"Man's Search for Meaning"....

Everyone is deeply engaged in living their lives - but like fishes swimming in the sea we can never see the water that surrounds us because we are totally immersed in it. In the same way, only some of us ever get to understand the true meaning of our lives, because we only see it in its parts and not its wholes, the meaning of things is rather patchy.

As a mental health nurse this is important to me because I work with people who have lost the meaning of their lives; the definition of being and staying well almost seems to be "knowing what your life means". 

However, my studies tell me that, for the majority of us, that meaning is a received meaning. By that I mean, it is not a meaning that we have had to discover for ourselves. Being "a mum", being "a postman", being "a president", are all titles with roles and actions attached to them, a bit like actors in a play, society has written the script for us in the history of our interactions. 

These words that we use to describe the people that we are, that are supposed to give our lives 'meaning' are actually only generic tokens for specific things. Thus, while I may "love my dog", by calling it "a dog", I relegate it to a class of things, that are infinite in number, that I have no connection to, that I could not love, at least not in the same way that I love this being that I know, and therefore, "my love" ceases to have the same meaning that it had for me before I used language to describe it.   

Language is said to "carve nature at the joints" in the same way that Dad carves up the Turkey at Christmas dinner. It goes for the easy bits first, and makes the incision to break the world up into natural categories of things to make things simple. For instance, it carves the "sexes" up into "girls" and "boys", and conveniently forgets about the problems of "transgendered" and "hermaphrodite" people.

Thus, it is easy to see how language has become the natural repository for ideology, the vehicle for the communication of ideas, for the benefit of some and detriment of others! What is left behind, and is often managed out of the picture by clever editing and production, is the ‘umwelt’ of the embedded and embodied emotions.

Ideology controls others through language. Ideology controls others by having them control their emotions. The more meaningless the emotions are, the less they have value from an ideological point of view, the less they are talked about or even recognised as existing. Like people who do not fit the ideology, they will eventually cease to exist.

But when you do not fit the ideology, and your meaningless emotions are all you have left; when your ideology has been destroyed; when another has destroyed everything that you are; then, you will have no capacity to decode the information of your senses; you will not be able to explain your reactions to events; you will not be able to externalise your emotions; and you will be mad. And you will be outside your own head wondering how you can get back in. And you will wonder if you have ceased to exist. And you will not exist.

Although you will still be deeply engaged in living your life. Some of you will realise that your lives still have meaning, beyond the received meaning, beyond the ideology, beyond the normative assumptions. You will develop a capacity to find meaning. The difference will be in whether others find that meaning with you; and share it with you; and live it with you. Without you. As it were.

Local Elections 2018: Fortress Britain

Interesting set of results last night which are widely being reported by the national media as no change. This translates into the Corbyn bandwagon running out of steam and the Tories not being as badly affected as they might be by their recent bad press over the Windrush generation.

From a coastal Essex town I would say the results are more revealing of the widening political and economic divide behind the haves and have nots in the UK.

The wards that have crept towards more Labour councillors are also those more likely to have properties being converted to flats or houses of multiple occupation (HMOs). This is creating increased pressure on schools, GP surgeries, transport and other public services in these areas that central and local government are slow to respond to. The sort of working class voters UKIP might also have gone after.

The wards that are creeping towards more Independent, Green or Liberal Democrat  councillors are those going through the now familiar "gentrification" process. This is related to young professionals, commuting to and from inner City areas, with good credit histories, large deposits, and assured shorthold tenancies and landlords with large portfolios investing in  property hotspots altogether stimulating a flourishing high street of small independent taders and artisans.

The wards that are creeping back towards Conservative from a flirtation with UKIP or Labour are generally populated by properties that have bought by tenants from landlords in the last 50 years. This would be "Thatchers Generation" of "Basildon Man" - those that bought their council houses at knock down prices as a way out of 'the ghetto'. The same people that Blair tried to appeal to as the aspirational working and left-leaning middle class homeowners. The reason that "Jerusalem" replaced "the Red Flag" as the Labour Party's anthem for a while.

It is no lie to say that there is a homeless person in nearly every shop doorway when I walk through town to get my sandwich at lunchtime. The white beggars seem to be drinking more and chasing the European homeless out of town. 1 in 3 shopfronts is boarded up. The high rise office blocks have been empty for 10 years now. The Tory council have finally agreed for their conversion to residential property. They are being reclad Grenfell style and marketed to young professionals and property investors. There is a policy to disrupt any large public gathering where political descent could become contagious. Car parks are closing in favour of more residential developments. There is a clear political agenda quietly being developed under May's regime.

So this is the future of, what shall we call it, "Fortress Britain" would suit. There is a very British feeling to it: quietly determined and gentile; but ultimately, utterly ruthless. "Doing what we have to do to get the business done. This is what we do. No need to ask why." Chances are you wouldn't get an answer anyway.