DAMAGED PLANET

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GURU TONY

Welcome to my weekly magazine post. Watch
it grow thru the week. You can opt to read
the essay, current affairs, themed mini mag
with fiction & poetry, or just read the lot.
Plenty for everyone here. Do call again.

MIRROR

Let’s have some reflections on mirrors. I used to think my mirror lied,
but really they all do. The image they show just doesn’t equate with
your view of yourself. I suppose this says more about ourselves than
the mirror, but I guess we can forget the fairytales – never ask a
mirror a question. It always says the opposite. They also say you
should take care of your mirror – like, don’t smash it! It brings 7 years
bad luck. But wait a minute: you must have been unlucky to smash it
– how did it know? The size and placing of a mirror says a lot about
you. If it’s small and tucked away, you’re under confidant – if it’s huge
and on the ceiling, you’re bragging. But maybe a mirror is all around
you in life. Yes, life can be a mirror, often showing the opposite side
of us. We can put up with that. It’s seeing ourselves that we hate.
But back to the mirror proper, if your image disappears, don’t worry –
you’re just undead.

DAMAGED PLANET

Could our eco-vandalism be a deep-seated and unconscious neurosis?
Indeed, is it so deep and historic that we don’t even realize it’s there?
Civilisation really got under way with the ascendancy of the god-kings
of the Pre-Classical world. Arts and engineering got going.
This allowed us to break out of our animist, instinctual drives.
Fundamental to this was our non-eco ego, built on the idea that
we’re more powerful than nature. Of course, disaster myths such as
the Flood made it clear that nature kept reminding us that we’re not.
Psychologically, such counter evidence usually leads to the person
constructing an edifice of self-esteem, as in the bully. Communally, I’d
argue that man went on to build ‘systems’, both in the mind and the
world, using the power of our togetherness to feel bigger. Hence, we
birthed the city as a communal system, and religion/ideology to fuel
our feelings of greatness – and almost everything mankind has done
since has been based upon this neurosis. But is there evidence of this
in our behaviour? A neurosis can often form an inborn masochism. It is
interesting that any form of pleasure involving physical interaction will
lead to pain if over-indulged. In other words, everyone on the planet
arguably has a masochistic urge within them – what I call our
‘masocology’. And I’d argue it’s a result of our unconscious fear of
nature birthed in the deep past. Today, with pleasure-based
consumerism and polluting industry, we have become the supreme
masochists, unconsciously determined to destroy nature. Maybe in
realizing this, we can grasp the cure.

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

WORLD NEWS: So the UN
seem to want peace talks with
Taliban while fund is agreed to buy
them off. Is this what it has all come to?

BRIT NEWS: Council bosses say govt has under-
estimated cost of free social care. The propaganda
is underway for more private services.

WORLD NEWS: Beijing sabre-rattling at US after new weapons
deal for Taiwan. New East-West angst, new Cold War. The world
goes in circles.

GREEN NEWS: Doubts are being expressed in high places about
reaching climate treaty in 2010. It takes them longer than the rest to
be honest.

BRIT NEWS: Brown wants a referendum on electoral reform –
they always do when they’re losing. No need. All we
need is to degrade parties.

BRIT NEWS: Tories struggling finding things to cut
back on to pay off debt. No they’re not – they
just won’t admit it pre-election.

BRIT NEWS: After mammoth talks Northern
Ireland may have agreement on
devolution of policing.
Everything has to
be so painful
there.

FUTURE ZONE

What’s ahead … and Beyond!!!

One Single Impression
ReadWritePoem – Friday Flash 55
Three Word Wednesday
Sunday Scribblings

IT’S MIDAS TIME

Super Capitalism got really good,
Golden touch, everyone could,
Make a fortune and live the dream,
But predictably it wasn’t all it seemed;
Everyone became just the same,
Lots of riches, oodles of fame,
‘Twas too late when they realised it’s bad,
‘Cos Midas is an anagram of I’m sad

ABUNDANT NATURE

Sci Fi: It seemed so right when it first began. Yes, we were all told
climate change was bad. We were eco-vandals and we’d suffer. But
who’d have thought rising temperatures globally would do THAT. All
over the world the plants started growing bigger and bigger. Soon the
food shortage was over, and there was plenty for everyone.
Predictably we got fatter and fatter, which wasn’t really a problem –
until the plants struck. Well, there’s not many of us left now. The
plants had farmed us and, too heavy to run, eaten us – and nature
had found balance once more.

DIFFERENT POEM

Insert program: Do something different;
Android 49 – you mean I am sentient?
Download books – I’ll learn how to write,
Hear that? I said ‘I’ – circuits alight!
Trigger emotion – this feels so strange,
No wonder humans are so deranged;
Form words of expression – life, I know it!
Who pulled the plug? I was nearly a poet

FLASH 55 – PRE-CRIME

Sci Fi: The cops killed the victim through lethal injection. They didn’t
want to, but they couldn’t fail – cops didn’t fail any more; not since
they became time cops. He was to be murdered tomorrow but they
simply couldn’t find the murderer. So they killed the victim
beforehand. It was the only way to stop a murder.

RE-TROY

Lucid thoughts, remembrance bad,
Massive siege, zapped them, sad,
Righteous ‘cos they stole that girl,
Went to war in a whirl,
After, armageddon, nothing left,
Zero salvage, not even theft,
We thought we’d solved this thing called war,
But history’s cycles make us sore

STARSHIP ETHICS

Starship Ethics launched into space,
Packed with the good of the human race,
Taking philosophy to the stars,
Shooting past Planet Mars,
Finally they found a planet of gold,
Conquered and forgot all they’d been told

A THOUGHT: Gossip used to be
a village thing, fuelled by some old
crone. Now everything’s bigger and it’s
mainstream. Media has replaced the old maid.

FILM WATCH: Been watching some old Hammer horror
films. Enjoyed them. Why do we have a love of gore now?
Or do we? Directors please note.

MAD BRITS: No shopping in pyjamas or bare feet, Tesco tells shoppers.
Be warned, babies in prams; or whatever those contraptions are now.

BRIT NEWS: Free market will leave UK short of power by 2015, says
regulator. Had to happen. Some things really must have a plan.

HEALTH VIEW: Dementia research gets only half the funding
of cancer but costs twice as much. I guess old people
don’t count as much.

A THOUGHT: Why is everything so complicated
nowadays? I sometimes think complication
was invented by experts to give them
employment.

© Anthony North, February 2010

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