society

Gen X

~ MKW Publishing ~ 7 Comments

I have done an article on Gen Z, and speculating on that being the ‘zombie generation’, and how they seem to have it in society. But this one will be for Gen X, the last vestige of an upbringing and attitude that no longer exists. But the product of it does. Us. The X-ers. And recently I’ve watched an American woman do a couple of funny shorts, answering random internet people who ask, “Are Gen X-ers okay?” and “Didn’t y’all have access to sinks when you were a kid, why drink out of the hose?”. Well, her response nails it to me, and although done in a funny, punchy and humorous way, the truth in what she responds with is great. With classic timing and delivery, summing up, literally, some people’s childhoods, homelife, upbringing and influences, in a very concise and hilarious manner. Being locked out of the house all day, forgotten about by parents, had to feed yourself for the day, fend for yourself kind of thing. And if you are one of those ‘drink out of the hose’ kids, you possibly know what she means.

I have written briefly about escapades of childhood in The Hay Bale Incident, and of a time before technology in The Before Time, but I guess hadn’t fully appreciated the affects of those times on people, and how it creates a certain attitude amongst an entire generation. Mostly. There will always be ones who didn’t, or who can’t relate to that at all and within it there will be those who had extra weird childhoods as their parents were very good at even looking after themselves, let alone kids. But the toughened attitude that many in that age group now present, can’t be entirely by accident, can it? Maybe the ones from the 70’s and 80’s were meant to be the forgotten generations, the ones who fell through the cracks during recessions, financial collapses and whatever crisis they could manufacture to keep it as they wanted. Giving them an extra hammering now, and including the Millennials as they will also now be the ones with children, mortgages and businesses. The boomers having retired, and Gen-Z not quite able to get involved, and looking as though they will be locked out of ever having the opportunities we did. And it might seem like progress to think they get all new ones, and if it was anything positive and inspiring being pushed for the future, I would be behind it. It does not appear to be the case though, and if they don’t know any different, does it matter?

Being resilient, and practical, and being able to ‘fend for yourself’ aren’t traits that everyone has, or has even retained into adulthood if they did need to be a bit more savvy back in the day. Not all are able to get through childhood and life completely unaided, and despite appearances, many have their scars, emotional and physical. Understanding that what made you who you are, was often a product of someone else’s failure, distraction or circumstance. Lives overlapping and intertwining as we all end up sharing a certain space and time, whether we get on or not, or like each other or not, or can even relate to each other or not. Here we all are. But in the latest twist in society, it would seem that having those traits, or the extra behaviours that followed on from them was not entirely foreseen. Or maybe they were and that is why there is such a push to make people believe they need a label, and a medication that inevitably follows. To be convinced you are a problem, the problem, and it needs to be ‘fixed’. Because otherwise, we might have all spotted sooner that society is the problem, and how it has been set to work. It’s anyone guess whether there really are generational differences that are so easily defined by when you were born, or what you were taught. But if there wasn’t, it makes me wonder why they would spend so much time and energy separating us all out and making sure we have different societies to grow up in. That no decade can be like the last, constantly changing things to keep it all up in the air and never actually progressing, just the illusion of it…

(c) K Wicks

Maps and Islands

~ MKW Publishing ~ 4 Comments

Further to previous articles about maps and islands, An Island, Or Was It? and Atlantis? No That Would Be Silly, I spent some more time looking through maps of the 1500’s. One in particular is currently a favourite which you may be familiar with – Urbano Monte 1587. And an earlier one too, the Mappa Mundi. But in between there are others, showing places that apparently were, but no longer are. Named, routed and landmarks noted. But as far as we are told, they didn’t exist and were just bits of fiction added, or they just ‘got it wrong’, which may well be the case, we know that just because it is drawn or written, doesn’t mean it is real.

I noticed what looked to be an interesting feature on the 1587 map though, a spiral named as Vorago. Naturally I looked up the word, with its meaning being put as – An engulfing chasm : Abyss. And it seemed awfully close to where we have magnetic north showing, a strange feature which looks as though the images aren’t stitched together properly, so it appears fragmented and pixellated, like what happens when you curve something that isn’t supposed to be curved, but what do I know.

And it can be seen as a diamond formation of dots on earlier maps, this one noted as 1380 in roman numerals, seems very different from the other maps of that time, being that the mappa mundi is apparently from 1300.

And although it is speculated that most of these places noted above, are in fact modern day Iceland, Greenland, Shetlands Islands and The Orkneys – they say the others just simply don’t exist. Although, when you look at google earth today, there are shapes within the area which could have once been islands perhaps. Which leads back to a reoccurring question for me, if the water level has risen and fallen over time, to reveal land once lost, or cover land we once knew, how could that possibly happen? Could the land tilt, rise or drop? Or is it the water levels that have changed, draining every now and then and creating land bridges and bigger continents for a time, only to be covered again by a deluge from above. As the old saying goes, the waters above, and the waters below…

(c) K Wicks

Words and Meaning

~ MKW Publishing ~ 13 Comments

It seems words are being used in a very strange game at the moment, and to be honest, have always been used in some way, to control, dictate and define society and the way we are educated to understand basic things. Now they are being weaponised in a new way though, or at least new to us in this time. Already covered a bit in my article What’s In A Name, from the point of view of what you are called for your given name, and how some people use that as a basis to feel victimised. However, on top of that debacle, there is a separate yet related one making itself known too.

Terms being introduced to redefine the words of womanhood and female related issues. You may have heard some of them, chestfeeder instead of breastfeeding, birthgiver instead of mother, and now the absolute zinger of – Bonus Hole instead of using anatomical terms, so vagina is out, bonus hole is in. Woman are starting to sound like a variety of ‘rides’ at the fairground. Start with the birthgiver game, moving onto the chestfeeding section, finally winning the bonus hole round. And maybe it is a game to the ones who seek to infiltrate and redefine things for others of the female persuasion. I read an article the other day about menopause as I was interested to see how they would word it, and as I suspected, not one mention of the word woman. I am also quite bemused by the strange term being attributed to those who do not partake in a same sex ‘lifestyle’, that it seems necessary for everyone to be renamed and labelled, so there is no normal. Personally, it makes me chuckle every time I see ‘CIS’, partly because it is a label that someone else has decided to allocate to people, and partly because in my world, it means construction industry scheme, so is a tax status, not a sexual orientation. Buy hey, who am I to tell people what words they can and can’t use and what they mean or don’t mean, honestly, I love words and their meanings. How those meaning came to be defined, and redefined for purpose and general use.

And that is it really, the purpose. Look at what words have achieved so far, just in the last few years so many have been twisted and commandeered, and those that can’t be, it seems some of those are up for being removed altogether if they get in the way of ‘social advancement’. Because words can cause feelings, and feelings can be used against people, so you go back a step and work out what words will be most hurtful, meaningful and useful. As we know, within racism there are certain words that have been clearly weaponised and used for the purpose of negativity and making people feel bad, belittled and inferior. That’s literally what they are designed for, on all sides, towards different colours, genders, ideas, looks, religion etc. All of these differences are just variances of the same thing, yet people fight over them, to the death in some cases, usually started or spurned on with words.

Categories and Labels help to divide people, and vanity and ego play their part to allow people to want to be separated out. But it is an odd thing to see segregation making a comeback, I genuinely thought people wouldn’t want to be racially separated again, having hated it and fought it when it was against a certain group. But I now see white people being excluded from a comedy club which wanted a black only audience, a black only graduation, businesses that only want to serve black customers. Which kind of threw me I guess, thinking everyone wanted to be accepted in the same society and as equals. People really are people though, whatever their location, upbringing, heritage and ideals – they are all susceptible of falling into the same trap. Selectivism perhaps, or just hypocritical maybe. Becoming that which you claim to hate the most, must be an odd way to live. And equally odd, trying to be that which you clearly hate. I guess it’s the recent BLM hoo-ha that made me do a double take on it all, hearing some incredibly racist things which are now deemed acceptable because it was the ‘oppressed’ group saying it. Shocking, or not if you understand people are people, are some of them are very hateful in nature. It doesn’t matter what colour people are, it’s what they say and do that shocks or interests me, not what their exterior skin sack looks like…

(c) K Wicks

How It Looks From The Inside

~ MKW Publishing ~ 3 Comments

I’ll go straight in with the references and ideas that led into this one as its easier to explain after you know. Based on the idea that what we see ‘out there’ is in fact an illusion or fabrication of reality.

Ascension TV series – if you haven’t seen it and want to, stop reading here as this is a major spoiler for it. The entire premise being a group of selected people are ‘sent to space’ for you know, reasons. But the twist is, they are in a simulated space shuttle, constantly monitored, frightened, controlled and drugged as required for their experiment. It’s quite a complex storyline to be honest and I enjoyed watching it, but the reveal is as follows. Someone gets punished, which in their version of society that has developed on the ‘ship’, means being ejected into space. They do it, and we get to see the person fall, but not into space, but back into the real world. Which he’s never been a part of as many were born on the ship as the experiment spanned a couple of generations already. The adjustment process for that person, from believing he was in space, to seeing he wasn’t, was a shock as you can imagine.

Silo – TV series. I haven’t seen this one, but the premise is also about showing an illusionary ‘outside’ to keep people where they are and keep them in a state of fear.

Logans Run – movie. This old chestnut again, although there was no illusion of what was outside, you just weren’t allowed. Your domed city was your entire world.

Biodome – movie. A silly film, although enjoyable at the time, but of an experiment to put people in a biodome for a set amount of time. Some others sneak in and it gets ridiculous, but perhaps a little hint at what we are I thought. And how ironic we should laugh at what we don’t know we are in. Maybe.

Planetarium – a domed ceiling showing ‘space and the cosmos’. Says it all really. Scale that up to cover the land and sky, and you got yourself a starry sky at night, and a clear colour during the day.

Plasma – I think this is further on from the thought had in my article The Bit In Between, that our ‘dome’ could in fact be some kind of plasma covering creating an enclosed biodome, helping to create the imagery needed for the illusion. But as it’s electrically charged, sometimes we get lightening within the condensation which we get to see, but that is just a mad theory of how and where lightening comes from, which reminds me of the plasma balls you see.

Sometimes it is easy to see why they might want to confuse people, or dictate what they think they see, as it serves a purpose. So, it’s not the why that most seem to have a problem with, although many do. It’s the how. Because it seems so beyond our current capabilities to have something that big and elaborate in play, so I get it and question that myself. But what if it was already there, functioning as it should, and we are here, doing what we are meant to, trying to work it all out…

(c) K Wicks

What We Leave Behind

~ MKW Publishing ~ 2 Comments

As we grow up, go through life and get older, there are certain things we leave behind. Material things, emotional things, certain people and generally things we just ‘grow out of’ as they say. Moving forward into a different time in our lives, which require different things or emotions to work through them or experience them fully. I believed it was a natural process, just like mentioned in Walking Away, when something has run its course and is no longer necessary or relevant to the person you have become. These days though I am not so sure it is a natural process, and may never have been, because we are often trapped by things that mean we are not able to let things go about their natural course.

The difference perhaps being similar to when you have a natural flowing river, compared to one that has to change course because of obstructions, or is unnaturally steered into a straight narrow, or restricted. The flow changes and becomes different, still water and a river, but altered and now on an alternative path. And we, as with the water, keep flowing to our end point, over the bumps and round the blind corners, sometimes dropping down a great way over a waterfall. To then carry on the steady path, or stop in a side pool for a bit, watching the faster flow go by.

And when we do get to our end point, and a marker is left to signify an existence, we put information on that marker. A headstone or memorial, usually noting the length of time someone was here, and who they were in a family, or meant something to. I’m sure there are others that note something more elaborate, but on the whole it’s that. Because at the end of the day, when you are gone, people don’t seem to care to remember how much money you made each year, or what awards you won, or how many books you sold on that cold hard slab of commemoration. It’s the days of your birth and death, giving away your age and maybe a hint at what may have happened. And a few words maybe about how you and your death were viewed. Taken too soon, lived a good life, was a loving husband or wife and so on. Or nothing extra of note, just the specifics and that’s it. And that’s where people and memories will hold that information instead.

So, it’s not just parts of our own lives we leave behind as we go through it, we leave an imprint on others too. The good and the bad can leave their mark and linger, not always to be remembered long term, and memories can fade and eventually people are forgotten or would never have been known were it not for that stone header. Mostly, of course there are those who leave a darker mark, or a brighter trail than others in their wake and become a tale of time, handed down for good reason. But when for the most part, it appears you have a set time, and it will be people that think of you. So, what you do with that time, and who you spend it with would appear to be more important than how many hours you worked or how many times you got promoted. Lots of people say they missed their children growing up because they worked so much, or they missed family life due to corporate life taking over, or being put to the forefront.

And I understand the initial bind, without stability, there is no homelife, so it is seen as a means to an end, work hard to spend time with loved ones. But because you end up working so hard for your loved ones, you miss out on actually being with them. Some didn’t fall for that corporate trap, and found a balance or lifestyle that suits being able to earn a living, and enjoy living at the same time. Not waiting until later to enjoy it as many have, because life doesn’t wait or come knocking for you usually, and time doesn’t stand still. Things will change and move on, life will happen and you will get older and we like to believe wiser, people will come and go from your life and some will be remembered and some won’t, just as some will remember you, and some won’t. So, take a moment to realise what is it is you do, what you are here for, and who you might mean something to, and just what it is as you leave behind as you go through life…

(c) K Wicks