To be human

I sometimes wish I could go back to a simpler time,

How often do I read that? Maybe every day, I won't speculate. Maybe today, for me is the "simpler time" I am reasonably comfortable financially. I have my own little flat with no mortgage and a means of travelling that suits me in terms of the comfort I need.

That's how life in a Western democracy is all about surely? Well maybe not. The basic concept of communism was exactly the same

"Russian times were actually quite good" remarked an Estonian friend of mine. Mildly pointing out that somewhere warm to live and a job were very much cornerstones of the society she grew up in. Until democracy came, the jobs dried up and she was economically forced to migrate to Britain to find a job.

Simpler times indeed!

I'm an avid reader, my ever expanding library ranges from the musings of the cartoon characters Andy Capp & the Perishers, to something less realistic like the build-up of Atomic warheads by countries investing billions of pounds to ensure nobody would ever be silly enough to actually launch one in anger. I mean, whoever thought that was going to happen.

My current favourite reading material is the wonderful World that is twitter. Twitter often gets' lumped together with all the other social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Youtube etc. But twitter has no mask, It's not posting little snippets of your life like you do on Facebook in spite of the dragging undercurrent of biased advertising. OK admittedly Facebook  has become a principle defendant in the murky world of  privacy violations. But surely you only sell the part of yourself that you're willing to sell?

I've never seen anything appear on my Facebook timeline quoted as fact that hasn't lead me to look elsewhere for it's validity. Likewise with Youtube. While I already have a reasonable knowledge of the topics of interest to me. When someone tries to debunk my long felt beliefs or at least even tries to change it by looking at a different perspective. It's pretty easy to work out what angle they're coming from and surmise that they're just running out of idea's for content, I've learned some useful stuff and it is entertainment, but that's all it is.

But Twitter is a different animal, Twitter gives everyone their very own megaphone to throw whatever idea that pops into peoples heads out there to millions of people who greedily take to the stage. It's a place where the biggest stars on the planet are brought into direct contact with fans and foe alike. Twitter is toxic & beauty mashed together in a primeval struggle where there are no winners just ever growing armies and bandwagons for every ideologue.

The first rule of twitter is never admit you're wrong.

But as Dave Chappelle said recently "Twitter isn't real"

It's so easy to get wrapped up into an online World. I'm glad I'm old, maybe over the years I did gain a small morsel of wisdom. I was a very lucky child. I had a loving Mother who gave me such a safe haven in times of pain. My Father is an amazing Man. A blue collar worker who built up a reasonable wealth throughout his life through sheer hard work and is now enjoying his 10th year of retirement.

If I were born today of the same parents. I think I would have been able to navigate the minefield of the social media explosion. Even through those difficult teenage years. Although I hated my parents for some of the decisions they made regarding boundaries, I never actually hated them. All I got from them was love, not tough love. Kind of like a "firm" love. 

I remember when I was about 17, just recovering from the ravages of acne and hairs sprouting in all those unusual embarrassing places having a bit of jokey fun with my Dad, and my Mum said to him "Why cant you be like that all the time" not in a nasty way, just an observation. And my Dad replied "My time comes later" I understood it at the time I just wish I would have told him there and then that his time has been ALL the time, and it always will be. I wish I could have hugged him and told him how lucky I was to be able to call him Dad.

But what of todays generation. We're only now beginning to see the full effects of this digital age and it doesn't look healthy. although social media isn't the only cause. 

Social media is a huge intercontinental ballistic missile that's exploded over 99% of the World and nobody has learnt how to deal with the fallout. For me it's just fun to browse around checking stuff out. Catching up on the latest hate figure and wondering what side I would fall on if I were to really care that much. The last thing I listened to was the podcast "Stonewall" Which I found was quite interesting and did illuminate the reason why the BBC was going even further in it's quest for diversity than it normally does. Not that I'm a great fan of the BBC, mostly I use it for catching up on the Sport.

Or should I say I "used" to use it. I fully support any Female to engage in Sport, and some Women's sport I love (Tennis for example) But not Football. Clicking on the Beebs football page brings up plenty of articles about Women's Football. Not a problem you might ask, but there is also a tab that would bring up Women's Football exclusively, but not one for Men's. I am fully aware of Women's football, I don't need to be force fed it. Anyway, where was I?

That was just one of the examples of  diversity in action. There are plenty of other examples and let me tell you one thing. Living just outside Portsmouth, Ethnic minorities are MASSIVELY over-represented on TV. That was something I was only made aware of coming from people complaining that they're massively under represented, ironic huh?

So, Stonewall also brought up the Tavistock centre which I had a bit of knowledge about

I'm an old moaning codger. Never have I ever been a fan of giving drugs to children. I'm sure there are loads of children out there who really need help. But the World of psychiatry seems all too eager to give peoples kids a label that they & their parents can wear with pride and hide behind while prescribing the kids a magical pill that will fix almost all of their problems. I wasn't alive during the Thalidomide horror. But I have read up about it. No matter how much a drug is claimed to be perfectly safe by experts (with the best of intentions) mistakes can be made, and there remains the possibility it can be made again. 

I was accident prone as a child, so much so that has left me with a lifetime of suffering migraines. My parents did take me to the doctor once and I was prescribed with 2 different pain killers, bloody enormous they were. Didn't make one iota of difference. Luckily for me my parents quickly worked out that my migraine only really got bad if I was out playing too much. So from then on as soon as I felt that familiar pain come on, I was to come home straight away and sit with my parents, because they also discovered that laying down made it much, much worse. 

I didn't need drugs, I just needed to sit quietly and watch telly with my parents. What wonderful medicine.

So the very thought of giving children puberty blockers is abhorrent to me. Unless there is dire medical emergency they should never be prescribed for psychological reason, that is just obscene and child abuse! Agreeing with a child's self diagnosis seems bizarre to me. I grew up in a World that went through all the New Romantics and stars like Boy George and Adam Ant. And while I thought It was pretty cool to express yourself in that way It never occurred to any of us at that time that we might be stuck in the wrong body. So where would children ever get the idea. I dug a little deeper.

Abigail Shrier had written a book called irreversible damage. That really opened my eyes. It laid bare a horror that I just couldn't get my head round. How could a reporter from the Wall Street journal clearly see what the medical profession couldn't? The whiplash I got just from the amount of times I was shaking my head in astonishment.

When anything goes, everything else goes with it.

I looked up people online she had mentioned in her book. The rebuttals were incredible from these Youtubers, doubling down and claiming they were horribly misquoted and their sycophant's just lapped it all up threatening court action amidst a fear of losing valuable followers. How can these young girls not see they they're being used, they're nothing more than a revenue stream by confused Youtubers?

How can anybody going though or about to go through puberty honestly play along in a fantasy World created by someone who likes to call himself  "Chasey-Poos"? If I was Shrier, I wouldn't have been able to help myself and would have had to put in something like.

"Please be warned, Chasey-poos is a fucking lunatic and should be bloody sectioned"

Maybe it's best she didn't

Well apparently they do, they may have lost quite a few subscribers (Chasey-Poos certainly has) I felt too sick to really look at the rest. But ask yourself this, why have they never brought any court action? I'll tell you why

Because they know she's right, they know she's researched all her facts, and they also know she hasn't taken their comments out of context. Because Abigail Shrier is a grown up, she's a well educated Woman with young children of her own. And above all else, she's right. And the youtubers are making a living by acting out there own fantasies and taking that to the bank. Let me say it again.

They do not look at you as Human beings, they look at you as money!

I also found a young lady, she must be about 20-25? who had also read Shriers book and had decided to do a review of it. The first thing I noticed about her youtube page is that she is definitely one who feels the need to insert the fact that she is a qualified cognitive psychologist into all her video's. That's a red flag for me straight away. She's barely an adult herself, Her years of experience would be........zero then. Her narcissism however is several levels above that.

She kicked off the video by quoting extracts from the book by using a high pitched childlike girly voice. Inspiring stuff, looking deeeeeep into the camera in an effort to look serious and project her perceived intelligence right through the camera into the far reaches of your mind. Truth be told, she actually looked like a puppy dog begging for a biscuit to any grown adult. But I guess kids might fall for it. I lasted about 10 minutes before I had to go vomit.

But then again, I should have known it would be like this when I noticed she had also critiqued one of Jordan Petersons books. Now I'm not Petersons biggest fan, but I very much doubt if she has the mental capacity to take on a task like that. We never stop learning, Her journey is only just beginning. at least use your phd to learn more about psychology before making the leap to teaching it to children by using some form of hypnotic "crazy eyes" 22 thousand people have subscribed to this. The mind boggles!

The saddest thing of all, one that I don't think I will ever get my head around, is that Abigail Shrier is now considered controversial. That's just depressing.

Sometimes life is hard, I've known it to be really hard. Not as hard as some I've no doubt. But I've certainly known what poverty feels like. In one of my rare visits to the doctor around 12 years ago. I told him being on incapacity benefit was really tough. He asked me if I felt depressed. "I'm not going down that road" I said. "I need to get back to work and start paying off my debts" There ain't no pill in the World will fix that. Unless that pill had 30 grand stuck to the side of the bottle.

But I do think we had an easier time growing up. 99% of the families I knew had Mum at home. My Mum got herself a part time job which ensured she was always at home when we left for school and she was always there when we came home. What's wrong with that? It was her choice and she loved it. She could have decided to go out to work full time, another great choice. But she chose what made her happiest.

I'm not saying we should champion motherhood as the greatest thing any young girl would ever dream to want. But it should rank up there alongside the best of careers surely? Even more so nowadays in this digital age with so many career opportunities to be had while working from home. Power isn't money. Power is happiness.

One of my closest friends has 2 young Boys, and him and his girlfriend both work full time. They seem pretty happy, but it always seems to me that they have to rush off and do something all the time. Every hour is full and It looks like they have so little time just to be a family together. I do feel sorry for the younger generation. Even back in the early 90's when the housing price explosion really began to take off. There was no way I could afford a family home on my wages. The one bedroom flat i bought back then was never going to be big enough for the family I currently had, never mind the thought of expanding it!

Enough for now.