Same old same old

Legend has it that there are little frogs in the Amazon that spend their entire life in the pool of water formed in the upturned petals of the flower of a tree. Imagine what sort of culture shock it would be for that little frog to jump from one pool to another – a visit to a whole new universe, with the possibility of fresher water!

While telly and the internet is a whole tree of ponds, ready to decant onto us if we so want, I think that most people are content to stay in their own ponds. They watch the same programmes or types of programmes (and it appears that the worse a programme is, the more varieties there are of it – for instance there is only one ‘antiques roadshow’ but they appear to have cloned ‘Shite Idle’ (certainly some of the contestants looked like failed genetic experiments) and there must be some vast factory somewhere, possibly a converted factory farm, churning out shows where fat people attempt to beat the hell out of one another while the host/ringmaster looks on. I think one of the factories is in Essex, the other is in Asscratch, Nebraska.).

So it is that when people get cars, they don’t equip them with a compass, 7,000 US for bribing border guards and take off to see if they can drive to Ulam Bator, but rather zoom around the same old roads at dangerous and noisy speeds.

Similarly, I think people go to blogs to read about the same old thing, written by people writing about the same old thing. Nothing wrong with writing about what interests you, but if what interests you is the human condition, especially your own human condition and you think you’re writing about the same old thing, is this a good thing? Or maybe I’ve had a new insight into the same old thing?

Probably not, but the frog thing was prompted the sight of a pint glass that is STILL in residence on the low, flat but inaccessible roof of the local train station. It’s been there for months now and, resting at a 45 degree angle, is half full of rainwater that is turning cloudier as, I’m sure, all sorts of organisms start to thrive in there. Not sure what would emerge in ten million years time when one of the building blocks of your life was Stella – possibly a more intelligent version of whoever flung it up there. The sight of this little urban rock pool prompted a memory of a Terry Pratchett piece about the little frogs and their pools – at least I think it was TP.

The thing about the glass is that it’s the sort of thing that normally fills me with what I’m pretty sure is fast becoming a popular emotion for people – undirected anger. The thing is that the things we should get angry about are so huge that we can’t find anyone to blame. Not just the exploitation of the poor, the evil praying on the weak, no, I’m talking about rubbish littering streets, about people being ill-mannered. The problem is that you can’t go around burning down Tesco’s and McD’s, just like you can’t chase down a corridor after somebody who didn’t hold a door open for you and beat the shit out of them with your shoe. (You can’t, I checked in the staff conduct manual).

I guess that last part is more directed anger too, but you can’t act on that either and so it becomes frustration. For example…
What sort or person is so f**king stupid that they park across two lines? I wasn’t even affected by this, just thought it was a typical example of empty-headedness. Makes you wish you had a spray can so you could paint the line over the top of the car.

As for the glass - now when I see it, I think it’s kind of pretty. It’s been there so long that it’s not shiny or bright, it is probably home to a thriving – but tiny – eco-system. I suppose one day somebody will remove it or throw a rock at it and THEN I can have my moment of undirected anger but, at the moment, it gives me an undirected sense of well-being.