When This Country Returns to Normal

I'm like you Upsydaisy, I tend as I age to be less tolerant in general.
If someone tries to push in front of me then I tell them in no uncertain terms.
I do say please & thank you in shops of course.

 

"When this country returns to normal", "normal" in the way we privileged ones see it I suppose.

In today's world I'm privileged, I'm white, have had access to education, have a decent financial background and reality, have no physical nor mental disabilities nor challenges with my person that would be obviously clashing with the "norm" in my environment- I'm mainstream and privileged for that.

Just hundred years ago I wouldn't have had such privileges as my educational prospects would have been slim, I might have not even had a vote (depending on the country, just like today), and I may have been forced to for example wearing restricting clothing due to my gender or not had any inheritance rights.

Women in trousers? Women in higher education? Slaves talking with white women? Coloured people using the same public toilet as whites? Practising homosexuality? All strictly forbidden at certain point of time in certain cultures, then bouncing back or not.

Today's faff and wokeism angers/ annoys me because of the noisy lot who gets representation in the media I read- but at the same time I do acknowledge that there absolutely is a need to make a significant change and I'm watching this transition period from my privileged viewpoint.

There's a lot to learn for a person like me. Take for example transgender- it's nothing new and many cultures have always had fluidity of genders rather than a strict division of two.

OK, so I accept the fact that a person may not identify as assigned at birth, that's for sure. But to bring it to life it has taken personal connections, and close connections to hear the real experience of that person.

Unfortunately Ciara's video is not available to public, but here's her write up. Trans Day of Visibility – A Personal Perspective | P&G

Also, my daughter had a friend in the playground when they were about 4. The friend was a girl, as you see from kids at that age, girls tend to form pairs and boys groups and so on. Girls admire pink sequin decorations on their friend's shirt and build houses for the ants and the ladybirds... very stereotypical but that's what's going on in the playgrounds. Everybody dressed in unisex shorts and t-shirts. The friend even had a gender neutral name (like "Chris") so I just assumed she was a girl. Her mother strictly corrected me that "Chris" is a boy.

To me "Chris" was a girl, and it has taken me nearly two decades to realise that there has never been any call for me to classify that nice child into any gender, but just accept her/ him/ them as they were, a good playground friend.

I'm learning, actively learning and kicking myself in the shins before I express my huffs and puffs on some expressions that to me are just way over the top.

There is a need to change, and we are in a transition period just as we have always been. For example adding a title Mx amongst Mrs, Mr and the rest is nothing away from me and may mean a lot to someone who has struggled with this- adding it is not wokeism or faff but a good thing.

Tolerating unkindness is another thing, I'll never learn that

 

Are you sure about that? I've had to give up on what was a great FB gardening group for Brits in France, thanks to the eco zealots. They truly give the impression that they won't be happy until the human race is wiped out in favour of insects and dandelions What's worse is that their actual knowledge of plants and gardening is abysmal!

 

I presume by FB you mean Facebook?

I've figured that people in comments sections on Facebook are either completely insane, or they just take on an insane persona when they go on there. Facebook is horrendous. Facebook comments sections give a very skewed impression of public opinion. It would be easy to conclude that the majority of people are completely delusional, plain nasty, or both. It doesn't matter what the subject is either. I read a bunch of replies on their just the other day where people were really tearing into some poor lady just because she said she loved her pet dog like family.

 

This forum is social media. Facebook is antisocial media.

 

In fairness, there are some perfectly pleasant members but they do seem to be outnumbered by the vociferous, aggressive types.

 

What I do like about what happened. We can now see clearly that there are lots of sheep roaming around.