Saturday, February 19, 2005

What's the point?

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It's been a pretty gruelling week in front of the television. There's so much going on out there that I know to be wrong; so many porkies being told, so much all-round naughtiness taking place.
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So what?
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I won’t even list the events that have upset me so. What's the point of tossing a few hundred more sterile words into the ether, to join all those acres of newsprint and countless hours of television talk.
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It won’t change anything.
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Most of us are born with a desire to contribute to, and interact with, a better World. I personally believe that contributing to, and interacting with, a better world is a key requirement of a fulfilled life. However, and this did not happen by accident, most of us now believe that we can't change anything, so there is no point in getting out there and trying is there?
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There's plenty of evidence to support this apathy. Millions of people protested against an attack on Iraq. It still happened. Nobody wants GM food. We're still eating it.
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The forces that shape our World are obviously outside our control. So, the best we can do as individuals is to scratch the best burrow that we can, watch a lot of light entertainment and hope we won’t get bitten in the arse before we die. Anyway, we're all so weighed down with long working hours, debt, anxiety and stress that we don’t have time to make the World a better place do we?
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That describes most of us doesn’t it?
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In my experience, the single greatest cause of stress is being stuck in a negative situation where you believe there is nothing you can do about that situation. Now, how much stress and despair must be caused by us living in societies that we increasingly believe we have little or no impact on? Sit there, shut up and take it. Not exactly the recipe for a mellow life.
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Actually, the situation is even worse than that. Even when we do think we're supporting a noble cause and doing our bit, the cause is almost never as clear-cut as we'd like to believe.
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A personal favourite example of a good cause with an ulterior motive took place the Royal Navy drove slavery off the seas in the 1800s. Did that happen because the British people were morally opposed to slavery, as many were, or was it because Britain was the first country to industrialise and didn't need slaves any more? A similar question applies to the US Civil War. Was it about the morality of slavery or was it about the Industrialised North dominating the Rural South? Not many people in the North seemed to give a stuff about all those freed slaves, or their descendants, for 100 years or more after the war was won.
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More recently, the Kyoto Treaty is in the news this week. Is Kyoto all about an attempt to head-off global warming or is it the start of an attempt by the West to prevent future industrialisation and development in India and China?
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The War of Terror? Is the threat real or has it been puffed-up to suit the purposes of politicians and big business?
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It's all quite confusing really. You name a good cause and I can name a dishonest special interest group boosting that cause and making money off the back of it. From the current London Olympic Bid through to stem cell research, there's always a someone making a greasy buck behind a façade of good intentions.
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There are zillions of good and deserving causes out there. Which cause is or isn't in the newspapers on any particular day is decided by politicians and business. They, not us, decide what tugs at our heartstrings and when.
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What to do? Shutting yourself off from what's going on around you and focusing solely on your immediate day to day needs, as most of us do, is one solution but then you only live half a life. Taking on the people and organisations that manipulate us like dumb sheep is virtually impossible. They run the media. They make the law. When they do let us get together to support a cause, how can we be sure that we're not being manipulated to suit some hidden purpose? What are we, as individuals, to do?
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I'm f**ked if I know the answer.
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