1st Photography post..

There is light at the end of the tunnel..

Chomsky and Hiphop..

''Consumption distracts people. You cannot control your own population by force, but it can be distracted by consumption. The business press has been quite explicit about this goal.'' Noam Chomsky
via Dedroidify

I have plunged myself right into the deep end of the spectrum (if a spectrum has a deep end?) with Noam Chomsky's 'Hopes and Prospects' which is a truly eye-opening read, albeit a bit hard to digest at my level of world political knowledge and its vocabulary, etc. But I am getting through it...slowly. It really does bring to light many of the aspects that are wrong with the world we live in.

This brings me onto another point...the fact that when you enter the world of 'esotericism' and suchlike, when you find out that the world isn't a happy jolly place where everybody lives happily side by side, slurping coke's, surfing facebook from their iPad (they've even got me doing that fucking capital P!) and eating a McDonalds, it is easy to get overwhelmed by it, I know I sure did, and still do find myself in this situation.

One of my friends, who partly got me into this alternative mode of thinking and looking at the world around me said that 'We all have keep our positive energy because their negativity will run you down'. Or something along those lines... and I think it is very true. Its so easy to think that because the world is so messed up, and it is messed up, that there is no point in trying to do anything about it. What is crucial to remember, I think, is that, yes you may seem insignificant, but even just knowing about something on a scale that big is a positive thing. Then its just about doing what you can in whatever way you can, in my case I tried to start a blog with the hope people might read it, tell their friends and perhaps gain a slightly better understand of whats really going on.

Referring back to one of my favourite musical artists; Akala. He states on his album 'DoubleThink' that 'every empire on this Earth has fallen'. This is a statement of great importance, to both the 'elite' and everybody else, as it holds the key to events that a substantial amount of people believe will happen this very calendar year...

Words to live by

Knowledge is endless, life is limited.
To persue the endless with the limited is dangerous.

Reasons for travelling...

So, one of my potential Helpx hosts got in touch yesterday, albeit only with a brief email, asking for dates...I don't know if anyone else notices this, but whenever I send an e-mail I tend to elaborate on things, I like to think that it makes things clearer and you get a sense of at least trying to form some conversation. However, in reply I often recieve blunt email, consisting of no more than a few words...

Overanalyzing? Maybe but still...is it that hard to write a few lines regarding the questions asked?

Anyway, I am now waiting to hear from a guy who was advertising a lift down to Spain/Portugal, and once that is confirmed and I know I have somewhere to volunteer, I shall be gone. On a boring (but possibly life-saving) note, the AA quoted me 6 months travel insurance for £108. Seems reasonable to me.

So now for the local issues...I shall try to find a video of the local news that I was watching last night, which was based on the Occupy Wall Street protests outside the cathedral in Sheffield, UK. In this interview, the protestors were not only being dealt eviction notices but the cathedral was also seeking compensation for loss of funds, I believe the sum was for £8000, which if it goes ahead would be paid by 14 indivuduals. Very Reverend Peter Bradley said in the interview, that he had 'no choice' but seek compensation and that “There’s a broad consensus that it’s time for this protest to end.”

Which made me think, although I do not know too much about religion, that a Cathedral is a place of 'God'... and surely if 'God' was watching this scenario unfold, He would understand that the people campaigning outside the cathedral are there for beneficial reasons concerning the rest of the population here on our planet.

I also fail to see how the protestors have managed to financially damage the cathedral to such an extent. Seriously, have that many people not donated to the cathedral? Perhaps it is because they cannot reach the entrance due to the abundance of tents? Somehow I don't think so.

On the point of the Occupy protest, I think the idea is great, of course it is, I myself have often thought what could be done to try and gain some sort of foothold in the ludicrous, money-grabbing world that we live in...it seems the church has now joined in this gameplay. However the way the media portray the protestors, to the general public is something I find slightly unnerving. They are shown to be desperate people; the minority, the 'wierdos outside the cathedral'. Without these kind of people who are willing to actually take a stand for something that truly needs changing, nothing would ever be achieved. Just because most people can read this comfortably from their high speed broadband laptop and watch the local news on their lovely 32" hd tv...doesn't mean that something isn't wrong with the world today.
Happy to just live a boring, unfulfilled life, with the occasional weekend excursion for some 'excitement'. This is just one of the reasons I wish to escape the everyday life of urban English living. To experience solitude and tranquility without the interference of any kind of media.

'The educated can't be held down' - Akala

Getting behind

As I knew I would, I've got very far behind on my blog, this is partly due to my lazyness and partly because I got a job working nights in a warehouse in order to fund some travels this summer.

I have been working there for just over a month I reckon now but have had to have nearly two weeks off because of back and stomach problems, was told that I wasnt eligible for statutory sick pay, but I believe I should be after over 10 days off.

The plan is to save as much as possible, however this will not mean I will have a lot of money for my travels, as about £2000 looks like the limit I will reach. I have joined www.helpx.net and have wrote to two hosts, one in Asturias, northern Spain and one in Andalucia. Both look spectacular, and as I have visited these regions before I know of their natural beauty, albeit it in different ways.

I am trying to convince a Swedish friend to meet me in Amsterdam sometime between February and the end of March, then to try and hitchhike down to one of these two locations. I have also written to a 'travel companion' request on helpx, from a guy driving down to Spain/Portugal in a VW camper, which would make for a grand experience.

Having been contemplating life and whilst being ill and sleep deprived, I have come to the conclusion that it is not satisfactory to merely spend my days slaving away in an awful warehouse full of criminals and other such peoples, and although I count myself lucky to have acquired a job, it is not the life for me. 2 weeks in a place such as that, taught me that I must get away and live a more fulfilled life. It seems peculiar that from one nights wage in the warehouse, even though it is almost half of what the other employees recieve (I am working through an agency), I should be able to live a comfortable week in the wild regions of Spain. This is mainly because of the arrangement of working for food and lodging, but to me working on a mountain simply does not seem like work, for the beauty of the place and the fulfilment of the tasks, lead the mind away from the fact it is an exchange of labour.

I shall try to update on a more regular basis from now on.