Viewpoint

My Gran, Vivian, died at the beginning of April, aged 92. She had been a very active woman for all her life but after an operation in 2015 where she was in and out of hospital all that year, she was never quite the same. Her quality of life diminished, although we still met up most weeks until 2020 and the whole scamdemic kicked in. Like many older people going through those years, she was stuck on her own in a housing residence, and the sense of community there also diminished as they all obeyed the rules and absorbed the fear. We'd visit when we could, my Dad being the one family member who took care of most things for her in those final years.

I notice a lot of coincidences with names and words, and it struck me how the housing association she was with was called Viewpoint after an interaction I recently had with someone about the way society and humanity is going and the different viewpoints that seem to be dividing everyone. This person was saying "there will never be a society where every point of view or opinion will be acceptable" whilst also claiming to try to accept all points of view whilst being unable to agree with them all. They noted that we seem to be living in times when you must agree with people to get along. They expressed that although they share different opinions with their friends, they find life to be interesting this way and it encourages them to take a different look at their personal opinions.

This is a point of view that's been expressed to me several times over the years. Most people I encounter have more friends than me. I have lost most friends and family along the way, often for expressing my point of view or simply the way I live, and I'm still waiting on others to show up! It's very easy to say such things as the person above who I briefly discussed this with but in real life I've not found it to be so easy. One of the main problems I find is that those whose opinions align with the mainstream, with what is the commonly held view on anything, will say they are all for differing opinions until they actually come against a truly different viewpoint! Any opinion which threatens their current way of living they will not tolerate.

In my case, its not that I'm anti-social, its simply that most people won't even take a look at the way I'm living. They are only comfortable on their territory, doing things which fit into the overall society. People will happily tolerate different choices and opinions WITHIN the system but if you do anything outside of that, they don't come near. For example, people want me to go to the pub or to a restaurant or shopping but they won't involve themselves in the things I do.

As for it being good to expose yourself to different opinions and beliefs... yes, that is good. But what is it all for at the end of the day? You only have this life. If you spend it running around, hearing this viewpoint and that viewpoint, mingling with different people trying to find the right way to live, do you ever actually live?

What if you are someone who has no doubt about how you should be living? What if, for you, its not about right or wrong, its simply about having a clear vision of how you should live your life? People are not used to somebody who knows with great certainty how they must live. They assume, because they are in confusion, trying to figure it all out, that everybody is in that boat. I don't mingle with others out of interest or curiosity or whatever because I don't see anything out there better than what I'm already doing. You can watch the world from a distance, take in different viewpoints, see what's on offer without joining in the madness. I don't feel a sense of searching in that way. Yes, there are things I would like to do that I haven't been able to yet, either through lack of resources or the time is just not right, but I'm not searching for anything outside of what I'm already doing and involved in. People spend too long trying to find the perfect "thing" to dedicate their life to when its not so much what you do but how you do it.

So I just let society go on as it does and I do my own thing. The things and people that are destined to be part of that will show up, all I have to do is what I feel to do each day and in the long-run it will go somewhere as it already has. Nobody knows what we're supposed to be doing here on this planet. The people who tell you how to live - politicians, royalty, celebrities - don't know what they are doing. They just pretend to know and have to keep that pretence up to make sure everybody else keeps going, so terrified they are that without that pretence society would just fall apart.

As things seem to be getting worse in the world in many ways - and better in certain ways - with loneliness and isolation becoming more normal there is possibly some meaning in the fact that my Gran died when she did and that I no longer have an association with Viewpoint. I've reached a stage these days where I rarely even bother attempting to justify or explain my viewpoint to others because I saw for so many years that nobody listens. People hear what they want to hear and they hear through the filter of their conditioning. They don't hear or listen to what you are actually saying but what they think you are saying based on their particular conditioning. Since I know this and I also know that nobody else can convince me out of my way of seeing things, there is little point in discussion. You either get it or you don't. If you get what I'm about, you will come closer and if you come closer you'll find out more. If not, then what is the problem? We go our separate ways and each live the life we feel is best for us.