There’s something wrong with the world today
I don’t know what it is
Something’s wrong with our eyes
We’re seeing things in a different way
And God knows it ain’t his
It sure ain’t no surprise, yeah
In times of stress we look to the artists, writers and musicians to give form and expression to our own frustrations, and boy, did Aerosmith nail it. Today’s mood aptly expressed in 1993.
I can go back even further, too. JRR Tolkien’s Bilbo Baggins, in Fellowship of the Ring says “I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.” Published in 1954.
It’s been a weird and very un-wonderful 18 months and it’s taken it toll on everyone, and in many different ways. For a while I thought it was just me, and I thought it was just menopause, but it’s so much more. I work in retail, I am in constant contact with the public, and they are getting mean. After the first lockdown, there was so much goodwill for frontline retail workers. All of that is gone now. Then, we were the brave souls returning to work. Now, we are the annoying robots reminding them to put on a mask in the shop.
If you need more examples, you need only look at the Euro Cup final, before and after. At Wembley stadium, fans without tickets forced their way past barriers into the arena. One Steward described being threatened with a knife. He let the guy pass, because he wasn’t getting stabbed for £8.90 an hour. Fans set of fireworks at Kings Cross, shutting down the station. Bottles were thrown in Leicester Square. Italian fans were assaulted. The England players who missed their penalties were subject to despicable online racist abuse, from internet trolls and MPs.
My Question is: when did this behaviour become Okay? The Mob rises for the least thing, and those in power support it, because it’s easier than stopping it. Ignorant opinions and misinformation abound, because correcting it takes too much effort for too little result.
Yeah, tell me what you think about your situation
Complication, aggravation
Is getting to you
If Chicken Little tells you that the sky is falling
Even if it wasn’t, would you still come crawling
Back again?
I bet you would my friend
Again, and again, and again, and again
Something right with the world today
And everybody knows it’s wrong
But we can tell ’em no or we could let it go
But I would rather be a hanging on.
I’ve heard descriptions of having Covid. It strips all your physical strength, then all your reserves. I feel like the lock downs and restrictions have done something similar to our mental states. ‘Butter scraped over too much bread.’ We are all being starved of butter.
Masks are a perfect symbol of the times. Masks don’t protect the wearer, they protect everyone else from the wearer. But they are uncomfortable and annoying. Other people are also uncomfortable and annoying, so why am I protecting them? All of my empathy and consideration are reserved for those in my ‘Bubble.’ I haven’t got any butter left for strangers.
The truly frustrating thing for me is that I don’t have an answer, aside from increased intake of alcohol and weed, which carries problems of their own. We have to just endure until the pandemic is over, or at least manageable. So I suppose this whole blog is just to let you know, if you’re feeling on edge, if you’re ‘Living on the Edge’, you’re not alone.
Or maybe it is just me, and it’s just menopause.
So That Happened 