Being a person in the world, I have noticed, of late, that it isn’t going well. The world, that is. Drought, ice melting, reefs dying, war, famine, poverty, burning this, flooding that, rampant terrible disease things, pillaging hordes of other things, like politicians and media barons, kids being shelled, torture, censorship, kidnapping, rape memes, repression, murder, reporters being jailed for describing what’s happening. Elephants crying, a baby wailing. Stray dog howling. The screech of brakes and lamp lights blinking – seems my train of thought morphed into:

Seems there’s a song for every feeling.

Anyway, it’s a wonder the earth is still here at all.

Some days. It. Is. All. Too. Much.

So how or why do I continue to do what I do? Isn’t pointless in the face of so much horror? Doesn’t amount to a hill of beans, this tinkering with words to tell stories and this blog?

Well yes. But. That’s what humans do. In the face of horror they keep at whatever gives life meaning. Thus, I have certain skills. They won’t cure cancer or calculate Pi. But, if I can keep doing what I’m reasonably good at, perhaps this doing demonstrates to someone, anyone, that people can do what they are good at, and find some satisfaction in it. This is important, because to some, even this seems impossible and there are precious few people in the world with the opportunity to find what they are good at, and attempt to practice it.

Also, while many people think the world is full of suffering and woe and make it woeful and full of suffering for everyone else, I don’t want to be that kind of person.

But no matter. This is what I have and I’ll keep sponsoring Freedom the former bile farm Moon Bear here, arguing with and un-friending small-minded ignorant racists on social media there.

It’s an up hill battle some days.

But I will keep writing. Because writing is subversive. And if I’m anything I’m a contrarian: I couldn’t read, now I’m a writer. It demonstrates in the best way I know how that I am working on who I want to be and I am free to do so. And if I can maybe we all can.

So stuff Big Brother. I’m lucky. I can protest, argue with racists and sexists, sign petitions, vote and express opinions. If only we could all, (to misquote MC Hammer) much like the Addams family, write what we wanna write, do what we wanna do, say what we wanna say, live how we wanna live, play how we wanna play and most of all….dance how we wanna dance.

We can, too, look forward to the good things. Like I don’t know, the next Australian federal election or new episodes of Doctor Who.

But importantly, as the Mod Father says in another song, we should stop apologising for the things we’ve never done, cause time is short and life is cruel. But it’s up to us to change…

And we can.