Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Fear and Arrogance

Arrogance is nothing but a method of overcoming fear. Arrogance works to some degree, but is generally not very successful. Fear is fear, and masking fear with devices such as Ignorance, Arrogance and Anger (amongst others), is never going to be the best solution.

The trouble is, that Fear is an animal instinct that has evolved because it is so successful. Yet in the modern world, it has to be used in situations very different from how it evolved. For example, fear is useful when you're driving a car and you see a patch of slippery oil or ice way ahead. But it isn't useful if you see it and don't do the right things (slow down and engage anti-lock brakes if necessary). The modern world, you understand, is not what we evolved in.

Doing the right things when experiencing fear is without a doubt the most difficult part of life itself. Ignoring, being arrogant, and getting angry are seldom the best things, even though they sometimes get lucky. What is the best thing?

Feel the fear and challenge it? How?

- I am afraid.
- What are you afraid of? So what are you going to do about it? Are you going to just sit there and be afraid? Not very clever. Are you going to get angry? Not very clever. Are you going to believe that you will conquer your fear just by the force of your will? Not very clever.
- No, Mr Spock, you're absolutely right. What do I need you to tell me that for.
- Because you're a stupid animal.
- You're not as good as a Vulcan, you know, but you're amusing...

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Building Roads Evan Davies Today RAC Productive Driving.

Why not build more roads?, Evan said. Terrifying, and it probably will happen. Because it was a lobbying cry from the RAC. The RAC will do anything to give itself more business, but that can be said about any business from heroin dealing to flogging Mars bars.

BBC Radio 4.

Yet it is still terrifying. Once we were afraid of wars, nuclear holocausts, enviromental catastrophe, but now we are most afraid of shit economists. Evan Davies is unfortunately a shit economist, because of his generation. He mentioned on the Today programme something like we drive 100% more, yet have only built 20% more roads in the past X years. You would think that an economist would ask the question, why are we driving 100% more, and is all this driving productive? Would that the next time he drowns his sorrows in some gay club, that somebody should slap some intelligence into him, but that isn't going to happen, is it? The blind will sooner lead the blind.

What is non-productive driving?

People who are driving miles and miles who don't increase theirs or anybody else's happiness. There are loads of these people. Driving is like doing heroin, crack cocaine, and stuffing yourself with junk food.

This article on Today, on the same day that Open Country had Helen Marks doing a truthful episode in West Dorset chronicling a musician and a farmer who were expressing the death of rural life in Britain! Killed because homes and houses in rural areas are hardly ever occupied, because they are second homes, or owned by wealthy people who are away on holiday, and even when they are at home, they DRIVE FAR AWAY to TESCO to do their shopping, so that there is no local shopping or local rural economy. Gone are the smallholdings, and local businesses.

This is the economics of Today. The people in the BBC live in London, or the hipper parts of Britain, and are full of denialists who can't even travel from their own Radio Programme to their neighbours. Yet they completely expect to jump on a plane, or a train, or into a car, and be as far away from where they work within 12 hours. In so doing, they have turned the whole world into a boring but dangerous place, full of McDonalds, and Pizza Hut and Starbucks and Tesco and Asda. Why dangerous? Because what happens when you take heroin away from a junkie?

Friday, April 23, 2010

Frustration

Tried that, and couldn't get through, tried something else, and still couldn't. Tried everything, and still unsuccessful, so what do you get? Frustration.

Frustration, the transitory state of mind that occurs when reason fails, and anger takes over. Frustration itself becomes an extension of that failure, so usually produces failure.

At the sign of frustration, it is better to rest, withdraw, or retreat, and then to tactically invite recreation, advice, or new thinking.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

No Airplanes in the Sky since 5 Days Ago

Because of the volcano in Iceland spouting a cloud of ash, all jet plane traffic was shut down over Britain and much of Europe since Thursday 15 April.
For the first time in my life, like so many people, I have been able to live under a sky withouth any airplanes in it. It is a source of wonder. I have never seen such blue and clear skies in London or in England, and while we have had marvellous weather at that. And it has been also wondrously peaceful, especially for the people who are damned by living near Heathrow, Stansted, Gatwick, etc.

The endless moans of people who have been stranded abroad or whose travel plans have been wrecked! What happens when these types of people end up sick in a hospital bed? They are the ones who never know what hit them, and are stunned and scared. In other words, should these people not be grateful just to be alive, and to have food to eat, and water to drink? Yes they should be just grateful, but they complain because these are the modern people created by Global Economics. The common muck who have been created, and pandered to, by Global Economics.