Archives for posts with tag: afraid

We are terrified of the unknown.
We don’t know what that is, so it may be dangerous.
We are also afraid of the incomprehensible. Of things which challenge our already held convictions. Which challenge the things we currently believe to be ‘true’.

We turn our backs to the unknown and ignore, if we can, the incomprehensible.
If what we don’t understand seems ‘far enough’, without much direct impact on us, it’s simple. We just ignore it and that’s it. Especially if it doesn’t carry any emotional charge.
But if it affects us, directly or emotionally, we perceive the unknown as being abnormal. And declare it as such. An abomination…

By being familiar, the things which surround us make us feel safe. We’re familiar with them, we entertain the notion that we understand them, so we know what to expect of them. We end up feeling ‘good’ in their presence.
Things that come into flagrant conflict with the familiar, which challenge the order we consider to be natural, are also considered to be aberrations! So we don’t pay attention to them. They are not part of our familiar, they are considered rare. Rare, aberrant and, consequently, not worth taking into account.

But after we find out… Or after we’re no longer able to ignore what’s going on…

A mafia-like gang sexually exploiting underage girls.
One of them – at least one – commits suicide. The public assumes that if there had been others, the press would have brought it forward.
For some people, sexual abuse is part of the things that happen. Which is not OK, not ‘good’, but still part of everyday life. Like earthquakes. For these people, the suicide of the victim is an aberration. Something that should not have happened! If the rest of the girls survived… it means that there was something ‘more’ involved. It was she who was not strong enough. Her support system was not adequate. Or something else might have pushed her in the wrong direction… After all, it doesn’t matter! An ‘aberration’… One of those things which are not worth much of our attention…

For other people, sexual abuse is something caused by aberrant individuals!
An aberration from one end to the other! Earthquakes are normal, sexual abuse is not!
For this kind of people, sexual abuse cannot be normalized! Under any circumstances.

This is where the interesting part starts.
Even those who think that sexual abuse is part of life don’t feel good when they learn about specific cases. When the victims ‘get names’. They know that it ‘happens’ but they don’t think about this phenomenon all the time. They have nothing to do with it, it doesn’t affect them… Until they can’t pretend anymore. Until it affects them. Not necessarily in a direct manner… Until the reality of the fact can no longer be ignored!
To escape the psychological discomfort they experience very suddenly, these people need to do something. Quick!

‘Aberration’ to the rescue!
Epstein becomes an aberration.
Andrew becomes an aberration.
Even the victim who committed suicide becomes an aberration!
In reality, ‘the aberration’ is that these things happened at all! That they happened before our own eyes!

This aberration could unfold, for so long, only because too many of us are ‘resigned to the fact’ that sexual abuse is ‘a part of life’. A ‘normal thing’. ‘Normal’ at least as long as it doesn’t affect us….

This aberration – industrial-scale sexual abuse, practiced by apparently ‘respectable’ people revealing their true nature under Epstein’s ‘direction’ – has been made possible precisely by too many of us having chosen to ignore the information ‘sloshing’ around our feet!
‘Silently’ shouted by the victims we have chosen to ignore. Until it was too late…

Ever since Putin had ordered his army to invade Ukraine, I keep hearing about what drove Putin to do it.
About his dreams of rebuilding the old Russian Glory. About his drive to become the most important Russian personality. About NATO ‘pushing itself’ closer and closer to Russia’s borders. About…

The map above is the last argument I came by. And the last straw…
The person who posted the map doesn’t agree with Putin. Not at all.
But cannot ‘forget’ the fact that at one time Kiev did belong to Russia.

Well… I’ll be blunt about it!

This person, along with many others, tries to explain what is going on in a rational manner. They attempt to find an objective reason for a subjective decision.

Putin is flattening out Ukraine because he is afraid.

The Soviet Union had survived 1956 Hungary, 1968 Prague, and 1980 Solidarnosc. All of these ‘movements’ had been, somehow, quashed. Dealt with.

The Soviet Union had, finally, crumbled under its own weight after Afghanistan. After a people didn’t cave in. After a people, an entire people, found it in themselves how to resist. How to say no!

Putin had successfully quashed Yeltsin’s oligarchs, the Chechen rebellion, the first Orange revolution, dealt with Saakashvili, helped Lukashenko save his throne and put a lid upon the recent Kazahstani attempt at making a small step towards democracy.
And was contemplating the Western Europe planing to give up burning gas and oil.

‘His’ gas and oil…

He had to do something. Otherwise ‘his’ people were going to throw him out.

If Ukraine was allowed to continue on the self determination path, who was going to stop the Russians from following suit?

So yes, the circumstances described by that map are valid.
But it is Putin who bears the entire responsibility for what’s going on.
And for creating the circumstances in which ‘next’ is going to happen.

Can you imagine what’s going on in these children’s souls?