Two things. Firstly: sharing information is a good thing, but not if that is all we’re doing. There is no democracy without action, nor is there a solution without action. Information provides for informed action, but if no action is forthcoming, no amount of information will bring about change. I can no longer cope with endlessly sharing information which goes nowhere. In whatever way I engage with politics and society in future, it must be based around positive action.
Secondly: I lived during the Hippy revolution, a revolution that changed the world and every human alive today is reaping the rewards of what the Hippies achieved, in how we think, our social and moral structures, the development of self awareness and expression, the music we listen to, the clothes we wear and the societies we live in. The Hippy movement affected everything and delivered us from the post Victorian world of conformity and obedience to, and acceptance of, daily drudgery and stunted emotions and feelings.
The Hippy revolution worked because of attraction, not violence and destruction, which is what most people think of as revolution.
If we want to change the world, let’s discover something better, something so attractive that people will be drawn to it. John Lennon wrote the song, ‘Give Peace a Chance’ [1]. We (the world) still hasn’t even tried that.
Violence is the province of the state, we, the people, are incapable of such violence and have no capacity for it. Only the state can make wars, though they expect us to sacrifice our young to fight them. Violence is no friend of the people, but there is a kind of sense in thinking that meeting violence with violence might work, except we are talking about a complete imbalance of resources, which will always favour the state, in weapons, trained and equipped personnel and physical and financial resources and very much including the crucial role of propaganda.
Even at the level of crime and robbery, nothing beats the state, how the hell did Britain rule 25% of the world’s land surface other than by land and resource grabbing robbery, no matter how the robbers dressed it up? [2]
In a recent conversation with a friend, he started talking about the state of Britain and the government, I attempted to engage with him, but I began to feel physically and mentally ill and had to ask him to stop. It’s a common joke about having a good moan and a rant about politics and ‘putting the world to rights’. It doesn’t, that’s why it’s a joke. But… Since contracting cancer, the only way I’ve been able to survive it and the treatment involved has been through positive action and that has changed my entire personality. I can no longer cope with the endless futility of talking about something whilst doing nothing about it. If I’d done that with cancer, I’d be dead. Media talking heads are the worst and the endless smug, self righteous, gibbering makes me want to vomit.
Whatever happens next, after Brexit and Covid-19, if returning to normality means back to how things have always been, count me out. I don’t have any solutions to offer other than this. The first thing to change must be our minds and that is no mean feat. The habit of conformity is a disaster waiting to happen and, at the very least, we owe it to ourselves to apply ourselves to changing ourselves, which means changing our minds. It requires enormous personal effort and resources, but, that kind of effort and the personal resources required are freely available to every one of us, if we are prepared to expend the effort and choose to embrace the challenge.
I recently decided to stop even attempting to monetise my art work and I now give it without cost to others. My primary reason for doing so is to change me to meet the challenge. I have the time and resources to do it and it is an enormously rewarding thing to do and I have never enjoyed designing, making and sharing my art more. It is the very attraction of doing something that pro-active that is changing who I am and how I think. For me it is a beautiful, emotional and mind expanding, thing to do. That’s the kind of change I not just believe in but must do to grow.
Finding solutions to the problems that surround us can be rooted in positive actions, if we choose to go the distance and do it for ourselves. That’s the essence of the Conspiracy of Kindness, because there is nothing more life changing and attractive than kindness, all it requires is kind people and all that requires is a change of mind, because it is how we think that holds us back. If you think there are not enough smiles in the world, be a smiler. That’s quite a challenge actually.
Keith Lindsay-Cameron. 27 January 2021 – 70 years old today – The Dirty Fucking Hippies Were Right. [3]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3_0GqPvr4U&ab_channel=johnlennon
[2] https://www.theweek.co.uk/history/93820/british-empire-how-big-was-it-and-why-did-it-collapse
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvpC8H8yJBg&ab_channel=SightNSoundNH
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