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View from behind the eyes

Old age or more understanding??

I don't know whether it is the fact that i'm getting old or that I am feeling more responsible for the inaction of man to save its one and only home, Planet Earth!!!!

Recent events involving nothing more than a few pictures and a lot of text have left me with the sense that I do not do enough to keep the environment, I was raised in, to a standard which my children (and possibly their children) can have the same awe inspiring experiences on their sight and sound as I have had over the last 48 years!

Can anyone say that we do enough? Would I, in any other job, have even been aware of how our environment was being ripped to pieces to satisfy man's appetite for wealth & power, all at the cost to the one place we ALL call home?

I find that I would have just let the world get on with its own destruction and been an active participant in its downfall as my children would have been colluded to have been. It is now that I (we if you want to join in) have reached the point where the words our 'leaders' state in their daily sound bites means very little to me as I watch the world that they are empowered to take notice & care of fall, bit by bit,into an abyss of our own making!! I know there are some who try to make aware, those that have this power for change, of the events happening around them but too little is being done by the powers that be and too much is being lost for us to survive. It was just three short years ago that I even knew of the oncoming darkness of energy demand outstripping supply which, only now, the press of several countries are just touching on in their own journals.

Dr Brian May has recently been 'battling' to stop a cull of creatures to ensure that the wildlife of Great Britain get a voice in a political arena where those animals had no say nor representation to tell anyone why they should be allowed to live! I find great sorrow in the fact that it, again, takes a 'wealthy' (in some respects) caring celebrity to raise this issue when others with far less money and 'status' have been campaigning for years to keep Mother Nature's or God's (whichever you prefer) creatures & environment free from the diabolical idea's of Nature's/Gods ultimate predator .... MAN!!

I have written on other social media the following which has more to do with narrow minded pseudo politicians than it did with badgers and the planet but is now my watch words for what I am finding is the case more & more each day:-


"We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you, some pseudo politicians are not the least bit interested in solving it. They are interested in two things and two things only: making you afraid of it and telling you who's to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how they think they can win elections."

"When will we realise that the Earth owes us nothing but we owe EVERYTHING to it? Just take a moment on this wet (For wet I mean water!! See where i'm going with this?) day to take in Nature's/God's resources! Even the computer you are reading this on is made from materials ripped from the heart of this planet!!!!"

It is only in time that we will understand why the American Indians, Aborigines, South American Amazonian tribes and other indigenous populations on this planet worshipped the rising & setting of the sun. Why they believed that animals were the spirits of their ancestors. How they understood that the whole planet and every living thing on it was connected and how films like 'The Lion King' show us that to take one particle of this planet will leave us with a loss that becomes so great we end up killing the very home we take for granted. It seems to me no wonder that the Earth is in such a mess when we have ripped the fossil fuels that for millenia have fed the Earth's core but have now been brought upwards to create toxins in our atmosphere through its use in cars and coal powered energy plants, what now fuels the compressive centre of our planet that enriches the sea's and makes land mass for us to live on?

So, with all this in my mind, what can I seriously do to affect change? Be more vocal, more aware, be more bloody minded than those who have vested interests in their decisions when enacting laws and regulations that will have a huge impact upon my daughter's and their daughter's and so on daughter's lives and environment's with which they wish to engage with and to see its wonders first hand rather than in the history books of our century of ruin!

Seriously thinking about just pulling up my roots and taking this issue to those that can effect change on a major scale, because as we speak and has you would have seen the 'leaders' that run the country I live in have neither the will nor the sense to do what is right and have an almost personal obsession to ruin the country and planet that I along with 7 billion people and hundreds of billions of living organism's call home!!

I am human by race and would like to say to all other races that cover this planet, both flora & fauna or insect to fish, I am sorry for the way in which human's have forgotten how we used to inter-connect to each & every organism and hope that in time we, as a planetary ecosystem, can put right what is now so wrong!

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Joy of Musical Interludes in life!

It had been a long time coming (well that's how it seemed!) for the latest round of Queen+ gigs. This time the boys had decided to take to the road with a young reality TV show star who, in his 'class', came second but, as per this type of show, he is the one to remember!! He being Adam Lambert.

The arguments over the rights or wrongs of this collaboration, I will leave for other forms and internet threads on other, more popular, web sites.

For me, any reason to see Brian May & Roger Taylor play Queen songs is a reason to turn up and be filled with the joy of music. In this respect, I now have the time and the money to attend and undertake tours of this kind and, with the onset of age, know that it will be over far too soon. So on the 11th, 12th & 14th July 2012 I found myself at the HMV Apollo (It is the Hammersmith Odeon and always will be!!) at the ungodly hour of 06.45 or thereabouts and was 25th, 12th and 11th respectively in the queue which usually consisted of a couple of Queen fans and mostly Glamberts (the name of AL fans!).

To say that I was excited would be an understatement. I had been looking forward to these gigs since Jacky 'our leader' Smith had given us 'Queenies' the nod about a possible gig/tour and then the chance for pre-sale tickets.

So, not to go overboard about the meet & greet of Queen fans like Danielle and June or Glamberts like Linda (Boots) and Linda (The Traveller), but it was very nice to meet people and to listen to their stories during those long hours of waiting and to hear that lives are generally similar with just different places and different outlooks to take into account.

Back to topic, that being the joy of music. I take as my point of reference the Thursday 12th gig, which for me was the better of the three nights. I have long concluded that I could not live without the music of Queen (or Queen+) but to listen, see and be a part of this night's gig will stay with me forever (As does Wembley 77, Rainbow 79 and the epic Knebworth of 86). For, on this night, the band and its additions played as well as I had seen in all my years of going to gigs. The crowd were so 'on fire' this night and the theatrics of Adam Lambert were put on hold, from the previous night's gig, to show that his voice truly is awesome. To say that I was washed over with an unabashed pride and growing realisation that I was a part of something extraordinary would be about right and this realisation along with the sheer joy of Brian & Roger's playing, the happiness on AL's face and the interaction of the crowd in my area is, I believe, the reasons I had the best gigs of my life.

The joy I felt, and was to hold onto until Friday 20th July, is why I listen to music, no other form of art allows me to feel such highs and lows and to know that other people have made me feel such love, joy and euphoria fills me with a overwhelming direction to give the same to other people around me and those that know me understand that giving is what I do best (and from previous blogs, you will know I defer to my upbringing of putting others ahead of myself!!!) and this is always a worthwhile pursuit for one's life. It is with music that I can dispense with my earthly worries for a time and allow me to fantasise about the possibilities of the good things in life.

Unfortunately, the euphoria of those epic moments drifted away in a sea of sadness (the reasons are for another decade and another blog!!) and still the only way I managed to see the day out was to listen to and visualise the music that I had seen the previous week. If only everything in life could be as easy!!!!!

When certain songs play on your radio, iPod, mp3 player, smartphone etc you attribute memories that are happy or sad to those songs. That attribution has now taken me on a journey of the songs words that remind me of people, places or feelings and recently it has pushed me to question those feelings and face emotions that make me smile and, I am admitting this here, have made me cry! The sad thing is that the wealth of emotion with some of these songs is that they are worded so strongly that my emotions and feelings flood my mind and overtake my whole body. And this is why July 11th, 12th & 14th will stay with me for the rest of my life!

I hope that you, the reader, have or will experience this raft of emotion and thoughts because, good or bad, they are truly worth having no matter how low they take you or to which peak of ecstasy they may ascend you to! XxX

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Motivation (or lack thereof!!)

Its been a long time coming but i'm back with the blogging!!

Within my life, just now, there is a total lack of motivation to do what I know is the right thing to do. Still there are parts of my soul that are screaming to get something done but my total apathy, on some occasions, ensures that I do not listen to my inner voice but live the life that conforms to that which other people hold in reverence and so the motivation becomes diluted at the crossroads of selfishness, to do what my heart tells me to do, and consideration, to ensure that other people's needs and demands are met!!

I have lost that spark that gave me unbounded energy to get the very simplest task done and have, it appears, been swallowed up by the life monster that affects us all.

So what do I need?

Time Travel!!!!! The kind of time travel that takes your mind back to a time when, and subjectively in our minds, everything was so great. The problem with that is it always takes us back to our childhood or teenage years! When responsibility was something other people had to do and all we wanted to do was enjoy that which we wanted to do!

I hear you ask, why don't you just do it?

Because my upbringing is always to defer to the consideration of others before oneself!! Which will mean that for the rest of my life, whilst I have responsibilities to others, my soul will scream for freedom and my mind will have to be focused to keep it under control ...... it can't motivate me as well cos i'm a man and we don't do multi tasking! :-)

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To feel, to live, to love!!

Its been a hectic month or so but now that the dust is finally settling on the project that has consumed my thoughts and deeds, I can turn my mind inwards and seek out what I find within!

It is now, being alone and uninterrupted within my thoughts, that I see that I have been lacking in giving sustenance to a soul that is found needing and untouched for far too long. It comes as no surprise that whilst the mind dwells on such practicalities as work, the soul, that lies within my breast, has been niggling away with barbed innuendo and dreams that can never be realised. Such is the path of my heart that inside this body is a dribbling wreck that shows an outward persona of strength and confidence that belies the low esteem that my mind's eye see's and my internal senses feels is flowing through the very bones and muscles that holds the physical parts together!

To act the role that fate has dealt has taken a strength of being that was always in my persona, yet the essence of a life I once knew, that was put in a box so long ago and that I believed was a past life that could never be touched, flows out and that flow of feeling and thoughts are starting to leak into the space that was partially filled with practicalities of everyday life. People say 'if I knew then what I know now' things would be very different, but we don't and so we make decisions that may or may not be the correct idea in the long term. The mind rambles on about that which aesthetically it knows little about and is usually contradicted by the feelings that move up through the core of my body and out through those actions that takes us on our life journey.

Now I stand at the crossroads of realisation that some of my decisions, way back when, may have been wrong for me now and, yet, the things I wanted, the things that would have brought me hope and happiness in this stage of life, were within my grasp but I had neither the courage or conviction to follow that path and perhaps the spell/curse of youth is far outweighed by the responsible commitment that society instills in its resident's! Which ever you feel is the right thing during our youthful days, does it always impact on the future 'you'? do we even consider how those actions, of our youth, will impact on our future self's in ways such as hope, happiness, love and honour?

I sit in the knowledge that my life is full of compromise and turns, away from the path that nature has set aside for us all and before my time is out I will seek to find that path where being who I was meant to be and feel what I was meant to feel will actually achieve that zenith of happiness and love and hope that my soul has been crying for, and crying loudly, for far too long!

To be strong is right and good, when used for right and good, but even those who strive to do the right and good things just need to be held by the soft and righteous and told that everything will be alright and to never give up striving for happiness, love and hope! For that touch is enough to see us through the bleakness of depressive and sombre thoughts and the practical daily routine that we follow before we arrive at the point where we are one with ourselves and all that is around us.

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I reckon two yards would have done it ......

It is said that when we are faced with death our whole lives flashes through the brain in a matter of nano seconds. Well ..... whilst on the way back from Queen's Market to pick up our dog something similar happened in mine!

Driving along the road we had pulled over to allow a police car, showing blues & two's, to pass but it turned at the road just ahead of us. We carried on down the road until we got to a road junction where we had right of way and the road crossing ours did not. It was only at the last seconds that I saw a Lexus coming at speed (Estimate about 40MPH) not looking to stop at the lines! As I pulled our car away from the Lexus, the other driver slammed on his brakes and skidded sideways coming to a stop parallel to our car!

After breathing in, I thought I would get out and have a word and make sure everyone was ok. Unfortunately, and this is where I think the police car came into the equation, the driver of the Lexus rammed the gears into reverse (making a really loud crunching noise within the gear box) pulled back and drove on again (A couple of seconds later we heard another screech, so think he might have tried to crash with another car at the next road junction).

So, you're asking what life flashed before my inner eye? Actually, nothing flashed at that moment ..... but once I had pulled over into a parking space and I had the chance to think, it dawned on me that IF we had been about 2 metres back from where we were along that road the Lexus would have, with no doubt, killed both of us outright!!! This is based on the theory that the car would have been going that bit faster and would have had less time & space to stop in and that I would have had less time to move away from the contact he would have made with our car!

That's when the brain went into overdrive and all the times I haven't had yet became a focus. Not seeing the girl's grow up and live their lives, not hearing my friends voices and seeing their faces light up when we laughed, not hearing the music of my life, not feeling the touch of those closest and not seeing the good things in life like sunset's, smiles, friends and family. It was about all the things that I would NOT have happen rather than all the things that have happened so far! I thought this is the way we all feel when we have a near miss but when I talked about it to the passenger, their outlook was so nonchalant that I wondered whether the incident actually happened and was I making something more out of it than I was feeling I should? Of course, people handle different things in totally differing ways but I would have thought that there would be some similarities as to what could of happened, for the sake of debate if nothing else, but no. It would appear that I am someone who thinks about things that I can't change and she is one who thinks about what to do next!!

The way I think seems to be a stumbling block on the road to progression or evolution of our relationships with each other and those we have around us as I think about how things could be and not how things are! If I was to allow what is, to be exactly what it is then I would far happier whereas thinking that I and things around me could be better and never attaining that improvement is what is making me miserable! Which is a well constructed argument as to why I am may not be happy, but there are other very main reasons, but to aspire to something better for me and everyone is surely a noble endeavour for anyone, who isn't in a position to change the way people or events think or happen, than to just accept that we cannot change at all, isn't it?

I digress, because what I should be thinking about now is what am I going to do now that I have this insight into what I may miss if I cease tomorrow? Already started and, to some, this will be seen as selfish! That's because it is but if I am so unhappy, as has been pointed out, how can I be any good to those around me unless I start doing that which makes me happy and hopefully make those around me happy with and for me!

Whether it be man's natural behaviour or whether its just what we should all be allowed to do and, in turn, allow others to do to improve and aspire to be better and more happier people I am unsure but I know that if I do not try to make myself enjoy what (little) time we have on this earth then there can be no one else to blame but myself, so it is up to me to suck the nutrient's of this life and grow into the person I want to be, for this is the only way I can see that will bring my souls true joy and a life of happiness!

And it's only six foot away!!!!

X

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Fear, the greatest enemy ......

"You woke up this morning in a brand new day, the sun rose and all of the world woke to a fresh start. So why shouldn't you think your whole life can be new and different? Why shouldn't you BELIEVE that anything can happen? and that you can have a whole new beginning that takes you down a very rosy path?

YOU can!!!!

This is more than the first day of the rest of your life, this is the first day of a much, much better life, rich in personal fulfillment and abundance!!"

 

So said someone to allay the fears of a friend who had low self esteem and was told constantly they were shit and observed that they were put down whenever a door opened to a better life, therefore never stepping through the entrance to a more rewarding experience!

 

As Freddie once sang 'What is it that fills our dreams, then slips away from us'? For some it is the wish to aspire to a better life, a better emotional state. For others its the dream of avarice and to have that, which society tells us we should get!! But fear in all its guises holds some of us back from following our dreams and to aspire to gain that better job, better life, improved mental state but how does such an emotion stop, dead in its tracks, something as powerful as a dream, a desire, a want?

Have we come so far in our intellectual state that just one hiccup along the road of success can bring us to a halt before the dream or aspiration can be reached?

Yes, we obviously have, because why do some feel the need to constantly turn on those who have slightly higher aspirations or those who have a different look on what is right for them but may not fit in with the general way in which we were brought up. Life like society is about difference's, yet are we not all capable of more than our lives have, or will, turn out and who says we shouldn't follow that which brings us joy and fulfillment, even if that happiness comes at the expense of the life that has happened around us!!

In the song 'Defying Gravity there is a line that always hits me as (almost) the very feeling I have about my greatest fear:

 

Too long I've been afraid of, Losing love I guess I've lost. Well if that's love it comes at, Much too high a cost!

 

The question is how will I get over this great fear and do I really know where it will lead if I step through the doorway? The grass may not be greener on the other side but sometimes 'some thing's that glitter may be gold'!

So why not take the risk of following a dream? as when we first woke in the morning did we know what the day would bring? No, but we still got out of bed and welcomed, with open arms, all that the day was going to give us!!!!!!

X

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Good news then bad news. What about tomorrow??

Good news Monday ...

At the start of the week my mate Bob got the all clear for a possible cancerous lump! Absolutely superb news for such a damn fine bloke. Will definitely celebrate the next time he is in Hornchurch. Started the week off with a smile and renewed optimism .........

Bad news Wednesday...

Whilst clearing out recyclable furniture from a care home in Canning Town I got to observe just what we have in store if we live to a point where we can no longer do those things we do for ourselves now. It is not the caring staff that I take umbridge with, but the general idea that it is perfectly ok to stick elderly people in a room, watching a box in the corner of that room that is churning out 'deadtime TV in a building that has seen better days and to allow gangs (Yes actual gangs from the 'hood'!!) to congregate in large numbers and cars, in the space supposedly set aside to be used by the residents of the home exclusively! I can only hope that my children will shoot me first rather than allow me to fester in a wipeable pissed stained chair with just the TV as my friend! It is inconceivable, in this the 21st century, that we, as a race, allow this environment of out of sight, out of mind mentality to become the norm and I can only wish that following his fight with the dreaded 'C' word that he will be given better treatment when he is unable to do that fighting. As for those inside these homes it only needs a little bit of our time to discover that they are far more experienced in this life thing than we and, children, you are not the first to find farting funny and you certainly weren't the first to have children 'out of wedlock'. Spend some time with these, your elder's, and you will find that you have more in common than just being in the same place at the same time!!

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Getting Started

As it began (As Queen once sang) is about right for this page of my website.

Getting in the groove of writing and just putting some thought's together but here is where I will be rambling about my day, week or month, year depending on whether I can remember my password :-)

K'head

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