You can't get away from it

Wednesday 30th December, 2020

Sometimes it really is impossible to hide from the news. Even if I shut down all media intrusions in to my life someone would say something. At the Church service I attended this morning two people spoke of new pandemic restrictions. In the post office someone mentioned them again. Inadvertently I saw the headlines of various newspapers in the racks for sale. Then on getting home I overheard the radio and mention of Covid deaths. As I caught up on emails a banner news headline intruded fm the BBC...somehow my iPad, which is a generous hand me down, has been wired to get such Breaking news flashes. On my walk this afternoon as I used my handy grabber I noted a message coming from a radio in a stationary car with its door open. When I got home a care assistant appeared and mentioned the new precautions to be taken and now obsession re fresh air in the house is rampant. We are bombarded minute by minute, hour by hour. I do not think we notice it, like the osmotic effect of advertising, until we consciously try to blot it out. It must undermine us in some ways. If I am not really aware of something yet it is constant and being registered by my brain or subconscious or whatever what is happening to my 'state of being'.

I have read recently about the German Reich and how propaganda was used and broadcast. It must also be being perpetrated in dictatorial countries such as Russia and China and North Korea...brain washing. The west is not immune to it. I am not immune to it even though I am not overtly conscious of it.

My walk took me passed a frozen lake on which two swans were apparently skating! Then I noted five herons in an overhanging tree. None seemed to have heads...they were tucked under their wings. It was a cold and icy day and I thought of the tortoise I have been caring for during the summer. It would be hibernating now. Then in those summer days it simply withdrew its head. I wish I could do the same with all this blasted information and visual and auditory bombardment of my senses. It is hard to switch off. Even in sleep dreams have been invading of late. It is better to learn the art of silence, the technique of contemplation, the way to stillness.