.

Facebook again.  When posting divergent opinions and beliefs – the “toxic” is let loose.  All that personal stuff we feel increasingly justified to fire form our keyboards at another.  I suggested that we preface our “offloading” with the header “Dump Buddy Post”.  An outpouring not of rational thinking but emotive baggage best out of heads and hearts.  It never caught on other than a few kind comments about how many “dump buddies” I would have if needed.  One called it “sacred listening” which I like even more.

Foe the first time of writing in this FB group I though a “Dump Buddy” alert was necessary.

Probable “Dump Buddy Post” (or one where “sacred listening” may be required)
…
I think I confuse two words. Control and predictable. When life is predictable I know what is happening. So I am in control.

The sun comes up every day. The birds sing every morning. I wake up earlier than I would like. Mrs Paul is in the little bed. Maisie will scratch on the door downstairs to be let out. I will make Mrs Paul a mug of green t … I have go for a “morning wee”. I will make Mrs Paul a mug of green tea. And so on and so on. That is all predictable. The more in my life that is predictable. The more I am in control. I think.

I am in control of jack s**t.

This week is “big news week” I read here. When “we” find out if “we” are free to fear more, or not free and still fear everything. This week we find out if we can stop fearing even though we will still fear. I read here.

I also read here that until the R goes down many will not venture outside. I read of many who open their front door and are frozen with fear. I read of many who wear their underlying conditions like a WW2 veteran wears their medals. It seems to define who they are.

I am in control of jack s**t.

I am missing “predictable” so think I am not in control. But I do not control the sun coming up, the birds singing, the time Maisie will want a wee (nor the time I will either). As for the R going up or down it will not change my life one little bit. As for the “big news” I will probably miss it “live” but I will read about it here afterwards. That is predictable. But I will be too busy working or cuddling or laughing or living in the moment to pause my life for the Big News. Because whatever “they” decide will not give me any more control or predictability in my life. I will decide that.

I am in control of whether I step outside my front door, who I let into my garden, how many AND how close. Whether I will go shopping. Whether I will travel by foot or in a car, a bus, a train, the tube, or a taxi. They may say I can (advice only) or that I should not (advice only). I will decide what I fear and what I don’t. The Big News may be helpful or unhelpful to my predictable living. But will not change how I am staring down the barrel right now of probable redundancy in a very few months. Will not change our family one iota who still want me to live risk-free rather than risk-safe. Will make no difference to the choices I make about living with or without shielding (no matter what the Big News). I have a comfort zone I have grown and adapted as the science and Rona-knowledge has grown. I am safe and risk-safe. But never risk-free. Risk-free is not within my control.

As for the current scientific arguments about whether the government is still “being led by the science” or using science for its own political/economic agenda … all that is as relevant to me as whether I will live to be 105 or not.

All that ”noise” gives me control of jack s**t.

And as for “them” having parties or raves … sitting like battery hens on the local beach … passing each other less than six feet apart … breaking “the rules” … all of the thoughtless and selfish “them” making “us” have to shield for longer and longer … ?

That is also a crock of s**t.

Why? Because whatever “they” do or do not doesn’t control me either. I control me. Before Rona, during Rona, and after Rona. I control me in the decisions I make in every moment. I control only the very small stuff in the moments of my living.

I can control my fear or choose not to. I can control my belief (that I control) in me and the world around me. I can control nearly all the minute by minute small-stuff that gives me quality of life in this moment – or I can give that control to “them”. I am in control of that always and every day. Just not the Big Stuff. And neither are “they” (if the truth be told). They are in control of very little either.

Shielders make up less than 5% of the population. The tail does not wag the donkey. This virus makes up less than 5% of my life. Rona does not control me. I think about this s**t less than 5% of each day. Nor does figuring out how to live without fear of the future take up my other 95% either. Living does.

Living right now does.

Just like before Rona. Just like before shielding. Just like before our once-in-lifetime trip was cancelled by “them”. So if I stop living because of advice (not rules), of rules (not advice), of wanting to control my never being infected” …

I have ALREADY infected myself with something just as dangerous. Fear.

Because fearing or not fearing is something I control ALL the time. I CONTROL whether I live in fear or not. And it helps a lot to NOT live in fear when I accept that I DON’T control the predictable or the unpredictable. I never did and I never will. So why waste so much energy thinking I might because this week is “this week”?
…
Mrs Paul is up for an early morning wee. Time to put the kettle on
Thank you.
Paul
.
.