It’s been doing the rounds in the fashion world, and has popped up now and again as a theme in film and fictional ideas. The black goo or liquid. I’ll note some of the references that have come together for this idea.

X-files – the film, and was where I first noted its use all those years ago. When the ancient site was discovered and the kid fell down into the hole, his eyes then being shown as glazed over by black liquid after he was infected by it.

Prometheus – a black liquid that had something living in it, or was entirely an organism, it’s not specified what exactly it is. Just theorised that it was part of our origin, or of the other beings shown in that film.

Graphene – if you have seen the videos of how it moves, then you will notice it has the appearance of a black liquid, or slightly thicker like putty almost.

Black oil photography – this is where it seems to have become mainstream. With all sorts of ‘celebrities’ and known faces having it used for effect. It does look odd, choosing to have what is an oil spill as part of something expected to be nice to the eye. It’s art darling, you know. But there are those who wonder about it not being about just art, and it isn’t just a cool gimmick to entice people to buy their magazine, or concept. That there is something quite a bit darker to it.

For a slightly more tongue in cheek one, I think of one of the Creep Show episodes from back in the day, of a black slick in water (which really just looked like binbags), which stalked and ate a bunch of teenagers who were trying to enjoy a day on the lake.

Venom – the films where it appears a black gooey substance is how the force manifests to take form.

To me I always just thought it was an odd look, to go for a black oil slick, or tar look as part of an aesthetic, making it look slimy and dirty, rather than pleasing. Although I guess that’s a matter of opinion, some may find the images attractive, rather than disturbing or bland. And all of the other representations of it mentioned above that fall into the ‘fictional’ realm, do not have good outcomes, so I can see why it’s of concern to some people. And as we know, these are some strange times upon us, where we often get shown in advance what creepy and disturbing things they would like people thinking about and seeing just like in any Show and Tell routine. Stay sharp people, looks like the creepy isn’t slowing down any time yet…

(c) MKW Publishing

A reading of my article – Connected, But Mobile

(c) K Wicks

A reading of my article – In The Dark

(c) K Wicks

The latest round of destructive policies and taxes seems to have spared no one. Just in case anyone might have still had a few dreams or aspirations left since 2020. Farmers, landlords, landowners, business owners, employees, schools, students, and anyone who has anything they can deem worthy of taxing. I joked about them taxing us per breath or per blink a while ago, and honestly, if I think they thought they could implement it, they would.

But as schools, colleges and universities are where the initial conditioning and societal training begins, we’ll look at that. I have previously written about the ideas and effects of various ideas around it in Institutionalised, Scehuled for Learning and Your Digital Informer. Even though many things have been evident for decades about how the system is rigged, unsafe and not fit for purpose, the idea of what they once were for remains. Except now you don’t really have the benefit, and it comes with an awful lot of strings attached and small print. Teachers having more influence now than they perhaps should, not just in a child’s education for learning of basic skills, it seems now they are to be heavily involved in a child’s formation of self, and path that is expected to take. But the psychological separation of child from parent, is a mental one they seem to be trying to kick start at a very early age, and to be honest, there is a natural point at which children will do that anyway, but in a more fluid and organic way, even if they don’t have the most stable homelife. But to teach children things they have no real context for and may not even be age appropriate, from what appears to be a position of authority, is a dangerous game to play in my view. Overloading and overwhelming a developing mind, and then hoping to be the one to give it guidance when it has a multitude of other influences and input all going in is a bold strategy, and one I fear is set up to fail.

Which brings me to the question I ask myself these days, and have done previously as the landscape for employment and the future of industry has been changing. What is the point of compulsory institutionalised education? Is it to train the next generation of skills and workers? That’s what I used to think, and it did appear that’s what it was it was there for, but as you look a little deeper into the history of it all, and how schools came to be, then it seems like A Rather Dark Enterprise like all the other places where they decided lots of children should be ‘groomed’ for the future. Separated from their parents for a good portion of their childhoods, to be educated by the people who have a want from it, more than just for everyone to be a capable, contributing, free-thinking human being. And the facade that we were working towards something logical, well, that has truly been dropped now, with a very haphazard system being swept in to overrun what was there before.

But even if you did happen to notice something wasn’t quite right, it isn’t always as easy as it might appear to just take back control of yourself and your family. Homeschooling is on the rise, but for years it was sort of laughed at, and stigmatised in society. I remember also being that type for a while, believing the hype that you have to go to ‘proper school’, you must do exams, you must go to college, and university to get the best shot at competing for employment and a life. But that’s just what you are told, to try and keep you in school and following that path of continued education for an awfully long time. Twelve years I think it is for standard education, or was in my day, now it might be fourteen as they were talking about raising the age for it. So, by the time you are starting to properly mature, you have spent a tragically long amount of time not being or doing what might have come naturally, or around people you chose to be around. Instead, you are moulded into something, by way of circumstance and forced guidance, and if you are lucky, a little bit of who you actually are gets to shine through in that journey. Now it’s become even more complicated for that phase of people’s lives, with lockdowns, sinister schedules to be administered, psychologically confusing material for them to assimilate and a very buckled society forming. And to be honest, I think that probably counts for everyone at whatever stage of life they are currently at, because it isn’t just at school this conditioning happens, that’s just the first phase. And that sinister and buckled society seems to be wanting us all to be locked in a room and seated for education, while they condition us for their ‘next phase’…

(c) MKW Publishing