Grasping at Straws

 While the world blows up around us - it seems all prospects of a more peaceful year are off the table - I have been feeling silenced.  Conflict does that to me - my trivial life is completely inconsequential in the greater scheme of things.  And yet.... the world is still spinning and if people are silenced by bullies then they win.

 So let's talk about magic. I have seen some excellent magic shows in my life.  (I have also seen some mediocre ones at kids' parties, but hey everyone needs a practice audience).  The good ones have amazed, gobsmacked and bewildered me.  How on earth could that signed banknote land up in my wallet?  How could the crushed coke can be opened and be full of of liquid.  It's magic!  It's not of course - it is an artful skill of misdirection and illusion.  And we want to be entertained and believe, so we, the audience, are part of the magic too.

Take the plastic straw trick as another good example of both audience participation and spectacular misdirection.    Oil companies need us to believe that we are destroying the earth by slurping our milkshakes through a plastic tube that they have created.  Plastic is their waste material, and if we take the blame and feel guilty for using their by products, they can happily pollute the world with lucrative oil without protests being directed at them.  A clever sleight of hand and mind bending manipulation.

People love a cause. We want to be useful.  And picking up plastic straws from our beaches is undoubtedly a holy and worthwhile endeavour  (well, picking up all litter from all spaces really.)  But don't be fooled : it is not going to save our planet. The emissions from driving our car to the beach that one afternoon pollutes more than all the plastic straws you are likely to use all your life.

Mega rich oil companies want us to look at the byproducts so that they can keep churning out their profits.

Politicians too offer masterclasses in misdirections and illusions.  Look this way, they slyly say, lighting up the skies with missiles and airstrikes.  And we have to look.  We have to be afraid.  And then fear becomes a currency with which they buy time to cover up their personal failings and almighty misdeeds. It's not magic.  It's tragic. 

But we shouldn't allow the bullies to silence us.   We, the people with common sense and shreds of morality, need to stand firm and not allow the created fear to divide us. We can create our own boundaries. I will continue to pick up the litter, use fewer plastic straws and question my footprint on this earth.  And I will never lose sight of the fact that all most of us want is to be loved and accepted, live quiet, meaningful lives and find happiness in the minutiae of Being.