When each day drearily unfolds exactly as the last day, unremittingly, never changing, the same lack of options, the self same lack of certainty of food, lack of warmth, lack of change of clothes, life is miserable. When you cannot afford to be with friends, or worse old friends shun you, because you are not able to keep up with their exploits, then life is deeply despondent. When you mooch around waiting for those endless minutes to pass, you see and watch from outside all those other people, people just like you but better off, able to have nice things to use, able to mix and buy stuff with or for each other, able to have friends and make plans together. Without it life is worthless, there is nothing to live for. For why? You never had their chances, maybe a stable home, progress to higher education, opportunity to prove you can do better the next person, someone to confirm that you are doing okay or any combination of some or all of the above if nothing more extreme.
The one missing ingredient above all else is, hope. With hope that makes tomorrow a possibility. Without hope life is not worth living. If life is not worth living any other options becomes attractive even addictive. To shoplift, steal, joyride or just wreck whatever. Gain some local pride or notoriety and join a gang to graffiti your presence in the world and intimidate those not of your group. Or surrender to terrorism, get swept up in a cult where you at last have recognition and cadre amongst your own kind. A chance to gain hope even though in a hopeless endgame!
Hope requires so little yet can surmount so much. A helping hand, even that is more than needed, just a chance to change some small aspect of tomorrow is a starting point. A point from when hope can at last flicker back into being and with care can be fanned into a strong desire. Yet we, all of us, that have, have to give so there can be hope. A sustainable hope that is not extinguished by the very next stumble. With hope we can save all those around us, living amongst, that have lost the will to live. We just need to get back to a fair and equitable life style where everyone of us can hope to succeed. Where success does not depend on your pocket, or your families wealth or connections but simply on your ability and willingness to try. Now that gives me hope
Showing posts with label self-image. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self-image. Show all posts
Tuesday, 28 April 2015
Sunday, 3 March 2013
Not Alone
Just one of those chance things in life, came across The Spirit Level and it has revealed an insight into society that I have been struggling with over all these posts.It has introduced a clarity of view as to where the problems lie. Not for me to paraphrase a carefully constructed argument, see for yourselves, but clearly the message it sets out is that the underlying root of all those problem we sense, fume against, feel impotent to do anything about, is, social inequality.
A couple of key thoughts perhaps to get you thinking along the right lines. We have long ago passed the point where any increase in wealth (you decide how you want to determine it) equates to a commensurate increase in security and health. Think, by way of comparison, of a third world person where a tin of clean water or a bowl of rice has immediate and large impact on their state of well-being. Next, our own personal insecurities are directly related to where we feel we are within the social order. Top dog struts proudly, whipping boy nervously peeks here there to see where the next put down is coming from. This social insecurity has been heightened by the breakdown in communities and knowing where and who you belong to. Then, the wider the gap between the haves and the havenots the more extreme are the symptoms that manifest themselves. It is almost counter intuitive, but low self-esteem, as a result of being low down in the pecking order, directly impacts on your personal well-being, likelihood to abuse, commit crime, the list goes on. Not the sole cause, not the only reason, but social deprivation, real or imagined, is a major driver.
At this point, poised to shout eureka, there are other minds out there all looking in roughly the same direction, I get a reality check. On past performance it takes fifty years from the first wave of enthusiasm for a new political understanding to work through up the layers of conservative rebuttal until it becomes the accepted norm when finally it can enter into the mainstream to become universally accepted and adopted. Fifty years!
What we all have to do is to use our own mastery of this new interconnected world to get the word out there. Spread as widely as possible. Take what you see and like and promulgate, contruct your own vision or borrow another's, it matters not. Just spread the word that we, us as a society, want a better place, a more equal place, a place where we are treated with the same respect we wish to give to others. It is just possible, together, we can foreshorten the fifty wait before something happens.
A couple of key thoughts perhaps to get you thinking along the right lines. We have long ago passed the point where any increase in wealth (you decide how you want to determine it) equates to a commensurate increase in security and health. Think, by way of comparison, of a third world person where a tin of clean water or a bowl of rice has immediate and large impact on their state of well-being. Next, our own personal insecurities are directly related to where we feel we are within the social order. Top dog struts proudly, whipping boy nervously peeks here there to see where the next put down is coming from. This social insecurity has been heightened by the breakdown in communities and knowing where and who you belong to. Then, the wider the gap between the haves and the havenots the more extreme are the symptoms that manifest themselves. It is almost counter intuitive, but low self-esteem, as a result of being low down in the pecking order, directly impacts on your personal well-being, likelihood to abuse, commit crime, the list goes on. Not the sole cause, not the only reason, but social deprivation, real or imagined, is a major driver.
At this point, poised to shout eureka, there are other minds out there all looking in roughly the same direction, I get a reality check. On past performance it takes fifty years from the first wave of enthusiasm for a new political understanding to work through up the layers of conservative rebuttal until it becomes the accepted norm when finally it can enter into the mainstream to become universally accepted and adopted. Fifty years!
What we all have to do is to use our own mastery of this new interconnected world to get the word out there. Spread as widely as possible. Take what you see and like and promulgate, contruct your own vision or borrow another's, it matters not. Just spread the word that we, us as a society, want a better place, a more equal place, a place where we are treated with the same respect we wish to give to others. It is just possible, together, we can foreshorten the fifty wait before something happens.
Saturday, 27 February 2010
Self Image
Yet another chorus calling for government controls! The adverts, leisurewear, music videos and playstation games are all too sexually extreme for our children and we need some morale-master to control, restrict and limit what our children can have access too. First things first, parents bring up their children, it is upto them to set the boundaries of what is or is not acceptable for their children. In our complex society they may have to have some dialogue with the schools but essentially the buck stops with them. It is a cop-out to say the Government must. The Government has no idea what is best for you, your community, its children and how you relate to it with your child.
The commercial world has gotten very clever in plucking our deep, sub-conscious, basic instincts and responses to sell its wares. It knows exactly what works and how to play it to get the maximum effect that suits its purpose, to sell. It is time we grew up, too stock of ourselves and managed these gut basic instincts more maturely and not just accept being manipulated by others.
For girls it has been about appearance, just look "good" and people will like you and want to be friends with you. Stop presenting yourself and your daughters on such a crude and simplistic ideological model. It is really not what they look like but how they respond that matters, respond to dialogue and respond to companionship. Yes first impression do matter, and a lot, but that is not the end of the story, only the start. So throw away lipstick, hair-do's and sensuous clothes and just present yourself well that others might think you have something (other than sex) to offer but only so you can begin to engage but not by aping some idealised sexual desire phantom. Really the answer is that simple, ladies stop presenting yourself as a sexual desire object and start to value yourself. Present what you have to offer as a person not an object. Then your daughters will pick up on your clues and follow suit. And never, never ever project your failed aspirations of sexual allure onto your daughter, she can do without that guilt trip. Chances are in your new asexual look the males around you won't pick up on your underlying sensuality, probability is that they will no matter what.
For the boys it is a similar story but from that other dynamic. The perception is that to be 'attractive' to women, you have to be to seen to display wealth images and be assertive so others defer to you. Simple, crude and basic but denies the real story. You actually have to present yourself as someone worth engaging with, with something to say and with a confidence to manoeuvre your way around this challenging society.
Conduct yourself from these mature perspectives and the commercial world will follow you, giving up on those previously so successful gut reactions.
We do have to grow up as a society and begin to deal maturely with all those fraught aspects of sexuality. It is not about sticking the plumbing bits together. It is not about the momentary high following on from an ejaculation or orgasms but about nurturing the companionship that follows in the slow after glow. It is about building a relationship that will survive and gather strength through life's lows.
We also have to stop treating teenagers as adults able to handle complex inter-sex relationships, they simply cant. Their minds have not matured and they don't have enough experience to cope with the challenges and they still haven't found how to manage their hormonal responses to sexual arousal. We, the adults in society, have to tell them square on to grow-up and ensure offers of guidance are not brushed aside as an irrelevance. We adults have to re-discover our confidence and not be over-whelmed by their exuberance.
With the surge of hormone that the teens brings on and the weirdness of frequent sexual response daily encountered, we as a society to have to think how we suggest they handle it. We need to face up to the problems of life and not try to hide, restrict or control them . Maybe we as a society have to start and talk openly without embarrassment of distraction, relief, or even masturbation as a way of gaining control over those so urgent teen physical responses until the emotional control over relationship evolves and matures.
Better that than surrender to some arbitrary morale judge with a limited agenda deining for each every varied one of us what we can or cannot see, at what times, in which places.
The commercial world has gotten very clever in plucking our deep, sub-conscious, basic instincts and responses to sell its wares. It knows exactly what works and how to play it to get the maximum effect that suits its purpose, to sell. It is time we grew up, too stock of ourselves and managed these gut basic instincts more maturely and not just accept being manipulated by others.
For girls it has been about appearance, just look "good" and people will like you and want to be friends with you. Stop presenting yourself and your daughters on such a crude and simplistic ideological model. It is really not what they look like but how they respond that matters, respond to dialogue and respond to companionship. Yes first impression do matter, and a lot, but that is not the end of the story, only the start. So throw away lipstick, hair-do's and sensuous clothes and just present yourself well that others might think you have something (other than sex) to offer but only so you can begin to engage but not by aping some idealised sexual desire phantom. Really the answer is that simple, ladies stop presenting yourself as a sexual desire object and start to value yourself. Present what you have to offer as a person not an object. Then your daughters will pick up on your clues and follow suit. And never, never ever project your failed aspirations of sexual allure onto your daughter, she can do without that guilt trip. Chances are in your new asexual look the males around you won't pick up on your underlying sensuality, probability is that they will no matter what.
For the boys it is a similar story but from that other dynamic. The perception is that to be 'attractive' to women, you have to be to seen to display wealth images and be assertive so others defer to you. Simple, crude and basic but denies the real story. You actually have to present yourself as someone worth engaging with, with something to say and with a confidence to manoeuvre your way around this challenging society.
Conduct yourself from these mature perspectives and the commercial world will follow you, giving up on those previously so successful gut reactions.
We do have to grow up as a society and begin to deal maturely with all those fraught aspects of sexuality. It is not about sticking the plumbing bits together. It is not about the momentary high following on from an ejaculation or orgasms but about nurturing the companionship that follows in the slow after glow. It is about building a relationship that will survive and gather strength through life's lows.
We also have to stop treating teenagers as adults able to handle complex inter-sex relationships, they simply cant. Their minds have not matured and they don't have enough experience to cope with the challenges and they still haven't found how to manage their hormonal responses to sexual arousal. We, the adults in society, have to tell them square on to grow-up and ensure offers of guidance are not brushed aside as an irrelevance. We adults have to re-discover our confidence and not be over-whelmed by their exuberance.
With the surge of hormone that the teens brings on and the weirdness of frequent sexual response daily encountered, we as a society to have to think how we suggest they handle it. We need to face up to the problems of life and not try to hide, restrict or control them . Maybe we as a society have to start and talk openly without embarrassment of distraction, relief, or even masturbation as a way of gaining control over those so urgent teen physical responses until the emotional control over relationship evolves and matures.
Better that than surrender to some arbitrary morale judge with a limited agenda deining for each every varied one of us what we can or cannot see, at what times, in which places.
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