The flag of hypocrisy.

 Why I don't 'do' flags anymore.

Once again, we will be judged by our social media profile. Are we on the 'right' side? Do we have the flag of the oppressed posted so everyone can see how compassionate we are? At the moment, the Palestinian flag is the 'go-to flag' to cover the cracks of hypocrisy we here in the West are so keen to hide. 

Don't get me wrong, Palestinians need our support. The only hope for future peace in the region is a two-state solution, and one day, let us hope both sides will agree on it and get around the table to accomplish it. Meanwhile, thousands are dying, and protest is needed.

But let us remember there are not just two sides involved in this conflict.

For example, I have noticed that a lot of people who vehemently oppose Israel seem very quiet when it comes to Iran - and their involvement with Hamas, and also their treatment of women within Iran. We 'progressives' like to think we are always on the right side, but are we? It's not the people or issues we support that reveal our hypocrisy, but the ones we are silent about, and posting flags on our social media profiles won't change that. We can shout and scream about the role the U.S. and other allies play in the conflict, rightly so, but what about the bigger picture? 

We (progressives) seem to be stuck in some 'Cold War' nostalgia. 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend' logic. Iran hates Israel, so we keep quiet about the lack of democracy and human rights in Iran. Is it that simple? Maybe the enemy of my enemy is an even bigger asshole.

That is why I don't post flags on my Profile because there isn't enough room for nuance. 

To put it more comedically, while wearing clothes probably made by slave labour, using an iPhone (which in itself is a threat to all our privacy and freedoms), marching for the right to wear a headscarf while ignoring the women who die in other countries because they want the choice not to wear it, and so on and so on, because of the hypocrisy inherent in my own life I don't feel that I should be waving flags. 

Stop the war on the Palestinian people, free the hostages, stop Hamas.

 Let it go. Saturday 21 October '23.

I take the advice of my meditation teacher and let my mind go where it wants without thinking about it too much. This page is the result: me just rambling on a keyboard (not really a keyboard, is it? There are no keys on it), just letters, numbers and little things that I don't know anything about or what they do. 

Let your head go where it wants, he told me.

I have watched so many Netflix docus on serial killers that I could pull off the perfect murder if I had the guts. I can't even murder a spider. Most of the time, when I see a spider at home, I ignore it and hope it goes away unless my wife has seen it and wants me to get rid of it - sounding like she means it 'Maffia style' - but usually it ends up me sliding a piece of paper under an upturned Tupperware box where the bewildered spider is trapped, I chuck it out in the garden, and try and run back in before the spider overtakes me - it's warm inside, I do wonder what spiders think of us, do they find us ungrateful? I mean, they do Lots of good work for us, eating horrible little dust mites and things. 

Meditation is going well, but I'm afraid it might spill over into my real life, and I'll sleep at the wheel of my car. 'Concentrate on the breath', they say… these last couple of days, I have had some ear infection, and when I lie down with my head on a pillow, I can hear the sound of blood whooshing around very rhythmically. Is this the heart pumping around? It's a reality check listening to blood being whooshed around the body. What if it stops? it makes you think about how easily it could all suddenly end, how easy it is for us to stop being, and be dead. So I've been sleeping with earplugs to lessen the whooshing, but now the earplugs annoy me and keep me awake.

Where were we? 

I was in the flow of this writing when the doorbell ding donged; it was my neighbour. He needed help getting his trailer into the garage, and I'm always willing to help him. After all, he's a lovely bloke and my landlord, and he owns my house. I like living in this tiny house we started to rent about four years ago. It's big enough for my wife and me yet not big enough to invite people around for dinner, so that suits my anti-social behaviour. I just don't see the point of eating for eating sake, asking people around, all the stress of what they eat and don't eat, the stress of cleaning the best cutlery and plates, hoping the cooking will be successful and all the bla bla that goes with it, I mean what are we trying to prove to each other? That we're all some Jamie Oliver or Nigella Lawson. Watching Nigella making a Bread pudding while in her nightgown? oh! fuck off, it isn't that easy! I usually end up having to spend four days cleaning the kitchen after I've finished cooking, she's rich and has people cleaning up after her; she's not on her hands and knees after the show scrubbing the Floor. (I never imagined her as a scrubber btw). 

FOOD! In most countries, it's a worry if there will be any. In our rich little areas of the planet it's a worry that a fucking souffle won't rise or that our soft boiled egg is hard.