Progressive Thoughts - Day 24

Today’s song is my favourite by Muse and it’s called Knights of Cydonia.

The song is an anthem for people who want to stand up for themselves, fight oppression and take control of their own destiny.

I particularly like the lyric:

I’ll show you a god who falls asleep on the job

How can we win when fools can be kings?

I believe this rings true particularly in recent times and, as I’ve said before, the anarchist inside me is chomping at the bit to lash out at the injustices of the world. Sensibly, I now choose to ignore him, apart from the occasional rant, mainly because I have become pragmatic about these things.

I know that there are few people in the world who totally agree with me about everything, so, when I think about it, why should anybody else listen to me when I stand up like an angry old blond ape and start pontificating about how everybody should have my ideals?

The truth is that they shouldn’t. All they will do, at best, is take my views on board and make their own judgements. That’s (kind of) what I do am starting to do myself to be honest, much to the anarchist’s disgust.

Ultimately we live in a democracy and while everything might not be perfect, at least there are ways to protest peacefully without fear of reprisals.

All of this certainly hasn’t stopped me ranting in the past, something which others have found entertaining, probably because I can be quite energetic, animated and use certain phrases (peppered with the odd expletive) to express my disgust.

There have been several targets over the years and when I look back over some of them, I have in some ways been proven to be correct. Most have been political figures but sometimes the world of popular culture is a decent and easy target.

To be perfectly honest with you, I hate ranting about politics and I try my best not to do so – particularly on this blog. Last year, in 2016, I wound myself up so much that I actually started to hate the world around me and I found that totally unacceptable.

My views on life were uncharacteristically negative and the spiral of despair threatened to go out of control.

I made a vow to stop being negative in 2017 and start thinking positively. Thus far, it seems to be working.

I almost snapped at work last week when a colleague told me about a story he had read on the internet. It involved a young female who had been cut off by her parents for being a spoiled brat. She claims it is because her boyfriend was black but her parents deny this.

What did she do? She raised $10000 through crowdfunding. People actually gave her money.

The anarchist within rubbed his hands in glee because this was worthy of a rant and, for about ten seconds, I forgot my resolution, took a deep breath and handed over the reins to the anarchist.

And then I stopped.

“What am I doing?” I asked myself. “Does this really make a difference to me? Why should I care?”

I turned to my friend and said “You almost got me!”

“SHIT!” he exclaimed. “I was looking forward to the first rant of the year!”

Another colleague said “I’m not sure I like this new Dave!” and I think she actually meant it.

To be honest, I don’t care.

I want to be happy and unless I actually move completely out of my comfort zone and start actively DOING stuff about it, as Muse suggest, I will get nowhere. In fact, even if I do that I will still probably get nowhere.

All I can do is moan and there are too many good things in life to let these monolithic developments get me down.

I used to own a mug that said “Don’t Let The Bastards Get You Down” which I bought in protest to my company’s policy of not allowing swearing in the work place.

But that joke mug has a message that is actually something deeper.

The best way out is to joke about it and hopefully you will see the mad anarchistic rants of 2016 become cynical and satirical put downs instead.

And that will piss of the anarchist no end.