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Friday, 13 December 2019

General Election 2019

 You’re no use to me like this! - The Seventh Doctor

The dust has settled and the adrenaline is starting to fade. It is time to reflect. This cannot be remembered as just screams of outrage.

I haven’t felt such visceral anger since I realized nazis know where I live and were threatening my family. It’s as if all at once you are knocked to the ground and battered by the realization that your enemy is so much more dangerous than you thought they were. I am not a soldier or a politician. I am a man who gives a shit about the suffering of others and this result has left me so very very angry and depressed. I can’t fight this. I can’t stop this. There is nothing I personally can do to stop this.

The public have spoken and what they have said is alarming and depressing. I still believe in everything Jeremy Corbyn has fought for. I despise the centrists and I am so angry that the smug rich shits are smugly calling time on these moderate left wing values. We need these policies so much and I hate that so many are so stupid,. bigoted and selfish as to vote against it.

Ultimately though my rage can go nowhere and can do nothing. I am a volcano boiling away steam meaninglessly. I am a utilitarian. That’s why I stand by Corbyn’s policies. That’s why neoliberalism and conservatives baffle and anger me so. They stand in the way of all I see as logical and reasonable. Utilitarian Morality believes in the greatest good for the greatest majority. That same utilitarianism speaks to me now. I am no use to any cause I believe in, to anyone I believe in if I send myself mad raging at things I cannot change. Life has to continue. My strength will be needed for the times to come. I am not talking about any melodramatic political rhetoric either.

I have been so angry today that I have barely slept and have given myself RSI furiously playing Fallout 4 to distract myself from this. I am making myself ill achieving nothing. I have been telling myself over and over today that “I can’t do it.” That I can’t change what has happened. That is of course true but I can still live. I can still provide what little solace and support to those around me as I do bring. I can live and live as well as I can so that I am able to help those I care about. I am not the Doctor and I am not the Sole Survivor - as the player character of Fallout 4 is called - I can’t topple evil regimes or bring people together. I am not that important but I do mean something to a few people and those people would be the worse for my absense so I must continue. I must let myself be.

We may not be able to do anything about the terrible monsters we face now but we can try to keep living in hopes that together we can do something to stop the monsters later.