There was only one song I could close with today - the one that makes me ponder the biggest questions of all, such as, "Well, how did I get here?", "Am I right, am I wrong?", "My God, what have I done?" and most importantly of all... why is there water at the bottom of the ocean?
King Cnut could not hold back the tide, and I cannot hold back society's full-throttle descent into dystopia. All I can do is watch helplessly from the sidelines, and nod my head sagely when others hold a mirror up to the madness.
Thinkin' all about those censored sequences
Worryin' about the consequences
Waiting until I come to my senses
Better put it all in present tenses
Little triggers that you pull with your tongue
Little triggers, I don't want to be hung up, strung up
Louise was very excited to hear that they had remastered / re-issued the original Tomb Raider games and that she would be able to play them on Sam's Nintendo. But not before she first had to contend with the Trigger Warning...
You'll find various people online debating / objecting to / agreeing with / traumatised by the insertion of this trigger warning into Lara Croft's original adventures. As someone who's not part of any of the minorities besmirched by their representation in said game, it's probably not my place to comment... so let's look to English Literature instead for our trigger warnings...
This production includes depictions of self-harm, graphic violence and references to suicide.
That's from a theatre production of King Lear, in case you were wondering.
Meanwhile, The Globe Theatre recently warned its audiences about a new production of Romeo & Juliet...
This production contains depictions of suicide, moments of violence, and references to drug use. It contains gunshot sound effects and the use of stage blood.
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this production of Romeo and Juliet please find details below of organisations offering advice and support.
A bunch of Tory politicians were soon up in arms about that, while world famous thespian Christopher Biggins chipped in, "It’s wokeness gone mad!"
Ralph Fiennes, Ian McKellen and Matt Smith have also taken umbrage at the trigger warnings many theatres have begun to inflict upon their audiences, though Ralph's response was a little more considered than Biggins...
"I think the impact of theatre should be that you’re shocked and you should be disturbed. I don’t think you should be prepared for these things and when I was young, (we) never had trigger warnings for shows.”
I find myself torn on this matter... and not just because if I do voice outrage at trigger warnings, I'll be joining the protest line alongside Tory MPs, Christopher Biggins and The Daily Mail. Just the very fact that those guys are in opposition makes me want to clutch trigger warnings to my bosom and welcome them with an open heart.
I teach English to young people who are suffering severe mental health problems... and yet they have to study the same texts as every other GCSE student in the country, including Macbeth (full of violence, murder, suicide and a gradual descent into madness for more than one character) and An Inspector Calls (a murder mystery which hinges around a character being driven to commit suicide by drinking bleach after she's been raped - arguably by more than one man - and castigated by society). Many of these issues are central to the experiences of some of the young people I teach... and yet, they do appear to be able to draw a line between the fiction they're studying and the reality they may have endured. Perhaps that's not always the case, and we treat every student on an individual basis depending on whether the medical professionals think they're ready to tackle such issues... but from everything I've been reading about mental health, hiding away from unpleasant issues only makes them worse. I'm not a psychiatrist and it's not my job to offer counselling... just to teach the texts. Still, it does make me wonder if trigger warnings might be doing more harm than good, shielding people from things they'd be better off confronting... if they ever want to come to terms with them.
Of course, there's a difference between trigger warnings for disturbing subject matter and trigger warnings for outdated attitudes. I don't have a problem reading Huckleberry Finn or To Kill A Mockingbird with a class, both of which contain frequent use of racial epithets that were common parlance at the time they were written. It's a good way of opening up a debate about language, racism and historic prejudice. It's even more important to teach these texts nowadays, and have those discussions, than ever before. If the publishers want to add a warning that the texts contain outdated attitudes "rooted in racial and ethnic prejudices", that's fine with me. Far better that than banning or editing said texts and pretending prejudice just didn't exist. Doesn't exist.
Having thought about it then, I completely agree with that trigger warning on Tomb Raider, as ridiculous and trivial as it might seem at first glance. Because when it comes to any kind of outdated attitude, I do believe it's important to "acknowledge its harmful impact and learn from it". And really, does that one screen affect your enjoyment of the game in any way? If it does, that probably says more about your own deep-rooted prejudices than it does about Tomb Raider.
To close on a lighter note, I did have to laugh when watching Die Hard again this Christmas past, noting that despite the gratuitous violence and liberal use of foul language (though interestingly, for an 80s film, no really outdated attitudes), the biggest warning to pop up on screen before hand was that by watching this film, we'd be subjected to the image of Bruce Willis smoking a cigarette! Different times indeed...
Warning: this blog contains many, many outdated attitudes. Usually involving popular music of the 80s that the cool kids have long since decided is rubbish... but I still love it anyway. That's my trigger warning, in case its needed.
History is made, not repeated And you hide behind words that make you feel needed And what you read in those books made you so conceited So in order for love to be true My dreams will have to Become my only rules
I want a warning I want a warning I want something more than a warning
Wake me up on into a world outdated And the older you get the more you seem jaded As you search for the quotes to make it seem complicated So in order for love to be true Even my nightmares Become my only rules
I want a warning I want a warning I want something more than a warning
Those of you who have been subjecting yourself to this nonsense for far too long will recall that during lockdown, one of the things that really helped me through was the conversations I had via Whatsapp with my former colleague and good friend, Ben. I shared many of those conversations here, as I felt they might on occasion prove entertaining to others, and also because it saved me having to come up with an idea for a post that day. I don't share our conversations so much anymore, not because Ben and I aren't still communicating, but because mostly we just talk about stuff that won't be of much interest to you guys. However, I wanted to share the following chat because it gave this series - and my "journey" (I hate using that word in this context) "of discovery" (ditto) regarding my mental health - a real direction. And it sets up some of the things I'll be talking about in future posts...
I tend to have a few mantras now. Not the shitty religious or spiritualist foo foo ones, but something a bit more grounded.
And then there's the questions and the senses stuff. They really help.
Explain?
Questioning the logic behind thoughts when you spiral. My doc told me to get this book about anxiety and mental health. Not a woowoo book but by a scientist that kind of explains and outlines that actually your brain is a monkey organ that is essentially forced to learn to function in a developed society so it's more about biological survival urges that are misunderstanding what it's being presented with.
So questions like "is what you think is happening, happening?" Or "is there any evidence to support that thought?". And the senses stuff is the non woo woo and more psychological version of mindfulness which is meant to just calm and relax you in the moment but with no snake oil of improving your whole life. When feeling overwhelmed by anything, you sit and spend ten to thirty seconds on all your senses, just mentally describing their sensation. The key is to not explain the sensations, just describe them. Say you start with your taste, maybe it's a bit iron-ish because you've got an ulcer, or you can taste your coffee from earlier still and still some sweetness from a bit of bread stuck in your tooth slowly turning its carbohydrates into sugar. Then touch. What's the chair you're sat in feel like? What's the back support? Maybe one point is sticking into you and it's got leather on the seat that feels cooler on your body than the rest of the chair. Can you feel the lanyard hanging off your neck, how's the top you have on? Then go through the other senses. The whole point is to completely take you away from thoughts running away and just rooting you in a material reality. Really helpful.
There were a few books but two of the main ones were Unfuck Your Brain by Faith Harper and Don't Feed The Monkey Mind by Jennifer Shannon.
Thanks. I'll look into those.
What you describe is kind of the process I've adopted, in a ramshackle, amateurish fashion. But I've become interested in the subject (not the rainbows and unicorns side of it) and have started reading up when I get the opportunity. Trying to find the way to approach it while still maintaining my essential cynical bastard side.
I think there's a lot of spiritual bullshit and business focussed books on the matter and poor support. But those books are what my GP told me to read as, in his words, "look, you're a scientist, so self help bullshit won't work, you need to really understand what's happening in your brain". And the techniques, I think, work particularly well and it's not offering snake oil promises of cures but rather they're intended to help in the moment when you need it.
I'm not a scientist, but I have the same reaction to self hell BS, so this is appreciated. I've started a thing on my blog called Self Help for Cynics in which I try to sift through the dross and find usable nuggets. With extra help from songwriters. Writing has always been a help, as is music, so I'm combining them all.
There's so much of it that preys on selling bullshit and something for people to believe in. I just want to understand it and have coping mechanisms, which is all science can handle.
And I know it's kind of hard to break out of the men have to keep it together thing, but you know I'm about.
Cheers. Never really been one of those types anyway.
I gather, with your love for Morrissey and pop in general.
But still. You've got a millennial friend. We're much more open to talk about these things. I know the acerbic wit is our basis, but I like you alive and well.
Appreciate that, but I'm not about to top myself. Just want to get through the week without ping-ponging between anxiety, rage and other emotions I can't find the right words for because it's very late.
I'm not saying you are, but more so I mean life, when in the depths can be colourless and you become a shell of a person... but I prefer the acerbic wit and humour of you not in that position and the negative impact that has on life.
Now for a put-down to equalise our friendship: Morrissey is a wanker.
Hardly a point of contention these days. And yet...
Don't worry if you Drew a blank yesterday, here are the answers to our special 200th Anniversary edition of Saturday Snapshots. All the song titles were taken (or adapted) as band names by other artists...
