02 May 2018 – I’m sitting on a farmhouse verandah
in the middle of a cattle stud farm among the rolling hills known as the
Blackall Range, inland from the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia. The
cows and calves on the farm are known as ‘blondes d’Acquitaine’, bred without horns
and really quite passive. This is ‘chewing the cud’ country.
As usual, I
bought a couple of newspapers to bring myself up-to-date with events, local and
further afield. The material I read and viewed on voyeur-vision news programmes
was/is much the same as the material on offer 12,000 miles away back home. That’s a bit sobering to take on board, I
thought. I probably couldn’t be any
further away from home without also leaving the planet yet the same problems
abound.
Some banks
are accused of cheating their customers and one ‘lost’ 20 million customer
records; some politicians (including the Mayor of Ipswich, Qld.) are accused of
lying to the electorate; the education system is unfit for purpose; and French
President Macron is in Sydney en route
to New Caledonia where, clearly, he will try to influence the outcome of an
imminent referendum as to whether or not New Caledonia should remain French. No
doubt while in Sydney he will try to point Australia towards EU trade, too. In
other words, as I’ve often said, there is nothing new under the sun.
Not a lot is
reported about Mrs May and her problems although it was nice to learn that Kew
Gardens has reopened. No words at all about J Corbyn . . . . it is all
about priorities, I suppose.
_ _ _ _ _
04 May 2018 – This peaceful environment is
beginning to lead me to think now about things ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’. For example, does ‘natural’ equal ‘good’ and
‘unnatural’ equal ‘bad’? Nope, I don’t
think so. There is more to it than that.
Here on the
farm our water supply is rainwater collected into an enormous storage tank as
it drains from the farm house roof. There
is no piped-in town water supply. To that extent the water is both ‘natural’
and ‘good’, provided the ‘unnatural’ tank interior is clean. Certainly, there
is no chlorine or other chemical in the water but townies like me prefer to
boil water for drinking purposes, just to be sure. Locals are well beyond
needing that.
I could go
on and make other comparisons but what I wanted was to awaken your mind to the
words ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’, neither of which has anything to do with good
or bad, but is to do only with natural and unnatural. Think about that next
time some advertiser tries to exploit for commercial gain the naturalness of
his product.
The cows on
the farm graze on untreated grass – no chemicals of any sort disturb their
several stomachs and their methane production is pure. A couple of chickens
scratch around the garden eating whatever comes out of the ground and then lay
their eggs somewhere we can’t find them easily. How good is that? How natural?
And you wouldn’t believe how tough their eggshells are.
There are no
curtains to the farm house windows because they would serve no purpose other
than ‘unnatural’ decoration. We switch off our unnatural electric light and go
to sleep in the light of a silvery moon (and stars) and waken when the sun
rises, to the sound of kookaburra birds and crows. Other than that, there is no
noise except the noise of children running around the house as they get ready
for breakfast and school.
Then we re-introduce the ‘unnatural’ into the home by
switching on voyeur-vision, or a radio, or a computer. Best of all, nobody
wants an I-pod thingy while they have breakfast. They do the most natural thing
of all and talk to each other - sometimes!
Can I hear you sigh “Wouldn’t it be luvverly?”
_ _ _ _ _
07 May 2018 – Bank Holiday Monday and it poured
most of the day.
08 May 2018 – We share the farmhouse with untold
numbers and types of spiders, some enormous and some deadly. We have also some
mice, and zillions of miniscule ants. Spiders spin their webs to capture
anything that flies. Mice emerge at night to forage for any food items we might
have left uncovered, and leave their ‘droppings’ to let us know they’ve been.
The miniscule ants come out in their thousands to swarm over even the slightest
trace of fat or butter left uncleaned. All of which is quite natural. We might
not like it but it is natural.
Now it’s my
turn to chew the cud. No matter how many ants I might destroy, there are as
many and more to reappear later and replace them. There are more of them than
there is of me – and that leads to my thought for today.
There are
many, many more of US than there are
the elite who rule over us and the elite care no more about that than we care
about how many ants we destroy to achieve our own version of ‘acceptably clean’.
It adds a ring of truth to the slogan on my t-shirt which reads: “A politician
is someone who will lay down your life for his country.”
So, how does
it feel to know that in some quarters you and I are looked upon as little more
than irritating ants among trillions of other irritating ants? Put that in your
‘I know my rights’ pipe and smoke it. And while we’re at it, what kind of
reasoning are we using that leads us to vote
in support of giving a fellow ant the ‘authority’ (some even claim it to be
sovereign authority) to look after our interests? It seems to me that he/she
will look after his/her interests long before it occurs to anyone to look after
mine or yours. And that’s natural, too. Think about it.
_ _ _ _ _
Truth is, of
course, that we don’t always like things ‘natural’ or in accord with nature.
That’s why we try to change them and the effect they have on us into something
else, something that is un-natural. Sophisticated, if you like. Therein lies
danger.
Whether we
like it or not, something which is truly natural impacts upon each of us
without fear or favour. Nature is senseless but we are not. Therefore, we are
able to respond to nature in our different ways and try to change things to
suit our different selves, which mean we will devise an ‘un-natural’ outcome that
doesn’t impact upon everyone else in the same way.
I ask myself
this most astonishing question: Have I just discovered the origin of politics?
I can hardly wait for tomorrow’s musings.
(MD)
I am spreading the word about the fact that every human born is a 'Sovereign Being' and that no other person has an automatic right to govern over them. I have just realised where the word 'government' comes from. There are some people who are 'natural leaders' I would say Nelson Mandela, Donald Trump, Margaret Thatcher are natural. Unfortunately our recent and current political leaders and the Monarchy are unnatural leaders who have been given there position because of the school/University they went to or in the case of monarchy it is their birthright! I hope the people of the UK wake up to the fact that our Queen is in a 'contract' with her Sovereign subjects and that we Sovereigns can end the contract if we want to.
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