Synthetic Humanity

"It's a test proven to measure human emotion.   we are accustomed to seeing some kind of response."

"You want me to be more like a human.... casually cruel to those closest to you and then crying over pictures of people you've never met."

So spoke a "synth" in the Channel 4 series Humans in which synthetic humanoids have been created to serve us in a slightly futuristic UK, and are becoming self aware.   Niska decides she wants to be tried as a human for a murder she has committed but first she has to prove she is conscious.   various images of joy, sorrow, exhilaration are projected onto a giant screen to elicit emotional reaction.  the above exchange is prompted by the interrogator after pictures of great suffering are shown leaving her seemingly unmoved.   

It started me thinking about what strange, inconsistent creatures we would appear to an emerging sentience seeking a moral code when the same people who portrayed refugees as a "swarm" of locusts to be exterminated, covered their social media accounts with saccharin RIP messages for a little asylum seeker washed up on an Italian beach. there are still 544 unaccompanied children in the Calais camp, the youngest is 10, where is the Facebook outrage for them?  it seems a child needs a name and a harrowing photo in the media to be worth our attention.

Government cuts have forced Cumbria to close it's last women's refuge and 17% nationally have had to shut their doors.   it's estimated 67% will be lost unless changes to housing benefit are reversed.  recently, after the much publicised trial in The Archers where Helen stabs the abusive Rob, a JustGiving page supported by followers of the program raised £135,000.  how can an imaginary character prompt such an outpouring of generosity when women and children made of flesh and blood are continuing to experience beatings at the hands of their partners because of a lack of funding and donations.

11 million people signed a petition last year claiming to be appalled by the Yulin Dog Meat Festival in China.   yet, in the UK alone over a billion animals a year are transported for hours without food and water in cramped, noisy lorries to die in terror after being herded en masse into our  slaughter houses. hundreds of thousands being exported will be left untended in transporters for days in sweltering heat or ice cold conditions,  often arriving dead or in too poor a condition to be fit for human consumption.   what makes a Chinese dog's life worth more than that of the lamb you ate for Sunday dinner?  

The total number of animals killed in British slaughterhouses in 2013 was over a billion.

This included 9.8 million pigs, nearly 15 million sheep, 18 million turkeys, 14 million ducks, over 945 million chickens and 2.6 million cattle. Add to that 4.5 billion fish and 2.6 billion shellfish you have a total of over 8 billion animals killed in the UK each year.

How very much easier it is to be compassionate and cry crocodile tears over a fictional character, or a maudlin photo seen on a screen, than it is to allow ourselves to be moved by the plight of real people and creatures inhabiting this revolving rock.   perhaps it's a protection of our sanity against a sense of impotence that in the face of a rising tide of suffering catharsis overrides commitment, emotional release supersedes responsibility, avoidance is preferable to action.   

Maybe our synth in her cold, calculated honesty voiced more humanity in that one sentence than we express in a lifetime of false emoting.  

Curiosity Killed The Cat

I am cat

      

   I am cunning

     I am fearless

       I am insufferably curious

BUT..... i'm not like you, i don't think like you.  i may be sentient and intelligent but i have no concept of the future or the possible ramifications of my actions so i behave impulsively in your eyes, perhaps stupidly, thoughtlessly but i can be no other because.... I AM CAT.

When the postman left his van door open, all i saw was a little room i had never explored before, so i jumped in.  when the door next opened i was somewhere totally different.  frightened and in panic i jumped out to a place that looked and smelled alien with an unrecognisable skyline. 

When that mouse scurried across my path i HAD to chase it.  mouse = lunch,  mouse = fun, mouse = run.  i didn't know it was  in the middle of a road until i was caught in the headlights of your car, then no mouse, no fun, no run.... just blackness.

I was quietly sitting by my gate in the sun waiting for my humans when your dog galloped towards me barking, barking, barking.  no time for paws, no time for claws so i ran and ran.... but i ran too far and now all the gates look the same and i can't find  mine.

It could have been so different.  you could have checked your vehicle was empty or closed its door.    you could have driven more slowly on that bend.   you could have put your dog on a lead if you can't control it. my homeless brethren who survive the cars, the cold, the cruelty only live for about three years, three miserable, hungry, lonely years filled with sickness and fear. 

That's why i'm lying under this hedge desolate, shivering, starving, dying.   it's going to snow tonight but that's ok, it will cover my little body and in the morning my final indignity will be hidden from the eyes of those who didn't care.

Did you know there are NINE MILLION homeless cats in the U.K. and a quarter of a million die in car accidents every year?   and we are called a nation of animal lovers? groups like Cat's Protection (click this link http://www.cats.org.uk/ ) have subsidised neutering schemes, support and neuter feral colonies, advertise and try to reunite lost pets with their owners and, if that proves impossible, re-homes them.   that's why i'm fostering The Indomitable Fred who came to me so malnourished he lost his teeth, fur and muscle.   it was 50/50 whether he would survive. he's now a sturdy, sleek, black panther.   can you help save a furry life this winter?  if you purchase online there are dozens of companies such as ebay, Amazon, Argos, Sainsbury's that will donate to a charity of your choice every time you shop.   it doesn't cost you a penny more.   have a look at the link below.   maybe you could help support Fred find his forever home.

https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/catsprotectiongn/

May The Universe Treat You Kindly

Once more The Two Faced God Janus is imposing his implacable will upon us, pointing his cosmic finger forward, propelling us through the doors of time whether we are ready or not.   there's no avoiding his imperative, his command is non elective, 2017 is upon us and he will prevail.   

After sixty five new year's eves the speed with which a year passes still leaves me breathless and unprepared, unsettled that another year of a finite life is slipping into history never to be retrieved.   what happened in 2016 stays in 2016, the salutory and the injurious.  not a single regretted instance or word can be revoked, it's all there preserved as if in amber, as are the more noble moments though if i were to be honest the former probably outweigh the latter.

2016 has been a year of losses and gains just like every year experienced by us mortals.   only the gods can declare a door opens onto joy without pain, only Janus controls beginnings without endings, and Janus is a concept not a representation of reality.   humanity has to accept that we have short lives into which sun will shine, rain must fall, and in between will be rainbows promising hope for a better tomorrow.

Would you indulge me as i wish all my family and  friends a Blessed New Year.   may those who believe feel God more closely through the next 365 days, during the good times and the bad.  for the secular i hope the universe treats you kindly and balances the fates.   for you all....   THANK YOU for your love and care, your support and kindness, above all for your friendship as these rare treasures are the only things we carry with us from one year to the next.

A thousand ages in thy sight 

are like an evening gone; 

short as the watch that ends the night 
before the rising sun.

Time, like an ever-rolling stream, 

bears all its sons away; 
they fly, forgotten, as a dream 
dies at the opening day.

Two Thousand Years Of Wrong

It came upon the midnight clear,

That glorious song of old,

From angels bending near the earth,

To touch their harps of gold;

“Peace on the earth, good will to men,

From Heav’n’s all-gracious King.”

The world in solemn stillness lay,

To hear the angels sing.

1. Yet with the woes of sin and strife
   The world has suffered long;
   Beneath the angel strain have rolled
   Two thousand years of wrong;
   And man, at war with man, hears not
   The love-song which they bring;
   Oh, hush the noise, ye men of strife
   And hear the angels sing.

Many misconceptions, endless assumptions, too many cultural misrepresentations, masses of historical ambiguities peppered with nebulous presumptions.... that's one definition of the origins of Christmas.   it's also a description of the reign of the dinosaurs.   when we are uncertain of the past we have a tendency to fill it with our own experiences and expectations (whoever knew dinosaurs had feathers not scales?  we were taught they were simply giant lizards.)  it's this tendency that makes us human not raptor..... and that we prefer our turkey cooked not raw.

Does it matter that this Christ-mas we celebrate is full of uncertainty and ambivalence?  that the few facts we do know have been as fancifully embellished as King Arthur and Camelot?   deconstruct a traditional Christmas card and you will find very little that doesn't owe it's genesis to a large dollop of imagination and early European art.

Does it matter that the rare historical certainties we do have are brushed aside because of their darkness?   a child born homeless in an enemy occupied territory, the mass killing of baby boys by a paranoid tyrant afraid of losing his power, a family fleeing for their lives to a strange country and culture doesn't make for a pretty scene on the mantelpiece does it?  a little too close to our world's current reality perhaps?   so yes.... it does matter because in prettifying the nativity we strip it of it's humanity and create a myth that challenges nothing and nobody.   but.... if in the boy Jesus we see the face of a displaced refugee, the desolate chill of a slum child, the stigma of illegitimacy, the precarity of homelessness then maybe we would be compelled to act and that's not comfortable when compared with a snowy scene of baby barnyard  animals and an infant who "no crying makes".

So no matter how, or if, you celebrate.  whether you are alone or surrounded by merriment, honour God Incarnate  or Santa, are blessed with plenty or struggling with deficit, perhaps it would be worthwhile taking time to remember that not much has changed in two thousand years and the only hope of transforming our world lies with each one of us embarking on revolution in our homes, work places, friendships, a revolution of forgiveness and love.   we can't undo two thousand years of wrong but we can commit to a year of doing better.   then perhaps we would find the true meaning of a Season Of Goodwill To All Men.

Lion or Lamb?

There she sat, a tiny lady snugged in a shawl with her silky, silver hair neatly permed, paper fine skin  creased at the corner of her eyes, a humbug sucking, Catherine Cookson reading, sweet as cherry pie great, great grandmother.   i had been visiting regularly for quite some time when i realised she never spoke of friends past or present.   assuming it was because  advanced age had stolen company away by attrition i was hesitant to say anything.... until Christmas came around. apart from immediate family there were no cards, no phone calls, no visits, no gifts, nothing from the families of old friends, her universe was empty.

Intrigued i began asking gentle questions about her life when younger and knowing she had lived in the same small village all her life dropped in the names of people i was meeting as a newcomer.   the mystery was solved in one enlightening conversation that went something like this;
"I met Wilhelmina for the first time today."

"Don't speak to me about that woman, don't ever mention her name in this house again.  she doesn't exist to me, if i pass her in the street i turn my face to the wall."

"I'm sorry i didn't know.  what happened ?".... looong pause

".......i don't remember."

"When did you fall out?"

"SIXTY YEARS AGO AND I HAVEN'T SPOKEN TO HER SINCE."

This conversation was repeated when i mentioned Gladys, Gertrude, George, Henrietta, Henry and on and on and on......

The irony was that Wilhelmina and Henrietta et al weren't concerned in the slightest as they were too busy enjoying life with friends, going for coffees, days out, chatting on street corners, being involved, being sociable, being happy.   that's the thing with grudge keeping, eventually it doesn't hurt the grudgee who moves on,  it hurts the grudger who can end up alone and embittered.   forgiveness benefits both as it bestows freedom to form new friendships and sometimes even reconciliation.

Of course, forgiveness has it's limits.   if a lion bites off your right hand the animal doesn't deserve to be euthanised as it's simply doing what lions do, but you aren't obliged to offer it your left hand for dessert, if you are sensible you will make sure your appendages are safely tucked out of sight until the lion is tamed.   as my mother, who was the epitome of grace, used to say  "i can overlook one much, i can forgive two much, but three much is too much."

I'm not saying all who decline company at this time of year are malcontents,  those of us who are gregarious of nature need to be accepting of our more introverted brethren and not exert pressure to conform to our idea of fun.  if  Christmas by the fire with a book or movie for company rocks your boat then that's a perfectly acceptable way to celebrate. solitude needn't equal isolation, aloneness isn't the same as loneliness, privacy isn't necessarily privation, some simply prefer a simpler, quieter existence. it's absolutely fine to to batten down the hatches and seek the safety of a celebration free season if that's what a soul needs and wants, but it's sad to be alone as a result of alienating the universe and it's inhabitants by our attitudes and intolerance.   

Sometimes all it takes to mend a rift, especially where both parties aren't even sure what sundered the relationship in the first place,  is a reason to make the initial approach and this supposed Season of Goodwill is the perfect excuse.   if there's somebody out there who you would like to try again with, send a card, make a "friend" request on Facebook, contrive to bump into each other near a coffee shop, take the risk.   BUT if that person is a lion and you are still missing your right arm think twice before extending the left in friendship.

Daredevil Dreams

"I'm supposed to say 'i don't miss it'.   that's what they teach you in trauma recovery.   define yourself by what you have, value the differences, make no apologies for what you lack.   and it's all true.... for the most part,  but it doesn't change the fact.... that i'd give anything to see the sky one more time."

Thus spake the protagonist in Marvel's Daredevil series.   Blinded in a chemical spillage when aged 9, our handsome anti-hero gains superpowers in abundance to compensate for his loss of sight and grows up to become a vigilante, righting wrongs, beating baddies into submission, fighting like a ninja on steroids, standing up for the oppressed and rescuing damsels in distress.   yet despite all this gifting and adventure our superhero misses something as simple as the sky.

Disability and chronic illness involve so many compromises, accommodations, huge inconveniences, whether financial or social, that sometimes the small losses are overlooked or forgotten altogether in the daily battle to live as normally as possible.   who would have thought that whilst staving off villains and saving victims our Marvel Man would yearn to look up and watch clouds drifting against a sea of blue.

Unfortunately us mere mortals don't have the luxury of miraculous talents or super-senses to help compensate for loss,  we have to counteract the deficit by exerting extra energy or focus, utilising the skills that remain at our disposal, harnessing gizmos or technology, and when all else fails finding the humility to hire a helper to achieve tasks that once were managed in moments.  these are our super powers, mundane but necessary, unexceptional but essential.

Of course the disabled don't hold a monopoly on loss and in many ways we are better supported than our able bodied cousins, but perhaps what makes it harder for us is the  powerlessness.  Our dashing Daredevil doesn't NEED the white stick and shades he hides his identity behind, he is more "abled" than the sighted city around him.   sensing through walls, hearing conversations in distant streets , smelling to the atomic level, visualising through finger tips.... yet, he is powerless to do anything to bring about his one heartfelt wish, there is absolutely nothing he can do to see again.    

The trauma recovery and pain clinic lessons are right to focus on what we have retained rather than lost, maximising strengths and minimising weakness, being more interested in those around us than dwelling on health or pain.  but the converse of that equation is also true, there ARE good things we have had to relinquish and at times there's no harm in acknowledging that lack.  acknowledge - accept - advance.  it's hard not to resent losing faculties and being reliant on others to have a "life". it's human to want freedom of movement and independence, even our super-human Daredevil wasn't ashamed to admit he missed the sky. but.... we are free to dream, and in  my dreams i not only run again....

                                                  I   FLY  !!!!

A Universe In a Room

Living in a supported housing complex surrounded by a number of very elderly can be very educational.   it's like being on probation in Limbo, a preparation time before launching into my own twilight years. perhaps gaining a little insight into what's ahead might help avoid a few of the potential pitfalls.  understandably some personality types are happiest approaching the snares and dangers of the future in blinkered ignorance, perhaps not thinking about the scary stuff until there's no avoiding it prevents unnecessary sleepless nights. others have a deep need to set out with compass, flashlight and flask, orienteering style, in order to map the path ahead and signpost the soggy boggy bits that could trip up the unwary. neither is right or wrong, simply different ways of walking into the unknown and emerging reasonably unscathed on the other side.  i am firmly of the boy scout variety and can cope with almost anything when following the adage "be prepared", it's surprises that snag my feet and pull me down into the quagmire.

A vital lesson has been to discover that the happiest people are those who have maintained a hobby or activity well towards the end of life, something that engages the mind and hands when the rest of the body fails. a focus through the long days that maintains the interest and feeds the creative soul.   it matters little that as memory and energy flag the work or book sits in the lap untended for the most part, that it exists seems to be enough to raise the head and draw attention away from inner turmoil, also a topic to chat about with the odd visitor when the walls crowd in and the only excitement of the day is dinner.

So what, i wonder, will be my redeeming pastimes?   perhaps having lost freedom to disability reasonably young will give a head start in establishing healthy habits. hopefully there will still be a furry creature for entertainment as it's increasingly recognised that the housebound have better wellbeing if they have an animal to look after.   few can fail to find amusement in the antics of a playful cat or companionship in the eyes of a loving mutt?   both my cats would visit elderly neighbours and suffer their ears being rubbed by callused, arthritic hands, curling up by the side of a chair and purring to raise a smile, filling the emptiness for a time.   

On rare occasions, i succumb to a "duvet day", ignore the door bell, put the universe on standby and fester in my pit.   if for any reason this became a default position i could command a Fortune 100 business from my pillows, no chance of boredom setting in when within reach of the bed are the tools for world domination, books, computer, movies, radio, music, journals, letter writing implements, phone, internet, Facebook and of course a four footed friend.  all that's needed is a coffee machine.... hmmmm now that's an idea !!!   perhaps this is an unconscious, embryonic plan for the future, establishing a functioning, interesting existence within the confines of four walls.  the ability to touch the world, communicate with family and friends, be educated and entertained, express opinion and hear others, buy, sell, barter, read, watch, listen.   

A universe in a room !!!