YOU

ABC Wednesday & more prompts below
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BLOGGER BARD

What is ‘you’? I say this as opposed to ‘who are you’ because as a
personality it may not be down to you. It is all to do with what an
‘individual’ is and is not. The idea of individuality is quite recent for
most of us.

It is most likely a spin-off of social
evolutionary processes.

It requires the time to think that you ARE individual. Hence, it will arise
at such time that you are no longer preoccupied with survival. In this
sense it came down the classes. The old God-Kings can be said to be
first to not have to worry about survival, so were the first to
appreciate their individuality. As technology advanced, so, too, the
numbers able to be individuals, descending down the aristocracy, the
middleclass, and finally the working class. Of course, in a mass
consumer society this is important. You need to express yourself
individually to be a good consumer. Indeed, throughout history trade
has occurred to expand the numbers of individuals. In this sense,
individuality is a consumer device. This does, of course, suggest that
individuality is a concept rather than an absolute. We don’t like to
think in this way, but it could be true. We’re back to what is ‘you’?
Well, ‘you’ is shaped by many things outside of you. Ancestry,
culture, environment and society all shape who you are. Then there
are instinctual drives. Now, we’re said not to be controlled by these
any more. We’re no longer just animals. But is this really the case, or
have such drives merely adapted to our evolving species? We all
express emotions of various kinds, but whilst the reason for such
expression may be personal, the emotion itself is universal throughout
the species. Jung identified universal archetypal character types
which we all express. So these, too, seem to be of the species. As I
see it, individuality is really an amalgam of outside influences, shaped
into ‘you’ by your experiences, certainly, but a cauldron of outside
impulses nonetheless. Don’t get me wrong. Individuality is good, but
maybe not as absolute as we think. We should bear this in mind when
we say individuality is everything. It may give us a new understanding
of community and togetherness.

Eye On the World
Essays on everything from science
to religion, politics to crime

WORLD NEWS: There is anger
here after China executed a Brit with
mental health problems for drug running. I
don’t usually comment on another country’s affairs
other than America. I do this as nearly everything America
does impacts directly on my life, so I will speak. And I think China is
becoming the same. Supposedly set to be a major world power, we
MUST speak about their human rights, otherwise their influence may
become the norm.

CELEB NEWS: It’s been a good week for Yorkshire and Trekkies alike.
Following the New Year Honours, arise Sir Patrick Stewart. Picard
would be proud. Significantly, there’s hardly anything for
politicians this year. They wouldn’t dare after the
expenses scandal. Unlike many, I like the
British honours system. Yes, it can
be manipulated, but overall I
think it good to have a
non-financial reward
for excellence.

THE CRIME POST

It would be criminal not to read it

One Single Impression
ReadWritePoem – Friday Flash 55
Three Word Wednesday

INDURATE BOY

Born into crime, no way to resist,
Didn’t want to do it, but couldn’t desist,
Peers and family and one and all,
Culture of violence, answer the call,
And then you’ve got to be harder than them,
If not, they’ll surely try to condemn,
Finish you off, take you out of the game,
So be hard – confirm your malicious fame

THE MORTICIAN

Fiction: I’ve always considered my work an artform. As a mortician, to
prepare a body for the everlasting is such a joy. Of course, so often it
is an impossible challenge. The very aged, those of a terminal illness –
so much degraded; so difficult to make it right – yet to find before me
such a beautiful woman – and my hope to make her more beautiful,
now, than she had been in life. Yet, such a rush – so little time to
work my magic before they come for me – and the sadness that in
producing such eternal art, I had to kill her.

WHAT A CRIME

Habitual I am in how I commit,
Giddy the feeling when I score a hit,
Fritter control in having my fun,
Love the essence of what I’ve done,
Disloyal to any form of control,
Yet such a debacle makes me whole,
Converting words to poetic form,
Whodunit? They!! Celebration the norm

FLASH 55 – STALKED

Fiction: I’d never seen a corpse before, but there it was, and I
thought: this is my worst experience. But it wasn’t. You can’t have
such an experience without an effect – for days following it was as if
it was there behind me. And thus it stayed until the day I stopped the
policeman and confessed.

RATS

Nibble and gnaw, scurry around,
Can’t believe what they’ve found,
Epic numbers, causing pain,
Let’s face it, it’s quite a drain,
Never far away from them,
Often it feels like we’re hemmed;
Infestation of society,
Pickpockets, muggers, burglary

© Anthony North, January 2010

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