Oh Alex almost every encounter you had resonates with me (I'm currently based in Wilton, Wiltshire). It is mad, and sitting looking out on the River Nadder it's also beautiful and I can't think of living anywhere else. And there is this sense of the two roads, but constantly I'm wondering how connecting the two is possible so there's passage between the two - or at least through to the human and more-than-human? Few answers, but thanks for the sharing... we are not alone!
Lovely bit of writing, sooooo true, it’s madness. The fork in the road is so true too. People need to know there’s ana fork and be shown how to take the sane option. My concern is the media keep people so stressed they end up unable to reflect from there frontal cortex and instead constantly get thrown into functioning partially or completely from the primitive brain – anger, anxiety and depression – and this is the biggest disempowerment. People need low stress levels to make informed, healthy decisions. Great the way you write about this.
We are living in a very strange World at the moment. When I use a car park, which is rare, I see people trying to pay with their phones? They can be stood there for 5 or so minutes trying to work out how to do it? I always use cash so i just pay & am on my way while they are still standing there getting very flustered. I know some car parks wont accept cash now so i would never use those, i would just move on. I see them doing the same thing at the checkout in supermarkets? Going through multiple manoeuvres on their phone, it's so much easier to flash the cash! I have refused to use self checkouts since the day they brought them in, each machine is a persons job. I was stood in a que at a checkout the other day & an assistant came over & said the self checkouts are free, I said no thankyou, I find those monitors staring at me close up very dystopian, she just smiled & walked away. I see Sports Direct now have facial recognition on entering the store!? Another shop I won't be going in to again. My Sister went to buy a pasty in a very small local shop, she handed the lady a £5 note to pay & the lady said she didn't have change for a £5 note? Welcome back to Britain!
This is such an absolutely beautiful piece! It has touch my heart… in more ways than one… you see… I feel increasingly the same sense of a changed Britain and not for a better way. So much has happened and is because these people (psychopaths in power and/or paid to carry out this crazy narrative) are doing an amazing job of damaging this country and it’s people, mentally, economically and emotionally, that one doesn’t know weather to run or hide. However, I agree that the splitting of our society is on the making right now. Those that will hide their head “under the carpet” and those that will create a new togetherness based on the love of the land, their ethics and sovereignty of health and soul. Thank you.
What you write here would be the starting point of a long conversation, if we were ever to meet. I moved abroad from Canada to Asia in 2007 for what was to be a few years of life experience before returning. I have tried to return three times, finding each time worse in terms similar to yours. In one bout, I spent five years of filling out hundreds of online forms to find work, re-typing my resume into each system, one cut-and-paste section at a time, just to get a 2-week temp job, that, if you get one six months down the road, doesn't turn out to be the foot-in-the-door it was hoped to be. Rents spike, wages stagnate, temp agencies promise gigs that never turn up. Then you find out the agencies are hired by massive HR departments to do the work the HR department was created to do, and if you get a yes after six months of interviews with questions related more to a personality quiz than a skills assessment, an HR person at the hiring company says "no." Instead of paying $30 an hour to an employee, they pay that to the agency, which pays the employee $12 for a short stint, then begin the cycle all over again. Do this for 3 years and it all begins to appear like technocracy rigged for the elite.
I have taken refuge back in Asia. Well-paying work is abundant and easy to get in the place where I'm situated, and cost of living matches incomes. Moreover, the society has every modern convenience without being plagued by the absurd catch-22s that push those without the right connections (electronic or otherwise) down the social ladder. Despite my good fortune, I feel like a refugee and I long to just be in the environment that is embedded in my spirit.
I sense you went back to the UK because home has a special meaning, even when plagued with hardships. Despite the tales you tell, I somewhat envy you for having the courage and ability to play with the cards your society has dealt.
Things are getting this way here in the USA, the Land of the Free, but we're not as far along as you Brits (yet).
Last week I accompanied a friend to her usual grocery store, and when she found they'd just installed some self-checkout machines, she decided to try one to save time. Seeing that one of the machines had an OUT OF ORDER sign should have been a warning. The supposedly working machine my friend was using kept refusing to recognize her payment card, requiring help from an employee. That took ten minutes of repeated failures while the queue behind grew ever longer.
I see this kind of failure everywhere now. The shops have to employ people to help customers use finicky machines that took away checkers' jobs.
Wow, it sounds uncomfortably like the U.S., though with less loud complaining and more quiet desperation, as you Brits have a wont to do. Glad to see you speaking (or writing) out about this and bringing it to Light. I might add only that as people withdraw from the system, we must also re-establish community because none of us can do everything alone. We need each other, and that is actually how we will survive what's coming, in my opinion.
Your experiences are what one would expect from an uncaring, inhumane and incompetent administration, regardless of political stance. It will only get worse. It's becoming increasingly difficult to visit cities or even use paid car parks without risk of a fine. This is, I feel, a form of zero tolerant, summary justice. Is it any surprise that fearful, frustrated and even angry people are taking it out on unfortunate front line staff, in supermarkets or the NHS, for example?
What a lovely piece of writing, Alex. I am glad I have found you on here (I used to follow you on Twitter before I got chucked off).
I recognise everyhing you depict so accurately. My response has been, somewhat selfishly, to run away to South America. Same push to technocracy here, but less musn't-grumble compliance. When these people realise their cars are in the firing line there's going to be trouble.
My Spanish now encompasses explaining the anicent Chinese curse of living in interesting times...
Oh Alex almost every encounter you had resonates with me (I'm currently based in Wilton, Wiltshire). It is mad, and sitting looking out on the River Nadder it's also beautiful and I can't think of living anywhere else. And there is this sense of the two roads, but constantly I'm wondering how connecting the two is possible so there's passage between the two - or at least through to the human and more-than-human? Few answers, but thanks for the sharing... we are not alone!
Lovely bit of writing, sooooo true, it’s madness. The fork in the road is so true too. People need to know there’s ana fork and be shown how to take the sane option. My concern is the media keep people so stressed they end up unable to reflect from there frontal cortex and instead constantly get thrown into functioning partially or completely from the primitive brain – anger, anxiety and depression – and this is the biggest disempowerment. People need low stress levels to make informed, healthy decisions. Great the way you write about this.
We are living in a very strange World at the moment. When I use a car park, which is rare, I see people trying to pay with their phones? They can be stood there for 5 or so minutes trying to work out how to do it? I always use cash so i just pay & am on my way while they are still standing there getting very flustered. I know some car parks wont accept cash now so i would never use those, i would just move on. I see them doing the same thing at the checkout in supermarkets? Going through multiple manoeuvres on their phone, it's so much easier to flash the cash! I have refused to use self checkouts since the day they brought them in, each machine is a persons job. I was stood in a que at a checkout the other day & an assistant came over & said the self checkouts are free, I said no thankyou, I find those monitors staring at me close up very dystopian, she just smiled & walked away. I see Sports Direct now have facial recognition on entering the store!? Another shop I won't be going in to again. My Sister went to buy a pasty in a very small local shop, she handed the lady a £5 note to pay & the lady said she didn't have change for a £5 note? Welcome back to Britain!
Totally agree, we need both 😊
This is such an absolutely beautiful piece! It has touch my heart… in more ways than one… you see… I feel increasingly the same sense of a changed Britain and not for a better way. So much has happened and is because these people (psychopaths in power and/or paid to carry out this crazy narrative) are doing an amazing job of damaging this country and it’s people, mentally, economically and emotionally, that one doesn’t know weather to run or hide. However, I agree that the splitting of our society is on the making right now. Those that will hide their head “under the carpet” and those that will create a new togetherness based on the love of the land, their ethics and sovereignty of health and soul. Thank you.
What you write here would be the starting point of a long conversation, if we were ever to meet. I moved abroad from Canada to Asia in 2007 for what was to be a few years of life experience before returning. I have tried to return three times, finding each time worse in terms similar to yours. In one bout, I spent five years of filling out hundreds of online forms to find work, re-typing my resume into each system, one cut-and-paste section at a time, just to get a 2-week temp job, that, if you get one six months down the road, doesn't turn out to be the foot-in-the-door it was hoped to be. Rents spike, wages stagnate, temp agencies promise gigs that never turn up. Then you find out the agencies are hired by massive HR departments to do the work the HR department was created to do, and if you get a yes after six months of interviews with questions related more to a personality quiz than a skills assessment, an HR person at the hiring company says "no." Instead of paying $30 an hour to an employee, they pay that to the agency, which pays the employee $12 for a short stint, then begin the cycle all over again. Do this for 3 years and it all begins to appear like technocracy rigged for the elite.
I have taken refuge back in Asia. Well-paying work is abundant and easy to get in the place where I'm situated, and cost of living matches incomes. Moreover, the society has every modern convenience without being plagued by the absurd catch-22s that push those without the right connections (electronic or otherwise) down the social ladder. Despite my good fortune, I feel like a refugee and I long to just be in the environment that is embedded in my spirit.
I sense you went back to the UK because home has a special meaning, even when plagued with hardships. Despite the tales you tell, I somewhat envy you for having the courage and ability to play with the cards your society has dealt.
Things are getting this way here in the USA, the Land of the Free, but we're not as far along as you Brits (yet).
Last week I accompanied a friend to her usual grocery store, and when she found they'd just installed some self-checkout machines, she decided to try one to save time. Seeing that one of the machines had an OUT OF ORDER sign should have been a warning. The supposedly working machine my friend was using kept refusing to recognize her payment card, requiring help from an employee. That took ten minutes of repeated failures while the queue behind grew ever longer.
I see this kind of failure everywhere now. The shops have to employ people to help customers use finicky machines that took away checkers' jobs.
Wow, it sounds uncomfortably like the U.S., though with less loud complaining and more quiet desperation, as you Brits have a wont to do. Glad to see you speaking (or writing) out about this and bringing it to Light. I might add only that as people withdraw from the system, we must also re-establish community because none of us can do everything alone. We need each other, and that is actually how we will survive what's coming, in my opinion.
Your experiences are what one would expect from an uncaring, inhumane and incompetent administration, regardless of political stance. It will only get worse. It's becoming increasingly difficult to visit cities or even use paid car parks without risk of a fine. This is, I feel, a form of zero tolerant, summary justice. Is it any surprise that fearful, frustrated and even angry people are taking it out on unfortunate front line staff, in supermarkets or the NHS, for example?
What a lovely piece of writing, Alex. I am glad I have found you on here (I used to follow you on Twitter before I got chucked off).
I recognise everyhing you depict so accurately. My response has been, somewhat selfishly, to run away to South America. Same push to technocracy here, but less musn't-grumble compliance. When these people realise their cars are in the firing line there's going to be trouble.
My Spanish now encompasses explaining the anicent Chinese curse of living in interesting times...