Dear Friend
You don’t want to overthink things too much, when you write like this everyday. The false self throws up so many objections, you’d think its life was in peril.
Such a seductive thing, the mind.
Like a television set playing in the room, pulling at your attention. There’s so much pleasure in a tv show, just not such a great idea to live with the tv on all the time. I remember watching Little House on the Prairie, on a Sunday when I was a kid, but I didn’t really like it as much as the Waltons. I loved John-Boy. You scan your culture looking for signs of life. People who you wish you could identify with.
Artists, writers, philosophers, performers, scientists, teachers, neighbours, friends, family, birds, animals, poetry, tv shows - It comes to you however it can.
I thought for a moment I could hear an owl outside, but they are foxes, calling to one another.
We call it by many names.
What’s it like to be a kid now?
In your teens, you’ve got so much going on, so much is changing and that can be exhilarating.
Tough though, to know what to make of things.
Wild fires. Heatwaves. Wars. Financial Collapse.
Perfectionism.
Not feeling safe in your body.
My twitter/X feed, it’s like looking away, crawling past the wreckage at the side of the road.
Fear pulls us in put holds us apart.
People had a fascination for Margaret Thatcher. They fell for her. Some fell in love, some into hatred.
Fear and power are hard to resist.
Divisive.
Mrs Thatcher the way I remember it, made a big deal out of pulling.
She pulled herself up, by her bootstraps.
My second ‘serious’ relationship, her mother and father owned a fruit and veg shop. They helped out the local sex workers, took care of the frail, lonely and the vulnerable. Talked to people. Knew them. They were hard workers.
They lived in a big new house, on a nice estate and had a van and the poshest car I’d ever been in.
Mrs Thatcher, had no idea how far back in life a person might find themselves.
What about all of the people living with trauma? Poverty is a trauma. It does things to you. Some, start pulling on their boots and make it into the papers. Others end up dying young, or living a kind of death. Alone.
“Often it isn't the mountains ahead that wear you out, it's the little pebble in your shoe.”
―Muhammad Ali
Winners trampling over the bodies of losers. Bullies and onlookers in the Neo-Liberal experiment.
The one that failed.
The one hanging to our ankles.
Like in the movies. Imagine it falling and falling and when it lands it wakes to find itself at home in bed. The sun shining and the air full of bird song.
Time pulls at my sleeve.
The secret is to breathe.
When you notice someone holding it in today, just notice.
Maybe you’ll be prompted to act.
Maybe you’ll just notice.
Maybe a smile for them?
You might be the first person to smile at them for days.
A lifetime.
It’s easy to forget.
Vital to
Remember.
Peace.
Till tomorrow
Love
Mikey
Thanks Franco. So glad to have found your writing.