Move on up!

Hush now child, and don't you cry. Your folks might understand you by and by. Move on up towards your destination. You may find from time to time , Complications

Bite your lip and take a trip. Though there may be wet road ahead, You cannot slip, Just move on up and peace you will find, Into the steeple of beautiful people, Where there's only one kind


So hush now child and don't you cry. Your folks might understand you by and by. Just move on up and keep on wishing. Remember your dreams are your only schemes, So keep on pushing Take nothing less - not even second best, And do not obey - you must have your say, You can past the test

Move on up!

 

VIBES

Someone's put a J Dilla beat behind Lauryn Hill & Erykah Badu reading poetry separately, it's a vibey situation. 

 Power in music, power in words. 

Upworthy : Kim Raff

A great article posted on Upworthy this month (click the pic), about Monroe County jail farm, where inmates and abandoned or abused animals build relationships and learn to love again. This really touched me, I think it's such a great idea. I often think about the prison system and it's many flaws... I don't believe enough is done generally to rehabilitate inmates - often they come out feeling even less a part of society and even further disconnected from humanity. This concept not only helps those animals have a better quality of life, it also helps build a sense of community within these offenders and gives them a purpose, something to contribute to their self worth. A beautiful example of how love can heal.  

 

Credit: http://www.upworthy.com/

Maysles Brothers meet Marlon Brando

The Maysles brothers and Marlon Brando, this is so good!

"People don't realise that a press item/a news item is money.. and news is hawked in the same way as shoes are, toothpaste and lipstick and hair tonic or anything else"

Nails it.

"Testing his abilities to make a genuine connection in a world of artificial warmth"

Infinite Jest

In another Variety Actors on Actors video, Bryan Cranston and Jason Segel discuss the characters they play in their latest film's - Trumbo and The End of the Tour.

Cranston's movie is based on the prolific screenwriter Donald Trumbo who was one of many 'blacklisted' by Hollywood establishments through the 40's and 50's for being a communist. It's a compelling story told in a humorous and flamboyant way. I thought it would be hard to look at Cranston and not see Walter White, but Trumbo and White couldn't be more different and he plays them both so well.

Segel plays David Foster Wallace, an American author and professor of English and creative writing who is widely known for his novel Infinite Jest (need to read this). The film sees Rolling Stones writer David Lipsky (played by Jesse Eisenberg) dismayed to hear about the death of David Foster Wallace, it follows their intimate and insightful relationship before his death. Love Jesse Eisenberg & Jason Segel - so refreshing to see him in this role.

This clip is so worth the watch, two legends conversing. A conversation I'd like to have been a part of:

The Great Dictator

"I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone - if possible - Jew, Gentile - black man - white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness - not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men - cries out for universal brotherhood - for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world - millions of despairing men, women, and little children - victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.To those who can hear me, I say - do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed - the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish. .....Soldiers! don’t give yourselves to brutes - men who despise you - enslave you - who regiment your lives - tell you what to do - what to think and what to feel! Who drill you - diet you - treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate - the unloved and the unnatural! Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!In the 17th Chapter of St Luke it is written: “the Kingdom of God is within man” - not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people have the power - the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.Then - in the name of democracy - let us use that power - let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world - a decent world that will give men a chance to work - that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfil that promise. They never will!Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people! Now let us fight to fulfil that promise! Let us fight to free the world - to do away with national barriers - to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness. Soldiers! in the name of democracy, let us all unite!" - Charlie Chaplin, 'The Great Dictator'.

GURLPOWER

Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire

------------------------------------------------------------------

Oppression

noun

1. the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjustmanner.

2. an act or instance of oppressing or subjecting to cruel or unjust impositions or restraints.

3. the state of being oppressed.
4. the feeling of being heavily burdened, mentally or physically, by troubles, adverse conditions, anxiety, etc.
------------------------------------------------------------------

Such a great book on the nature of oppression. It would do the world good if everyone read and absorbed this. It makes perfect sense.



A few quotes from the first chapter:

"The oppressed, having internalised the image of the oppressor and adopted his guidelines, are fearful of freedom. Freedom would require them to eject this image and replace it with autonomy and responsibility. Freedom is acquired by conquest, not by gift. It must be pursued constantly and responsibly. Freedom is not an ideal located outside of man; nor is it an idea which becomes myth. It is rather the indispensable condition for the quest for human completion."



"The oppressed suffer from the duality which has established itself in their innermost being. They discover that without freedom they cannot exist authentically. Yet, although they desire authentic existence, they fear it. They are at one and the same time themselves and the oppressor whose consciousness they have internalised. The conflict lies in the choice between being wholly themselves or being divided; between ejecting the oppressor within or not ejecting them; between human solidarity or alienation; between following prescriptions or having choices; between being spectators or actors; between acting or having the illusion of acting through the action of the oppressors between speaking out of being silent, castrated in their power to create and re-create, in their power to transform the world. This is the tragic dilemma of the oppressed which their education must take into account."



"To deny the importance of subjectivity in the process of transforming the world and history is naive and simplistic. It is to admit the impossible: a world without people. This objectivistic position if as ingenuous as that of subjectivism, which postulates people without a world. World and human beings do not exist apart from each other, they exist in constant interaction."

"Reality which becomes oppressive results in the contradistinction of men as oppressors and oppressed. The latter, whose task it is to struggle for their liberation together with those who show true solidarity, must acquire a critical awareness of oppression through the praxis of this struggle. One of the gravest obstacles to the achievement of liberation is that oppressive reality absorbs those within it and thereby acts to submerge human beings' consciousness. Functionally, oppression is domesticating. To no longer be prey to its force, one must emerge from it and turn upon it. This can be done only by means of the praxis: reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it."



"Any situation in which "A" objectively exploits "B" or hinders his and her pursuit of self-affirmation as a responsible person is one of oppression. Such a situation in itself constitutes violence, even when sweetened by false generosity, because it interferes with the individual's ontological and historical vocation to be more fully human. With the establishment of a relationship of oppression, violence has already begun. Never in history has violence been initiated by the oppressed. How could they be the initiators, if they themselves are the results of the violence? How could they be the sponsors of something whose objective inauguration called forth their existence as oppressed? There would be no oppressed has there been no prior situation of violence to establish their subjugation.

Violence is initiated by those who oppress, who exploit, who fail to recognize others as persons-not by those who are oppressed, exploited, and unrecognised. It is not the unloved who initiate disaffection, but those who cannot love because they love only themselves. It is not the helpless, subject to terror, who initiate the terror, but the violent, who with their power create the concrete situation which begets the "rejects of life." It is not the tyrannised who initiate hatred, but those who despise. It is not those whose humanity is denied them who negate humankind, but those who denied that humanity (thus negating their own as well). Force is used not by those who have become weak under the preponderance of the strong, but by the strong who have emasculated them.

For the oppressors, however, it is always the oppressed (whom they obviously never call "the oppressed" but - depending on whether they are fellow countrymen or not - "those people" or"the blind and envious masses" or "savages" or "natives" or "subversives") who are disaffected, who are "violent," "barbaric," "wicked," or "ferocious" when they react to the violence of the oppressors."



"Acts which prevent the restoration of the oppressive regime cannot be compared with those by which a few men and women deny the majority their right to be human.

However, the moment the new regime hardens into a dominating "bureaucracy" the humanist dimension of the struggle is lost and it is no longer possible to speak of liberation. Hence our insistence that the authentic solution of the oppressor-oppressed contradiction does not lie in a mere reversal of position, in moving from one pole to the other. Nor does it lie in the replacement of the former oppressors with new ones who continue to subjugate the oppressed - all in the name of their liberation.

But even when the contradiction is resolved authentically by a new situation established by the liberated labourers, the former oppressors do not feel liberated. On the contrary, they genuinely consider themselves to be oppressed. Conditioned by the experience of oppressing others, any situation other than their former seems to them like oppression. Formerly, they could eat, dress, wear shoes, be educated, travel, and hear Beethoven; while millions did not eat, had no clothes or shoes, neither studied nor traveled, much less listened to Beethoven. Any restriction on this way of life, in the name of the rights of the community, appears to the former oppressors profound violation of their individual rights - although they had no respect for the millions who suffered and died of hunger, pain, sorrow, and despair. For the oppressors, "human beings" refers only to themselves; other people are "things." For the oppressors, there exists only one right: their right to live in peace, over against the right, not always even recognised, but simply concerned, of the oppressed to survival. And they make this concession only because the existence of the oppressed is necessary to their own existence."



Every paragraph is worth quoting on here but I'll stop there..

Go buy the book, I had to read some bits a few times to understand it properly but it really is one of those books you could pick up and read front to back over and over, and everyone should.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pedagogy-Oppressed-Penguin-Education-Freire/dp/014025403X

All photos found on Google images.

Tony Benn speech

Life, what is it but a dream?

A boat beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July --
Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear --
Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die:
Autumn frosts have slain July.
Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.
Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.
In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:
Ever drifting down the stream --
Lingering in the golden dream --
Life, what is it but a dream?

- Lewis Carroll





Life is but a dream...

Thoughts this morning

I like Sunday mornings as it's the only day of the week that Dara doesn't get up for work. We have nothing to do but chill, talk, drink tea, read. It just feels so good to wake up after a good nights sleep, with no hangover, in a comfortable place with no rush to do anything. Even better being next to someone that you love. That couple of hours is just absolute bliss. I'm a smug bitch. 

This Sunday morning Dara read the news and I read some of my book. We conversed, as you do, putting the world to rights.

I mentioned that I'd seen a post on Insagram by someone I follow ('that_paleo_guy'); he posted a picture saying 'SATURDAY SOCIAL MEDIA SHUTDOWN #saturdaysocialmediashutdown' and in the caption he put "Time to detox from social media for the day. Shutting off the cell phone and tablet until the sun comes up tomorrow morning. No notifications, no distractions from the digital world, no blue lights, no nothing. Time to refresh. I'll see you all in the am. #peaceout #timeout #refresh #reset #reboot #unwind #familytime #metime #nodistractions #feelgood" - I thought that was a good initiative.

I also told him about this set of photos by photographer Izabela Urbaniak of her children enjoying technology free summers. 

I have mentioned before on my blog (and in conversation with D) that I really do appreciate my morning walk with Finn as a time to be away from the madness of the world, to not absorb information, to just be with nature. However, I still feel like I spend way too much time sucked into the internet, scrolling though status updates on Facebook and new posts on Instagram. It's often the first thing I think to do when I wake up - check for notifications, refresh, refresh, refuckit. It can't be healthy. This guy explains it well:

"Generation of idiots, smart phones but not people!" Oh dear.

I thought to myself on Sunday morning "I am going to spend less time online and more time in life, organic, natural life." I enjoy using social media as a platform to connect and share photos, humour, interesting articles, perspective on things, it's a great thing but it shouldn't be as pertinent on my mind. 

When I do eventually nestle down and start a family, I'm going to encourage alternative methods of enjoyment and stimulation. I don't wish to deprive my future sprogs of technology as we do live in a technological world, I want them to fit in but I don't want them to be consumed by it. I'm sure not many people admittedly want their kids to be obsessed with technology but undeniably, TV or a game on your iPhone are useful solutions to curing a child's boredom while you're occupied with something else. I will strive to avoid this - summer's without technology sound dreamy and unimaginable in this day and age, yet it wasn't that long ago that these technologies were invented. Let's take a leaf out of Dollyandfife and Izabela Urbaniak's book. 

Let's go outside, let's get sucked into the natural world more often.

Reflecting on my current state of mind...

We all change and evolve as we go through life, we have different information sources around us, different influences. Thinking about my own mindset - At this current time the things that are most influencing my outlook are; videos I watch on Youtube (The Young Turks, The Trews, Secular Talk, The Labour Leadership campaign, mostly Jeremy Corbyn ), the book I'm reading (currently: The Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire), the conversations I have (mainly with fellow dog walkers and Dara), the things I see on Instagram (I follow a wide variety of people but my favourites besides my friends are - dollyandfife, moistbuddha, michelgaubert, mydaywithleo, beigecardigan, fuckjerry, thefatjewish), work and my goals for the future. (It's ironic because most of what influences my outlook on life I have accessed via the internet, the thing I want to spend less time on is the thing that's educating me. Handy but addictive.)

At other times in my life I may have had or may have more conversations with different people to those I converse with at the moment. I may watch or have watched more TV rather than Youtube videos and on completely different subjects, the books I have read or will read cover completely different topics, so the influences on my mind and my perspective are variable but at the moment, the things that most influence my outlook:

• Youtube
  - Learning about politics, philosophy, spirituality, injustice, flaws in society, humanity...
• Books
  - Same as above and in addition, oppression
• Conversations
  - Talking about these things in conversations, and I've also been talking about history and how much society has changed and is changing (I'm thinking of a recent conversation I had with Tom and Frank who I met walking the dog, they were telling me what life was like when they were young back in the 60s and 70s)
• Instagram
  - The people I mentioned that I like best on Instagram crack me up and remind me that although things are shit and the world often lacks humanity, society is broken in ways but we sometimes just have to laugh. We mustn't take eveything too seriously as it will ruin us. We have to continue to find humour in the world. Other people I follow are inspirational in other ways.
• Work
  - My workplace pleases me and my boss inspires me as he is so successful and intellectual. I am grateful to be in this position. 
• Goals
  - I'm mentally planning our wedding, I'm thinking about finance and how long it will take for us to buy our own house. Naturally the thought of 'nesting' leads me to thinking about starting a family, popping some sprogs out...

Within that I watched Russel Brand's last ever episode of the Trews, watch here:

"I think that we've gone as far as we can with the Trews for now. And the thing that's been interesting over the course of the year is the reaction to some of the stories that we've reported on and the reaction in the press and on TV, to me.

... So it's been like an extraordinary time for all of us, there's a presidential election in America that's thrown up ludicrous characters like Donald Trump but also the potentially optimistic participation of Bernie Sanders. Is there a possibility through conventional political means to return the will of ordinary people to the seat of power it's a really big question. When I talked about revolution at the beginning of this mad journey on Jeremy Paxman, I was kind of gung-ho and stuff but I think what revolution means, well what revolution literally does mean is a change of power not using the conventional means of power. We're gonna have to come together in a different way to create the change. Now I believe that more than ever. I really believe in change, I feel really optimistic about the inevitability of change...

... I believe in the possibility of ordinary people to change their circumstances if they come together, and I believe in me and the Trews and what we've been doing. I'm gonna be learning, 'cause I know change is coming and I want to be part of that.

... I can't do it the service it requires until I go away and learn some stuff so that when we come back it will be more truthful, more inclusive than ever, 'cause the worlds going mental and more than ever ordinary people need to come together.

... I'm going away to think and to learn, because its worth it, because this is an important time because there is a possibility of change.

... So really the obligation to tell the truth as always lies with you as much as it does with me. The only real weapon we have is to be truthful with ourselves, truthful with one another and to formulate new organisations, new ways of pursuing change."

So all of that combined going through my mind is probably why I've been having the weirdest dreams. The capacity of the mind and it's ability to process information is unreal. It would be a shame to waste it on gossip and game shows. Russel Brand talks about Truth being the only weapon we have, I think the real weapon is our mind. Being truthful is something we should all live by for sure but it is our mind that we must harness and evolve. The mind is the tool which we use to channel our energy, our mind is what we use to set our goals and obtain them, our mind controls our emotions, our perceptions, our behaviour. Our mind gives us the ability to make a difference in the world through our consciousness, our minds are what makes us unique.

We should strive to share ourselves through interconnectivity, be equal and one with everyone and everything. We don't need to be rich, popular or highly educated to acquire that. We should be open minded not ignorant, continuing to learn. While it naturally scares us, change is inevitable, so let's embrace it and influence it positively.

As we learn, reflection is so important. Allowing time to process information that we take in and to consider alternative perspectives, that in itself exercises the mind and develops intelligence.

WORD! Eve Ensler

Q: There are a lot of causes out there that are being talked about, you know, poverty, sickness and so on. You spend eight years on this one. Why this One?

A: I think that, if you think about women, women are the primary resource of the planet. They give birth, we come from them, they are mothers, they are visionary they are the future. If you think that the U.N. now says that one out of three women on the planet will be raped or beaten in their lifetime, we're talking about the desecration of the primary resource of the planet. We're talking about the place where we come from, we're talking about parenting. Imagine that you've been raped and you're bringing up a boy child. How does it impact your ability to work, or envision a future, or thrive, as opposed to just survive? What I believe is if we could figure out how to make women safe and honor women, it would be parallel or equal to honoring life itself.

Eve Ensler

Ships? Sure I'll sail them...

Ships?

Sure I'll sail them

Show me the boat,

If it'll float,

I'll sail it.

Men?

Yes, I'll love them.

If they have the style,

to make me smile,

I'll love them.

Life?

'Course I'll live it.

Just give me breath,

Up to my death,

And I'll live it.

Failure?

I'm not ashamed to tell it,

I've never learned to spell it,

Not failure.

Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou Live and Unplugged

A true and beautiful soul. Feed your soul through Maya Angelou, listen here:

Mos Def: "We are in Critical Times"

Thought's on upheaval. In light of the happenings in Ferguson and other parts of America.

Racism, inequality, imbalance of power, Yasiin Bey responds. 

"Free the people. Free the land.

My country is Earth."

Katie Hopkins - Russell Brand Trews

"Isn't it a bit mad, to see human litter strewn about. This is the kind of images that Katie Hopkins doesn't care about... She's just the puss emerging from the pimple that is our policy." 

"Until there's a shift in the lens of the way we see the world, of like "oh right we're meant to be here helping each other", until you make that shift, that you can only make really as an individual and hope that it emanates on a familial, social, communal, national, international level, unless we start making those individual transitions, that's why again what Katie Hopkins says is important, because we can't afford to allow that to be our prevailing mentality in our conversations in our chats in bars, cafes and workplaces, far less allow it to become policy. For us to live under the politics of cruelty, a kind of incremental holocaust. If compassion is not a component, then there's no humanity left to save. Once we kill the compassion within ourselves then we are all then cockroaches, waiting for the apocalypse, and it can't come quick enough."

"I suppose what you can do, is find your own humanity, look for the humanity and connection that you feel to other people and be kind. "

MP cover up's - Russell Brand Trews

Doesn't it make your blood BOIL!

INSPIRATION Raghava KK at TEDxGateway

Beautiful mind and perspective:

Tips on speaking - Julian Treasure