You may reasonably ask, 'Why am I writing this piece?'
Well, the short answer is that, as with everything I write, I'm trying to help. Not harm.
So I never write fiction, with the risk of an unpleasant surprise at each page turn.
Nor am I writing as an act of self-indulgence. Rather I'm either writing to analyse a circumstance or, as best I can, report a circumstance.
So, what am I saying this time?
Put briefly: this pandemic of isolation and boredom will have, is having, a deeply depressive effect on the entire population.
I know this because for twenty-two years of my working-age life, I was unemployed. And for the past four years of my retirement life I've had to live a solitary, and, increasingly lonely life.
And that has driven me, day by day, closer to suicide.
Not that I have ever attempted suicide, nor do I expect to do so, despite my scientists' knowledge that that possibility exists.
No, my writing this is an attempt to offer my survival-strategy experience.
It, of course, is unique to me, because we are all a different mix of four personality types and, along with that mix, each of us is a blend of extravert (social-needing) and intravert (solitary-needing) personalities as well (that gives us eight possibilities: the Meyers-Briggs Personality typing even doubles this up to sixteen personality possibilities, but I consider that the science of this is still in its infancy, so let's just say that, despite our common needs, our detailed personalities are all different).
So, how have I survived twent-six years of loneliness and inactivity? To say nothing of the shunning that the unemployed and other low-income people face. And, yes, other forms of shunning, too.
Again, put briefly, my security has come from two sources: a) I know that this suffering is deliberate, it's a necessary, designed-in, monitored and managed part of capitalism; capitalism needs unemployment as 'A price worth paying' in order to keep those who are employed in paid-work 'under the thumb', or 'under The Iron Heel'.
Secondly, b), I know that 'better is possible'.
Because I'm a Quaker and a Christian (defined on my terms), I rejoice in the possibility of 'Thy Will be done on Earth, as it is in Heaven'.
But we are not going to jump, I don't think, in one bound from The Kingdom of The Devil, as capitalusm is properly termed, into The Kingdom of Heaven.
Rather, we can move from capitalism to a better place by implementing a better alternative: the plan I call 'Co-operative Socialism'.
Now, that will elicit push-back.
Not only from the fans of capitalism, but, as Edward Pease' 'History of The Fabian Society' points out, from people who also call themselves socialists.
It's odd that the human tendence to say, 'Yes, but' is so ardently developed among socialists. So much so that the frustration of eternal 'Yes, but' or, even, 'No, and' leads to Authoritarianism and, so, back to that same Kingdom of The Devil.
So, for me, my survival strategy, during nearly thirty years as a shut-out, rather than shut-in, has been to always, every day, promote that better alternative.
Hard as that has been.
But necessary!
Well, the short answer is that, as with everything I write, I'm trying to help. Not harm.
So I never write fiction, with the risk of an unpleasant surprise at each page turn.
Nor am I writing as an act of self-indulgence. Rather I'm either writing to analyse a circumstance or, as best I can, report a circumstance.
So, what am I saying this time?
Put briefly: this pandemic of isolation and boredom will have, is having, a deeply depressive effect on the entire population.
I know this because for twenty-two years of my working-age life, I was unemployed. And for the past four years of my retirement life I've had to live a solitary, and, increasingly lonely life.
And that has driven me, day by day, closer to suicide.
Not that I have ever attempted suicide, nor do I expect to do so, despite my scientists' knowledge that that possibility exists.
No, my writing this is an attempt to offer my survival-strategy experience.
It, of course, is unique to me, because we are all a different mix of four personality types and, along with that mix, each of us is a blend of extravert (social-needing) and intravert (solitary-needing) personalities as well (that gives us eight possibilities: the Meyers-Briggs Personality typing even doubles this up to sixteen personality possibilities, but I consider that the science of this is still in its infancy, so let's just say that, despite our common needs, our detailed personalities are all different).
So, how have I survived twent-six years of loneliness and inactivity? To say nothing of the shunning that the unemployed and other low-income people face. And, yes, other forms of shunning, too.
Again, put briefly, my security has come from two sources: a) I know that this suffering is deliberate, it's a necessary, designed-in, monitored and managed part of capitalism; capitalism needs unemployment as 'A price worth paying' in order to keep those who are employed in paid-work 'under the thumb', or 'under The Iron Heel'.
Secondly, b), I know that 'better is possible'.
Because I'm a Quaker and a Christian (defined on my terms), I rejoice in the possibility of 'Thy Will be done on Earth, as it is in Heaven'.
But we are not going to jump, I don't think, in one bound from The Kingdom of The Devil, as capitalusm is properly termed, into The Kingdom of Heaven.
Rather, we can move from capitalism to a better place by implementing a better alternative: the plan I call 'Co-operative Socialism'.
Now, that will elicit push-back.
Not only from the fans of capitalism, but, as Edward Pease' 'History of The Fabian Society' points out, from people who also call themselves socialists.
It's odd that the human tendence to say, 'Yes, but' is so ardently developed among socialists. So much so that the frustration of eternal 'Yes, but' or, even, 'No, and' leads to Authoritarianism and, so, back to that same Kingdom of The Devil.
So, for me, my survival strategy, during nearly thirty years as a shut-out, rather than shut-in, has been to always, every day, promote that better alternative.
Hard as that has been.
But necessary!
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