REALITY CHECK; WILL YOU LOOK THE OTHER WAY?

IT IS TIME FOR A REALITY CHECK AMIDST ALL THE MADNESS! Post No.13 (A 6 minute read) 

Hello again readers, with all of the madness going down around me, I was in total despair. I was afraid for my own mother. My sister was one of the few who did actually work at all times. Tele-work or working from home as it has become known. She carried on with her daily schedule work wise but cut out the bus journey through morning rush hour and the return journey through the late afternoon rush hour. So, she was one of those who did benefit from working at home.

Although her frustration at not being able to have close physical contact with our mother was causing her much emotional strife. She was doing my mother´s shopping and on my mother´s instructions, leaving the bags three metres from her front door and conversing from that tantalizing distance. So near and yet, so far. I personally was relieved that I no longer had a teenager at home to keep bringing me fines for breaking the confinement laws and of course, the aggravation that millions of parents will have suffered trying to prevent their teenagers from going out!!

Music, music, music, relieve me of these frustrations, if only temporarily!

My mind turning towards my home land, I wrote the following. I quote myself from chapter six entitled REALITY CHECK:

I have touched on the Caliphas and their circles of wise men and that has helped me a great deal, but that has been really the final dawning of all my day dreaming of these last few menopausal years of mine. But of course, I am British by birth. Yes, I am but not always proud of it, much of British HIS-STORY brings me shame. UB40 (a Great British reggae band of the 1970s up to recent times), wrote a song titled `Burden of Shame´, which was on their first album `Signing Off´, referring to similar feelings. 

Any British readers will know of our UB40 unemployment card, hence the choice of the band´s name. They were all unemployed youths in Birmingham, wondering what their future´s were going to be about at the end of the 1970s.

Amidst mine closures and ship yards shutting up shop. Some of the long established, large employing industries, were now being scaled down and phased out but with no thought or provision to the ensuing mass unemployment levels. It was at this time that the unemployment levels in Gran Bretaña officially reached an all time high of 12% (the figures were fiddled, it was much higher than that!), that was in 1984.

These were my teenage years, I was still in secondary school but with this social unrest building in the working communities, the outlook was looking ever bleaker to me. The Special´s (a ska band of the late 1970s) song titled `Rat Race´, sang of just that and coming from Coventry, they were neighbours to the UB40 boys. Both bands in their own words and with their own distinctive rhythms, were both definitely singing off the same song sheet. This song sheet has become the backdrop and sound track to my life!

So, as I said before, school work went on the sidelines and the quest for musical knowledge then took over. Gigs were without a shadow of a doubt, the highlight of my days in those years. Ska and Reggae really took off in Gran Bretaña and it was fabulous dance music. Friday nights were magic then and it was through the DJs really, that we all began to discover the old original Jamaican Ska artists.

The late, great Bob Marley, will ever be one of the greatest transmitters of message through song in my opinion. There is so much wisdom in his words, that it would surely pain him much to know that forty years on from his death, we have advanced not one tiny step.

Our British bands like The Specials and UB40, personified the multi cultural harmony within their own ranks, being as they were, of varying origins and complexions. I do not know that I have ever thought of anyone with a different complexion to me, as being anything other than a fellow human being like me! End of quote.

Having become completely isolated in my own life, confinement did not change my routine much. Day dreaming I had bought many beautiful properties, Mi Lady as I was, with an unlimited budget! The Calipha of Medina Azahara and Mi Lady of Norfolk fused together and really started making changes! This is what happens when you have no contact with human beings and no opportunity to exchange realities. You build your own happy world for real human beings like you to live in. 

ON GOING RESTORATION WORK OUTSIDE THE MEZQUITA DE CÓRDOBA!

My LIVING, WORKING, BREATHING motto would be my guide always. I would learn from my Caliphas and Mi Ladies but I would get the right balance, of course! I would be thinking of redistribution of wealth and good fortune. Formerly, the estates owned by the nobles of the land, were employment hubs. When run properly they really can employ many people in many different areas of skill. The money from the big house actually ran through the pockets of all the surrounding communities.

We had to revive the country estates but this time with green ethics and morally correct employment and conditions. We needed to bring back the value of country living and draw people back to the rural areas. How were we to do that if there was no employment to be had? City living is for those who really want it. All those like myself who would have so loved to have been able to return and work in their home areas, very likely will want to do so more now than in their younger years.

I know I do! I have lived for a time in Paris, London and Barcelona. Three very large and crowded cities, which house all that is unnecessary to me now! I did not enjoy any of the three at any moment at all. The three were equally dangerous, equally evil, equally depraved and equally filled with rural remnants from all over the world. HELL on Earth! Never again will I live in a city in Europe!

The future for me is the countryside, the real world, the world where the concrete jungles have not yet spread. As country folk in Norfolk, we have always worked hard to protect our natural environment, so exquisitely beautiful as it is. Ecology must become our major employer. I would work outdoors every day of my life given the opportunity.

Are you city or country? Man-made concrete jungle or green, leafy rural paradise? The cities of this world are doomed to collapse. That is why we must begin reforming our rural areas and creating the employment which as yet does not exist. Our employment is centered on the man-made world and not the natural world. That is what must change.

Would you return to live in deep countryside again? Do you feel a need for city living? What about the cost of city living compared to rural living? It is all down to employment options, not a personal choice sadly. In my next post I will move into chapter seven entitled LIVING, WORKING, BREATHING and start outlining some of my plans for my real green world.

And, you can find my book which is now on sale on the Amazon sites with these links: ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN Paperback and ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN e-book

Thank you for reading. Please FEEL welcome to air your thoughts in the comment space below the post or make communication via the contact box in the right-hand panel, where there is also a follow tab, if you wish to keep up to date with my Trains of Thought. Until the next time, happy learning.

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