This year a few orb weavers made their home in the garden. I didn’t see half as many as last year, but more other types of spiders, I will get to them a a bit later as they are relevant. So a few small ones built their webs, and got bigger. Two seemed to have a set location, a pale brown one on the gooseberry bush in mostly full sunshine all day, and a darker, almost black and white one chose the compost bin in the datk corner of the garden.
Suprisingly, it was very difficult to photograph as always had the underside showing out and the angle of the web meant it was tricky to get behind it. Each night it would hide behind the same leaf, tucked in and almost perfectly hidden as Autumn moved and changed the leaves to be the same colour. Even still munching while resting.
It’s nice to be able to watch wildlife be in their natural envionment, just doing what they do.
This one always seemed to have goodies in his web and be scoffing something as he got bigger. Each day there would be some thing new in his grip. I thought to press record for one of his captures.
I liked checking on him every day to see how big he was getting, and if the web had managed to withstand weather and time. But it was neither of those that ended his short existence. It was the circle of nature. Those other spiders I mentioned earlier, this is where they become relevant. This year, there has been an increased number of noble false widows. They are many, and i have had to throw a few out of the house when i find them too. House spiders I usually let stay, but the others, they have to go.
Here is one I found in the house a couple of weeks ago – in the tub with drying poppy seeds no less, which my hand had been in not long before to get some seeds! It had quite high plastic so it was a bit stuck. I helped it out and put it outside. And I found a moth chrysalis in the same tub as well just after, which appears to have bust out of one of the poppy heads. There is so much more going on that meets the eye.
Here is the chrysalis – I believe it an angle shade moth one, but am still learning when it comes to identifying things.
So, back to the original story. The orb weaver, was going about his business but it would seem he may have strayed to far beyond his ‘patch’. Or maybe it was that the neighbour was jealous of his daily catches, we can’t be sure at this point. But what we do know is that at point between nightfall and the next day, something occured which ended this spiders journey. I was sad for him, not gonna lie. I came out one morning to find this scene of horror before me.
Not quite what I was expecting, but it was done. Nature and the circle of life had struck with full force. It is what it is. Like I said, we have quite a few of the noble false widows. It took this one a while to work out the logicstics of getting his catch into his lair, but he managed it eventually before the rains came, so I think he should be fine for a while.
It doesn’t always go well, and not everyone is going to make it. But life goes on…
(c) K Wicks
If you would like to see some other spider posts of mine – you can check them out here
It really has snowballed hasn’t it? Within a very short time we have gone from going about our business and daily lives, to having most aspects of it blindsided.
Years ago, only mere decades, people used cash so most of the transactions weren’t noted. Debit cards came in which started to pull it all together. We didn’t have smart tv’s or meters, no tracking devices on cars, no CCTV, no mobile phones. On the face of it, introducing all those things appeared to make life easier. For you to monitor yourself and use those things to save time and hassle.
But the purpose has switched. All of that now traps us, monitors us, and will ultimately it seems, be used against us. Everything moving online, including medical appointments is the worst thing we could have done. And I know it seems silly to think any one person alone would be interesting in their usage of things or what they spend or eat. But with that they know how to get to you, and collectively they can manipulate things. Knowledge is power as they say.
They also do not appear to be making a secret of a social credit score scheme rolling out, similar to another country recently mentioned in the media a lot. But let’s be honest, we have a class system in this country going back centuries which used to be your social credit score, then we introduced credit cards and a credit rating. Sounds like a credit system to me. And we blithely accepted that one without question. Keen to ‘earn points’ by being in debt, and jumping through financial hoops to be good enough to lend money to so you can take part in society.
What seems to be coming is a levelled-up version of that. But the way it is being intermingled with the current agenda, I have suspicions of how intrusive it will end up being. My piece on Cash and the incoming cashless society touched upon this, but I will go further and piece together what I see.
The roll out of fitbit and apple watches to monitor your heartbeat and vitals. Exercise bikes in the home fitted up to a central system that knows you are exercising. Smart fridges that can be controlled by something somewhere. Points and incentives already for shopping where they encourage you to. Sounds like a credit system and monitoring to me, but we invited it, signed up to it and didn’t notice when they changed the rules. (I don’t have any of the above, because of where I see it going, when I say we, I talk of the collective). They are already talking of ‘incentives’ to make you lose weight and live healthier by their standards. So let’s examine what that means. In my mind, to monitor someone on that, you have to have them log in every morning, noon and night, fill in what they eat, they drink and what they do in a day. Sounds a bit intrusive doesn’t it? Well, how else would they know? They have proved they don’t trust the public one bit to make their own decisions or run their own lives.
So, picture it. You wake up, sign into your app, do your exercise, eat what they say, you get your points for the day or approval rating for your transaction. Then the next day the same, but after a week or so they decide they need to know more information. They suspect you are eating things while you are out and not reporting them, so they install a urine monitor. Every morning, noon and night, you now have to give them a sample, to prove that you are complying. They lock your fridge once you have gone over your allotted calorie intake for the day. They restrict your card so you can’t buy food while out. They insist it is to keep you healthy, but you end up hungry, stressed, sneaking around and unhappy. But they know better than you right?
You might think that is a far-fetched scenario, and for the sake of where we are, I genuinely hope you don’t. Because is there really any difference in recent talks of making people film themselves taking harmful, inaccurate and costly tests at home, to prove they are complying? It’s a slippery slope and one we are already on and picking up speed at an alarming pace. When they start interfering in where you can go, who you can see and what you can say should have been the first warning. It will be followed by what you can wear, what you can eat, how much you can weight. Because you know, save the NHS, or whatever crisis they invent to serve their purpose. Just imagine the worst, most vindictive, controlling, hateful and unreasonable parent in the world, calling all the shots in your life, for the rest of your life. Making the most outrageous demands, stopping you doing things you enjoy just because they like depriving you of things. Now, translate that to who oversees us currently. No-one should have more right over your body than you. Full stop. You can try and use the selfish argument, I hear it a lot, but is it not the height of selfishness to force and coerce someone to do something because you want them to. Demanding and selfish in fact. “I want you to do something to keep me safe” – I and me used there. Says more about the person demanding and the person not bending to it. Keeping someone else happy is not more important than my own safety, health and wellbeing.
I would just ask that everyone take a good long hard look around them. Really see these systems for what they are, understand what they intend to do with them, and how that will change things going forward. I do not wish for things to always remain the same or go back to the way they were, I’m not afraid of progress when it is required and logical and think we should be an adaptive species. But we are being steered by very wilful, controlling people who have wanted to and have been enacting their ideas and agendas for quite some time. If you can work your way through all the smokescreens, lies and diversions, it is there in plain sight. And it isn’t pretty…
Another possibility of where this monitoring may lead and what they may be viewing us as, my later article – Perhaps
Photo from the book The People Shapers by Vance Packard.
This observation is regarding one of social barriers towards employment and housing. Both briefly touched on in Work ethic and employment and What you see here, but only from a general view of those subjects. The personal impact of which I have experienced myself and witnessed others go through.
I’ll explain. Society appears to have put in place multiple restrictions and obstacles to make society harder for some people. Deliberately. It seems remarkably easy for someone to find themselves in a difficult position financially, that is not new. But how they are able to get themselves out of it, has changed.
I noticed it years ago as I got old enough to start looking for work and somewhere to live. I left home a month after turning 18, with no qualifications, a bag of clothes and a cheque for £240 from my stepdad. Headed for somewhere I had visited a couple of times and where I knew someone. Who ironically left for University just as I moved there, but his mum let me sleep on her sofa for a month or so. That was my first leg up, I traded cleaning and school runs for food and somewhere to sleep. I couldn’t get any government help until I had somewhere to live where it wouldn’t compromise their benefits. So I made friends with people, offered to help where I could and tried to form a network. Of people, of places, of opportunities. I got work behind a bar, and at an agency. Cleaned toilets and kitchens, pulled pints, worked in factories or whatever work was going that paid money. I was not fussy or work shy. I wanted better and always believed you have work for it.
At 22 I got my first office job and at 27 I started my own business. Studying and working full time at home to get there. But, and its a big but, I had an extra helping hand along the way. Without parents in my life (long story but from 18 I was on my own) my grandparents stepped up to help me once I had proven I could support myself. They gave me my deposit for my first house at 22 after the office job was held down. Without them helping me, I wouldn’t have been in a stable enough position financially to study, or think about what I wanted to do, and then do it. I get very stressed when worried about money or wondering if I will have somewhere to live. It takes over everything. So I have lots of compassion for people who are having a tough time, and can’t just be positive, or constructive with their thought or time. Worrying about affording food next week and rent is real for many.
But now I shall move to the system that creates that cycle. Everything has a gateway to it now, money through a bank – looking to be made even weirder and more controlled with digital, mentioned in my article Cash. Rent and somewhere to live through a letting/estate agent or council usually, casual jobs through an agency. All of those things are essential for basic living, so if you tighten the reigns on any one of those, the knock on effect is directly on people and how they live.
The middle man gets to decide your fate. If you don’t have a bank account, usually you can’t a job, which means no rental unless you can find a good private landlord directly. Most of the private rentals here state no DSS. That’s not new at all, but many now say no pets. No smoking. No kids. Which of course, is the landlords perogative, but where does that leave someone who is trying to get themselves together or move up a bit. Or when there are 10 people applying for each property, more probably.
People having to cohabitate because they can’t afford not to. Or stuck in a job they hate because there aren’t better paid ones you can do because while they held down wages, they upped the cost of living dramatically. Of course, its easy to say, just leave. Just quit that job, just move somewhere else. And it is. If you don’t mind winging it, and not having any Security initially, and working it out as you go. But not everyone can deal with change or can think on their feet, so I see where they are in a bind. Excuses become obstacles, because there is usually a logical answer to suit any personal situation. But when you are talking generally, not every answer will suit everyone. We all have different needs and wants, but are forced into this one size fits all regime with jumping through hoops for housing and work just so we can lay our head at night in safety and not go hungry. Now with the looming restrictions of making it even harder for people to access basic amenities and securities, it doesn’t look like anyone is getting any kind of helping hand or a break anytime soon.
So all I can hope is that we stop looking to government, councils and authority to help us and start helping ourselves and each other.
I have linked a number of my other recent articles, in case of interest as they are all observations of society.
That word means different things to different people. But for this purpose, it is in relation to how you feel personally in your life. A personal sense of security. What is it in life that makes you feel secure, and the opposite, insecure. To define these things can help somewhat when you are trying to navigate your life and growing up, at any age. You don’t stop growing up just because you get older, quite the opposite. It really is a constant work in progress.
It can be an issue trying to achieve this feeling – because that’s all it is, a feeling of security. We live in a perilous world at the mercy of nature and man alike, so security is in the eye of the beholder. The situation can be the same for two people, yet they feel completely differently about it, that is why it is personal to each individual. And others can affect your security without even knowing it.
We live in a society where we are told what to be afraid of, from a very young age, it is not down to us to learn or decide, we are told. But instinctually, we need to learn these things for ourselves, it’s how we discover part of who we are. Fear can be a big factor, here is a previous post I have written on it taken from the chapter on fear from my book about Hyperphantasia and Aphantasia (Fear – Meeting in the Middle of Nowhere). We even have departments for National Security, obviously the words and image behind it is a powerful one. Keeping the nation safe and secure, and over the years, that same institution has told us what to fear, because let’s be honest, with nothing to be afraid of, it wouldn’t have a purpose would it?
Security can be wrapped up in all sorts of things, money, employment, housing, relationships, as well as the so-called threat of nature. A lack of one of these things can indeed upset the applecart of this feeling. Not even a lack of, just the perception in fact that one of these things may be taken away, or could happen can destabilise someone. People are different, this we know, but do we really take into account each person’s threshold for things? What may be exciting to one, can be terrifying to another. What may seem like danger to one, is adventure to the other. We all have different triggers, internal alarms and reasoning, but we are also prone to emotions, feelings and environment. The pressure of society is actually an all-encompassing one which we are thrust into from birth, and the expectation of everyone to just ‘fit in’ is a bizarre one to me and I can easily see why we appear to have so many problems. I thought people were the problem for years, and that the system was broken. But now I believe differently, the system isn’t broken at all, it was designed to be like this. To make people conform and comply, to mould them into what is required. It’s odd when I gave it thought, real thought. I started from the beginning- a rather quick timeline to follow, but you’ll get the point hopefully.
School – starts at a very young age, putting children into rooms and forcing them to memorise things and stay indoors for long period of time, often sitting still, and now with a rather sinister twist, staying away from each other. It’s a very ordered regimented system for people to start out. Most of your daily hours spent in this environment surrounded by not your kin, restricted from your natural impulses and taught how to behave. Obviously, I know why, so they can churn out ready to work adults who are ‘prepared’ for the outside world. But one which they created. It’s no wonder to me that many people it turns out do not fit the mould, don’t want to be part of their ‘vision’ for people. Government and ruling bodies have a purpose, but it is not to make sure you live a full and happy life. That should be down to you, but they are more there as sinister overlords who steer society in the direction they want it to go. Because they are not seeking a full and happy life, if they were they wouldn’t be hell bent on causing so much grief and pain.
But in the decades that followed the strict school regime being implemented upon children, it was becoming obvious that it wasn’t really working entirely, they still had the ‘rogue element’ which was disruptive enough to make them decide that the next phase of control should be rolled out. You know, for safety and security. And obviously for profit, with pharmaceutical companies leading the way, and doctors rolled it out, using teaching staff as the conduit. Seems like a well-tested formula they knew would work again. Below is a page from The People Shapers regarding this. Awful to think spirited children with high energy levels who didn’t want to be in a box all day were branded unruly and drugged, awful, but not surprising.
For me security is maybe different from others, I do not see the government or extensions of government as there for my protection or for my safety. They have done a number of questionable things to their own people as well as the trail of horrors the UK has littered around the world. Many experiments have been conducted on the unsuspecting British public for decades, which we only get to hear about when they finally get exposed. Here is one that I found disturbing – Germ Warfare Tests on the British Public.
So, when they say they are trying to ‘protect’ me, excuse me if I don’t believe a word they say. I will make up my own mind, based on what I know and what I have seen. They try to use fear to get compliance, so while scaring the public into believing another country would drop chemicals on them, they secretly did it themselves. Then years later tell them, so they were scared at the time, just of the wrong thing. And then it breeds mistrust and fear to think your government would do it again and could be doing it right now. That is a form of psychological warfare, which unfortunately we are now all too familiar with personally as we have been bombarded in what seems to be a very co-ordinated attack on our very being. Joy is being eliminated from life, something that I believe is really quite pivotal to a state of balance and wellbeing. Without that life can become hopeless, and that seems to be the general feeling they are shooting for, without noticing that we aren’t up for that. And quite frankly, people weren’t designed for misery, we are being herded towards it and numbed through various mediums for it.
People have all sorts of motives behind what they say and do, and understanding them should be key. I get a sense of security from not having to question my instinct, although I will always question its reasoning. I don’t need others to validate my opinion, I don’t seek approval for what I know or believe and am not offended in any way if someone believes otherwise. I don’t tell anyone how to behave or live, but would ask that you take the time to just give a bit of thought to your own motives and reasoning for things if you haven’t already. And if you are ok with everything being as it is and you see no problem with the construct of society, then maybe there is nothing for you to reflect on. But if you have noticed that something isn’t quite right, that this isn’t how we were meant to be, then follow that thought…
MKW Publishing 