A few reasonable nights sleep recently, sleeping right through sometimes. That’s not happened for a couple of years. Maybe related to herbal meds helping or not who knows. A little bit weary with the state of things still though. I am a bit anxious about doing stuff generally at the moment though. I am not sure why though, maybe its just the hostile vibe generally.
I am trying to find a better way to record violin as I am not getting the tone I want a lot of the time. Sometimes things just don’t work do they?

Is it possible to ignore the barbarians at the gate as so many seem to?

The Uk it seems is now becoming a place where hate speech is normalised and often promulgated in main stream media. We have politicians pushing exclusionary often xenophobic rhetoric but also openly transphobic speech as well and in not speaking out against hate speech towards other minority groups. 10 years ago much of what we are hearing would have been considered unacceptable in the mainstream or would have been challenging but is now allowed to go unopposed. I can’t understand why these ideas are being pushed and by whom. Who is pushing this ultra nationalist verging on racist ideology. In the last ten years its arrived seemingly out of nowhere?

What possible good does it do?

A lot of the ideas seem to come from the worst aspects of American notions of libertarianism. So who is pulling the strings behind the public figures we see? It feels as if something is often. I would like to believe that I am wrong but every day some new toxic quote floats into the either. Some soundbite built on lies to appease and or inflame the lowest common denominator. It’s really depressing, I used to believe we were better than this, but I feel that a brief Camelot moment is now fading, king Arthur’s turned into King Lear raging at the world whilst his faculty’s decay.

Try and stay safe people, if you can. The world is burning and you are next on the list…

It’s been a wet start to this month so far. I have spent too much time staring at screens this past couple of days, drives you mad I think…Having a brief fraying around the edges moment I think. Today I am a bit listless. I can’t commence on the headlight restoration today as its been to wet. Done a lot of music related stuff last few days so I am at a temporary saturation point with all that guff. I might carry on with more video editing I think.

I am too sensitive to perceived criticism and reactive to stuff and often feel threatened and sometimes I get overwhelmed. That’s due to damage I got as a kid growing up. I manage it better in the main than I used to but it never really goes away. It’s a nuisance though. I can just feel it trying to kick off but I have found the off switch on this occasion. It doesn’t always work though.I guess that this my subconscious anxiety trigger at the root of it it. Just a massive insecurity. I think even if I was successful and maybe wealthy I would still have the same demons. Sometimes I can live with them, sometimes they gatecrash and takeover the party. Then you are left with doubt and fear. It doesn’t make sense but there it is.

Today I have a headache (dodgy sinuses and a lifelong issue). It’s not helped by reading about the madness going on generally both at home in the UK and outside it.
So I am not going to mention any particular things that are bugging me as it is a very long list. Rather in particular one thing which seems to be very clear from public discourse at present is the total lack of empathy generally. I am getting way too much deja vu recently as it feels like the 70s again but not in a groovy far out prog festival hippy squatters on lentils way, but rather the those NF leaflets that were ubiquitous. So it’s an uncomfortable familiar feeling seeing mobs with union flags carrying messages of hate. It seems like something has gone every wrong starting with Brexit and the Covid lockdowns it feels to me as though I now inhabit a weird alternate universe on many days. Everybody that’s not ‘us’ is ‘them’ and the enemy to be hated, or despised or belittled. And who is the enemy? You or me perchance in some quarters it would seem judging by recent developments. And it’s everywhere now like some weird virus which the fact averse seem particularly susceptible to. So I shall lean back on a bit of scriptures (hypocritical perhaps as I am not a believer) but there are certainly a few gems in terms of how human beings could be a little bit nicer to each other generally.

Zechariah 7:10 (ESV)
Do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.”

Leviticus 19:34 (ESV)
You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

In a sense all of us are the sojourner, our time on earth is finite and we are often among strangers. We are always them to somebody else at some time so just for our own self interest it behoves us to try and at least do no harm or intend for others.
Those of you that know me may also know that my good friend Vicky Martin was an ordained church minister as well as a band mate for about 18 years and help for me at times when I was in crisis with my mental health. One thing Vicky did well was to try and build bridges between people. I am not so great at that sort of thing and perhaps rather more intolerant despite my best efforts but I salute all those that try.

A tiny drop of empathy can spread along way if you let it.

In other news I am re-working a few things like old videos that Vicky Martin made for the Delta Ladies. They are on youtube but not seen much so they will manifest on TikTok and Instagram and Facebook directly…

@dianastonemusic #lovemymusic #dianastone #violin ♬ original sound – Diana Stone