Processing On The Fly

And so in the latest display of what a shit-show the world is turning out to be, the hashtag #metoo has been trending on Twitter today.

I’m attempting to process that, and no doubt making a mess of it, so as I am likely to be one unnecessary voice on the subject, I’d suggest you stop reading.

As I understand it, this hashtag has emerged as a painful reminder (and - unfortunately for most - a revelation) that sexual assault in various forms is far far more common than perhaps is widely reported - certainly the evidence is overwhelming.

Instinctively, this is an important subject of discussion. No question. It really feels like this is something that needs to be rooted out, challenged, expunged from the modern world; and yet already I am floundering. I feel bad for making this post that is not purely about this issue - I feel like I am not giving this attention the full attention it deserves.

Wouldn’t it be great if everything stopped, and all everyone talked about over the course of the next few weeks/months; was how do we stop the endemic misogyny in all areas of society?

That feels like it should be a thing.

Yet there was no real discussion of this at work; one throwaway comment about it at my evening class; and we moved on to something else.

And I’m spending the two spare hours I have this evening, not learning my lines for the play I’m in like I probably should - nor am I just switching off and watching some mindless TV show - but I’m sort of dithering in around the issue of the day; wondering exactly what I do actually understand about the reality of sexual assault; wondering why everyone hasn’t sat down and put this all into context; wondering how I can be helpful; wondering how I’m meant to process this all, in the context of a world already gone mad.

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I guess right now, I’m painfully aware that I’m making a blog about me, when clearly I am not someone that has suffered. Is that selfish? I guess by definition, it is. Is that entirely a bad thing? I don’t think so, as I wouldn’t have done it otherwise; but equally, it isn’t a good/helpful thing for anyone other than myself - so am I justified in writing this down?

Should I just have written this and not published it? By publishing this am I adding to the problem of understanding big huge socio-economic things, as I seem to vaguely cling onto a Blackadder the Third phrase?

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This is a subject I’ve come back to a few times on here - there is an absolute shortage of time in the day to process everything that we see/hear/read about. How worried should I be about North Korea? What can I be doing to help anyone affected by #metoo? How about everyone in the UK that is struggling due to our current shit-show of a government; where does that rank in my sense of what-matters-most?

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Again, I’m using this blog to try and formulate these thoughts into a coherent understanding. And I recognise that I am a long way from that with this one.

The problem I tend to encounter at this point is that my nihilistic tendencies give me a ‘get-out’ clause, of ‘oh well, it’s all a shit-show anyway and nothing really matters, so no point doing’; which is unhealthy by far.

Besides, I need some motivation to write up my European travels into a blog. I need some reason to keep learning my lines for the play that I’m in.

But I also need a better ability at being able to process everything that the world has to unleash at us through the near-infinite number of sources.

Or - more accurately - I need to scale back what I am exposed to, so that I can understand exactly what is and what is not important. Which is - ultimately - a biased, and subjective take on the world, and - no matter what is going on - there is only a tiny part of it that I can control.

Even if it feels like I should be able to do more.