More than a Feeling

I am taking up a cause today.

'A what?' you ask.

'A cause? Mario, are you sure? No good ever came out of people who take up causes. They end up ignored by the masses at best, and martyrs at worst. The DEAD kind of worst.'

Well, yes, you would be right.

And I've not time for dead martyrs (The only kind. I've yet to find a live one...)

The cause I'm taking up is this one:

Now, on to explain this one.

I have been in the UK for a while now. Voter apathy tends to be all that gets talked about every time there's a general election, and yet all people seem to talk about in the office is how party 'A' is a bunch of crooks (I shall endeavour to use polite language throughout), Party 'B' is politically inept and weak, and party 'C' is filled with xenophobic miscreants, all the while laughing at parties D, E, F and the rest as a waste of time and of a vote.

For politically apathetic people, the British sure love a good politics moan.

But every time I've asked a British friend or colleague 'Why don't you challenge the system?' The answer is a series of roundabout non-answers that would make any of the politicians of those so belittled parties proud.

'You can't challenge the system! Politicians have made it so that it can't be beat!', they say in a dejected chorus, as if The Hypnotoad has just been unveiled in the room.  

So, the systems sucks, but what are you going to do about it?

You CAN tell the system and those who run it that you don't believe in it.

'But we have! We constantly whinge about it!'

Yes, well whingeing the way it's normally done has not effect when children do it to their parents.

Do you think it will work on a well entrenched, very well connected political establishment where the career politician is a master of tiptoeing through all sorts of minefields unscathed? A system that is if anything acutely self aware and determined to preserve itself by any means possible?

Go cry to the Hypnotoad.

You stand a better chance.

Some would argue that violent revolution is required, but I loathe to advocate violence no matter how revolutionary it may seem to be (and because 10 out of 10 times violence is used...someone gets hurt).

I advocate something much more pragmatic.

Rather than choosing the lesser of two weevils...

...or being 'apathetic'...

(by the by, thank you internet for all of these images...and people who put them on the internet...including the ones I used for making the first one)

...why don't we as a concerned group of individuals brought together within the confines of society and its many quirks, simply DO something about it?

Come General Election Day in the UK (Thursday, May 7, 2015), rather than partake of the unofficial National British Pass Time of Whingeing, why not whinge WHILST registering to vote AND queuing at your local electoral station to CAST your vote of 'No Confidence' (doing all of this will probably put you in the right grumpy mood to be able to do this last part).

I think it is the best course of action short of becoming an active participant in a real life re-enactment of an Alan Moore illustrated novella.

 

(I can almost feel the back of my head being struck by that awesome walking stick of his for saying that...)

By the by: up until about an hour ago, I thought I was alone in this particular thought regarding a solution for the political malaise of the UK, and yet it's funny what happens when you write 'vote of no confidence UK' into Google:

http://www.votenone.org.uk/

It gives information on how to successfully case a 'vote of no confidence', and is well worth a look.

Remember, folks, this is a democracy as much as it is a partisan democracy.

While NOT voting is a right within a democracy, VOTING, even if it is for NONE, is that right being put to action.

Rant over. :-)

Take it on the Run

Short entry today (and it still took me 30 minutes to write...bah!)

I'm listening to REO Speedwagon at the moment. I had forgotten how nice it was to have Spotify...

Spent the weekend belting Chicago's '25 or 6 to 4', which annoyed my other half (I was also belting out 'Carry on my Wayward Son' by Kansas, which stuck to her head) , though she and sprog did dance hilariously to it when I put it out loud on my phone.

I like little silly moments like that.

I did 90% of my tasks this weekend. Sadly, since I was not the person to pack the power cables for the laptop, this is one of those tasks which evaded me.

Cleaning the windows was another. Cleaning south facing windows in winter when the wind is blasting FROM the south is not a happy thing to do.

It didn't help that I REALLY wanted to finish Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. Now, before you go on a 'Boo!' rant, please allow me to expand on this topic.

I have been playing the Call of Duty series since Modern Warfare 2. Fatherhood, however, has meant I have considerably less time to play such trivial game.

I was given CoD:AW as a Christmas gift, meaning it has taken me near two months to be able to finally play it. And I did complete it in a dedicated afternoon (I played it in the lowest setting possible).

Boo-hoo, Mario.

Boo-hoo.

I also don't like going online to play. Last thing I want is to have my mediocre gaming skills bested by a 12 year old with too much time on their hands...well, time enough to humiliate me, in any case.

Writing wise, it has been quiet in the 'Put thoughts to paper' front, though actual thoughts have been bubbling fiercely.

When I finished The Space Between the Stars, I was relatively happy with the mythology. But as I read it over again, I found that perhaps there was space to expand upon it. So I did (in my head), and there are now more characters in this narrative. Or rather in a parallel narrative.

But The proof is in the pudding, and I guess I shall have to write another short story about that.

K told me I'd better, because she was happy with the mythology as it was.

So once again, I need to convince my toughest editor that this makes sense...

Hurray for challenges!

;-)

Carry on my Wayward Son...

Hello again.

It's been a while since I last blogged.

Life gets in the way of things (I actually have a large degree of empathy for George R.R. Martin when he claims he will write The Song of Ice and Fire at his own damned pace, though taking time to buy a Bowling Alley doesn't help him write any faster). At first, I didn't want to blog because I was gauging the reaction to people reading The Space Between the Stars, which was...well minimal, though the few comments I did receive were good and humbling.

But then other things took me away from the blog.

Excuses, mostly.

You know the kind.

Some valid.

Most, however, were mere laziness.

So, in the spirit of this week, I have decided to eliminate (or diminish) laziness as my Lent promise.

If you aren't a Christian, Lent may seem a bit of a strange quirk of devout (and semi devout) pilgrims giving up chocolate or alcohol for 40 days and not eating meat on Fridays.

My take of it, however, is slightly askew of it (and perhaps not entirely in keeping with the factual meaning of Lent).

But that's between me and the Invisible Giant in the Sky to chat about.

Jesus, as the bible tells, went into the desert to pray and commune with God for 40 days and 40 nights, fasting and declining the advances made to him by the devil.

Not much different than the prolonged meditations and abstinence from the temptations of the material world practiced by some Buddhist disciples on their path to perfection, for example.

The basis of it, is to deny yourself of something which is a need in order to appreciate whether or not it is in fact a need in the first place.

Explained like that it is quite introspective.

At least to me anyways.

So, back to that Lent promise of mine.

I am giving up, or attempting to give up Laziness.

How do I define/quantify laziness?

There's the rub.

Well, the one way I will define my laziness for the Lent period is by my ability to do tasks. To that effect, I have picked up a little notebook, on the cover of which I have written 'LENT TASKS.' Every day is written on it for the duration of Lent (I will include Easter Sunday on this diary), and I must write all the tasks I intend to do for the day on the page corresponding, as well as tick the task once it has been completed.

I know what the first complaint will be: 'Well, Mario. Anyone can make a list where they do the bare minimum number of tasks and claim they've accomplished everything.'

And you would be 100% correct in that assumption.

But I am not simply 'anyone.' I know what my own failings are, and organisation is actually top among them. I am erratic at best in my organisation. I am most comfortable shooting from the hip.

So in effect, HAVING to write everything down for 40 days is in itself a challenge.

It takes me away from my comfort zone.

It denies me something I like, though perhaps do not need (though at times it may feel like I need those extra 30 minutes fiddling about flicking endlessly through TV channels or watching the same dog chase it's tail on YouTube).

My other half has already told me not to be too hard on myself should I fail to live up to the task.

No one feels too hard about themselves when they fail to give up chocolate for Lent.

Or alcohol.

Or eats that bacon double cheeseburger on a Lent Friday.

Some people even manage to successfully avoid the chocolaty temptation for 40 days...

...though quite a few do so by picking up a 'support vice.'

:-/

So, this will be my burden for the next 40 days.

To be as organised as I can, and avoid falling into the trap of 'I can do it later'

I'll keep you posted, since I have made it one of the tasks to blog more regularly (once a week). I may even add 'Write a page of fantasy fiction' as a daily task.

Or I may leave it for later... ;-P