2024-09-25
It is my seventy-fifth wv. Wow! I still remember quite clearly struggling to make it to ten, and now I am two-thirds of my way to a hundred. That's not bad work at all, even if it is just... rambling, a lot of the time. Of course, there is still far to go. If I want to get to a thousand, and assuming I write 30 entries each month (one a day give or take) as I have this month, then I have still got three years at least. In reality, it's going to be longer, as life will get in the way, or I may end up with more writer's block. But it is strange how I'm currently sort of able to just flow and get words onto paper, a thousand at a time, now. I was reading Cory Doctorow's Pluralistic, and an entry about the trueness of the advice to "write every day". Really, writing does seem to come the more you do it; now, not that my words are at all special or at all important, but still.
In terms of writing as it goes, I want to try to do more in the way of poetry/ and prose/. Also, I think I might make blog/ a weekly entry detailling what I have done: sort of a weeklog, but with the actual events of my life. Well, then I should probably find more interesting things to do than just the gym and complaining about how I'm not doing guitar at the moment.
The weather today is miserable, but it is coming up to winter now... seventeen degrees (celsius) which feels pretty miserable, but isn't too bad. It's in that unfortunate zone where we've acclimatised to warmer, but it's not cold enough to call it properly cold and justify a coat, but is just kind of ... grey (a la 0065).
So, as I was getting ready for work this morning (I'm writing this on the train) I saw I assume it was This Morning or Good Morning Britain or ITV News or something (I never watch TV, so I don't really know) where Kier Starmer was being asked repeatedly by the interviewer (I think her name is Lorraine. Really I never watch TV, so I don't know this kind of basic knowledge - she's a recognisable face, though) to apologise for the winter fuel allowance cuts. She was saying to apologise to, I can't remember the name, let's say Sally. Four times she said: and so, would you apologise to Sally who will be hundreds of pounds worse off after your fuel allowance cuts? And four times he did not apologise instead saying it was necessary or something. The fourth time he said the Tories should apologise, and that they (Labour) are just trying to fix the mess that the Tories left.
The thing is: I wonder in what way this is productive. Or rather, I don't think it is. What is an apology, exactly? Why does it matter if he apologises, if he is still going to make the cuts anyways? It feels like it is just a way to catch him out, and produce a sensational headline. If he apologises, plastered on every newspaper will be: PM APOLOGISES FOR DANGEROUS FUEL ALLOWANCE CUTS, and if he doesn't: PM REMORSELESS ABOUT DANGEROUS FUEL ALLOWANCE CUTS. As in, he can't win, and nobody but the newspaper running ads and getting views win.
Now, I'm hardly new, or the most qualified to comment about the downfall of journalism. It is just a shame. That was good time wasted asking for an apology which, whether gotten or not, is only there to get views and outrage, where instead the conversation could have been a slower paced, more productive discussion of the intricacies of the budget, and trying to find a place for winter fuel allowance to perhaps even be less but still present, so that any (potential) harm is refused. And to be honest, I'm not taking a side, I think they're both terrible (bothsidesism) but I just wish the journalism was a little more productive. Then the government could stop wasting time with them and just actually get work done, or at least the discussion in the public eye would be a little more informed. Instead, so much time is wasted on pointless things like "will he or won't he" instead of sitting down and actually considering possible changes to the budget.
(As an aside, we've just gotten to Pitsea, and the people who normally cross the platform to get the train on the other side found the doors didn't open; then the train just left. So they're going to have to stand about in the rain for the next train on that platform, which is probably 20 minutes I assume. Fun. A girl was running after the train and screaming as well - not sure why...)
I get told by my grandma that it is a shame (and often, that it is by virtue (vice) of my being young (implied: silly)) that I do not stay informed; my opinion is generally that anything of import will make its way to me. I can... sort of understand where she is coming from, in that of course it's good to know what a government is doing to rally revolt before terrors begin, and potentially growing up in the last century she is dreadfully aware of that fact; I meanwhile, growing up in the certainty of governmental corruption and the tangling up of it with corporate interests against the individual (insert wealth consolidation statistics here: the richest 10 people could lose 99.999% of their wealth and still be in the 0.01%, or whatever, etc.) am I suppose inured to it. Not that I don't think it's a shame: it is, but it doesn't stoke emotion in that way. Probably not a good thing. Either way, staying informed is a useless consequence of this, as the information comes from a limited set of megacorporations still, who still exert huge control over what reaches the masses so as to suit their agenda. Generally, extraction of wealth. The news is not helpful nowadays; it is mostly sensationalism. Of course there is a substrate of actual (if cherrypicked) information, but the actual reporting is very much corrupted.
So I'm happy to largely stay out of it. I suppose it is, politically, better to live, not strictly by ideology (which seems to have a rigidity and in turn an inflexibility) but rather by heuristics. For instance, I never would trust a politician, not with my child nor even with a ten-pence piece. Corporate influence is inherently corrupting and should be restrained. etc. Really, I believe I can make more of a change as an individual (neglecting, for one moment, group dynamics, as those are both more efficacious and harder to do: I, as with most people, do not really do anything group-politically) by not eating meat, not buying new clothes, riding my bike instead of driving, trying to avoid plastic (which I have been doing poor on as of late), not buying from Amazon nor supporting Google etc., buying paper not DRM'd e-books, not giving money to streaming services, paying for (Proton)mail and potentially search (Kagi seems very promising - it is a lot of money, but maybe worth it to try?) In other words, my actions everyday have a bigger effect, I think, in the real threat, which is nowadays less of an overtly tyrannical government but rather corporate overreach, aided by government. Of course, it is worthwhile to inform myself to act well, but I do not think the news really has that. It has far-away tragedies (on which I can exert no influence), and excessive reactions to meaningless nothings said by overimportant leaders. Meh. I'll take the everyday actions path myself, I think it does better. Slow and steady and all that.
(In a way, I wonder if it is the same reaction people give when you say you don't have any streaming services: they are more surprised at a life of minimal externally curated information, and rather are surprised that I find information if I need it, and strip away the fat, rather than being on the circus of perpetual information. I don't need most information: I'd rather not process it, and stick to finding what I think is good, and processing only that. As in, the tragedies in Palestine (and it is a tragedy) do not affect me, nor do I affect them; my life is orthogonal to theirs. I only need a "tag" understanding of it (a reference that it exists) and not any particular detail relating to it; certainly, to pursue a history of it would be hobbyist (and not to be derided) but not necessary in any way. Hopefully that makes sense. I've different hobbies, in other words.)
Ok, have a good one.