Diary from the ninth circle Part 2- Copyright Robert Fullarton 2010

Diary from the ninth circle Part 2-
Copyright Robert Fullarton 2010

                                                                          

                                                                            I

Sand down a human being through suffering, and you have the innermost being, unmasked, with the façade worn away, there the person’s true nature is seen and it cannot be mistaken anymore! After you have gone through several seasons in hell, you start to care less about your pot-marked weaknesses with society and instead seek spiritual answers, and have deeper questions to ask. Too many view society as the tour de force, the answer and the impetus to all that goes on, it is akin to the Roman society and its “public pantheon of gods”, the God of the universe is ironically and really the God who in private and yet in power speaks to our conscience as the drama of our lives unfold. In fact the modern man or post-modern person experiences and views the social unit or society as a religious experience, being the very thing to aspire to, infamy is the nexus to power, and self adulation is the kernel, but there is a cyclical fear of what others believe and think of us, going on and round, as a poor substitute to the real thing, this desire for love in social acceptance and fame, is an artificial love that cannot replace what the ancients sought in the divine. 
Too many have bought into the apparatus of a powerful media, that moulds the generations and often too many come forth like dolls upon the conveyor belt, implanted with the thoughts of the espirit de corps of the secular order, and often avoiding the deep experiential dramas essential to our progress as human beings. As a Christian I can say for certain that it has not been a picnic and I walk along the rocky road, sometimes, I have to crawl, or dangle over the treacherous precipices of my insecurities and all I lack on the path ahead. But I desire one day to fly above these present troubles, and even to the non-believer I state that a goal orientated, aspired mind, must have such hope and endure for such a hope become a reality in time!

Existence is not dull, we may think it dull at times and it seems unfair, but there is this drama of twists and turns, of plots being unearthed, of pain being so real at times that equates to strength, and when one loves sacrificially one discovers the greatest love, that which replicates the act of divine sacrifice.

  

                                                                                  II

The psychiatric ward in my eyes was Dante’s iconic inferno, the place where sufferers and condemned individuals, rot and burn in pain, they are confined to their own designated area, their turf and their reality of hardship. I met, psychotics, schizophrenics, people with bi-polar, hysterics, drug addicts, alcoholics and post-traumatic sufferers.

I had to try and comfort several people who were having emotional breakdowns and yet also I met many remarkable people, who told me their unique story, have educated me on the many different personality types, the fragilities and the sensitivities that are often ignored and overlooked within any examination of the human species as a whole. The youth of today lack that element and that essential gratitude that our society lacks, the community spirit, the charity and the patience to see the purely subjective horrors of what one human being can feel are misunderstood. Perhaps indeed community lectures should be given in schools and colleges more often, speeches on the promotion of well being, individual speakers on the stigma and the hardship of former psychiatric ward patients. The young of today should remember that there is a rising trend in the number of suicides, a growth in the number of people being diagnosed, treated and even hospitalised for the rising numbers of mental health patients and suffers alike. This proportionate increase is reflected in the rise of street drug abuse, peer pressure, depression over social conditions and domestic issues. Any person can fall victim to the circumstances of the current times and can go from being a happy and healthy human being to a person inflicted with a debilitating illness.

Everything changes, our perspective is reaffirmed and retuned into place, we seek survival, the love of loved one’s is a bout of madness and sorrow when absent, memories bulge out like razor sharp pains, fear grows until you cannot even face the local shopkeeper or the neighbour up the road. Severe fear of judgment, often a misguided sense of shame and a general prostration comes upon us. The outgoing man will retreat inward and seek comfort in solitude and in turn will make things worse for himself, this cyclic return to depression will reiterate once this man realises that he is lonely, but hardly ever does he realise that he choose often to cut himself off from perhaps a single voice that offered to listen and to care for him. Our world is plunged into darkness and we often forget our passions, the reasons for our striving to live and the motives for rebuilding, and reconstructing the old dreams of childhood. If one woman wanted to be an artist, then she should reaffirm this old desire and pursue it, if one man wanted to be an architect then likewise, he should remember the reasons as to why he aspired to these notions in the first place

I often capitulate myself to negativity and even to immense depression, I have had to learn and still have to remind myself of the possibilities of positive thinking and the fact that my pessimism offers me nothing but a personal spiritual defeat.

One to one private care, counselling and support is needed and I honestly commend the work of occupational therapists in general for the specific needs that often are met at least with one to one coaching. But I believe that a more intimate, truly personal, and more far reaching method and prognosis should be developed for the greater good and dignity of these human "souls in bondage."

My psychiatrist was lousy, in the sense that he would regularly fail to turn up when he was supposed to turn up, his absences were common, and his inability to understand his own patience’s was so obvious that he was a comical figure to several of his own patients. His ineptitude, his apathy and failing methods were the signs that self-reliance was required on my part; otherwise neither recovery nor rehabilitation of any kind would surface at all. I have known the disenfranchised people of our society, so little effort is made by psychiatrists to understand the sense of what their patients actually feel inside. While I was in hospital I met an older woman with whom I instantly connected. We formed a bond an a friendship, we talked, we walked together and I discussed my writing, my philosophy –which I now began to write in aphoristic verse- and of course I found a woman whom I believe I could have loved if their were no age difference what so ever. I loved her sense of humour, her receptivity, her story of heartbreak from a former long-term lover. We connected and became close friends, their were no elements of attraction nor any traits of romance, but a connection of personalities and interests. Time passed soon enough and before I knew where I was, she had been discharged and I never got to say goodbye to her.

Of course such areas are covered in the psychiatric hospitals around the country and no doubt the world at large, but I simply advocate a more impassioned response to individual patients. The cool distance of the psychiatrists given to their patients, the rigid protocol and the health care system itself, running on the necessities of health insurance have bore us another school like atmosphere, where ineptly tuned lectures are given, where quacks come and go, where the patients are the children doting on the psychiatrist and his team who are the parents and the supposed salvation of the children themselves

I knew too many cases that were neglected and often left the hospital felling much worse than upon awhile I did enjoy the occupational therapy, for that was the more essential one on one basis that any patient their arrival. The rush to fill beds, to keep up with the regularity –or irregularity- of protocol, the general sloppiness of the psychiatrists and the money had to flow continually. All dead water had to remain stagnant while the patients continued to drink from foul waters.

I had a lot to learn. I had to know that rehabilitation and recovery are continual; they never cease while we seek a constant change for renewal. Often we can only rely on ourselves but if we find a mutual friend then we should count our blessings and be exposed to the kindness of others and new people who have come into our lives.

A silent transformation into the unknown is required and that is what happened, slowly but surely, a refinement of old perspectives and a eclipsing of old dilemmas.

Diary from the ninth ring- Part 1 -The psychiatric system, a personal story- Copyright Robert Fullarton 2010

Diary from the ninth Circle- Part 1

-The psychiatric system, a personal story- Copyright Robert Fullarton 2010



Those with mental illness will suffer a “death” of some sort, for the old personality dies, the public face hangs down until it crumples at the sides and simply droops down to be replaced by the candid expressions of human fear and anxiety. When the mask is worn out, the gravest human angst appears and the fear of being human, fear of the unknown and the fear even of death emerge in their own right.  The deeper and often heavier human being emerges from the fire, the smouldering process of transfiguration, change and transformation

I have learned on too many occasions that the institutions, the psychiatrists and even the health care system cannot offer enough help for the specialised care of the individual patient. A generalised prognosis is given with an often-generalised diagnosis, a generalised method for treatment and for many these will not be the requisite path to follow. Little enough attention is focused on the symptoms themselves, often too little time is given to the origins of these symptoms, to the development of neurotic behaviour, hyper sensitivities, to our domestic history, our upbringing and development. The sensitivities that have manifested themselves in a physical manner need to be acknowledged and accessed in a manner that is not solely geared around medication. The so-called professional approach by the psychiatrist, going by the book, will insist on the clinical procedure, the austerity of a clinic or psychiatric ward- that often reflects the loveless and abrasive centres for mentally “unfit” or even a sort of lonely prison for the “unfit”. I myself have indulged in these thoughts, have experienced these very sensations- of dread, loneliness and fear- and of course have learned that from the start it was the patients themselves who carried the weight of the illness without any serious form or relative treatment or any practical help whatsoever. I have often witnessed patients leaving a psychiatric ward in a serious state of tension and aggravation- hurried off by their doctors so that new patients could come and fill the beds and numbers- and of course these patients return within weeks, feeling just as awful as before, if not worse. They have been given the gruff, often unsympathetic, treatment, by the team of doctors and form fillers who have little time, empathy and dedication for the individual patient. What matters is whether the patient is covered by health insurance, their medication and the unbroken chain of clinical processes that run day and night while names come and go. I myself have been a name on a register myself twice before in a psychiatric ward, have fought with nurses and have lost my faith in psychiatrists in general.

I tell you all that the toughest thing at times can be to live, the most menial of matters can seem trivial and impossible when our mind is swamped with fear, adrenaline, anxiety, sorrow, angst and the monstrosities of terror.

We may have given our troubles and fears the silent treatment for years and now we have finally come to know these fears through conscious terror. 

Breathing exercises are brilliant for lowering anxiety, for helping to expand and remove certain catarrh and phlegm from the lungs –so this is especially helpful for people who suffer from asthma like myself. I could even state that people with acute anxiety or panic disorder are often rushing and running at a pace to fast for their body and their mind to operate at. The body is simply flooded with adrenaline, the mind is aroused, the arms are clammy and sweaty and perhaps even a certain hyper vigilance extends over the feelings and general sense of fear given by the individual. A slow and gently given practise to time management, meditation, relaxation, claming walks and exercises, even praying can have its benefits too and all such attempts are made for a long term recovery, or a sense of self competence in the face of these overriding symptoms and habits. 

I continued to study law in college, the semesters came and went in sequence, I worked, tired and slaved over the case law, the legislation, the various books and assignments that were designated to me, and of course for the first time in my life my over all grades improved. A blossoming and unveiling of knowledge, Intellect, a craving for information and an interest in the world of factual information took possession over me. When I wasn’t working for an assignment or studying for an arduous exam, I spent most of my available time in the college library, perusing through various collections of stories, novels, books of philosophy, ancient Greek and Roman history, drama and poetry.

While my love of literature blossomed, my anxiety grew, through mental exhaustion; I grew fatigued with other people and with my college work. I had been previously diagnosed with having Severe Anxiety Disorder –but I did not dwell too much on this diagnosis I had been given from the Blackrock clinic after I had gotten an MRI scan done-and of course I was not susceptible to the full effects of my anxiety. I was negligently ignoring my worsening state of depression that was fuelled with insatiable moments for binge drinking, for self pity, moodiness and anger. A sort of self loathing often poured forward within me while I was out and about, perhaps even coming home from college on the bus at the end of the day. 

An awareness is vital for us to seek a recovery. I have spent the past three years around a community of people, blighted by the troubles of their past, the crises of the present and waiting in vain for the pains of the future to reimburse within them again. I can question forever on the reasons and the preventative measures that could and should be adopted and met for the extremities of variable conditions and disorders that are prevalent in our society today. My mind has registered many faces, remembered many heart wrenching stories, trials of persevering humanity and enduring questions that have made me feel like an out and out nihilist sometimes at the sense and sum of suffering that has come either genetically, neuro-chemically, or through domestic and social abuse of some sort. I have witnessed courage on every front by the patients and attendees themselves, but often have seen the patients and attendees sit and wait, unresponsively for the clinicians, psychiatrists and therapists to perform a sort of instant miracle or magic trick to their specific needs. I myself have been in this mind frame too often throughout my life, I have known what it feels like to be utterly desperate, to be helpless to be clinging to the precipices of human dignity and fortitude. I know what it is like to feel a sense of life slipping away, a closeness of death, a soul shattering fear that can devour you. I have seen train wreaks, corrosion and catastrophe in the faces of human beings. So little self control, so much antipathy for life and a sense of catatonic shock seems to echo through the core of these human beings, who have fallen on hard times.

When I was 21 years of age, the symptoms of a psychosomatic disorder were already beginning to show themselves. First of all I was suffering panic attacks at night, terrible insomnia, an irregular heartbeat. My stomach was beginning to cause me terrible trouble. I would spend endless nights with severe stomach trouble, nausea, feelings of sickness, acute abdominal pains and acid. At the end of a marathon of trips back and forward to my local GP I was told that I had acid reflux and had to adopt to a new lifestyle, with a wholly different diet and this meant that I would have to sacrifice or cut down on my drinking and smoking. I was depressed with this intial diagnosis and stupidly enough I did not make the dietary change required but merely took the medication prescribed to me. While I was working hard one evening on an assignment for college, I began to go into a cold sweat, my heart began to beat faster than it had ever beat before, it thudded so fast that I nearly fainted in the hallway.

But I had absolutely not idea what was going on, I was oblivious to this experience and to reassurances from family that I was not going to die. This was the beginning of decline in terror and anxiety, into fear and reclusion, my lowest ebb was dawning and many more panic attacks were to follow, some would last up to six hours and some would hit me while I was flying on a plane. I stupidly on my first encounter with this terror drank myself into a drunken stupor and of course this was, me pouring petrol over the blazing fire. Things went from bad to worse; I spent many days in bed trying to recover from both my nerves and my stomach.

I continued to write throughout this time, found renewal through my faith and my adoration for writing. I even managed to finish my final exams for my college degree and achieved a positive result overall. But the kettle was long due to over boil, I had not properly dealt with my nervous disorder, had gone for a gastroscopic examination in a private hospital and was told that I had no peptic ulcers, no bacteria in my gut but told that my stomach trouble was caused by my nervous disorder. I did not believe this and I only reluctantly accepted this after months of constant tension.

Churchill’s black dog (Copyright Robert Fullarton 2014)- An Old article extended, edited..

Churchill’s black dog

(Copyright Robert Fullarton 2014)- An Old article extended, edited..

I had previously written an article on anxiety, now let me write an article on its ugly first cousin called depression.

When you have an illness –and in this case I need not give a diagnostic or medical name for the illness- that cannot be given proper medical treatment for a long term cure, you begin to despair. You have to carry yourself through the thick and thin.  Pondering on the grey uncertainties of the future and the limitations of the present, you despair, and this is especially true when you try to live like “everyone else” at a more elongated position and with a more hectic existence..then you know that you have come too far out from your own comfort zone.

When you cannot work- despite the fact that you want to work, because your bodily systems- be they the endocrinal, the nervous or the immune systems- are unable to function and manoeuvre at an ordinary rate as the average healthy human body works upon, then you are fighting your own weaknesses.  In my case I have accepted long ago, the full limitations and symptoms of my disorder. The infliction grants disorder to the senses, the capacities of the brain to function and this drains the energy of the body- thus daily restrictions to the bed occur and the wrestle to work are common enough. I am driven by a pathological fear of what people think of me at times...especially with the fact that I want to work but often I nearly come to mental collapse after several highly stressful days of full on labour.

Churchill had famously declared to others about his "black dog following him" throughout life, and many creative, innovative and high-minded people of an outstanding caliber of intelligence suffer such a malaise and affliction (I dont include myself in such a list). Greats minds on the fine balance between sorrow and joy -rather than sanity and madness- seem to have their heads touch the metaphysical heights and yet plunge to the lows of Tartarus. Depression is not realistic, not in touch with reality, it seems to be a poor, rather negative response to a crisis or series of crises that trigger our feeling of despondency and defeat, but such feelings are not true.

What can take you out of this toxic mind frame? I pray, it really is the mantle and the refuge of the despairing soul with his rapier to the world and the conditions that limit him, sometimes his own voice of self-defeat can be an enemy in itself. Where are the moments of poetic beauty, each man needs a breathless tide to take us to a greater shore! Watching wildlife from afar has been a boyhood passion that never relents in the face of time, each new species and specimen I find, inspires me to write and even to study further into the mysteries of each habitat and behaviour they entail

Coming with the joys of creativity come the feelings of being overwhelmed and being smothered by the problems of life that counter and contrast the highs we have had earlier on in the week

In the past all I wanted was to escape from this Alcatraz of pain and redundancy and be doped out. I look back with shame on each occasion but I know in my heart of hearts that there is another door, another choice to be made and another person out there who can relate to what I have gone through and to what you have gone through! One loses one's touch with reality -when you are in my situation- every so often and go a little crazy! Life is not a game, nothing is cheap, nothing is won through easy gain, it is herculean at times, a veil of tears, it, it can be heartbreaking, it comes with repetitious questions, but sometimes we find a grace of strength that carries us through on the moment of a great need. We cannot always call such happenings coincidence, and from my experience I will call them miracles, formerly perhaps when I was indeed a very angry, cynical man, I would have thought differently, but now the soft tender skin has had to grow thicker to the harsh conditions of the world. We have to live in hope and be builders on the foundations of meaning (As a Christian that meaning is relationship with Christ, as a living truth).

 We want to fight beyond the walls of limitations and fear is perhaps the greatest of such terrible walls!

I myself worry about the future, constantly, about finding ample full time employment, about my property issues and matters of survival and of course since I have been diagnosed with three illnesses of the mind- I do indeed worry about issues on functionality, dependencies -having to depend on family-, responsibilities and cares that need to be maintained, renewed and looked after. From the highs to the lows the reader must note that the Day is much, much brighter than the night, there is a candle that rises in its luminosity as the new day in a great new creation, do you believe in the infinite night? You possess the key for turning on the switch that converts the dark to light in an instant, no matter how bad it gets, moral integrity, love, devotion and bonds of meaning hang men in a wonderful suspension to keep them from the crocodiles of their own over-rationalities bellow the tightrope walk. For me faith is essential, but this light gets better and bigger, what have I to lose, to try is everything and as one philosopher stated "A start is the most difficult thing to have", I believe that we have the start but need the orientation to make the journey into the unknown. 

Each person woke unto existence and knew not where nor how they came to be, but simply lived and acted like the players on the stage, but life is more than acting its about being, and for me as a Christian its about relationship with God, because I choose to know and choose to follow this path. Depression at times too can an existential crises on the deepest matter of all, where hence did we come from and where are we going? Such will determine one's psychology to face the inevitable and yet be strong.

Each reader must note and know that their life does not belong to a psychiatrist but is in their own hands in many ways, they are not the numbers on a hospital list, but the real living beings, who when perceived properly are capable of doing much more, as one must not resign oneself to a fate of hopelessness but be determined to rise to face the challenge, as miracles occur in the extraordinary moments of human compassion, community, empathy and indeed in acts of great faith and grace!

Message made to a critic on youtube

Message made to a critic on youtube.

(I put this up..because I believe it has a very important message in it)

On the subject of the child sacrifices that existed in the phoenician culture and on Carthage

I dont know what your on about..because the Hebrews sacrificed Doves and Rams for Yahweh, never children, nor people, in fact their laws and commandments were severely warning and demanding that parents do not sacrifice their children, neither to moloch or at all, period. We have the second commandment that states thou shalt not kill, and those laws basically entailed that life was sacred and that murder..was a sin, a spiritual crime...that even gave the death penalty, life for life. You seem to have a bone to pick with the Judeo-Christian faith/ tradition. Basically it all boils down to the moral question of a moral universe and what constitutes good and bad Behaviour, what is objectively right and wrong, you seem to be making some very big judgments, but where does your perspective of goodness come from, you seem to indulge in the moral relativism and secularism of this confused age, its just empty opinion on empty footing, without objective truth, because without moral ethics being an intrinsic part of reality and ie being universal and without compromise we have the post-modern critical theory that picks to the carcass of every moral theory, law and foundation, without a healthy substitute or answer, its a mere game of making the believer doubt and look foolish in the face of an agnostic, empty, liberal world that makes it up as it goes along. To be honest I see Christianity as being the greatest moral force to have graced mankind, having changed and birthed civilization (particularly the Protestant reformers) and have given us our entire notion of civil rights, personal freedoms, sanctity of life, marriage, the importance of the family etc and having replaced such morally flawed empires as Rome, Carthage (Phoenician) and Greece. Anyway..I am trying to make the point that morality and reality go hand in hand and that the old testament despite some grisly scenes still, talks about the crossing over from lawlessness and human licence to law, prohibition and deterance through law. The new testament covers the kernal and central idea that man, needs to have the nature of God, not laws, to change his heart, because moral truth, is akin to knowing and having relationship with God!

Brandenburg and Prussia Part 3- Natural attractions by Robert Fullarton

Brandenburg and Prussia
Part 3- Natural attractions
by Robert Fullarton

The state of Brandenburg in Northern Germany is perhaps a largely undiscovered gem to non-German nationals. It surrounds the city of Berlin, by the borders of Saxony to the south, Poland to the east (what used to be part of Brandenburg before the Potsdam Agreement), the vast lakelands of Mecklenburg to the north and Saxony-Anhalt to the west. The State of Brandenburg today largely resembles what it used to be in the heyday of what was the Kingdom of Prussia. This is a land of fine sandy beaches, vast pine and birch forests, with the Havel lakelands (Haveland) and the Spreewald waterways, it has a diverse landscape for Osprey, White Tailed sea eagles, Corncrake, White and Black Storks, Great Crested Grebes and various species of Woodpeckers found hammering in the great expanses of its pine forests.

These landscapes are flat, similar in some respects to the landscapes of those of the Netherlands, of Denmark, and southern Sweden, but prone to higher temperatures and with a finer density of forests.

In the summer light the shores of the "Havelland" (the river Havel and its lakes) surrounding Potsdam, the Wannsee and around Babelsburg park and palace, glow by the sandy coves, where one can walk along forested paths and catch a water taxi to either side of the lakeland. My aunt and I walked along the beaches by Babelsburg palace, there is a heathland, with heather, juniper, wild flowers and chestnut trees, and across the water you can view the Glienicke Bridge (where the movie bridge of Spies was filmed as the infamous location for trading spies and intel). Park Babelsburg along with its fine Victorian era Castle (built for Kaiser Wilhelm I) is a peaceful, pastoral, place to indulge in the sights of landscape gardening and local history. These gardens are the work of Hermann Von Puckler, a count from Muskau estates in Saxony. My aunt and I went to an exhibition at the Babelsburg Palace, on the life of this landscape gardener who had transformed the entire area, using his various apparatus, to transport trees by huge carts to plant them, having been commissioned to create French Formal style gardens. It reminded me of something having been built by Victoria and Albert, with its grand sandstone facade, with a gothic like structure and a hint of Tudor opulence.

(2)

I would recommend people to get outside of Berlin, get outside of the hustle and bustle, out of the shadows of the towering skyscrapers of Potsdamer Platz and be immersed in the surrounding hinterlands, that are largely the same as they were back in the days of old Prussia and the electors of Brandenburg. This region has survived the GDR government, despite architectural neglect and the abuse given to both people and the Prussian culture (as Potsdam's old town suffered not just from the ww2 bombings but also from the East German hatred for all things Prussian!). This is a land of Palaces, of rich culture, of natural beauty, overlooked by non-German's and yet perhaps it might just be discovered more by foreign tourists as Berlin and Potsdam have increased in popularity. The Prussian foundation for castles and Gardens has with the help of UNESCO, worked at restoring the lost palatial homes of the Prussian time period, the Hohenzollern dynasty and the beautiful old "chocolate box" towns and cities such as Potsdam with its beautifully restored Dutch quarter and Brandenburgstrasse. Spandau too outside of central Berlin, shows this beauty and finesse with its 15th century old quarter (and has largely escaped the ww2 bombings).

Immunity of Criticism -By Robert Fullarton

Immunity of Criticism

-By Robert Fullarton

Copyright 2017

If you cannot criticise the islamic doctrine, if it is to be immune of critical analysis, then it will grow exponentially and proliferate in influence, as a culture and a political means to live by. Sharia law is the culmination of the violence of the caliph's, a legacy of conquest and submission, the strict, archaic, barbaric, domination of all fields of life by a theocratic dictatorship, is the ends of this medieval doctrine. If you cannot criticize and speak the truth on the matters of islamic doctrine, then you will not get to the source of jihadism, you will not analyse the impetus for such violence and "pick the minds of the jihadis", who believe that all non-believers are inferior and deserve nothing less that to be annihilated.Men can hold vigils and pretend to be strong, in social unison and in the height of their countries prestige, but in reality be just a wooden board in the limp and weightless facade of a sick, culturally stagnant and divided Europe.

How can one not prosecute the murderers of Europe, when such men, in heart and mind go back to an imam and a reading of the Koran. Should not all citizens of the public read the Koran for themselves and see the violence perpetrated, encouraged, condoned and mandated for. Why not? Why be afraid to speak the truth, when it has already been written, written down and recorded in the annals of history. The authorities of Europe fight a battle with one arm tied behind their backs, if they are powerless, then they have done this to themselves.

One has to hurt a few people's feelings, speaking the truth despite the hubbub about it and has to kick up a storm, so to put one's house in order. England was once a Christian country, a bastion and cradle of Methodism, quakers, of Christian philanthropy, of social reform, of missionary activities across the globe and one that fought for free speech. England was never a muslim country, and yet priority is given, and immunity is given over criticizing islam in preference of the safety of its citizens and the prosecution of the killers. More men will be seduced to violence, so long as the psychology of islam goes unexposed, un bemoaned to the public and untold to all, as the cycle goes on. "The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth" is needed, and if one is frightened of the pandoras box being opened, well then one needs to know that it has long since been opened, as two world views are at war, fighting for their survival- despite the willing complacent ignorance or many in the west- and yes its a clash of civilizations, its one that had been buried, but has once more been unearthed.The modern world, is a legalistic jargon of utilitarian convenience, of wishy-washy idealism and total pacifism to those who would wish to destroy it.

You may be living in the 21st century but there are others who are living in a time warp and their heads and hearts operate out of a brutal period of conquest that is very much alive in their desires, it has been lying dormant and is now being revived for a very deadly war of invisible, almost silent terror that is being used  to fan the flames of a very menacing fire. Those who worship their rights, know now that your rights are in danger of being forever annihilated! This is real and not a fantasy, so men cannot go back to bed and sleep through this ever worsening cataclysm. Total prosecution of the jihadis is needed. exposure and critical analysis is needed and yes truth telling is fundamental!

Brandenburg and Prussia- A holiday -Part 1- The History Copyright- Robert Fullarton 2017

Brandenburg and Prussia- A holiday

-Part 1- The History

Copyright- Robert Fullarton 2017

I was recently on holiday in the German state of Brandenburg. It is a beautiful land, with the floodplains of the rivers Havel and the Spree, where the rivers create lakes of great beauty. I went to Potsdam, former haunt of the Prussian kings, the Hohenzollern dynasty that abdicated, under Kaiser Wilhelm II and came to its finality in November 1918 at the end of ww1.

Even on the train ride south west, out of Berlin, you are surrounded by forests, the great “green lungs” of the Grosser Tiergarten, Grunewald Forest, the Duppler Forst by the Wannsee, there are these impressive stretches of pine and birch by the river Havel. This is a land of great aesthetic beauty, in the former GDR, and where sinister Nazi planning took place in a Wannsee villa for the “final solution” of the Jewish people.

This is the land of Frederick the Great (Fredrick II of Prussia) that gave rise to the Hohenzollern dynasty, home to its fine palaces that rivalled the Habsburg Court and the fine chateaux’s of Bourbon France. One man's egomania, vision for architectural perfection and precision, for philosophy and military ideal echoed through the centuries that followed. Frederick II was militarily a gambler against the odds, facing enemies beyond his own numerical strength, taking on the European powers of France, Russia and Austria. He played a diplomatic game of chess with Maria Theresa’s Austria, striking her armies with speed, taking the Polish region of Silesia, while maintaining a pivotal and precious alliance with Great Britain.

His goal was to make Prussia the strongest of the German states and downgrade the status and power of Habsburg Austria. During his reign the state of Brandenburg was joined with the duchy of East Prussia, West Prussia (Royal Prussia) after the first partition of Poland and the conquest of Polish Silesia. Berlin became the royal city of Prussia that slowly began to flourish eventually under the architectural genius of Fredrick Schinkle.

Fredrick the Great was called an enlightened despot (an autocratic monarch) who effectively reformed and strengthened the Prussian army (known for being an army with a country!) he welcomed thousands of Huguenot expellees, who brought with them the linen industry along with German colonists from the Palatine of the Rhine. Frederick was an art connoisseur, having acquired Caravaggio, Rubens and Van Dyck paintings for his private collection, he was also a prolific composer of flute sonatas and lover of Ancient Greek Literature.

His palace Sans Soucci (built by the Prussian architect Georg Wenslaus Von Knobblesdorf) stands ostentatiously like as if it were meant to be a throne above the stairs to heaven, above a fine water feature, fountain and sculpture work, this palace was meant to be his own private summer retreat. Its citron lemon facade, French formal gardens, and sculptures (meant to represent nature and pleasure) reflected the Kings vivacious passion for the arts and yet his own egotistical vanity at times seems to speak in the sheer volume of palatial designs his architects had to contest with, as he was according to local sources meticulous with the construction of both the Sans Soucci and the Neues Palais (New Palace) which had to be built according to his ideals. These buildings were built in the architectural style that was known as Frederican Rocco.

Brandenburg had previously been a backwater off the world stage, having been largely devastated by the armies of the Catholic League during the 30 years war which ended in 1648. The electors of Brandenburg grew in stature and Elector Frederick III of Brandenburg succeeded to becoming king of the Dukedom of Prussia (which was the Baltic territories around Konigsburg where the Teutonic Knights had previously ruled). 

Prussia was in reality a political phenomenon, a consequence of the Germanic conquest and the colonisation of the Baltic coast, whose armies were living the legacy of the Teutonic Knights of the 12th to 14th centuries who were an elite warrior, monastic order, whose greed for land and wealth, faced the antagonism of the powerful Lithuanian-Polish Commonwealth and the Papal States. The 26th Grand master of the Teutonic Order Ulrich Von Jungingen, who commanded the Teutonic knight armies was badly defeated by the joint Lithuanian-Polish army at the battle of Tannenburg at 1410. The order’s expansionist ambition was cut short and its long decline began to set in after this defeat.

However this order, with its warlike ambition, duty to discipline, rank, file and conquest, gave the new Prussia of Frederick the Great and the Hohenzollern Dynasty an identity to thrive upon. The Iron Cross and the Order of the Black Eagle all emerged as old Teutonic symbols to become the laurels, medals and orders of the new dynasty, that like its predecessor, loved the art of war (shown by the likes of Von Clausewitz, Von Blucher and even Otto Von Bismarck) and likewise subjected the Slavic peoples (Sorbs, Poles, Kashubians and even Lithuanians) into the new state of Prussia, that would recover from its atrocious defeats under Napoleon at Jena and Auerstedt in 1806 and the Occupation of Berlin. When the French army marched through the Brandenburg gate in triumph that was when the Prussian people had determined not to rest until the French had been expelled from German soil.

The Hohenzollern dynasty rose from its territorial gains at the conference of Vienna 1815, after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo to double in size, in population and in resources as the occupants of the Rhineland, Westphalia and the Ruhr valley. The Prussian monopoly over Germany- with its rulling dynasty and nobility of power hungry land owners (Junkers)- along with its triumphant army (having beaten Denmark, Austria and France all by 1871) appealed for German unification and so there came a common German people and an empire declared at the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles, at the high water mark of Prussian power in Europe.

Today the state of Prussia (or Borussia as it was also called) has been wiped off the map, after two world wars, after the murderous campaigns of Adolf Hitler and the revenge killings of a wrathful Russian army, of rapes, mass killings, tit-for tat murders, some 14 million Germans were expelled along with east Prussians to head west. Stalin pressed the western Allies at the Potsdam conference for the new German border to be drawn up along the Oder line west of Stettin and south to the border of Saxony. Many marched west with their belongings in desperation carrying their barrows during the coldest winter of 100 years, many died of disease, others were crushed under T34 tanks and many more went hungry. 

The war in the east, to understand it was like something from St. John’s Apocalypse, one of utter destruction, inflammable hatred, where the Wehrmacht had sowed such destruction and reaped the Soviet fire, in a time of horrific cruelty, barbarity and hardship. The only memory of Prussia alive today can be seen in the palaces of the Hohenzollern Dynasty and in the Prussian parks and castle society that keeps the history alive for all people to enjoy wonderful architecture and art and to learn from the mistakes of former rulers and from the softening of the Iron Kingdom that had been broken in time.

Caravaggio and Christ -by Robert Fullarton

Caravaggio and Christ

-by Robert Fullarton

Copyright Robert Fullarton

With the current exhibition of Caravaggio’s work on display in Ireland’s National Gallery in Dublin, I decided to write a short piece on the momentous inspiration this artist has given me over time.

Though Caravaggio’s life is one of mystery, of violence, a suspected murder, a hot headed and sensual man, a man on the run from local authorities, who according to some died a violent death, assassinated by the Knights of Malta, a different side of Caravaggio can be imagined and to some extent be seen through pious faces, heroes of faith, that make the Biblical characters very real to the modern day art lover.

His oeuvre displays his mastery of shadow and light, giving the faces of his subjects a great appeal which makes them look photogenic, realistic in the proportions of the human form and showing Christ in human form, with all the tempests of human emotion and expression. His work is truly one of the finest expressions of Baroque art, along with the works of Rembrandt, Rubens and Vermeer. He follows the tradition of Michelangelo, to a certain extent, but his portraits are more human and dramatic often for me than those of Michelangelo, or say Titian, Mantegna and Da Vinci, as Jesus Christ, appears to be less covered under a holy halo, but he is shown through his human form, in depictions of suffering, of eating amongst friends, of common everyday happenings and in such he has a personal appeal, to the believer, to the sinner to human dimensions of empathy. I must state that the Taking of Christ, is truly one of my favourite paintings and is one of the greatest paintings undertaken on the life of Jesus Christ, its brooding, dark subject, fills the viewer with a pathos, previously undiscovered and re-tells the narrative of Christ’s betrayal and eventual crucifixion with human agony, it captures the suffering God-man and Sacrificial lamb on the path to Calvary. We are visual creatures, art allows us to visualise the proportions of the past, of the Bible, making such content come alive and when executed well it is a testament to the entire Christian artistic culture and legacy, which is deeply personal to the believer!

Gender Revolution!?

Gender Revolution!?

This is an old opinion piece I wrote...several months ago.

Copyright Robert Fullarton February 2017

The Front covers of National Geographic are a bit mad, they are also ideologically driven, by an elite media, that thinks they are being futurist or "progressive" in thinking, but there are'nt 7 genders, or 5 genders or even 3 genders. I dont say this in bitterness but with respect to natural order and form. I say this with respect to the education of children and how we must not indoctrinate them with ideology, and confuse them on issues which reflect sexuality, considering children are at an assexual stage in their development.

How can we call such issues as a "revolution" when its more like a retrogression of fact and form, where too often people take what they feel to be fact or hate whom they were created to be, hate their identity, hate their own body. Can we really pander and be subject to these feelings and the projections by big media in the world. I'm afraid everything these days is far too political, its vitriolic, its hate filled, and it spills into the conscious mind of people, but pushed by rich elites, corporations, everything these days is apparently in a grey area, as kierkegaard stated "is at risk of being doubted to death" and "this is a veritable sale of ideas". Indeed so, many entertain radical doctrine and seek the dismantling of old order, tradition, culture and belief, but the most radical of such and dare I say deranged is the notion of their being a gender revolution, and the notion that one is what one feels, rather than one is born to be a man or woman.

 We are not what we feel but rather we are what we were created, part and parcel of the greater picture, as all creatures, are facts of biology, beings born of the genders, male and female for the progenity of the next generation. We are imbedded in the natural world and the human body being delicate as it is cannot exist on the whims and feelings of harmful abuses to change and alter such a delicate process. I also believe to that these notions need to be examined up objectives facts as we come home to find painful truths. This gender revolution is an experiment in sociology, to the radical edges of so called "human rights" where guilt and victimhood are pushed with insane liberal ideology.

 I will not get into the ramifications of the new radical doctrines being introduced through media, through the extremes of american, counter-culture, but I will state that the degeneration begins when wrapped in the so-called foil of so-called rights (in the modern religion of human rights), rather than responsibilities and then unfolds in time unto further social disarray. I cannot see how twisting the social and biological norms of human nature to suit ideology can benefit the moral core of a society. Why must one re-think what is genetically established within.

 All things have been offered up unto the political lense to be scrutinised and apparently too the human body is now a political issue or issue of ideological examination. These days the shibboleth or slogan states "do as thou likes" so long as you "dont interfere with my rights". As the Apostle Paul said before, I am free to do everything, but not everything is good for me."

The silent witness in the wilderness -By Robert Fullarton Copyright 2017

The silent witness in the wilderness
-By Robert Fullarton

There are those who seek to condemn every little nuance of intolerance on one side of the spectrum while turn a blind eye to the obvious cruelties and abominations that are rising, like a revival of primitivism, a return to savage rite and in this a huge hypocrisy stands in the midst of those who take the high moral ground. One law for one bunch of people and another law for the others, this is the a la carte mentality, a la carte democracy, of a McCarthyesque system of control, of witch hunting and demonising that has ironically been spewed from the hate filled mobs that claim to "love rights", "love freedom" and hate fascism!! Is it not true that a tree is known for its fruit, and one's deeds stand as a testimony for all times, like a log book for our life, our deeds are recorded in history, we cannot justify the crimes of violence, hatred, destruction of property and death threats that have come about from the mob rule and mob mentality that is growing, from a confused body of ideologues, where the rule books and laws of common sense have been burned, having been flung out of the college campus windows. Likewise men give hate a reason, mere words are used as the ammunition to take pot-shots at the societal sensitivities that have been inflated beyond belief. But it is obvious and true to state that when you transplant the churches and the traditions of the past, the heart shaped box (as the philosopher Pascal coined in a phrase) must be filled, the philosophical and spiritual dimensions of man are embedded with state ideologue, state rhetoric and idealism, a man cannot apparently reach heaven, so he must make heaven here on earth and do so at all costs!

We see the contemporaneous rise of primitivism, barbarism, where such is clothed in a fancy rhetoric, promoted deliberately, given immunity, amnesty, where it seduces western minds with something- which is "other" than Christianity and the old traditions- and yet the facts need to be read and studied for themselves by reliable sources. I do believe that the leisure and pleasure society -a society built on entertainment, a sort of modern day Graeco-Roman world- is poised through its own encouraged and promoted negligence, through its naive stance, ignorance of facts, disbelief in the moral absolutes of the nation and of course the complacency of the common citizen, such is on the knife edge, or at the final stage of what was once a mighty empire, and empires collapse from internal divide. All empires have their phases, their rise, apex and nadir, but all such empires can be examined and the cultural dismemberment begins in internal dissent, where the strength of the nation, the integral morality within of a civil society fails and perishes, through generations of constant doubt, skepticism, of waging war within, such a society is once again on the knife's edge and ready to collapse!

We have apparently doubted the facts to death, man wants everything, and wants to go to those territories that were previously of limits. Man scoffs at his authority, and states "there will be no limits" to the future, as man can apparently cross the entire "smorgasboard" of experiences and beliefs, can keep them all, can uphold them all, can place all on equal terms and upon equal footing. The naysayer, the dissenter to this nonsense is of course an "old fashioned" "buffoon" of some sort who is not in touch with the "fashion of ideas" which each generation has been spoon fed on through the peer pressure and mass movements of societal thought! Apparently truth changes?

These destructive demolition charges were placed at the core of harmonious and healthy thought, were set alight by the words of men like Schopenhauer, Marx, Freud, Nietzsche and Sartre. The very moral compass on which the western world looked to has apparently been smashed and trod upon. We see youth today from a certain age seeking answers and finding substitutes, with suicide rates higher than they have ever been. The semantics of life have been demoted, the spiritual core and nature of man denied for the mounds and temples man has made to a knowledge "without reason", as if X amount of knowledge grants one all answers. The hedonistic phase will not last forever, as the hearts of men- with the cigarette buts of the wasted days- but as all empires die they are replaced by another, one is more aggressive, who uses, not only word, but sword and doctrine (positing belief) and who appeal to those seeking inner power for the the growing messianic politics of this tragic world around us.

Truth is eternal, it cannot be changed by well-wishing, by the tirades and rounds of vitriolic bile that are spewed against it, it remains whether conceived to be a positive thing or a negative thing. Truth comes out from the tumult and the storm, still strong, shinning and for those who hold to the truth who may receive a battering, but they are the holders of the torch, the runners, the knights of faith and the little lights glowing in hours of pitch dark, through our darkened megalopolis' these lights are holding on despite being the naysayers and conscience of a compromising and questioning society. These lights are still on, these hearts are holding on, by the grace of God!

The Political wilderness- -by Robert Fullarton copyright 2017

The Political wilderness-
-by Robert Fullarton

copyright 2017

There has been an ongoing biased censorship of media, by the mainstream right across the western world. Those who are not ideologically acquiescent with the mainstream media- or the modern espirit de corps- of the modern western world, are silenced, censored, blocked, and of course persecuted, through thought manipulation. I had never known it before, how far our society in certain sectors, has started to fulfill the fictional world of George Orwell's Eurasia in 1984, with a certain thinkspeak, with a demonisation, manipulation of thought, image, word and idea.

I love the use of words, press coverage and story telling but my do I feel great disdain and disturbance with what I have seen over the recent years, with the media's biased and unfair analysis on news reporting, on failing to cover (deliberately done) stories that show up or counter the ideology of the media. The media today is too powerful, its become a machine well funded by the lucrative wheels of industry, of big businesses, (whether it be George Soros, Buffet Freud, Denis O'Brien or Rupert Murdoch) and a garrulous mouth to shout down the last voices of free-speech.

I believe that there are many elephants in the room, ignored willfully and recklessly by a lunatic belief in utopian marxist politique. Much damage has been done already, with the cultures, traditions, morals and security of western Europe in jeopardy, facing a threat on many fronts, with disunity and sheer dishonesty in the purveyors of information. It has truly become a war for the honest truth in all matters though a bed of ideological insincerities.

The common ideal that all can live together, regardless of differences has been tried and tested and is continually seen to be the hash piped utopian dream that does not live up to reality. In Germany and Sweden with the rising tide and numbers of sexual assaults and sheer displays of raw anarchy, the common man and woman needs to question and revive their civil powers, responsibilities and rights. The women of Germany and Sweden deserve too to be protected and not suffer the civil disturbances one might encounter in a third world backwater. But more correctly why has this not been prevented and why cant this be stopped with thorough prosecution of the law!

 I wrote this in response to how the sexual assaults in sweden, Germany and Denmark were not given proper media coverage so as not to upset the status quo and the presumptions of those who have the deepest pockets and those who shout the loudest.

Meaning- a message to another. -Robert Fullarton

Meaning-
a message to another.
-Robert Fullarton

Everything has meaning...you see, if there is no life after death, (like when the curtain comes up on a stage production and the director walks onto the stage and all is revealed, where the veil is lifted and the opaque glass of life becomes clear), then this life has no meaning, and if this life has no meaning then our judgments have no meaning, but you see our thoughts are predilected towards opinion, perspective and a specific world view, we are creatures looking outward, we are surveyors of life, making judgment, dissecting between the actions and dramas of the present world, could all this be meaningless? We are designed to be partial in our desires to hope, in the discovery of facts, both physical and moral facts, that correspond to what is absolute, to what is true and eternal. Choice is a free gift given, but all choices are not going to lead one to safety.

The life of the present shapes the future, as the life in the body shapes the life beyond the body, no man has sunken lower than he who has given up and believes his life to be a nothing, who does not see a semblance of the hand of God in creation, who does not wake on a clear and sunny morning to aspire to know the reason why! The teacher of Ecclesiastes drinks and toasts his past, in lamentation, like a Roman diplomat, his idols are the figments of his knowledge, but his knowledge of facts, does not save him, from the poverty of thought that has left him in deep despair, to know the reason why! Life is relational and personal, not mechanical, not isolated in the stark vaults of some insular philosophical ideology, we see the abstract and the macro to be enigmatic and some see faith to be an anomaly, or anathema, but so many today live a utilitarian existence set on auto-pilot, happy to be the pieces of the chest board, on which others lead them across the entire spectrum of thought and livelihood.

Western man is consumed psychologically with his accessories, to all things utilitarian, mindful of the chattels and fixtures of the leisure society, we have inherited from our forebears. Man does not see the gaps and gulfs of the heart, nor view the panorama of wasteful, untouched ground in such gulfs, each society is carried by a rabid and stark political wind, and this present one in its delusional, utopian dream, of ironing out all human creases of difference (whether it be in morals, cultural differences or philosophical orientations) and to harness the energy of guilt and victimhood for the supreme control of all thought and free-speech into a violent twisting of facts.

In the narrative of life, I have heard the author’s voice, I have searched the book, from past to present and I see everyone’s name and life written into the pages of the book, each life is being developed into the ongoing story. The author’s voice spoke to me in the sublime moments of my story, when I had eyes to see the great expanses and see the threads of reason and meaning binding all together, I received the call, heard the narrative, became self aware of something truly beautiful and I have lived and walked through the hollow of the darkness in search of the light.

Unlike Diogenes the cynic, one does not walk through the day with the great intent of finding the lost “honest man” but one must become the honest man and must convert from the well-spring of loathing, from all that leaks from corrupting worldly hatred, of the dark hearted human being, into what is a resurrected light, a resurrected life, a soul- aware of its own hope and meaning. Courage, strength, beyond what previous strength was known to us, wisdom (stoked and stirred from the grand scheme of meaning, from the authors book and power) love, beyond our pride, gives way unto sacrifice for the growth of another life in its place, but all draws from meaning, from its book and from the source of God’s Power unfolding!

Upon riots and self righteous anger -Robert Fullarton 2017

Upon riots and self righteous anger
-Robert Fullarton 2017

With great weariness, with a weary heart, with a sentiment of great disillusionment, disgust, feeling alienation, anger and frustration do I look on the world. My how the world has become this playground of ideologies, of hateful politics that have spread in elongation out into other areas of the spectrum. I thank God that I can just go walk along the river and look at the wildlife, I can play music, and go outside the popular rhetoric or popular mainstream tirade that I hear day in and day out upon the airwaves of the melancholic and depressive media.

One becomes blue in the face, at the rigamarole of self-righteous declarations that one hears upon the airwaves or upon the news stations. Some great facade has been built upon looking good, but ignores the deep philosophical and spiritual questions and responsibilities that are fundamental to all ages and societies.

I agree with women's rights, and with women being treated with respect and fairness but my do I loathe it when former victims or groups use labels, use memories of our collective past to become the bullies and the tormentors.

Its very easy for a victim to become the oppressor, when one manipulates guilt to full capacity and in such you come full circle. I cannot stomach the sight of aggressive feminism turning militant, when reasonable debate, when reasonable discussion and restriction of pride is removed, we have sheer base anarchy and in fact this is the snapshot and the candid exposure of the hearts and minds of what men and women can do when they dont get what they want. Men will use whatever excuse they can to give right to brute force, to sheer hatred and violence and call it justice, or paint it to be democracy or paint it to be enlightenment, but the mobs that loot shop windows, that burn out cars and attack those who stand opposed, show's their true colours, as the very enemies both within and without that display what humans can and will do given sufficient means to do so.

Upon the collective guilt, let us state that 70 years of slow subtle, nuanced guilt has been advanced in time from the conservative democracies of Europe to the liberal government of the European Union. The difference been pre and post ww2 Europe is immense, it is like two different continents, two different planets in time. After many powers collapse the anarchic element of man comes out to play. When the tectonic plates move in earth shattering movements, the anarchic movements seek to come out from hence the tiniest thread between the divided earth. We have see this before, from after the 1815 congress of Vienna we had 30 years of revolution, coming hence from radical philosophies, from Hegel and Marx, what was once the form of man, the shape of society, had been dented and the certainty had been removed to the uncertainty of the monarchies, of ruling classes and state church. These revolutions were in full swing through the continental uprisings, demands and rebellions that spread throughout Europe in 1848.

I must add that the collapse of the 4 great European dynasties in 1919, Hohenzollern, Habsburg, Romanov and the House of Osman were suffice for the go-ahead to happen, where long sought utopias, were put into practice, where the cogs of the machine (the workers were the pawns for the intellectual emigrés of Russia) were the means by which the "prophets" of the new utopia could overthrow their rulers, with promises, with all the benefits of living, with ideological brotherhood and "peace". All who did not agree with the practical use and the repercussions of the "utopia" were to be crushed!

Of course this has been the result, in the tried and tested nightmares that came about, with the deaths of their adherents, it takes the whispers of such promises along with the twisting and repression of information for such to ignite in the hearts of the youth, whose militancy is not only alive in the islamic camps of ISIS, but alive in the destructive, McCarthyesque pursuits of the campus grounds of the western world (though these extremes are polar, they are both vitriolic, both intolerant of those who oppose them and are controlled and maintained upon the restriction of information). Youth in revolt, for what? What has been achieved and what is being achieved with all the yells and riots? I have seen such taboo and stigma over race and sex, where the ideologists demand to place more attention on what has already been known or been attended to.

They like to remind us who is a "white man" or "who is a black man" with negative connotations of course. There is a retrogressive trend to try and smelt one's tradition, to further weaken the beliefs and structures of state which our forebears were a part of. The witch hunts continue in this unfree world, where ideologists like to pretend that they are justified in their "righteous anger" against big-government, against establishment, and against those who have a different belief system to them, the bellicose, utter vitriolic bile that spews forth can be disturbing, with mob rule, mob mentality, mob force and so-called mob justice. Who are these so-called social justice warriors? So many feel good about themselves by judging others, upon "mighty" high horses of "social justice."

Why cant the rigamarole and the record player change over for once, why cant bleating social commentators talk about something different for a change, on gardening, on wildlife, Blues, music, on matters, that are deep and truly affecting, and take the labels off. If only we could deliver social justice to say the homeless, the elderly, the sick, those in the hospices and those suffering from the blight of mental health. Or fight the drugs epidemic of Dublin! Why cant some people just stop trying to change the world with their cries of victimhood, with their thought policing, with their utopian belief that we can all live together without differences and without the repercussions, not everyone believes in this system, and people need to accept that pie in the sky utopia does not work, because there are those who do not want this to come about, and more importantly will violently destroy it given enough power to do so. Of course the problem is made worse, with many illustrious figures having descended from their ivory towers to "moralise" and endorse their pie in the sky utopia.

Man in his vision for destruction, has created some truly awful nightmares and called such "progress."

I loathe politics and I just believe that the rigamarole and ideologue that is ongoing for both sides of the divide, can breed contempt for fellow man, and put people into camps of them and us! The thoughts and reality of loving one's enemies is a far cry from what we see these days in the world we live in. How I wish that I too could love my enemies, and my how I want to do so, but I know how wrong I can get things, my mistakes and how I know that I must change to be a more patient, more loving and less selfish individual, we initiate this in hearts and we do so by Faith in Jesus Christ. I have been inspired to write this partially by reading Dostoyevsky's Karamazov Brothers, but it was true in his day and is true in ours, that violent political reactionaries need to be changed in the heart first, and then the mind, as theirs is the deep rooted diagnosis of man's thirst for power. It is on the question of existence, who is to govern us and how do we live in turn. Christians believe that true governance is given by God and lived out in perfect love and the sacrifices of pride and weakness for strength to come again!!