SHOULD I STAY OR OUGHT I TO GO?

SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO? THAT IS THE QUESTION THAT ALL OUR LEADERS SHOULD BE ASKING THEMSELVES! Post No.21 (A 10 minute read) 

"Should I stay or should I go?" The Clash, one of my `Young Punk´ bands, wrote a song with that title, it was off their album titled `COMBAT ROCK´. Great album by a great band, part of my collection of vinyl albums but safely stored at home in Gran Bretaña! Though in their case, they were asking the question of their girl! "Do not play around with me! Be straight with me! Do you want me or don´t you?" Not words quoted from the song to avoid copyright issues, but that was the jist of their asking, "Should I stay or should I go?

Good Morning to you readers around the world, moving on with my own auto review of my first book titled `ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN´. This book can be found on the majority of the Amazon stores. Here are links to the .com store for you: ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN Paperback and ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN e-book  Onto chapter fourteen today which is of course entitled, `SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO?´

MY FIRST BOOK!!

By this stage of my writing, we had moved into June of 2020 and were into our `Phase 2´ stage of coming out of confinement here where I live. At that point in time, we had just four cases of COVID-19 listed for our town. I now know that to be absolutely untrue but much less was known at that time. Good old retrospect, hence why we need to be permanently looking back and assessing ourselves!

We could now move around freely, observing social distancing and wearing a facial mask. We could now go out of our municiple boundaries for the first time in twelve weeks. Our local doctor´s clinics had been closed for twelve weeks as well and the back log of unattended patients was growing alarmingly. The shortages of staff are an ongoing problem for our underfunded health service here but with so many health workers off sick with COVID-19 themselves, all the deficits were so vividly exposed.

What I FELT that I could see clearly though, was that the general level of health amongst this population in particular, was very poor. Living in a rural area as I do, the overall pollution levels are relatively low by comparison to a heavily trafficked city. That is one of the advantages of rural living of course! Passive smoking has been verified as a reality which led to a ban on smoking in public places. Something that I wholly support. 

The habit of tobacco smoking does seriously debilitate your overall health, it does! The smokers and those with compromised respiratory systems, were finding themselves spending time in intensive care units. Many of them, never came out again alive!! The COVID-19 virus attacked the respiratory system very hard. No, we did not know of the harmful effects on the human body from inhaling tobacco smoke until the last century. Fair enough!

I quote myself from this chapter: 

Prices of tobacco have jumped up in bigger and smaller leaps with the view I guess, to pricing people out of smoking. Also we are beginning to remove the glamour factor that was formerly associated with smoking, both by males and females, in the hope that ever less young people will start smoking in the first place. Such a shame that we had to have such a harmful product become part of our life-style, it is difficult now to see a world without cigarettes and cigarette smokers!

But the native North American Indians were not cigarette smokers, they were not smoking tobacco at the rate of a packet a day as modern smokers do! They smoked their leaf in pipes which were shared and passed around. Anyone who has delved into the culture of these peoples, will have heard of the `Pipe of Peace´. The `Pipe of Peace´ to my mind, is a white man´s interpretation!

I in my wanderings, have smoked many pipes with many people and in many places! Though sadly not as yet with any native American Indians!! That is not to sa that I will not do so, whilst there is still more to learn? I have always read the gesture of pipe loading and sharing more as a gesture of courteousy and welcome. All ethnic peoples have smoked one leaf or another. Which leaf? That depended totally on what grew naturally where they were moving around! Rather in the same way that we offer a guest a cup of tea or coffee when they come round. End of quote.

Well, it was writing of the native American Indians and pipe smoking, that this memory was brought to mind and I share with you another extract from this chapter. Beloved Tuareg!!! I quote myself again:

Fair enough, when tobacco first began to make its way into our societies, we knew very little about the tobacco plant and its potentially harmful effects. The first explorers to use tobacco would have done wisely in finding out from the local people, how THEY used this leaf? IN MODERATION, they would have been told!!

Cowboy and Indian films have flooded our big screens over the decades and with each new take on the Wild West, we display the realities of what was in effect, the virtual annihilation of a whole nation of peoples! The thanks given for introducing these explorers into their lands and trusting them as though these peoples had the same honourable mind set!!

I was travelling in southern Algeria many years back and was absolutely stunned to find a cinema in this small Saharan town. And so it came to pass and I will not go into anymore detail there, that I met the owner of the said cinema and he informed me that he had to head down there and open up for the afternoon matinee! I was amused! "What is showing this afternoon?" I asked with great curiosity as to what they might have on. "Oh, I have got a John Wayne this week!" He said with some pride! John Wayne, cowboys and indians down Sahara way??? UUUHM! So I go off to check this all out!

On approaching the building, I see a queque of about fifty robed and head dressed Tuaregs, WHAT, Saharan nomads lining up for John Wayne??? Omar Sharif, what is happening? So, the crowd excitedly pay their few coins for the entrance fee and joyfully buy themselves one of those old style glass bottles of fizzy drink and a paper cone of peanuts (natural of course) and file orderly into the lounge to take their seats. It was packed out and the film began!

Well, I stood at the back watching the almost juvenile delight of these beautiful men, aged between twenty and sixty. They clapped at times, they cheered at times, they stood up and shouted at the screen at times! They certainly got very into the film as you can hear! I was obviously intrigued to know what these men thought of all this tomato ketchup, Hollywood hero massacre story and so tried to give Mr. Cinema the slip, as he had to get all organized for the evening session. If "I would like to come back later?" "What, two doses of John Wayne in one day? No thanks, I have got some Tuareg to investigate!" 

Back in my childhood days, I had seen many of these kinds of films. I had read any number of cowboy and indian books and stories. Never have I changed my thoughts on the injustices caused. Consequently, I went for the other side of the story. How was it through the eyes of the indigenous peoples? Quite different of course! So, it was with joy that I sat and ate and answered many, many questions regarding America and the Red Indian peoples.

The Tuareg could see similarities with themselves and their life-styles. They could see that these native Indians in America, lived just as they did, in tune with nature, never looking to change any plant or area by cultivation or settling. They were all nomads alike, taking just what they needed and no more! Always moving and sensibly never exhausting lands and natural supplies. Never demanding more of a land than it would naturally give! End of quote.

At this stage of my writing, I had still not thought to write of my own life and travels. It was the trigger process, as I call it. Words are as triggers to me. Even as I thought along other trains of thought, an unlooked for trigger would then instigate a change in direction of my trains of thought. I FELT as though I had the choice to follow along with them or stick with the initial train of thought and be more organized. I have found that the joy of writing is in following those trains of thought. The trigger was pulled for some good reason, follow up that train of thought and you will see its relevance to the moment!

I follow on with the tea and coffee trail too in this chapter. The `in moderation´ applies to these as well. I explore how they have become such integral parts of our life style even as tobacco has. Right down to today´s devaluation of these products, which lower in quality along with their price. The CONNOISSEUR factor has been lost, has it not? Run of the mill, taken for granted. These used to be luxury goods and will, I believe, become so again!

The shelves of our shops are laden with so many artificial food products, why is that? We have health and nutrition experts now! They tell us of the dangers to our health and so why are these products made in the first place? Americanization, our younger generations have become connoisseurs of JUNK FOOD! If your only `FOOD FOR THOUGHT´ (the title of a UB40 song off their `SIGNING OFF´ album), is JUNK FOOD, then maybe it is no surprise that the thought patterns are so starved of nutrition!!!

My first book offers so much FOOD FOR THOUGHT but healthy FOOD FOR THOUGHT! 

Having seen the COVID-19 infected in the USA just top the two million mark, well, the then President Donald Trump, HE who said, "Relax, it is all under control", it does not look like being under control to me. The mixed messages, the delayed actions, the bad decisions, the accumulation of our respective leaders´ choices as our leaders, are showing themselves now in death tolls. Many should ask themselves, should I stay or should I go? How many will go willingly though?

Was your leader guilty of slow decision making during the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic? What has the death toll been in your country? How much of that loss of life was down to leadership decisions? How much of that loss of life could have been avoided? What part did money play in the decision making too?

Thank you for reading. Please FEEL welcome to comment below or make communication via e-mail or click the follow tab and come on board my Trains of Thought regularly. I shall look forward to that. Until next time, happy learning.

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