Have a Lovely Weekend

Well, I expect to back to be normal again next week, let's just say I have been under a lot of pressure lately, but Grandma Crushed didn't raise a quitter.

I'm going to the Chimney Sweep's stag do tomorrow- which, for those of you who know the story, will be an occasion of sorrow as well as joy for me.

The break will do me good as well.

This is Never Let Me Down, by Depeche Mode. It's meaning is a little ambiguous maybe, but the extreme powwer of friendship is a good interpretation.

The post below is one of my better ones in my opinion, so I really would value any comments anyone has.

Thanks all of you for being so supportive. It really does mean a lot to me.
Enjoy your own weekends!

xx

The Meaning of Life

On the basis of a very interesting post over at Electro-Kevin's I've finally decided to post on my M theory, or theory of everything.
For those of you who don't know some of my pet amateur interests are Evolutionary History and the Physics of the Universe.

Mainly because I really do want to know how everything works. That really is my life goal, if I have one.
After, all it's how we tick.
And WHY we tick.

I think it's actually quite obvious, but phyicists and theologians alike ignore the obvious synthesis in their thoughts.

Back to Basics.

I think I've said before, but Genesis really should begin with;

'In the begining there was the Energy quanta.
It appeared at a point.
It became subject to the Laws of Thermodynamics.'

That's it.
That's your Big Bang.



And the rest is history.
Just thermodynamics running the universe down.
Till Heat Death.
It's all just one reaction.

Insert Energy.
It wears itself out.

Now here's where it gets interesting.

Firstly, let me just state that the Laws of thermodynamics are ruthless.
You CANNOT break them.
All other laws are subject to them.

What this means is that the most efficient of all mechanisms is the determination of energy to waste itself.
To bring the reaction to a close.
The energy NEEDS to be expounded.

The universe CANNOT be any more efficient than it is.
In terms of what it does, waste energy, it IS perfect.

In other words, if we have evolved consciousness, it follows, the universe must have. If we who use it's laws are conscious, if computers which use its laws are conscious, the universe MUST be. For it NOT to be, would be it NOT utilising one of its own properties- the ability to transmit electronic information to direct results.

Of course it does.
That's how things happen.
That is how it was initially able to set the necessary constants to acheive total dissipation in the shortest time.
Don't worry, if the life of the universe is a year, we haven't passed the first second.
This is significant.
It should give you hope.

The most efficient way to use up energy is by finding chain reactions. Stars are an example of this.
Nuclear reactions are chain reactions, overall they accelerate over time, actually using up more energy faster and faster, and being capable of setting up an increasing number of such reactions.

All of which brings Doomsday closer.

And what of life?



This to me, is the best description of life;
'Any series of chemical reactions, which, once intiated, are capable of setting up identical reactions from scratch, so that over time, there is an increased number of such reactions, such growth being permanently exponential.'

Another chain reaction.
Passed on by DNA.

And the longer it goes on, the quicker it speeds up.

Complexity creates complexity, it leads faster and faster to more efficient ways to use energy.

Life is one of the Universe's better ideas.

So it does create us for purely selfish reasons.
But have hope.

The universe, as I said above, is perfect it what it does. It created us to serve it, but see how!
To serve it's purposes, we need to succeed.
We need to spread and get more advanced, build spaceships, invent amazing ways to use energy, breed, colonise other worlds, get busy using up the energy.
So it makes us feel good when we do it's bidding.

As I say, it's perfect. It made sure that we would only feel REALLY happy, when what we did was what it wanted.



It's not a chaos.
Progress IS real.
Love IS real.

The Universe does have a truly amazing history written for Man, in the billions of millenia that will pass before Doomsday.

E-K, THAT'S God.

God Exists- By a Majority of 34

Though there was a very interesting surge over the weekend, from an early lead for the Atheists.



Ah, well.
Nothing exciting to vote on this week really.
Fact is, I'm pretty tired, exhausted and fed up with blogging.
Don't really want to go into it.
Some of you probably read between the lines.

I do enjoy this medium, but sometimes...

Not sure I really want to say any more.
It may pass.

Fact is there is a lot positive you can say about it. I don't really need to go into the good aspects of it, I've done so here, and most of you know them anyway.

But you know the downsides too.

Has it got a purpose?
Or is it just a waste of time?

I really like to believe it has a purpose. That we are doing something good here.
But I am going through a slight crisis of faith on this.



Oh well, there you go, even I get depressed sometimes.
It shouldn't last long.
I'm off to the pub, hope the rest of you had a good weekend!

let me know what you think, does blogging serve a purpose?

Have your say!

A Perspective That Tells A Real Story

In our current frame of mind regarding Islam, meaningful debate about the status of women in Islam is difficult.
It's a Catch 22 situation- the Reactionary lobby are most confused.
Stand up for Muslim women, when they don't stand up for our own?

But the Islamophobes have no problem with claiming a Feminism they don't at heart believe to serve their own ends.

I was recently sent this piece by Kizzie, showing it from the perspective of a Muslim woman.
Muslim women, after all, know the reality.

Muslim Woman

I'm passive, weak, uneducated

Veiled from head to toe

One of his four wives

Work in the kitchen all day

And spread my legs wide at night

That's what you think, right?

Funny how the devil spreads ignorance amongst a "civilized people"

The Orientalist whispers in so many ears

To him, I'm the mistress of the harem

Black-hair, olive skin, eyes that glow, hips that don't lie



Hold up

Sexual exploitation- there's nothing exotic about that

Or

I'm poor, cracked feet that never touched soft designer shoes

Dirty, hungry, cold, alone

I'm calling out for help, America save me from my fathers, my brothers, my backward culture, America- save me from my myself

Let me tell you something

You don't have to be a woman to hear my stories

But you have to be a woman to understand them

The blood that boils in my veins is the same as yours

My story is a testament of my struggle

My struggle is a testament of my faith

I am a Muslim woman

Muslim woman

I made prophets weak in the knees,

Fought alongside my man in war

Then went home to nurture my baby

Does that surprise you?

You say I need liberation

What do you call it?

Oh yeah…..furthering women's rights in the Middle East

I have one thing to say to you

My liberation won't come from the one who has oppressed me

Brining me democracy

You think you're really gonna send me Condi

To tell me how to be free

But wait, I'm not here to play the blame game

Let's make this more real

Not only do I take this hate from you

But I take it internally from the close-minded bigots of my own society

So my Muslim father tells me how to dress, but so does Gucci

So my Muslim brothers tell me how to act, but so does MTV

Yea…so it's this double bind I face

When I realize that if do what I want.

I won't make anyone happy

Too good to be bad, too bad to be good


But wait, why this dichotomy

Since when did my identity become a zero sum game

Why do you insist on labeling me?

Putting me in boxes simple and easy only for you to understand

Countless books and movies dedicated to uncovering me instead of just

Letting me be

What's in free will when my spiritual will isn't allowed to be free



Just look at France and Turkey

"Unveiling the Muslim woman"

Why don't I unveil your sexist patriarchal ideology?

Remember the golden rule- treat others how you'd like to be treated, if you're

So keen to educate then please be educated,

Enslaving not our bodies now but our minds,

Eating disorders and depression, no love and not much attention

This equality talk is cheap and the price expensive

Using my body to sell everything from cigarettes to automotives,

Confusing my flesh from my spirit

Confusing my humanity as weakness

When I say something in protest

Standing against trafficking, hunger, poverty, violence, you know "women's issues,

They brush it aside to…oh, she's just a Femi-NAZI

So don't confuse my silence as submission

Nor my covering as oppression

Don't confuse my peaceful battle as lack of conviction

When you ask what sustains me

I say: not man, not America, But God, our God

Am I American, Kashmiri, or an American Born Confused Desi,

On applications, I check none of the above, all of the above, some of the above

But ultimately

I am a Muslim woman.



Nothing for me to add to that.

Stripped

Uniquely expressive lyrics, the build up at the begining is amazing, it's just a great track.

From Black Celebration, one of the darker Depeche Mode albums.

We're Not All Meant to be Happy

At heart, I think there are only a few types of people.
We express ourselves differently, but there are a limited amount of possible yearnings, so the real question, is what your deepest yearning is.

Because that defines your life strategy, and ultimately who you are.
We are all out to get something, and we are attempting to pursue those objectives as our lifeplan.

For Gordon Brown, from age six, that lifeplan was to be Prime Minister.
For some, the yearning is be to powerful.
For many, maybe most, it is to find love.
To love and be loved.

But there are a few who have yearnings most people cannot comprehend. There are people who have no real desire to be happy.
People who get restless when their world is still.
For whom the yearnings of most other people are unsatisfying.

Who have no desire to grow old.
Who feel cheated if denied the chance to go young in a blaze of glory.

It's hard to understand for someone who doesn't feel this. In modern times, it is the James Dean phenomenon, Live Fast, Die Young, Leave a Good Looking Corpse, as indeed the lucky anti-hero did.
Most of you can't see how or why people like me genuinely envy him that. Jim Morrison and John Lennon mesmerise partly, because they were thus blessed.

Do you get it now?

It's the wish to go with a bang, rather than a whimper, for life to always lead uphill, right up to the climax, your finest hour, the moment of your own passing, a passing that will immortalise you, fresh faced and the image of virtue, an image to inspire others.

That's of course why early Christians were so hard to deal with. They got into the psychology of martyrdom. Not only are you prepared to die for your beliefs, it's actually your lifeplan.
Hard to fight that. Causes that can inspire this, are on to a winner.



I can tell you, it's nothing like morbidity. It's very much not a wish to die, quite the reverse in some ways. Your ending is valuable to you. You aren't going to waste it. The whole point of your LIFE, is an aspiration to find the most glorious ending you can. This is one of the reasons why people with this fixation almost never commit suicide. It's not how we want to go.
I can honestly say, I've never once felt suicidal in my life, and there were times when stronger men than me, would have done.

I first realised I had these yearnings many years ago. I had a dream where I was being led out to be publically hanged. The whole thing felt so real.
Thing was, I knew in the dream I was being hanged as a rebel.
I knew in my dream I was right, and I wanted the crowds to see me hanged.
I can still feel the tension in my bowels, the pounding in my chest, the certain knowledge these were my final moments.
And that as a result, I had to give the performance of my life.

To stare back at the jeering crowd and let my gaze reach the quiet faces, the faces that would question what they saw, the hearts that would take my place.

And I felt beautifully euphoric.

I know it was just a dream, but I'm telling you, it felt better than sex.

It's not a desire to die. The suicide cheapens his death as well as his life.
To me, my death is not something I want to waste.

To me, The Wind That Shakes The Barley is one of the most moving films in the world. I hope you don't mind me spilling the beans if you haven't seen it, but I love it for the same way other people like Love Stories.
The hero faces the firing squad.
He dies for Ireland.

His death acheives something bigger than his life can.
People sometimes think I'm joking when I say I'd die for Ireland.
Many people set a great precedent on that front.

I'd be HONOURED to join them.

But here's the worst.
There's a part of me ENVIES Jesus.



For two reasons.

Firstly, for being able to change the world in the most dramatic way any death could.

And secondly, for having the will to pull it off.
I know I couldn't go through what he did. He must have had utter faith in what he was doing.
I so wish I had that.

It means having absolute certainty of the level of success your death will acheive.
Where do you get faith like that?

I suppose this outlook is why my addictive personality drives me hedonistically through life.
I have this sense that if I live long enough to know my grandchildren, I will have failed.
Failed to leave that good looking corpse.

Sometimes I think I'm not far from the summit, if not there.

Nothing I can do about it, but hitting thirty will be hard.

I Often Feel Like This

Depeche Mode are without a doubt the Greatest Band of all time.

Their versatility and innovation are unique.

The Lyrics are pure poetry- Martin Gore is a modern day Keats.
And David Gahan has an amazing voice.
And I have no problem about idolising him, because fortunately, he's the spit of me.

If you don't own any Depeche Mode, I have to say, why not?

Time And Tide Wait For No Man

It's amazing how people will spend considerable time budgeting their money, but no one pays much attention to budgeting their time.

Time.
It's so precious.
Time is money.
We only have so much.

And like money, the important point is, how much you have now.
Timeflow is as crucial as cashflow.

I was listening to a work colleague some time back discuss how she planned her shopping, by working out what was cheaper where.
By my reckoning, the shopping trip must have involved a four hour journey, a full tank of petrol and five supermarkets.
Is it worth it for a twenty pound saving a month?
For three times as long as just going to the nearest one?

Do you think you are selling your free time well?
I don't.

The fact is, there are one hundred and sixty eight hours in the week.
Factor in travelling time and other randomness, you can fairly allocate fifty to fifty five hours to work.



Take out Shopping, Eating, The Bathroom, Domestic Chores and other essential life tasks, you are left with around a hundred hours.

That might sound a lot.
But fifty hours or so is considered a good week's sleep, and thirty five is really a bare minimum.
You can't get by with much less.
Not if you are able to keep going.

And Life is like a never ending stream of bills, eating into our overdraft.
You never have the time you think.

Factor in somewhere between ten to thirty hours on friends. It depends on the week, but these are the rough guidelines.
Factor in ten to fifteen hours blogging- It IS time consuming, but if you are reading this, you know these figures are accurate-ish.
Factor in five hours television or DVDs.

Now looking at the upper limits of these demands, we have already lost our hundred hours.

In weeks where social life demands the full thirty, there isn't much room for anything else.

And here come the unexpected bills, we forgot about before we worked out our budget.

There is your mother you never visit.
There is your grandmother you never visit.
There are the interesting places you never take a Saturday afternoon to visit.

And now the football season has started.
That's another four hours a week at least!

And where could you fit a relationship in?
Long term?
You can juggle it for a bit, after that you are in trouble.

Something has to give.

For me, it's usually sleep.
I really don't sleep enough.
Four to five hours, most weekdays.
I try to catch it up at weekends, but I always wake up on Monday STILL feeling exhausted.



Is it like this for everyone?

Thank God for the Bank Holiday Weekend.
Nice Long Baths, Nice Long Sleeps...

Home Alone- No Thanks

Living with other people can be a pain sometimes, but living on your own is pretty miserable.
We all sleep better knowing there's someone nearby, even if not in the same room.

Myself, I freely admit, I don't like being accountable to anyone. I do what I want, when I want.
But living on my own?
Not for me.

Living with other males, is a recipe for a general trend towards squalour and excess.
Living with a woman, creates a balanced existence.
I don't think women live well together either.

Problem is when the woman you live with, is also your girlfriend. There's just something about the sleeping together thing that makes living together hell.

So I live the perfect solution.
I have a female flatmate and there's never been anything sexual between us.

We got to know eachother intially because I WAS trying to bed her at that point, but something deeper and more important emerged.
A real friendship.
We didn't end up in bed, but we cried on eachother's shoulders.
We both had things to cry about.

And we ended up getting a flat together. We realised it would work.
And it does.
It's in my name, but she gives me slightly less than half the costs. I don't expect half, I have the advantage of having the place furnished to my liking, can decide what goes on the stereo and the TV. I earn slightly more as well, so it's only fair I put in more.

Fact is, I prefer company. I don't like being on my own for much over an hour. I get a bit nervy. I need someone to talk to.
I can only do solitude with the aid of the stereo.

I HATE Home alone.

She's the only person I've lived with, who hasn't had me yearning for some space.
She looks after me as well.
I never have the eternal laundry crises that seem to be a perpetual feature of males sans females.
She'll also tell me if I probably shouldn't do something.
She also puts up with a lot.
You have to be fairly broadminded to be in our living room at weekends.

She takes it all in her stride.

It's the little things as well, that shows she knows me.
Like this conversation, which took place on Sunday.

ME: I bought some fags earlier at Spar, you haven't seen them, have you?
HER: Did you buy anything else?
ME: Sausages, Eggs.
Her: did you put them in the fridge?
ME: Already checked.

Still no idea where they went.

She means a lot to me. Like a kind of sister.
And we don't even bicker about the bathroom!




So I was a little upset to come home and find her in tears yesterday.
She works for a pair of utter charlatans. Worse, their mentality towards women is fairly adolescent.
They think ringing her extension and asking her if she is in to back door action is amusing.
Not all day long it isn't.

The power of the payer.
Some abuse it.
These two scumbags make a good living out of a fairly dishonest, but just about legal operation and by exploiting their staff to a completely appalling degree.




But she daren't leave. She needs the money.
I took her out to calm her down a bit, hence the lack of blog visiting last night, I had already arranged to meet someone else later.

I'm quite angry with how people like this sleep at night.
She's looking for something else quick, she just can't take any more of it.
I admitted to her, I should have noticed weeks ago she was upset, but we haven't had too much of a chance to talk of late.

I did feel guilty, as if I'd not been there for her when she needed me. I haven't been.
I wish the Beatles were right, and we did have eight days a week. Then we'd have time. As long as the extra day wasn't another work day.

So over the bank holiday weekend, a little research in to possible job opportunities for my flatmate may be an idea.

I'll look after her while she's around.
I'll miss her when she goes.
As one day she will.

Social Convention- What You Make it, Nothing More

The Laws of Chivalry still resonate today, as the idyllic code of perfect bahaviour, a true code that all codes since are a mere dilution of.

We believe that don't we?

Sir Galahad and the Quest for The Grail.
The ideal of ideals.

Medieval knight would meet for a battle, not play dirty, and not charge before the signal from the other side. Just like sport today.

No dirty tricks, you had to show the enemy what you were doing.
No camouflage, make sure you are brightly coloured.
And never strike from behind.

Peasants do not fire their bows at knights, only peasants.
Knights do not mow down peasants, they only fight knights.

When Henry V broke these rules at Agincourt, it was the medieval equivalent, morally, of the Behaviour of the Nazis in the Second World War. Every Warcrime, rolled into one.

But the other side of the coin.
If you offered a city the chance to surrender, and it refused, should you take it, you put all the males to death, and rape all the women.

If you defeat a knight in combat, who has a lady with him, the lady is yours.

Trial by combat, is a a legitimate mode of trial, much preferred by the nobility to trial by jury.

So it wasn't all that great.

Our modern system of manners are likewise a social convention.
It's interesting to see how some of our odd customs evolved.
Table manners, for example.

Cardinal Richelieau introduced the table knife, because his high sensibilities were offended by people picking their teeth with sharp blades.



But more was to come. Ever wondered the point of a fish fork?
The answer is, not much. Most of this cutlery is nineteenth century invention. These complicated codes came in, due to the pressure of the times.
The industrual revolution meant that people born in the gutter ended up richer than descendants of the Conquerer's knights.
How to tell the sacred blood of the Norman, from the peasant blood of the Saxon?

By whether or not you knew which silly knife to use.
By whether you were born in a household to learn the difference.

Conventions serve the need of the society they exist in.
We follow them, because we want to get along with others.

That also affects our word usage.

At one time, only religous oaths offended people. There weren't any taboo words which weren't an oath of some kind.
Sex, the toilet and other 'vulgarities', weren't talked about if you didn't need to, but the ordinary words for these things, were not in themselves considered offensive.

This again, is a late eighteenth- early nineteenth development.
It served a function, to sort out the decorous, from the vulgar.
Let the common people, use common words.
We'll talk about powdering our noses.



Now I'm not stupid enough to think that I don't need to follow these conventions.
I have to make a living.
I don't speak offensively at work, I don't here either.
But at home with my mates, or down the pub, I actually speak quite coarsely and quite vulgarly.
I can affect class, it doesn't come naturally to me.

Words are just words. The power to offend is all in the perception of the hearer. When talking to anyone in everyday life about f**king, I use the word, as it stands. If I'm proposing it to a woman, I use the word. I've not known one take offence at it's use either.
That's the word for that activity. Perfectly good verb. What's the problem with it?
Don't you think now, even five years olds know what the word means?

Who really is offended by it?

These social conventions were in place to maintain a class system.
In an era of mass communication, not only is their maintenance impossible, it is completely pointless.

But hey, as long as you want to maintain them, I'll follow them when I need to, as I do here.
But I certainly don't take any offence at people using the f**k word.
I think there's something very endearing about a woman who doesn't feel men need to stand on ceremony around them.
These conventions get in the way of genuine human interaction, because they stifle us.
We use them in life when we HAVE to, but there's no need to give them support.

People express themselves as they see fit.

But then again, I'm pretty common.

Would God know if he Didn't Exist?

Fairly evenly split on the Islam issue.
Islamophobes- seventeen.
Islamophiles- sixteen.

For the record, I voted for the losing side.



This week's poll is actually going on to be on the biggest issue of the lot.
Does God exist?

But before you cast your votes, consider the question.

I always say that it is one of the two questions where people answer a different question to the one being asked.

The other is 'Do you believe in Aliens?'

The question is not, in fact, 'Do you believe in Grey Aliens and that a UFO landed at Roswell?'
But people answer it as if it is.

Likewise, the question asked here, isn't 'Do you believe the Bible is all true?' or 'Is there an afterlife?'

It actually means 'Do you believe the universe is directed by a conscious intelligence, capable somehow of communicating with us?'

Now, the universe certainly has a fabric. It is one spacetime. The fact is, there are only two possible explanations in Physics for the ability of our universe to produce us in the first place.
Both, of necessity are equally unprovable.

But they ARE the only two explanations.

This is the only universe, and it directs itself to form itself in this way, because it is conscious.

There are an infinite number of universes.

So I don't quite see why the Atheist believes his belief any more scientific than mine.
I would say that there are factors, which to me, show at least SOME evidence in favour of the first, as in, th huge number of people throughout History who have INSTINCTIVELY felt it to be right, as if it was something we KNEW.

I would point out something else.
We see ourselves as being conscious and intellignt.
Both of those are ultimately simply the product of electro-magnetic transmission of information.
The same way a computer works.
We of course, are much more sophisticated than the computer, having been designed by millions of years of natural streamlining.

But this is all produced by the way the universe works.

Since it has been transmitting electro-magnetically across itself for thirteen billion years, is it not natural to assume that it has evolved intelligence and consciousness over that time that we can only dream of.
That it is capable of directing itself.
And directing the course of evolution.

Not intervening, but setting the courses.
And transmiting our yearnings and desires into us.

Even our consciences.

So I always roll my eyes to heaven when Atheists who know nothing of physics presume to tell me Science has no need of God.
Notice that the most Atheist of Scientists are those stuck in the nitty gritty of Biology.
Most Physicsts are either Agnostics, or loosely Theistic- Forty percent of US university Physics Professors believe in God.



Off topic a bit, I was a good boy and went to mass yesterday, over a month since I last went- and I was late, getting there on the first reading.
Worse, I wouldn't have gone if my flatmate hadn't woke me up. Though she's not religous herself, she knows I always feel better about going when I do go, it's just I love my bed on Sunday mornings.


Now here's wierd. Found this over at Finding Life Hard.
My favourite colour is blue.
Why am I red?

You Are a Red Crayon

Your world is colored with bright, vivid, wild colors. You have a deep, complex personality - and you are always expressing something about yourself. Bold and dominant, you are a natural leader. You have an energy that is intense... and sometimes overwhelming. Your reaction to everything tends to be strong. You are the master of love-hate relationships. Your color wheel opposite is green. Green people are way too mellow to understand what drives your energy.

What Color Crayon Are You?

Well, there you go.
Find out your crayon and colour, then ponder the existence of God.
Then...

Have your say!

How Much of Ourselves Do We Give?

Mutley occasionally runs Guest posts which are different to your average Guest post.



The key difference is that the Guest posting blogger usually forgets that he has written the post.
In fact sometimes, they may be quite off topic.

But let me tell you something, I can name at least one blogger, who thought I actually did write this.

I'll tell you something else.
When I saw it, I was taken aback.

Because it was uncanny. Like looking in the mirror.

This scared me, it did, no doubt about it.
To be able to be that accurate, you need to have an image in your head of that blogger, which must be quite close to the mark. You have to have something to work with.

Mutley summed up three things which, standing back, must be obvious to anyone who reads this.

Firstly, there is the obscure, somewhat theoretical subject matter which probably often comes across as only slightly less arcane than this 'guest post'. I suspect much of what I write often comes across as either cloud cuckoo land or just plain bizarre to many of you, but there is a joined up theory linking my political/philosophical posts, which I could write a book on, but probably never will.

If you had the misfortune to be one of my close friends, you would also be familiar with my tendancy to talk on this vein, at length, some would say, ad nauseum.
I write pretty much how I speak, except typeface doesn't actually convey the fact that I have a very annoying habit in real life of emphasising random words. In the last sentence, I would have intonated 'speak', 'typeface', 'actually', 'convey', 'very', 'habit', 'life' and 'emphasising'.
That's just how I talk.

Well, I shouldn't mind that Mutley is so accurate here now, should I?
What's the problem, you say?
Nothing.

But Mutley also parodies the posts which were never originally meant to appear here. The posts where I admit to being a real person and not a spambot.
And here again, he's bang on. My attempts to apply any theoretical and logical principles to my own life are largely a complete disaster.

I use a pseudonym for a few reasons. The main ones are these. I like to able to discuss my opinions with people and get feedback on them. I like that discussion to be on the merits of the ideas themselves. Personal matters have crept in here, and I guess that is obvious that whilst I might have very nice theoretical principles, I don't live my life in a manner the majority of people would find commendable.

Sometimes I do find it helpful to blog on personal matters, your advice is impartial and it has a confessional feel to it.
I am aware that probably shows a side to me that is colder, harder, more cynical and manipulative, than you might expect from some of my other posts.
Both sides are true.
My principles are based on my rational thoughts.
My life is based on a fairly shallow 'live for the day, for tomorrow we die' approach.



This of course, is the other reason I use a pseudonym. Only The Baker and my flatmate know the URL. The fact that I know they can read any post, and comment if I was dishonest, means I have to be relatively honest on this blog, but I can trust them not to comment at it. I really do not want people who know me by name reading and commenting here. Whatever truly decadent activities I get up to- and many of them would seem completely decadent to many of you- they have no place on this blog, and I don't want references to them in the comments section.

I have nice readers, like Welshcakes and Ruthie.
And his Lordship thinks I'm bad enough as it is.

Which brings me to the alarming bit, the end paragraph.
A perfect send up of the vain, self-opinionated way I do fling myself around in real life.
What scares me, is how does Mutley know?
Am I that transparent?

Not overly so, I can take comfort in that. One highly intelligent blogger who shall remain nameless has long nursed a theory regarding me which amused me when I discovered the theory. Let's just say, it was pretty wide of the mark, and not something anyone would think likely who knew me at all.
Likewise, those bloggers who have contacted me for whatever reason, have given me some confidence in the effectiveness of my filter, by making initial assumptions about me which are wrong.

But I do worry sometimes, how much of what I hide from you, do you see?
And since what I hide is in itself a mass of contradictions, I'm a very multi-faceted person, WHICH facet do you see?

More worrying is how far we ourselves can trust other bloggers. I don't mean that other bloggers are willfully deceitful, though it happens. I mean that I try hard to ringfence this blog, so that it remains uncontaminated by my real life.

Here is where we come to the grey area. There is a twilight zone where the identity of this blog merges into my own real life identity. Several of you have entered into discussions with myself, regarding posts I have done, which have progressed to a degree where I am comfortable dropping the mask.

I take a risk when I do this. In the long run, it is only possible to do this if the other blogger can remember the distinction between me and my blog.
Let me put it this way. Bloggers may well form personal friendships with other bloggers.
But if a Blogger wants to keep his or her blogging identity separate from his or her real identity, then that personal friendship must stay out of the bloggosphere.
Bloggers who know eachother by name, must still behave online, as if they only know eachother by what they have put online in the public domain.

I get alarmed when people leave comments, not to Crushed, but to me. It poses a real threat.
I get alarmed when people leave comments that show they have had conversations with me outside the bloggosphere, that they know me as a real person and have a connection with me as an actual human being.
It's not a problem that they see me that way, it's just that this should stay private. Nobody else who reads the blog should be aware of it.

Because their relationship is with the blogger, not the blog.

I'll be honest, these are things which keep me awake at night. They do.

Because I do enjoy this medium, but I can only do so if my real identity and personal life are kept at arms length. There has to be a very real separation between me and this blog.

Because I don't want people who know me to read it.
Or people who read it knowing me, beyond what I feel comfortable putting here.



Trust me when I tell you, this blog puts me through Hell sometimes.
But I do also find it very rewarding, it helps me get a lot off my chest, and it allows me to put across my worldview over time, possibly the only time I'll ever write any of this stuff down.
There are some things in life I enjoy doing, there are others which are worthwhile.
This is the only one I can think of which is both.

But one day keeping my real life and this blog separate will involve so much life energy, it could drive me to a nervous breakdown.
And that day, I will post no more.

I hope it's not any day soon.
But I'm starting to face reality here.
It could be a year away, it could be a week away.

So till then, I shall blog each day as if it is my last.

Evolving Towards Perfection

I have faith in the future of mankind.
Unlike the extreme element of the environmental lobby, I do hope for a bright future of glass, concrete and steel.

I just hope we can find a way to do it.

My general religous/political outlook can be confusing to people, until I explain it.
I would seem, at first glance to hold some incompatible positions.
I think it's worth enumerating the key elements of my outlook.

1. I agree with most of what Nietzche writes.
2. I agree with most of what Marx writes.
3. I believe firmly in evolution, indeed it is fundamental to my world view.
4. I am a practising catholic, and theologically am quite traditional, supporting the Tridentine Mass, not having much time for John XXIII, and admit candidly to being a keen admirer of the current Pope.
5. I actually vote Conservative and was a party member for years. I left because they didn't elect Michael Portillo as leader.

How do I reconcile these points?

Firstly, let me say I believe in a God.
Not a personal, God, I simply believe the Universe is conscious and has purpose.
I believe Evolution to be the only mechanism a benevolent and all powerful God would use.
Surely an Omnipotent God wouldn't sit down and design everything.
He'd just set in motion a Universe that eventually, produced perfect intelligence.

We are part of that motion, but we're not there yet.

I believe we are evolving towards something, and that is God-made-Man, or Man-made-God, however you choose to view it.



I believe Christ was who he said he was.
I believe his message was a message to show us how to reach perfection.

I believe the Church was set up to guide us.
When Christ came we were little better than animals, but I believe his teachings HAVE driven us forward.
People may not go to church any more, but who now would question the Sermon on the Mount?

If we did all live the way Christ taught, then Communism WOULD work.
Odd that Marx was an Atheist.

Nietzche too, helps sort the wheat from the chaff.
Nietzche shows us the ideal man, the superman that I believe is what we are evolving towards.
Nietzche shows us how the mind of perfected man must work.

I don't believe in an afterlife as such, though I can see why it was necessary to bribe Man to be nice to eachother with this bargain.
One day, we will learn to live that way, because it makes THIS life better.

I do think ONE DAY, we will have EVOLVED to live as a technologically advanced collective species, living in a state of free love and communism.



But we are nowhere near that yet.
And we shouldn't strive too fast.

I think the Church has always done what it had to do to keep Christ's message alive.
I do think the day will come, maybe 2200AD, or so, when the Pope will call an end to the concept of sexual immorality.
But not yet.
Because WE are not ready for the concept, and I believe Popes only announce what God thinks we are ready for.

Likewise, I have always supported the Tories for sound pragmatic reasons.
They have atrocious social attitudes, but they tend to run the country better.
Labour just never works.

Because state control isn't the answer.

Communism failed, not because it was wrong, but because mankind isn't grown up enough yet, it is still in it's Capitalist adolescence.
Maturity will be when we learn to live differently.

When Conscience and Reason become one.

God didn't create man in his own image.
God gave man an image of what he intended man to evolve into.

That's basically my worldview.
That's what my faith AND my politics are based on.

And, yes, I do genuinely have faith in this.



What else could a loving God want for us?

The Sad Story of Storm

Some of you may know, I really love dogs.
I think dogs are more than just man's best friend.

To me, they are not animals, they occupy a strange realm between humanity and the rest of animalkind.
It always surprises me that people are closer related to mice and rats than dogs.

When I do visit my family, it is mainly to see the dogs. The eldest is quite old now, but when I was a teenager, and he was a puppy, he was very important to me.
He always slept at the end of my bed, though he shouldn't have really.
If he's ill, my mother will always let me know. I want to be there when he goes.

I'll probably cry, too.

Something happened this weekend which upset me a little.

The Baker has a brother, who up till last week lived with his girlfriend and two children.
And a massive Staffordshire Bull Terrier, Storm.

Now Storm is a handful.
I wouldn't get him angry, and I love playfighting most dogs.
He is like a frothing missile of fur and gristle.



Anyway, The Baker came down Friday night and told us that his brother and his partner had a row and dumped the kids and Storm on his mother.
He was going to take Storm back to Manchester with him, and my flatmate was going to mind him, whilst we went to the party.

I really don't know what was going to happen to Storm next, or how he thought Storm could stay in his flat all day whilst he was at work, bearing in mind the hours The Baker works.

Events pre-empted any of this.
We got to The Baker's Mum's, to find the Dog Wardens taking Storm away.

It had all been too much for him, the uncertainty, the confusion, the bitterness of the break up.
And I don't suppose he got much love during that period.

It turned out he'd killed a cat that morning, and The Baker's brother had disappeared.

The Baker was furious (at his brother, and justifiably in my eyes), his mother was clearly angry and upset- as well as concerned for the children, abandoned by both parents.

The saddest bit was when myself and my flatmate were sitting on the patio having a fag.
The children came up, playing with Sprout, The Baker's Mum's dog.
The eldest said 'He's big, but not as big as Storm. Storm's sleeping now in the garage. Storm loves to play.'

It cut me, it really did.
Who would tell them?
And when?

Liz would understand.

So we were all a little downhearted when we set off again for Manchester.
And The Baker was very angry and disappointed with his brother for letting all this happen.
For not loving his dog.

The good thing is, a home will be found for Storm.
But that's only because of people like Dog's Trust.

I'll let you in to a secret. I only give monthly donations to two charities. One is SPUC, the other is this.
I sponsor a dog called Freddie at eight pounds a month.

I did this initially, because I can't own a dog, I don't have time to look after it, but I so miss having a dog.
Giving eight pounds a month for Freddie partially satisfies deep yearnings within me.

To me, this really is a charity worth giving to, because dogs give us so much, yet are entirely dependant on us.

Please consider adopting a dog through Dog's Trust.
Because there are dogs out there who haven't received the love that all dogs deserve.

Love- What is It?

Some might see this as a complex question.
Many will argue, fairly, that there is more than one kind of love.

In a sense, that might be fair, but the fact is, all those different loves can be grouped together under the banner of 'strong positive bond.'

Some might say, it has to be an emotional bond, but I'm not sure about that.
I think it's possible for it to an intellectual one.

Indeed, I would argue that for any sentiment to have ultimate validity, it MUST be logical.

This is where I have a problem.

The theological concept of love poses no problem for me.
God Is Love.

Since to me, God and Energy are one (This is the Scientific basis of my Theism), and God and love are one, it follows that Love is Energy.

Since the whole universe is constructed and driven by energy, one way or another, it follows that Love holds the universe together and drives us forward.
Nothing there to contradict Theology.

In this context, the theological definition of Hate makes sense too.
All hate is perverted love.

Pure Love, after all, aims at the highest good.
Hate uses that same intent and perverts it to war against the highest good.
All evil is caused by loving something other than the highest good.

This is true meaning of the truism 'It's a fine line between Love and Hate.'

Pride, Anger, Envy, Avarice, Gluttony, Idleness, Lust.
The seven deadly sins.

Each one caused by a Love other than the highest good.

Love therefore, must be objectively defensible to be true.
Anything other is a perversion of the ideal.

This brings me to the ideal of Romantic Love.
What IS it?

Everyone will say that they know what the emotion is.
Certainly, it's the strongest feeling I can think of.

And for long, people have believed it to be unique.

Not so.
Take enough Ectasy, and you'll feel it for everyone in the room. Why do you think they call it the 'Love drug.'
It is a chemical feeling. That in itself has no validity.

Are we to believe that the Dance Scene is the height of Romantic Ideals?

Just because we can justify that sentiment to itself does not increase it's objective validity.
In a sense, it should reduce it. Ecstasy wears off and we have control over how much to take, or in the majority of cases, not to take it all. This gives it advantages, Romantic Love does not have.

Nietzche believed that Romantic Love was a product of the Later Middle ages, a reaction to the strict teachings of the Church on all matters sexual, an attempt to separate that beautiful intensity from the 'dirty' concept of lust.



Looking back at western cultural history, I can see his point. The Greeks and Romans made no distinction between Romantic Love and Lust, nor did the Vikings. Their legends make this clear. It was a powerful sentiment, one which engaged the myth makers much, but it was not always seen as particularly beautiful.
Freya, Goddess of 'Love' to the Vikings, slept with four dwarves in exchange for a necklace.
Theseus abandoned Ariadne, as Jason abandoned Medea.
And Helen of Troy seemed quite happy to be abducted by Paris.

Is this really the highest form of Love?

This is an emotion we are describing, it doesn't fit the bill.
This is Lust as it should be, Lust where you love the person you find fulfillment with.

True Love can only be a product of the intellect, a capability of seeing the higher good and sacrificing all that gets in the way of that.

True Love is the ability to override every emotion you have in the interests of humanity as a whole.

True Love is the complete suppression of individual desire.
It is the complete surrender of any emotion which is rooted in your concept of you.

Love is something that can only be found within.
Hatred, the force that divides and destroys, is Self.



Many Thanks to Welshcakes for this Award and profuse apologies for not responding quicker.
It seems our local exchange had problems with too many Broadband users and gave up.
Today (apparently), it is back in business, 21st Century Stryle.



Again, on to five more!

I just read a very moving post by Shelly Raydeane, so I'm going to pass it on her way.
The rest have all inspired posts in the past. Apologies to those who already have one.
Pommygranate, Ed, Alexys and Helen

Enforced Blogging Break- Sorry!

Unfortunately, I'm temporarily offline.
Blame BT.

I hope to get it sorted ASAP.

I will be back as soon as I can be.

There are some interesting posts on the way.

See you all soon!

Love you all!

Thank God That's Over

By which I mean the summer.
Summer in an odd numbered year.
I hate them.

I'm not the only one either. I know loads of people who have been saying how time really has dragged until the season starts again.

And how.
It's three months without one of backdrops to life.
One you take for granted.

It's not so bad in even-numbered years, you get a few weeks of England getting your hopes up for nothing to keep you going (Though, seriously, the World Cup to is more important than Christmas or anything else, I do not miss a game. Period)

It's not just having no fooball to watch, it's not really having football to talk about.
It's not being able to ring uo your mates to wind them up when Tottenham LOSE one Nil to SUNDERLAND.
Hey, we were never going to beat Chelsea! 3-2 is GOOD.

We'll hammer The Villa, and get a good mid table finish.

And that's all I want.



I often find it stange when people who don't like football complain that they have to put up with it being the main focus everyehere for about a month every two years.

How do you think the rest of us feel about No Footie for THREE months, every two years?

I do feel a part of my life is gone, when the season is over.
Football is easily the best game ever invented, every other sport is tedious by comparison.
Football is simple, no daft rules, no complex scoring system, just twenty men, a ball, and moments of brilliance.

And the passion.

It really is a beautiful game.

A Man To Move You

I'm going to cheat tonight.
I think I did mention recently that I've got a lot on right now.
I had hoped to visit a few blogs tonight before going away tomorrow, but I have guests tonight and must be at a party tomorrow.

So I hope you'll find Keats enjoyable. I think he's pretty amazing, myself, though he doesn't float everyone's boat.



Keats was two years younger than me when he died.
But he was easily the greatest of his set.
Shelley, Byron, yes, they wrote a lot of good poetry, all of it making Wordsworth look as talented as Baldrick, but Keats, Keats was up there with Coleridge and Blake.

I really hope you like this as much as I do.

Ode To A Nightingale

MY heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,
That thou, light-wingèd Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

O for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delvèd earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country-green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South!
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stainèd mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs;
Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.



Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
To thy high requiem become a sod.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that ofttimes hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:—do I wake or sleep?

Top quality.
Don't you agree?

Blogging- Why Do I Do It?

None of us needs to justify why we do it, really.
I just thought after last night's post you might wonder why I started blogging.
Apart from, why not?

I'll be honest, this time last year, I didn't know what a blog was.
The only e mails I received were work related.
I knew of chatrooms. Me and a mate used to go in them as students, with names like Ho Chi Minh, and wind up Americans by going on about Vietnam.
It happened rarely, mainly when we couldn't find any more Tabatha Cash sites.

Profuse apologies to all Americans- we were nineteen with a bizarre sense of humour.

I discovered the medium by chance.

I am a betting man.
Not a compulsive gambler, there is a huge difference.

I never bet on horses, dogs, cricket, rugby, or anything I know nothing about.

I DO bet on football and elections.
For General Elections, I do my assessment months in advance, constituency by constituency.
If you travel a lot and are a chatty person, you pick up a lot of useful local information.
But I was also finding the internet pretty useful for finding out things I needed to know.
In fact, I was researching my prediction for the Scottish Elections, when Google led me to a couple of blogs.



The information on there was helpful, so I checked the blogroll.
Maybe some of these blogs would give me further gems.

On one of these blogs, was a post I had an opinion on.
A strong opinion.
And one of the commentors felt strongly another way.
Not being one to be quiet, I accused him of being an apologist for racism (which he was).

I could have left it.
Anyway, I returned the following day to find myself assailed.
It took two days and about ten long comments from me, but I like to think I fought the corner against closet racism.
And when this debate was over, I felt different.

The medium had caught me.

So I visited other blogs looking for fresh debates.
One of them necessitated me getting a Blogger ID.
Unfortunately, I didn't realise you could have a Blogger ID, without a blog, so I ended up having a blog.
I wrote short posts to myself thinking, hell, if someone DOES click through they might read it.
This happened sooner than I thought.

But something very important happened before it did.

I happened to be at a party where a girl told me a truly horrifying story.
Basically, her stefather raped her pretty much nightly from age twelve upwards, whilst the mother was on night shifts. It's not the first time I've heard such stories from the people it's happened to, but there was something so sweet about her, it did actually make me want to cry.
It affected me for days.

In a sense, it was the last straw for me.
It was the final proof for me that we live in a completely sick society where nobody really gives a damn.

I realised I believed passionately that we could do so much better as a species, than we are doing.
For years the intensity of my convictions were something that only emerged during the long political discussions myself and The Baker had at weekends after heavy clubbing sessions.
Or at parties.
I saw a medium where I could literally, say what I wanted.
With the arguments being judged on their own merits.

And they would be a matter of public record.
And yet, they would be distanced from me.
I could carry on as normal.

I embraced the medium properly in March of this year.
And here we are.

I wouldn't mind betting many of you have similar stories to tell.
On the whole, I think it is rewarding.

Found this over at Kizzie's.

60%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

Austin Singles from Mingle²

My flatmate would disagree.

By the way, CityUnslicker has done a very thoughtful response to my post on interest.
It's worth going over and having a look at his take on the subject, before you make your minds up.

So blogging.
Time consuming, yes.
Waste of time?
Would I do it if it was?

Love the lot of you! xx

Show The Working

My maths teacher always told me to show the working.
I couldn't.
I could see the answer, but not how I'd got there.
I'm older now.



It's only fair of me to say that the opinions I have on things are partly based on a lot of reading over the years. I'm not in fact that big a reader, it's just I don't really read novels. I prefer something that's going to tell me something I don't know.
I like to see something in a whole new light when I've finished.

But more importantly, my opionions are based on my own experiences and observations, on my own thoughts on the questions I have found myself asking.
I'm only relatively young still. I'm sure several of my opinions will alter in time.

My childhood wasn't awful, but it was stifling.
I was never an overacheiver at school. I was considered gifted but lazy, as well as a disruptive influence.
I thought school a complete waste of time, and I still think most of it was.
Ironically, it wasn't learning I hated. I'd skive school to stay at home and read Spenser and Malory as a teenager.

Going to University was the best day of my life. For me, it really was the first day of the rest of my life.
I pretty much broke with my family, only to see them at Christmas and Birthdays, and I don't really regret that decision. There have been occasions when I had to return to living with my parents for odd spells, but we don't see the world the same way.

At University, I led a sort of double life.
I lived it up. A lot.
I didn't do a lot of studying.
For three years I slept from 6 AM to 1 PM.

But I was also active in a political party for the first and second year. At one point I even had a position in it.
I was pretty good on the doorstop, wearing a Rosette. That bit I enjoyed.
The meetings bored the hell out of me.
I understood the arguments we spouted, to the degree of how to use these tools in debate.
But I never thought of the issues in human terms.

Hell, ultimately, I supported them because it was my favourite colour...

Well, three years of wasterdom left me pretty ill equiped for working eight hours a day, five days a week, even with a bit of paper saying I had a degree.



I ended up in sales, because I wanted a job that I could get paid for without working too hard, and still have money to get completely trashed on Pills on a Friday night.

This lack of a plan, did get me into a hell of a mess over the years. I drifted blindly through relationships, sold a variety of different products and experienced a lot of things, good and bad, that many people never do.

I had a pretty mispent youth, but I also suffered through it. I went through a few Hells.

I suppose I really began to become very thoughtful in my late twenties.
I found myself questioning so much of the world we live in. I couldn't help but ask, do these things HAVE to be that way?
Why are things that way?

I found myself applying my own observations to political and economic lines of thought.
I think you have to truly go through Hell, to truly question.

One thing I could say for sure, there wasn't much constructive I had acheived.
But that in itself raised a problem. Whilst this was certainly all my fault, it didn't alter the fact that my making zero contribution to society WAS a loss to society. Even if I had little talent, it was some talent of some sort, and society certainly hadn't received it.
And then I saw the deeper problem. Individualism cuts both ways. I had used my individualism to get an easy life, without really giving anything.

And let's be honest, that's what I do now, except I'm better at it.
But only because I'm better paid, have a stable life, don't take drugs every weekend, and therefore, can make it work.

I'm paid, but trust me, my social contribution remains ZERO.



The problem with Individualism, is that it leads people like me to structure their lives in a way that pleases them best. They always will.

The society we live in, basically rewards me better for contributing nothing to its overall well being, than anything socially useful.

I'd love to write for a living, but no one would pay me.
So I work as a salesman.

I lead a cushy life. Do I deserve it?
Not a jot.
I'm just benefitting from living in the right part of the world, and having found a way of making the system work for me without trying too hard.

I'd love to make a positive difference- but I'm not paid to.
I actually hate the concept of selling my labour. I often feel no better than a prostitute.
I just can't get excited by the corporate drivel one talks day in, day out.
It's Newspeak, all of it. I feel positively soiled by it.

And I loathe the crap we all pretend about the virtues our society pretends to have.
So many of the accepted values of our society, the orthodoxies of our time are some of them, completely ludicrous.

And if you publically question them, they'll shout you down. They won't let you be heard.

These are the reasons why, I FEEL crushed by Ingsoc.