Is it just me or is the world getting madder and madder? In spite of the current technological revolution people seem to be working harder than ever before. Large amounts of time seem to be spent working out how to use this technology or trying to deal with it when it goes wrong. The world I live in is increasingly Kafkaesque. I am not claiming that I woke up this morning to discover I was a bug but more often than not I discover on a daily basis that I don’t exist because some password I have used is incorrect. I have so many passwords I have now used most words in the English Dictionary. Any fraudster could put in any word at random into any of my accounts and probably manage to open one.
Worse, when something goes wrong the horrible truth dawns. I will have to phone ‘The Someone’. I say ‘someone’ in the loosest sense because he/she/it is probably ‘virtual’ or a robot of some kind. Can you believe I have a pass-word just to book a train ticket? There is usually a problem with the website. I telephoned yesterday and was chatting with ‘The Someone’ about the weather. When I asked where their office was based I was told they are not allowed to disclose this information. Had I mistakenly phoned The Pentagon or MI5 by mistake? “No” Someone said. “This is the ticket centre”. “Where?” I asked, “North Korea?”
If you are lucky to get ‘The Someone’ after you have waited in the queue listening to some terrible tune for hours you realise you are not lucky at all. Before you can even ask your question you need to answer security questions. When finally, you get one right you whoop with joy and delight and embarrass yourself. Now Someone says: “So you live at number 7?”, you confirm, and they say “fantastic”! This is where it starts to go wrong. “Why?” I ask the puzzled Someone. Why is it ‘fantastic’ that I live at number 7? Is there something about number 9 I should know about? The people at number 11 seem quite nice but does Someone know something about them that I don’t? Perhaps they mean that number 7 is a lucky number? No, apparently it is another of those imported Americanisms. Meaningless.
Now the virtual sweet girl on the phone at the BT call centre (I would have to kill you if I told you where it was) has been checking with her colleagues for the last hour to try to find why I am being billed for another phone that doesn’t exist. Unusually, she has found the answer which is that I am not on their records and don’t exist either.
Now they really need to train these people properly. Imagine my horror! After all these years of thinking that my name is Michael and I am a boy, quite tall and all the other information that contributes to my sense of identity finding that this is all, in fact, null and void. I am aware of much spiritual and philosophical thought that reaches similar conclusions: that essentially we are all no more than our own delusions and that kind of thing, but the fact that B.T have taken it upon themselves to tell their unsuspecting customers of this fact was shocking. Shocked I was and when I asked if B.T provided a service for Post-Traumatic Stress from which I was now suffering, the ‘sweet girl’ put me on ‘hold’. (You guessed it: The tune: ‘Stairway to Heaven’). There I am. Waiting on the phone. Should I say ‘There I think I am,’ or ‘There I think but that which thinks is not ‘me’ or ‘The thought is a delusion that has created itself and the only ‘Me’ is the universe’. Luckily the girl gets back onto the phone and tells me that I do exist but that I don’t’ live where I thought I lived but in Glasgow.
Now speechless I sag at the knees mumbling a ‘Thankyou’. Now for B.Ts final ‘Coup de grace’She says, in a pseudo American voice, “Is there anything else I can do for you today?” I faint.
Even if you decide to get rid of the phone and barricade yourself in your house and just watch the TV for the rest of your life then make sure you have a five year old around. Using the TV controller is virtually impossible these days. While most kids cannot kick a football around these days without becoming breathless and having to reach for the’ Ventolin’ they do manage to find the channel you want in seconds. No doubt evolution dictates that in the future babies will be born without legs and elongated fingers with devices attached.
We live in a virtual world now. I thought I had a few friends but since some idiot put me on ‘Face- Book’ it seems I have thousands. Some of these people I don’t know; others I do but wish I didn’t; others I know can’t stand me and vice versa. Some just owe me money. As I peruse this world (very rare) I become envious. Am I the only person who has to work for a living in this world? Why don’t I have the time to put photos of me shopping on line and asking my ‘friends’ whether they think I should buy the red or the blue jumper?
It is an increasingly ALIEN WORLD. For me my darker moments remain a secret between me and the therapist. Others seem to delight in their own indignity, happy to show themselves and friends cavorting at a karaoke bar in Costa de Pergatorio drunk and doing an Elvis impersonation.
In my younger days day you would go to a bar and chat someone up if you liked them. Now apparently, according to my nephew there is a web-site, ‘Tinder’ or some such. You put in a geographical radius and a few requirements and away you go. Where would Shakespeare be today? Romeo wouldn’t have the energy to walk all the way to Juliet’s’ house. He would be at home on his play station. Or he was so close to finding the love of his life and being a part of one of the greatest plays written in history but unfortunately Juliet lived 200 yards outside of his ‘app’ ‘ search zone’.
Don’t even talk to me about ‘email’. This ‘labour-saving device is no more than a virtual postman ringing and banging on the door 24 hours day, offended if you don’t answer immediately.
Why am I ranting so, you might ask? What has this to do with homeopathy you wonder. Well while I have been writing this a whole load of stress hormones have been racing around my body. A whole complicated physiological series of events have been taking place. There is a junk word for this: Stress.
My Buddha-like friend Bernie and |I will be running a seminar about ‘stress’. We will look at what it is, what physiological processes are involved, why the allopathic model is incapable of dealing with it as a condition. We will examine the relationship between stress and pathological effects particularly on the circulatory system including blood pressure and strokes. We will look at many remedies for these conditions and more.
The REAL seminar will take place in Ireland in the REAL enchanted village of Allihies. The date will be August 25th and 26th. Here, by the REAL sea you can ‘unwind’, to the sound of Irish music, eat REAL fabulous food and mix with REAL like-minded folk. The details will be on this page and elsewhere, (Please don’t bring your virtual friends as places are limited)
