Inquisitor: RR, Why are you not bothered that you have nothing material to show for your 34 years on earth? Do you not feel embarrassed, undermined, belittled by the material wealth surrounding you?
Me: ‘IQ,’ my friend, at least when the world ends, I’m already moving……
BY ME…… RRx
I have been pondering for a while how to approach this subject and even whether to at all as it is such a sensitive taboo at the moment in the UK but I’m afraid I have to. I’m sure there will be lots of people who disagree with me but that’s the beauty of having a blog, I can say what I want.
At this current moment in time, there is what can only be described as a 21st century witch hunt throughout the UK. Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, probably the two most hated men in Britain. Their crime was 20 years ago when they were just 10 years old. Of course, their actions were despicable and turned the stomach of every last one of us that read the story at the time but this hatred has to stop.
For those of you outside of the UK and not familiar with the story, 20 years ago these two 10-year-old boys kidnapped and abducted a two-year old boy, battering him to death. The story was horrendous, children killing children. It turned the stomach of every person in the country and rightly so. These boys were tried and convicted and were sent to prison to public outrage that they would have an ‘easy’ life within a kids prison. As with everything these days, media coverage has continued to highlight this case, which is extremely unfortunate for Venables and Thompson.
Children only know what they are taught. In my opinion it should be the parents that go to prison if the child does something like this as every child is born innocent. There are hundreds of adults that commit atrocities similar to this every day and although they may be exposed by the local media, may not even air the screens elsewhere in the country. These people do their time, get released and move on with their lives, something Jon Venables and Robert Thompson have been and will always be unable to do.
Again, I must stress, of course I do not condone in any way, shape or form, what these boys have done but we have ALL done things that we have regret, (admittedly not at this level) but should they not be given a chance to live some sort of life?
They were CHILDREN when this happened, and not 12 or 13, they were 10 years old! It was one day in their childhood and they will suffer throughout their lives for that one day. That is their punishment. They will always have to watch their backs and will always be the subject of national hatred. I can not help but feel compassion for these two who within one horrendous day in their childhood, changed the course for their lives forever.
I understand that this blog is not going to make much difference but I hope that it encourages at least some people to look at this situation in a different light. Yes they are grown men now but still there is nothing that they can do to change the past. Yes, if Jon Venables is still dangerous then lock him away as he has obviously got a psychopathic mental problem or something but whatever happens to these two, they deserve to be tried fairly.
Lately, pictures have been circulated around Facebook which is what brought the vision of a modern-day witch hunt to mind, I will not be joining that. I think that people should stop jumping on the media bandwagon. I hope that neither I nor anyone I know is ever subject to such media negativity. Let us omit forgiveness and compassion. As much as I obviously feel for James Bulger’s parents, two decades have passed, time has moved on and I think it’s time that we did too.
RIP James Bulger
RRx
They say if you can make it in London, you can make it anywhere. Each year thousands of newcomers cross the city boundaries either by road, rail or air, in search of a better life. Filled with optimism and hope that this city will bring a change to their existence with exciting possibilities ahead. Each year thousands more return home, disappointed, deflated, a long list of trials and even longer list of errors to add to their already flattened egos. Drained from the pace of struggling to survive london living. The positive sparkle in their eyes replaced by a dormant look of despair.
Yes, of course we all know of the success stories, those that have entered the smoke with a masters in economics illuminating their path to riches, but for every success story there are a thousand (if not more) struggling souls. Everyone in this city seems to be searching for something. The actress in Notting Hill waiting for her next big part and the russian model newly arrived in search of the super rich sugar daddy to ensure that she will never have to lift a manicured finger again. From the Trader targeting his next big bonus for sending the country into irreparable economical despair to the toilet cleaner waiting for their visa to escape the poverty of Africa. Career, wealth, fame, love are all at the top of the list of illusions that keep the energy of this city alive.
Last night I watched a documentary about Joyce Carol Morley, a 38-year-old woman who died at home and was found 3 years later by the bailiffs coming to repossess her flat, still with the tv on. Chilled to the bone, I watched my nightmares acted out on the screen. The documentary was based around the people who knew her and she was depicted as an outgoing young woman, London born and bred,with both friends and family in the city. How could it be that no-one had noticed her disappearance? It seems inconceivable that not one person had reported her missing or had become concerned at her lack of contact. Yet the heartbreaking reality is, that is exactly what happened.
Whilst I was severely disturbed by the story, it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. With an ever-increasing population of over 8 million people, most filled with ambition and desire for a different life, and many of those wallowing in an endless display of self-obsession, London can be one of the loneliest places on this earth. Unless rooted to the same area for years, it is difficult to get to know your neighbours. An endless stream of comings and goings, with lots of people passing through, everyone a stranger. The anonymity can be quite refreshing at first but that turns into annoyance as time goes on. Suddenly you notice that everyone looks straight through you, stuck in the prison of their minds whilst undertaking their daily grind in the rat race. I have pinched myself on many occasions just to make sure that I am actually still alive and not a ghost doomed to wander the earth for eternity in a quest for closure in order to rest in peace, just as Joyce must have been for three long years.
There have been times that I have not seen any of my friends or acquaintances for weeks and the thought ‘if anything happened to me no-one would know’ has flitted into my mind on more than one occasion. With more and more Londoners being forced to rent or buy further away from central London as the city makes way for even more luxury accommodation for millionaire playboys (and girls), the gap between the normal-salaried is increasing. Gone are the days when you just pop to your friend’s house for a cup of tea when you have two tube journeys and a bus to get through first.
There is a huge divide in the wealth of this City. At a restaurant I worked in last year, I witnessed bankers spending £1,000 a head for a table of four and when I left work the same day, bought a homeless man a £1 cheeseburger from McDonald’s. I could have fed four thousand people with the amount those *ankers spent on a meagre four. For your Joe Bloggs, it’s also a different story. Ever-increasing rental prices take a huge proportion of an average salary, rendering a lot of people house bound on a Saturday night and being able to afford your own place is a thing of the past for the majority.
The UK has jumped ahead of the online dating industry in Europe with London at the helm. With inevitably busy lives, we have less time to donate to our search for a soul mate and with so many people passing you day in, day out, it can be hard to bring one into focus. It does provoke the question of whether this is a good thing or a bad thing as it seems general social interaction with strangers is also becoming a thing of the past. Joyce Morley had lots of people in her life at one point, the irony is, these days it’s more likely that your presence is missed on social media than in the flesh.
For me, the story of Joyce Morley struck a deep chord within my psyche and caused me to question both myself and others. What else do we leave unnoticed? Who do we forget about whilst wrapped up in our daily toils, remembering only when it’s too late?…. We are all human, and therefore susceptible to human error and hindsight but maybe it’s time that we actually took stock of our surroundings, and noticed the time passing by. “Time stands still for no man” and neither does life.
London is a great place to visit as a tourist. I see it with the relatively fresh eyes of a Brummie that came here at a later stage in life than is the norm, therefore I recognise the stark contrasts between the capital and the smaller but second largest City in the UK. There is more of a community feel in Birmingham but its nowhere near as vibrant and exciting as London which also holds a lot more wealth than it’s west midland counterpart. And that’s what brings me back here time after time. London is life in the fast lane and parallel to the feelings of immense loneliness, lies a key to the rest of the world that no other city in the UK can offer. It is a city filled with hope, inspiration, dreams and endless possibilities. There’s nowhere else like it in the world. It is what it is. It is London. And this is London Life.
Thank you for reading my blog – if you would like to know more about Joyce Carol Morley and her life, please check out http://www.dreamsofyourlife.com
Namaste
RRx
I learned quite early on about the relationship between two of the three ‘f’s. Coming from an entertainment background, with dancing competitions and castings every week, every audition brought another fear; every time I was turned down, another failure and after every tantrum and/or river of tears, I said fcuk it….. or something along those lines. This would have been great if I’d just left it there and started again but each failure left an indent in my soul, a feeling that I was not good enough, pretty enough, I was too tall! They created more and more fears. I hadn’t understood ‘fcuk it’ then….. I was scarred. At the time, I associated these feelings of rejection solely with my performance skills and physical attributes, not realising that ‘Fear’ and ‘Failure’ and even ‘Fear of Failure’ would be an ongoing theme in and throughout every aspect of my life. Like the circle of life they have revolved, one leading to the other, to the other… until I learned the true meaning of ‘fcuk it.’
Fear
Fear is always spoken about in a negative context, ‘we should not live with fear’, ‘fear makes us cowards’, and so on and so forth. Actually, fear is a survival instinct and is within us for that purpose. Back in the caveman days, it would be our fear instinct that would alert us to run from danger, animals,to not to jump off the edge of a cliff. These days, however, with so much more information for our amazing brains to cope with, we have more fear. Fears of how the bills will be paid, how you will get into work, who will look after the kids whilst you work overtime and fear of bailiffs knocking your door for unpaid taxes are artificial within our human psyches.
Fears can be the fire to the soul or the water to the fire, whichever you allow it to be. Everyone feels fear, it’s what you do with it that matters. Fight or flight. Every day, people all over the world combat their fears head on. Take people who bungee jump or jump out of airplanes, I’m sure some of you have done this. The adrenalin is created by their fear and once it’s completed a feeling of elation takes over. You are no longer afraid of it because you have already overcome it. Nothing is ever as bad as we think. (Recommended Reading)…
There are people, however, who let their fears take over their lives completely. Afraid to leave the house, to talk to people, to do anything. The fear will eat them up if left to fester, creating more and more fear until the fire is completely put out and it will take longer to reignite. But it can and always will be reignited, when the time is right.
It is important to remember that your feelings of ‘fear’ are all in the mind. The human brain is the most complex organ on this whole planet which I truly believe that can do amazing things once mastered. But learning to control it is another matter and ironically the best way to start tapping into your mind is to start emptying it. By going ahead with whatever it is your afraid of, you eradicate that fear. How can you be afraid of something that you have already done? Fear is always focussed on the future, you can not fear the past.
Failure
Failure, on the other hand, is focussed on the past. How can you fail at something you haven’t yet tried? You can fear failure, but that just brings us back to the point above, learning to control your mind.
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
― Thomas A. Edison
‘Failure’ depends on perception. Every ‘failure’ is another lesson learned. There is always a reason behind every failure. It may be so that you go away and try again at a later date or it may be that you are walking down the wrong path completely and have to set off in a new direction. All will be revealed, when the time is right.
The only way to know what, this ‘failure’ or ‘lesson’ is trying to teach is to connect with yourself, to centre yourself with deep breaths and meditation. Once you have cleared your mind of your fears and worry of past failures, you will know what to do. This practise and realignment with who you really are will then bring the next phase…
FCUK IT
‘Fcuk it’, for want of a better word, can be described as forgiveness, bringing us back to the present moment. The forgiveness of yourself is the greatest skill to master. All too often, we beat ourselves up, sinking into a state of depression as we painstakingly agonise over our last rejection/disappointment. Does it really matter if you didn’t get that job/man/house? A bit of disappointment is good for the soul, keeps us grounded. You are still the same person whether you are wearing THAT dress or driving THAT car or not…..
‘Fcuk it’ is the realisation that you are as you should be. Everything is as it should be and acceptance that there is a reason for everything that is out of our control.
Forgiveness is acceptance and the release of negative energies, emptying the heart in order for the magic of the universe to work through you. It also the realisation that nothing matters. The argument you had with your friend last week, are you still holding the anger and resentment? Really, does it really matter? Fcuk it!
PEACE AND ONE LOVE
RRx
“Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful.”
GAUTAMA BUDDHA
FOUNDER OF BUDDHISM
Life Begins at 35 