We think we care; we think we share, and we think that we be.

 

Yet are we lost? Are we disconnected? Have we become (un)tied? If so, what have we lost, where and why have we unravelled so spectacularly?

 

We exist, but in order to do so we are required to abide by systems and structures. These systems and structures are intertwined within a contract agreed centuries before us. A contract designed by an elite few with power they assigned themselves, through land (space) ownership that in turn included ownership of beings. There’s a lot of ‘chatter’ about class identity, particularly in the UK, about the ever-widening gaps between the few, the many and the marginalised. There is an ever louder narrative of blame placed on those in society who are 'different', who are othered. 

 

The narratives ebb and flow, a mix of panacea’s, hot fury, cold fury, weariness, exhaustion, condemnation, and cliché’s, stereotypes and great big fucking obstacles that prevent change. The obstacles are the status quo, the upholders of it, the creators of it, and those that abide by its rules of inclusion for its value to the few.

 

The English dictionary is as contradictory as life, as the UK government, as Boris Johnson, and other political leaders. The first definition tells the reader that to exist is to have being or reality. It suggests that the act of existing is validation of being and of reality. Take this first definition and pick it apart a little, find what it connects to and to exist, to have being or reality requires suffering. 

 

To have being or reality requires a willingness to abide, and in order to abide there must be tolerance, acceptance, submission. Accept hardship, accept inequality, accept discrimination in all its forms for that is what it is to exist.  As a species and as a society we have been abiding together for centuries.  We have been abiding as subjects, at the whims of oppressors. We have developed the skill of abiding and it is this that gives us power.

​