FRANKLY SPEAKING

I’m out on the terrace writing this – the snug is dark and I spend too much time in there anyway.  Now we’ve reached the solstice and we’re told we must expect a very hot summer – let’s hope it ripens the tomatoes!  I’m glad there’s a light breeze out here.  It’s time for a break although holidays aren’t possible for us these days and, of course, there are restrictions still in place for everyone.  We hope to manage a visit or two up-country if Leaf and the car can make it!  Who knows.  In the meantime …

I’ve written about the effect the lockdown has had on Leaf and me by extension, so it’s time to go inward and start looking the future full in the face.  For Leaf I think this is impossible, for me, not so.  The prospect is almost unbearably bleak.  I know, I know, loads of others have it just as bad or far worse, but knowing that is never adequate consolation.  The idea that Leaf has to cope with slowly losing his mind and his faculties and I have to care for/nurse him until he dies, which could take at least another ten years, fills me, and probably him, with dread. What is the point of our lives now?

Day in, day out trying to get pleasure and meaning out of the small stuff and, to a degree succeeding, but only for a short time with me wringing as much consolation as possible out of our now restricted social life.  The pointlessness of it all can rear its ugly head.  

What is old age without children and grandchildren? Most of those friends and family closely involved with their future generations would probably tell us they provide good reasons to live and understandably so.  Naturally, I’m aware there are those who may be out of contact with their nearest relatives and those who simply don’t have any.  Some are couples, some single, each with his or her life to orchestrate, be that through creative pursuits, sports, hobbies, social lives and so on.

Elderly people in good health and particularly those with money have the means to make their old age fun and interesting.  We had envisaged just such a future, albeit with not much money.  Those who find themselves in a similar trap as us, must wonder, as I do, how we will bear the painful monotony for however long we must mark time to death.

Well, this is simply not tenable, for me at least.  I have to have purpose in order to survive.  Although I’m no intellectual, I’ve always been intellectually inclined and this has manifested itself in my reading preferences and, to an extent, in my writing which, more often than not, has involved research.

I’ve written all my life, from diaries to poetry, to critiques and presentations (as part of my job in the theatre and TV business).  Followed by Part One of my autobiography, then as a correspondent to two English language papers in France and several years as a weekly blogger for Anglo-info.  Part Two of my autobiog and now DOODAH.  Writing is my saviour but my blogging hands have to be tied.  Unless I want to risk losing readers, I must hold back. I’m very aware that my ideas are, to many but luckily not all, extreme. 

Here we are in the midst of the biggest global crisis the majority of us in the West have ever experienced.  And, in an ironic and somewhat disturbing way, my over-riding curiosity to understand what is going on is preventing me from sinking into an abyss of self-pity.  I find myself reading the most complex, diverse and macabre blockbuster ‘novel’ I’ve ever come across.  Definitely not my usual choice of literature!  However, it has drawn me into an undercurrent of intrique and horror that appears to be all too real.

As a predominantly non-fiction reader, I have, over the years, tackled some chunky tomes on politics – not the parliamentary type, more the global machinations of the military, the CIA, big corporations and the plutocrats. ­­­­Those who are pulling the strings.  I am aware there are other puppet masters, but the above are enough to be going on with!  So, having said this, I’m hardly likely to pull back and announce what I’ve learned to be a cluster of conspiracy theories.  Would that they were, I would be delighted to be proven misinformed.  Trouble is, for those armed only with mainstream media information, attempting to disprove that we’re being drawn into an age of ‘plutocratic technocracy’ is almost impossible.  If only the accessible ‘news’ sources would, or could, break free from their funding bonds and tell us all what lies behind the lies.  

Where is all this leading?  With DOODAH on hold, I shall continue to pop thought-provoking items up on OTHERWISE whenever I think they will have something useful to add to the ‘discussion’. 

As one result of the isolation that’s been imposed upon us and separated us, we find ourselves in three main camps.  Those who follow the official mainstream narrative, those who are suspicious of its accuracy and aware some things simply don’t add up and those of us who are joining forces with the thousands of independent journalists who are reporting, in resounding unison, what they’ve learned from their extremely thorough research and are campaigning for freedom.

They used to say we should avoid discussing, politics, religion and sex.  Nowadays, we could add vaccines, geoengineering and EMR (and masks!) just the subjects, I believe we, the people, should be passionately concerned about.  Any one of these can, and often do, arouse extraordinary reactions, from horrible accusations to scorn to denial.  After all, deadly diseases have been conquered with no side effects, chemtrails are simply contrails not aerial spraying and electro-magnetic radiation concerns are scare-mongering (as for masks – least said!) Perhaps other ideas of truth are too upsetting to contemplate, let alone investigate.  So a nasty-tasting stalemate will divide us until one or other view is unequivocably proven.  The truth is out there, if we wish to look.  Very few highly dubious activities or policies remain hidden for long.  There are, thank goodness, whistleblowers and joiner-uppers of dots! 

So I will continue my investigations and maintain an element of forbearance by posting on OTHERWISE links to items that have something to say to us all, whether we care to look or not, whether we care to agree or not.  If some are offended, then that’s their problem but it’s no bad idea to bear in mind that there are monstrously offensive things going on in our world and that denial and burying our heads will not bring about change or save us from what could be a very grisly future.  My popularity matters not a jot up against the agenda that is visibly (for those who are reading the writing on the wall) being played out.

We have the power to turn things around and if I, in my tiny way, can help increase the numbers of those fighting for the freedom to decide our own futures, then I will have found meaning and purpose to what remains of my life.  As for Leaf, he too is keen to watch videos, listen to podcasts or to me reading articles from the alternative media and, very often, the old rebel that he once was pops out to add his valuable opinion.  We are two peas in that pod.