Monthly Archives: July 2016
Breaking the spiral of alone
I’m not a people person and i often find myself alone. It takes effort for me to be in a crowd, I struggle with small talk. I think a LOT, about EVERYTHING, and ALL the time yet common sense is something I’ve never grasped. Sometimes I label myself with Asperger’s, but everyone is different and a single label feels like a straight jacket.
I think sometimes being alone is a spiral. You do not see anyone for a day, for two days, for three and it becomes a week. You don’t talk to family for one week then two weeks. When you realize how longs it been it feels an unnerving challenge to “make the effort”. Its easy to spiral down into a cocoon where the world is something you can ignore and switch off with a tv remote.
The thing is we are social animals. I believe there are two things that define us and set us above other animals. Firstly we communicate, more than any other species. We communicate With speech and music, and art and sculpture , with food and even scent. Secondly, we build tools to change and control our world, we see what others have done and create better tools, we combine what we learn from others to make new discoveries and creations. Even when we are alone we may keep a diary to communicate with future selves. Our need to communicate, to share, to give is what makes us human.
Depression and doubt are traps that can effect all of us to greater or lesser degrees at different points in our lives. Medications can help some but I honestly believe that the best medicine is to communicate. It is painful at first like starting to exercise, it may never become easy, but I believe communication is as important as eating and breathing. Communication is about both listening and talking, it is about sharing. Its tempting to push things down, to carry on alone and just “pull ourselves together grow a pair”. I believe that keeping everything pushed down inside ourselves feeds a time bomb that stealthy waits until we cannot contain it any more. You cant force somebody communicate, but you can show them that they can do so safely, bit by bit, day by day.
I keep this blog, to say what i think of the world, to the world. Maybe people will read it, maybe they will agree or maybe they will disagree. Writing this blog it is good for me, it is a release and so much better than letting the thoughts and opinions race around as a storm in my mind. I do not write it to garner sympathy nor praise. I write it to share.
Once or twice in my life I have found people I can fully relax with. I treasure those people. Those people inspire me to try and be that person for somebody else, to let somebody know they are not alone. I still do not like crowds, I still find it relaxing to be alone. I doubt that is ever going to change. But so long as I communicate, as long as I share, then even when I am alone, I am not.
Police body cameras are long overdue.
I believe that police officers on patrol should wear body cameras because we need everything out in the open. We need to see the good and the bad to show that we have balance and honesty. In moments of stress people can miss remember, so we need an independent witness. In the same way that DNA evidence has becomes invaluable in trials, so also should video evidence of things seen and heard. Of things done and said. If kids can film every moment of their lives on cameras and post it on social media then i see no reason that police offices cannot do the same for when they are out on patrol.
I believe that …
- Jury’s or judges should be able to view and release any footage because we should not hide the truth.
- Do not splice or edit footage at trial because knowing what happened before/after an incident gives context. Fast forward or rewind as needed, but maintain the integrity of each recording.
- Keep all footage for at least 6 months
- Keep footage relevant to a case brought to trial for at least 6 months after that trial
- Cameras should timestamp and geolocate footage so that archives can be searched after an event
- Cameras should be visible because we need to be open and honest.
Terrorist is the wrong label for some people.
People are misusing the words terrorist lately, they are miss-using the word as a label for “bad people that cause lots of death”. There are already labels for such cases, labels like murderer, evil, mass killer. The label is sometimes miss-applied to shooters in America and today it was used as a slur on Tony Blair . The word is being used to to whip up emotion for injustices because people are angry.
The word terrorist means “one that uses terror as a weapon”. A person who’s tactic is to cause terror in order to achieve some other goal. A person who’s purpose is to terrorize people into changing. A terrorist thinks less about the people they kill and more about the impact of their act on the observers.
Words are mightier than the sword only if they are wielded with care and choice. We reduce ourselves to cavemen when words are thrown around like blunt stones. We all need to choose our words better because our goal should be to communicate, to share and to educate.
In George Orwell’s book “1984” the government organization “newspeak” strives to reduce the vocabulary of the population. Done because by removing words, by blurring them together, you weaken those that might use them. We need to sharpen our vocabulary because it is our power. We need to use the right words for the right things.