Losing my head

Losing my head

If you’re following my blog, you’ll know that I haven’t written a blog for a while. We are having a ‘lean’ non-travelling month, catching up on life’s maintenance chores and preparing for our forthcoming trip to Italy at the end of the month. Gareth is trying to learn Italian, I am revising my French, the van is getting Gareth’s detailed attention in terms of servicing, and our house purchase looks like going ahead this time (fingers crossed).

Being grounded for a bit has enabled me to pick up with some of the groups I joined through U3A Swansea (that’s University of the Third Age). My interests being always philosophical, these groups are inevitably reading and discussion groups. The group I’ve been a member of longest is Youniverse, influenced in the main by the work of Douglas Harding and a way of being called The Headless Way. So, I’ve been doing soul work and it was going well until yesterday.

My family believe that I am a natural hippy and our current lifestyle may, to some extent, confirm that I am. I am a peace lover - nothing special about that, of course, and I do innately believe that “Love is All You Need” and in the face of the sins of the world I am working on being more Zen about it all. If you’ve read my previous posts you will know that I’ve been making an effort to live more ethically in terms of such things as plastic and overconsumption. I am trying to live in a belief that the tree hugger part of me will help set an example and in some albeit minuscule way, help to save our planet. And then I read some of Slavoj Zizek’s work and find my green liberalism ridiculed. It’s curious how my ‘faith’ is being challenged every day and in many ways. Take this little conundrum (small and inconsequential, you might think):

Gareth, in preparing the camper for our Italy trip, has been learning about its mechanics, in case it breaks down and so that we can avoid expensive repair bills. There are apparently functions built into the system that set off an alert and stops the vehicle until it has been professionally examined. These functions seem to be part of the emissions restrictions required at manufacture. On-line, drivers consistently say that these functions can easily be over-ridden when the alert comes on, and that most often all that is needed is a hard driving interval to clear any soot that has built up in the system, so avoiding the expensive, and mostly unnecessary diagnostics and servicing. Sounds great, but I’m thinking “what about that soot?” But…..that’s me!

Yesterday evening, after a beautiful May Bank Holiday Monday, sun shining, warm, the beach colourfully peopled and the smells of BBQ’s mingling with a light sea mist, we took a walk out to one of the spots where you can sit and watch the sun go down and take in the sweep of the bay in all of its breathtaking beauty. On the highest point, from where the view is the most expansive, a ‘disposable’ bbq sat, still hot, with a burger on it, still in plastic and turning slowly to rubber and the debris of a not-too-wholesome picnic scattered around and abandoned. My question to the Universe at that point was “ARE YOU TAKING THE P..S?!” We gave up on our walk and spent the rest of our evening rattled and angry with the whole of humanity. Our mood wasn’t improved any either, when someone drove up late to one of the neighbouring caravans and was clearly oblivious to how his noise interrupted our sleep.

These are small things and they say not to sweat the small stuff. War, famine, disaster and destruction are much bigger things to be concerned about, but what hope is there if we can’t be kind to our fellows in the little ways? I really have some work to do if I am to rise above the things that are happening around us, the big and the small.

And now I hear that Donald Trump is being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize!!!

Have a good day, folks!