubled soul until they shut the fuck up and get on with the baking.

Being a Sunday, last night's radio had a distinctly religious feel to it, but being multi-cultural Britain, the gods in question are rarely mentioned by name.

An Anglican priest said the last prayers of the day, and he said something which actually made me wake up and think a little before going to bed.

"Fear is perverted Love".

I think that notion has some milage in it, especially if you believe that aggression is the direct result of fear.

23 comments:

  1. Surely 'fear' is the result of some perception of danger; could perverted love also be a perception of danger? I'll need to think about it.

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  2. Ditto Cro.
    I agree Tom the situation draws ever nearer to Europe. One thing that worries me is that in all of this we only know what 'they' choose to tell us.

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  3. Good. I'm glad you're both thinking about it.

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    1. Oh, and I think that the fear he was talking about was emotional/social/spiritual, rather than the basic physical sort.

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  4. I wish i could listen sometimes to that radio station.

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  5. The aggression we see in the Middle East, Afghanistan and North Africa, might as well say all wars going on at the moment, is a result of greed and hate but mostly greed. Fear will fuel it as it goes. Yesterday I found the hourly news updates extremely depressing with the first three items being (1) the bomb in Ankara at a peace rally (2) roadside bombs again in Afghanistan planted by the Taliban and (3) Syria. Later a fourth was added of violence in Israel and Palestine and a crater where a Palestinian house had once been.

    I have yet to be able to work out "fear is perverted love" and I am nowhere near understanding it.

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    1. I think it is something to do with the duality of the material world. I had a grasp last night, but now I have lost it - mainly because I am so fucking angry with my web provider, who keeps disconnecting me from the internet.

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  6. "the rest of us huddle together and coo gently to the troubled soul until they shut the fuck up and get on with the baking"

    I loved this paragraph! Oh, Tom, I adore your dry, cynical sense of humor. Even when you're writing about depressing topics you still manage to make me laugh.

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  7. Jennifer, I too noticed this phrase and kinda liked it.
    He does write well when he's not thinking too much

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    1. How could I not be thinking too much with a topic that ends in this way? Now I don't understand. Everyone - as you are so fond of saying - is a critic.Also, in case you hadn't noticed, I am still here. Hello!

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    2. And i hope here, you will remain x

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  8. I wonder if you are right about bloggers. I feel that we tends to find people who are the same as ourselves in the blogosphere, just like we do in real life. . It was astonishing how many pregnant women there were in our area when I was pregnant. And interesting that I never see them now.

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    1. Like pirates, bloggers always talks in the present tense too. Yes, I think you maybe right though - I am sure there are hundreds - thousands - of other blogs out there which I have not interest in because I am not pregnant or whatever. When I first started, I attracted interior designers, and I have no explanation for that at all.

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    2. "we tend to find people who are the same as ourselves" oh my God.

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    3. Indeed. You know those ancient Tibetan parades where all of the monks and holy men are subjected to ridicule and abuse by an entranced monk who takes on the persona of some sort of chaotic devil? I have come to appreciate your role in bloggy world in the same light.

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    4. And I expect you scratch your head and think to yourself "how does she do it?". Bloggy world wouldn't be the same without me.

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    5. No, but it would carry on without either of us. We are not indispensable.

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  9. "Fear is perverted Love".
    Depends a lot on circumstances I think, though at times it can make you run fast!

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    1. Not your sort of perverted love, Heron. I can't run fast enough for that sort of thing.

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  10. At times you are not only rude but totally ignorant Tom and your comment says a lot about you!

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    1. What a short and selective memory you have. You may remember that during the race we had to block each other, you kept proudly insisting that you blocked me first (nay nya nya nya nya!), but then it became clear that Google was not allowing the blocking of anyone, unless it is by them.

      Your way of going about things seems to be that you are perfectly civil up to a certain point, but then you go and blow it by being utterly obnoxious, offensive and downright personal. You seem to do this with everyone.

      I decided - and told you at the time - that if I could not get rid of you, then I would have some fun with you in order to alleviate the boredom.

      If you don't like it, then you know you can just disappear, don't you?

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