Vainglorious Living

Can nobody see what's being foisted upon us? Does nobody care? More debt, more debt. Options on how to pay taken away, encouraged to spend more, to spread the cost and never pay off, never in our lifetime, so that the debt never goes way but essentially stays and hangs over our heads like black marks; and most of us have fallen into the trap of fixed rate, fixed term deals where companies take a fixed fee every month, rather than quarterly, which has to be paid by debit or credit card. Card, Card, Card!
Are we blind? Yes, but madder are those who stick to SVTs (Standard Variable Tariffs) and cash, whereas I, being of that camp (although they may have got even me to switch now), think it sensible, as do those who want to pay for what they use and not what they might in future, and to budget as suits their individual needs. We're told to live within our means and yet no system currently supports this.
This address (to the public at large. Well, to the few readers present) is more than a little late in coming and has been, before now, addressed to kitchen cupboards, living room furniture and the bathroom mirror, and yes, one or two points may now been different and this economic push to spend, spend, spend and not save may have quickened or slackened, but I couldn't, after having delivered it in a muddled rant-like manner to appliances many times over, restrain my fingers any longer from typing. Frankly, all eight digits and two thumbs were flexing and itching something chronic, and the only solution was to finally let them trip over the keyboard.
Buy now, have now, pay later or never at all. Pay up-front (i.e. in full) and be worse off. Don't have the money, borrow. Don't save for bills, for emergencies, for holidays etcetera, spend it and worry when the unexpected happens, then take out a loan to cover the costs. Don't pay for your degree, take lesser paid jobs so you don't have to and have the debt follow you everywhere (where is the incentive to do anything else? where are the jobs?), and build on top of it e.g. rent, work expenses and commuting hell. EVERYTHING can be bought on debit and credit! and with no receipts so monitoring your own habits is difficult. Got paid?, gone by tomorrow. Overdrawn?, be more overdrawn by the end of the month. In the red, what's new?
We're doing everything big business and banking wants, to a certain degree because they, surprise, surprise, want even more. They want constant transactions and data. They want cashless, because that's how they make their money. We must be crazy to be giving in so easily, lured by speed and ease of use, and yet it's not enough, it will never be enough, and so they might, just might, engineer a crash, to get rid once and for all of cash hangers-on and savers.
In some ways, this idea scares me more than the possibility of war (and certainly more than Trump, although I imagine he could be all for profit at the expense of consumers), because if the circumstances were set up right, what could we as civilians do? If such a crisis occurred, it would happen quickly, with little warning, as would the resolutions put in place, and there would be no, or little, public opinion in the matter. Oh yes, there might be a temporary backlash, a small demonstration but numbers would be few and the plan would still be forced through. The plan to penalise savers for saving, to slash interest rates to nil, to wipe out paper currency, and to charge for any services that involve a bank employee somewhere. Some of it's already in motion, some of it's coming...
It reminds me of Saint Sebastian, tied to a post or a tree and shot at with arrows. Or maybe we've had that part and were rescued and healed (from the previous financial crash and recession) by ministers who informed bankers in no uncertain terms we weren't ready and bargained for more time; and now the Emperors (they number more than one and are either ridiculously young or middle-aged, with some more vainglorious than others), fed up with waiting, are nearing the point where they'll club officials and even more of us to our deaths (depression, insolvency, and precarious living) if we don't yield (and permanently) this time around.

Picture credit: St. Sebastian, Botticelli, sourced from Museum Outlet.

Be Like Stalks

There's only one way Humanity can go, and that's in the opposite direction to that which it thinks it's going.
A bold statement. Because naturally I'm in favour of the argument I'm about to make, although the outcome is not a given and will more likely depend on the way the wind blows or a flip of a coin, if coins can still be had that is. Some of you might be reading this now and thinking 'what were coins when they were at home?' and would have turned to the 'Notes' section had there been one or to an Ancient except they're aren't any, because coins, whatever they were, are so long ago and not part of your humanoid experience; nor does present society value their once existence or acknowledge coins at one time held a value at all. Shillings, pence, pounds are all bygone currencies which can't be mentally computed and aren't even housed in any museums which earnest android scholars could attend, but now is not the moment to provide this lesson, if indeed we have reached that state.
Perhaps it's still to come...as is the undemocratic future I foresee, although we will think it democratic because we won't see that in our fight for equality we are actually procuring the opposite, by quietening voices, including our own, and cutting off our own and others' limbs. Being equal in all things has a cost.
And that cost is freedom: to be, to do, to think, to own as in to possess, to dress how we like, to speak as we find.
Democracy and equality can promote intolerance and the State clamping down so that more laws are passed and freedoms removed to form an equal society. The individual ceases to be. The minority exists but the majority has the vote. The will of the people is upheld, not that they realise the pickle they're getting themselves in. Pickle, as in jam as in a fine mess and not the conserves we British have with bread.
No, this particular pickle is coarser than even those that like it chunky like it, and often-times leaves a sourer after-taste than is usual, or it would but the senses that normally detect this are, in the majority, flawed to such a degree the sensation doesn't come as instantaneously as it used to, or even in some cases come at all; for the exhilaration that arises from exercising their democratic rights (and seeing it made it into law) has a similar effect to brainwashing in that sensibilities get benumbed.
People get high on democracy (it can be as addictive as a drug) and believe their own rhetoric, which is like a wave in that it joins with others if there's a common purpose as with equality, which once obtained could work against us in measures that removes every single quality that is considered to separate, from our style of clothing to its colour; from the length of our hair to how many metres tall we stand; from the origin of our given surnames to the level of our intelligence. Tyrants then, in a sense, would be able to honour democracy because we (as a people) would fulfil the role of dictator: report on each other, thereby enforcing laws we wanted made and were made because such was the demand they were passed into common law.
The notion being (and carried through), as C. S Lewis proposes as Screwtape in an address at an annual dinner: I'm as good as you. And although, as a senior devil, he's exploiting this expression in the negative as a means to creating earthly havoc, it's nonetheless true that this opinion, if held by enough people, could create open hostility and an unnatural order: an entirely equal world which is more or just as demonstratively unhappy and, paradoxically, undemocratic.
This future is by no means certain, yet it's far less uncertain than it was when others, aside from C.S Lewis, also asserted it as a possibility (see Jerome K. Jerome's The New Utopia), as if a powerful machine of falsehood (and desire) has since hypnotised peoples into believing what they conceptualised: that to live under (and abide by) democratic rule is to be like a field of corn harvested.

Picture credit: The Cornfield, 1879, Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Snakes and Terrier

I dreamt of snakes being roughly shaken in a terrier's mouth. Their heads and tails weaving as if being lured by a pipe from a basket as the terrier throttled their middles. Neither the snakes nor the terrier seemed perturbed; neither side on the attack, this was play, whereas I looking on felt only dread. A dread of what might come, even though I saw the fun, when the game wore itself out. A dread of snakes, since these were only the width of a skipping rope which I presumed to be venomous. A dread of how to go about stopping it, for my instincts rather than my intuition said it should be stopped but how?
This wasn't a dog-fight, these snakes weren't a stick or a ball and this particular terrier I knew wasn't a listen-to-command-and-do-as-I-say type. Terriers generally aren't at the best of times and definitely not when in possession of a stick, rope or ball, or even a car tyre, nor when in pursuit of a pigeon or squirrel. They race down the garden or stand guard under a tree, hell-bent on their course of action, despite their owner's protests, to see off danger or just for the hell of it, really. Terriers are stubborn creatures, especially if they're of the Bull variety and nevermore so when it comes to what direction to take on a walk or even to go on a walk at all. Like a toddler in a temper (without the howling) they turn rigid and refuse to budge, unless you mollify them some way or do exactly what they want, and then they trundle along quite happily and strut like Travolta.
Smug. I'm a Kool Kat, though I don't associate with those spelled C-A-T.
Yes, terriers are a comedic breed.
So, in the dream this knowledge I had of terriers and of this particular bullish one was a help, but not a help if you know what I mean. I danced on the sidelines feeling powerless, though nothing untoward (that I remember) occurred: the terrier continued to vigorously shake the snakes in this mouth and the snakes continued to wave in a distinctly gloating manner with their dark gem-shaped eyes fixed upon me.
There was no conclusive end as you might expect from a fairy tale of either romantic or hideous proportions, just a fading or a waking, I'm not entirely sure which. Though I like to think the snakes turned into silk scarves like those tied end to end and pulled from a magician's hat or the sleeve of some willing volunteer, and hung there limp and bedraggled. Or they turned into a string of sausages, which from a terrier's point of view had it been their dream would have been more creditable, especially if they were stolen say from a table or a window ledge as then the game would have been far more delicious and worthwhile.
But those are waking fabricated endings. The dream I'm sure wouldn't have taken that direction, and if dreamt again would be different to that described.
Where do dreams go once they've been half or fully-realised? I never experience repeats; I never return, nor it seems dream of similar scenarios and on themes I recognise. Though it could be in sleep I'm denser than usual, which would mean I contravene the experts' opinion: my brain is not susceptible at night. But then I too share the terrier trait of inbred stubbornness, so if I proved insusceptible I wouldn't be surprised. It would be a straightforward case of mind over matter.
Perhaps, dreams, realised or unrealised, go to an island somewhere. A dead isle. Where they are merged with others to form a brand new undreamed vision that will wait for the right person to be born or to be in the right place to dream it. Perhaps they're all just catalogued in a dream-paedia: date dreamt, who dreamt by and their location, and the different versions that then followed: what they were later spliced with. It would be a vast task for whomever had to manage it, so there'd be minions: clerks, transcribers, supervisors and incinerator workers and the like, unless it too has moved into the digital age, to be run by electricity and technology. Surely not, surely if such a dead dream isle exists its operation would be mostly telepathic rather than use even our new modern means to manufacture night dreams that seem random to us like a CD player picking the order of play but in actuality aren't at all. A fascinating concept don't you think? with shades of Philip K. Dick or Margaret Atwood.

Picture credit: The Isle of the Dead, 1880, Arnold Bocklin

Abstract Beauty

The change to autumn is unsettling. Sleep is increased by at least an extra half hour, the body's temperature fluctuates and the mind dips and soars, dips and soars like a tiny bird you occasionally spy if you watch the skies closely and at a height you thought unlikely for such a tiny being. Even white butterflies fly higher than you imagined was possible or necessary.
The days and nights grow equal in length, and then quickly resume their habitual imbalance: the nights now longer than the days. The weather grows intemperate and the mornings are frosty; there are rains and strong winds, some of which bite and blow fallen leaves or shake more to the ground. The skies on some days are blue, on others grey, either studded with puffy clouds, or devoid of so that it's a flat grey, like a calm sea before a storm.
The sun still puts in a brief appearance, glaringly or hesitantly, and yet fails to warm the living room and bedroom in the late afternoons, nor at any time of day. They face the wrong way during autumn and winter, when a flood of sunlight would do the utmost good to the residents on this side of the building. All inside sits in shade, untouched by any friendly yellow rays, with the exception of evening when overhead lights are switched on or when the glare from a lit screen spills a patch on the beige mottled carpet, or those from outside peek in. It's cosier (though somewhat chillier!) to sit in the dark than bask in unnatural light; only a lit flame offers a similar warmth as the sun.
Fire is an autumn element. Its spirit in harmony with nature consuming itself: dying, decaying and metamorphosing to conserve energy or become sturdier for the lean months ahead. All of nature on the turn: yellow, orange, reds, which fire can help along, as part of the chemical process, by quickening the decomposition; and if tended to makes faces rosy red and noses hungrily sniff its smokiness. That delicious, fatal fragrance caught on the wind, even from miles away, which the lungs inhale and expand with, to their fullest capacity like a smoker taking a long, deep drag...
...exhale, the breath of autumn: a crisp woody odour with an undertone of wet leaves.
Autumn, unlike winter, is contradictory. It's not really sure what it's supposed to be. The months it falls in prepare the ground for winter, and generate in us, as well as in the natural world, a turbulence that flings and tosses us about like a ship on high seas or a plane in high winds. Rag dolls pushed along by the current, and that includes political leaders and those we've put in place to uphold the civil laws and morals of the land. In other words, those who act on our behalf as a people, or have convinced us (as well as the other leaders they wrestle with and pacify) that they do so.
All is in some sort of turmoil during this transition, which affects the contents of the mind, all minds, as well as circadian rhythms. It's Tolkienesque, it's Ballardian, it's surrealism, this adjustment, this repossession of the ecosystem, of which we are a part. Humans are just one element in this grand scheme that occurs year on year, although we attempt to act against rather than with it. To carry on is certainly the British spirit, as I'm sure it is of other nations, yet in doing so we place ourselves in direct opposition to this in-between stage because it's not what we think of as a fertile period, in spite of its arresting jewel-like colours. 
Change is uncomfortable, but not sterile. Everything is in constant motion: life and decay, life and decay. A disintegration, which in itself can be beautiful and will with patience enable growth. It's slow, not a race to be won. Autumn is only the start, and from this point the finish line cannot be sighted.
Without, copper and amber leaves, already turned, rustle as the winds pick up and pluck them off to turn mushy underfoot when the rains fall and drum on window panes. Birds take to grey or blue cloud-filled skies in spectacular murmurings, as people below rush to and fro and carry coats and umbrellas. Within, the refrigerator hums and every now and then gives a loud sigh as if it were a beast lowering; the kettle, last used three hours ago, clicks at rest like an insect grooming itself. The light retreats and dark edges in.
All is utterly bewitching; all sets the scalp prickling.

Picture credit: The Eye of Silence, 1943-44, Max Ernst (source: abcgallery.com)