Survival of the Bloggest

D A Y  F O U R: Thursday 5^th March

            If we were stripped right down to our barest of souls how would we cope with

it?  Or, to put it another way, how would we survive at the most basic level of

humanity with nothing more than our wits to keep us alive?

            In our apparently witless world the vast majority of us would probably perish

without our improbable matrix of gadgets on hand to do everything for us.

            The human species flourished after the noble discovery of fire.  Once the fire

is alight, the flame must be kept burning.  A flame that lurks deep within each of us

and yet has been dimmed by artificiality, neon jazz hoardings and ‘technobabble’. 

Fire is heat, light, sterilisation and community, amongst many other things, and it

binds whole human civilisations together like no other element.  On a cold and dark

desert night a fire is the last piece of the sun that carries us through to another blazing

dawn where it can boil the undrinkable and cook us our breakfast over an open spit.

            If we all got busier embracing our need to survive maybe we could live in a

more idyllic and peaceful world where no-one would have the time or inclination to

waste their valuable thoughts and energy on killing or betrayal.  We could once again

become a global human team all sharing the one true goal of survival, instead of

unadulterated greed and success.

            The simple and immensely rewarding joy of sitting around a roaring campfire

telling stories is a skill that appears to have been lost to us in our crazy techno world

and with it, sadly, the need to care a little more for one another.

Episode Three For You All To Enjoy!!

D A Y  T H R E E: Monday 2^nd March

            In these volatile times in which we all live, it seems as though everything

revolves around computers and information technology.  This whole virtual world

which we have created can be very useful to all of us in moderation and the

technology can be a brilliant organisational tool. 

            If you simply push here and ‘click’ there all shall be revealed in an instant. 

An optical and mental illusion, but a rather clever one.  The task is complete and your

information is stored or sent……somewhere……and for what purpose?

            The human brain is the most superior and complex microprocessor of all, but

through our own ignorance it is in mortal danger of being insidiously supplanted by

the very machines and processes that it designed and created.  Organisational illusion

could very easily become complete automated control if the human species allows it

to be.

            I enjoy playing video games as much as the next person, they are a good

release of tension and an escape into a fantastical world of dreams.  A couple of

nights ago, I found one of my Fighting Fantasy© gamebooks and gave it a whirl,

just for old times’ sake.  The experience was as awesome as it used to be in my

teenage years and once more my brain and imagination clicked into overdrive.  I

fondly remembered the days and sometimes weeks I would spend in quiet addiction to

these great adventure books where “you were the hero!”.  Now, all the heroes are

older and forgotten in what could become a technological nightmare, a much bigger

one than The Warlock on his Firetop Mountain could ever wreak upon us. 

            Simplify, organise and clarify.  I found that I had great fun with my gamebook

with nothing more than a pencil, rubber, paper, two six-sided dice and my

imagination, coupled with a great love of reading and good writing. 

            It is not a pre-requisite for life that all our daily affairs should be done and

presented to us by an impersonal and unemotional machine and is probably quite an

unhealthy state of human affairs.  A virtual life instead of a real one.  Computers and

machines undoubtedly have their brilliant uses, but it is essential to keep their

advances in balance with our much more powerful collective human consciousness so

that they may aid our existence and not control it.

            The computer is our tool that we created and as such we are still its master and

can turn it on and off at will so that we can continue to think independently and for

ourselves and one another. 

            I strolled in quiet contentment to the swimming pool tonight after work with

not an ‘image’ or a ‘click’ to be seen or heard.  I felt fantastically free as I  breathed

the air, reassured by the overriding and inescapable truth that I am a living and

breathing entity and not an android.

Part Two: Feedback welcomed.

D A Y  T W O: Thursday 26^th February

            Most days it can feel a bit like we are all just treading water, but in an endless

field of thick, ripe horse manure.  ‘Shit soup’ as it is more commonly known.  This

term may come across as a rather vulgar and negative view of the modern world in

which we live, but it is actually quite the opposite, uplifting even, with a delicate

sense of comic tragedy about it.  Daily human life could easily be portrayed as the

same old ‘shit soup’ with a slightly different hint of lemon or thyme thrown into the

wildly delirious mix of our tangled emotions.

            All of a sudden, while we are busy treading the detritus of the world’s bowel

movements, a complete stranger may smile at us and acknowledge our presence, a

beaming ray of golden sunlight that washes down upon us from the upper atmosphere

and shows us in a fleeting instant our enduring human ability to remain positive in the

face of a maelstrom of humdrum and adversity.  Our own personal ‘shit soup’ is

momentarily forgotten and begins to taste more like a warming oxtail broth, or

whatever flavour takes our fancy at the time.

            We all live in the comforting knowledge that despite everything that has and

could happen to us at any time, we are all constantly sampling each others ‘shit soups’

as we interact with each other every day.  It is this knowledge that empowers within

us a universal feeling of human spiritual bonding that manifests itself in an

infinitesimal number of forms:-

Love, Hate, Pride, Envy, Jealousy, Suffering, Happiness, Tragedy, Comedy…….

            And as the list grows longer with each passing human year it is passed on and

changed, as indeed we all change, on our journey through the generational abyss of

human endeavour.

Does this reflect your own inner self?

www.writers-online.co.uk

Part One

T H E  F I R S T  D A Y: Tuesday 24 February

            I would like to focus more clearly and clarify my thoughts.  I love to write

about all sorts of ideas, but a defined subject keeps eluding my train of thought which

ebbs and flows like the many atmospheric gases that we all breathe in our daily lives.

            What would it be like to live and exist on a space station, suspended in an

ominous vacuum like a tiny puppet on a string?  This idea struck me as an exciting

one when I was considerably younger and happily striving for the unattainable status

of Elite© in the famous 1980s PC space trading game.  Even now, because of this

wonderful teenage experience the much lamented strains of Strauss’ famous ‘Blue

Danube’ Waltz swim into the silent and singing part of my mind whenever I see a

space station on the television, rotating slowly in the void of space, monitoring the

Great Unknown.

            I can remember in vivid detail how difficult it was to dock my spaceship

in the game and I resolved to carry on striving and fighting until I could afford

to install a docking computer which made things a lot easier and my Elite© adventure

unfolded  before me.  A bit like life in fact.

            I have been to work again today and neither saw nor heard anything new

or remarkable, or perhaps I was just not looking?  Work and exist is all that life seems

to be at times, or do I just need to keep my mind open to all the little things that

may actually be the keystones of the foundations of all life upon which the larger and

more clumsy edifices grow and prosper?

            One thing I do know though, and it is that humans generally talk much

twaddle that can be very amusing to the ear.  Just like the continuity of my space station

this makes me more resolved to be honest, open and true to myself and not to believe

any of the twaddle until it actually transpires.

Reference: www.writers-online.co.uk