‘I would if I could and I should but I can’t so I shan’t.’ Sounds like a childhood rhyme, easy to remember. It covers much of life when it comes to making choices.
‘Would’ – do I have the will power … ‘will’ I do it. ‘Could’ – am I actually able to carry it out … ‘can’ I do it. ‘Should’ – implies that it’s my duty … ‘shall’ I do it.
I hear the word ‘shan’t’ being used on the radio and my ears prick up mostly because it’s a word not often now used in English speech. Perhaps it’s because duty isn’t always clear – the ‘should I?’ and ‘’Shall I?’ of ‘Duty Calls,’ whereas the ‘could’ and ‘can’ of life are often impulse driven while the ‘would’ and ‘will’ aspects imply premeditation – some thought.
We’re a few days away from a federal election. Choices are stark according to both major parties and how ‘normal’ it is to have two choices. There’s nothing normal about the times in which we live.
The daily struggle for most continues. Reminds me of the terse response received from my father decades ago when I was waxing lyrical about the wilds of the universe, the visitations to Earth by … for want of a better word, ‘Aliens.’
‘So what! … if they landed tomorrow I’d still have to catch the 173 bus to work.’ …. that ended that conversation. Ah – a pragmatist with little time, bills to pay and no inclination for that subject. It’s hard – and probably dangerous - to look up with your nose to the grindstone.
The behaviour of our local star, the Sun, its patterns of activity, affects our planet. It’s not much mentioned when it comes to assessing the ‘whys and wherefores’ of climate change. There’s a lamentable lag when it comes to the scientific world changing long held views and so it is with the painfully slow and reluctant acceptance that the universe is electric, Birkeland Currents – great swathes of plasma arc through galaxies and it’s at this point that I think I should refresh my hazy understanding of this matter.
“ ….those filaments are called Birkeland currents, and they are the visible portion of enormous electric circuits that form a large-scale structure in the Universe. The circuits generate magnetic fields that can be mapped, so the helical shape characteristic of Birkeland currents is known, since it can be seen.”
If the universe really is electric but science doesn’t hold that view then the modelling used by science to expose and explain climate change isn’t adequate to the task.
I revisited Al Gore’s ‘An inconvenient Truth’ recently. I also found his mentor from university days – Roger Revelle – a man who is recognised as the grandfather of ‘Global Warming’ and also the man who later found reason to question his own research, recanted and was declared senile by Al Gore. The point here is not to deny that climate change is occurring but to expose the false model which is used to frighten the world into accepting a carbon tax when that model neither provides a complete picture regarding cause and effect – how can it when the variables aren’t known or aren’t accepted as real – nor provide an answer. Electric cars sound good but what source provides the enormous amount of electricity needed – not coal, surely? Then ‘what’, I wonder. I do have faith that answers will be found .. hmm … ‘could be found, should be found and would be found.’ Hooray for melody of the English language.
Anyway, elections loom and lack of action on climate change is a real issue as it should be. Shelter and jobs are a huge concern. The housing market falters, stumbles and loses value and negative equity in the home produces its own stress which I’ve known all too well.
Mental health or rather the lack of mental health is, I’m certain, a worldwide phenomenon. Mankind groans under the weight of injustice observed and experienced.
The Emperor has no clothes. The rest of reality shimmers in the light and the dust as the truth and the shock is absorbed. What to make of it. No wonder mental health is an issue.
The sun shines, it’s a glorious day - very still under a deep blue sky.