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| A cuddly dementor |
I
watched the news the other day. Big mistake.
All
the soul-sucking ghouls of fiction - the ring wraiths in the Lord of the Rings, the
dementors from Harry Potter - sound like cuddly bears in comparison to the real
life villains out there.
Why
are there so many people intent on blotting out all the happiness in the world? Can't
they be miserable, and hate women, and human rights, and music, and dancing and
generally squeeze the fun out of everything, one irrational rule at a time, in one SMALL area rather than strive for world domination?
And what exactly are we
supposed to do after we watch the news?
Hey everyone! We're going
to show you how unbearable life is for half of the population - and then you can
carry on with your lovely dinner!
I switched off the TV and noticed that my enthusiasm for life had promptly evaporated and I felt utterly powerless.
Social
media addict that I am, I reached out to Twitter for answers:
Do you a) watch the news and feel doom gloom and helpless to change anything or b) not watch, remain ignorant but happier?
— Emily Benet (@EmilyBenet) July 2, 2015
Everyone replied 'B'. I suspect the 'A's' were too depressed to tweet because they'd
just seen the news.
Even
with the telly off, you can't escape the evidence that, to put it lightly,
human beings are a plague on the earth. Not light enough? As you can
see, I'm really struggling to find my happy voice at the moment...
Yesterday
I took a snorkel to my local beach. On the surface it looks like paradise. What
I saw under the water, left me feeling sick. There was a cemetery of plastic -
bags, spoons, bottles, takeaway containers. I picked up a few pieces but I
couldn't bring myself to touch the adult nappy. It was just further proof that
we're completely disconnected from the planet we're living in and eventually
we're going to poison ourselves to death.
*Deep
breaths*
It
doesn't really sink in until you see it for yourself. I always think if there
was a live video of sweatshops when we went shopping, we wouldn't feel so happy
about bargain clothes. But out of sight, out of mind, I guess.
So,
how do we writers keep our stories upbeat when the stories around us are so flipping
depressing?
I don't
know! I'm hoping you lovely readers are going to give me some advice...
2 comments:
Your point about us being disconnected from our planet really struck a chord with me. We take our earth for granted and it may well catch up with us!
Thanks for reading and leaving a comment. It's so easy to get all doom and gloom though, isn't it?! There are a lot of people working hard to raise awareness of how we can live in better harmony with the planet and doing wonderful things. I guess we've just got to join them! I've started following groups on Facebook like https://www.facebook.com/twohandsproject which have inspired me to connect with my own area too - starting with little things like picking up rubbish from my local beach. I'm sure we can all do a bit more, starting with being more conscientious consumers!
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