Colonial

« You’re just a colonial, bloke. Without us, you’d be nobody. » said an English fellow. I was a Canadian living and working in England in the 70’s and was often mocked and bullied in this way. The English society was rigidly hieararchal.  My buddies, some working class blokes I’d met at the local pub were friendly and would always say ‘don’t mind him’ when someone would spout off .

This group I hung with were what might be termed ‘lower middle class’.  They commonly had some college education and office assistant level job.  They weren’t ‘posh’nor were they ‘common’.The rigid class system distinguished upper, middle and lower class. There didn’t seem to be much movement as position depended so much on your parents, their past, where you lived and the dialect of English you spoke. As a ‘colonial’ I was an ‘outsider’ , welcomed by some , disparaged by others. I was novel and appealing to a certain extent but if I crossed some secret law of class behaviour I was « corrected’.  « Bloody colonial. » 

I’d read some 80% or thereabouts of land in England was still owned  or controlled by some relative or ancestor of the Norman Conquerors of a thousand AD. 

Years later I was working as a doctor in a small town and this local woman approached me inviting me to a ‘party’ at her estate.  She said that ‘we’ve had a discussion about you and observed you this last year you’ve been here. We think you’d be a good addition to our social group. We’re all the right people and tend to make all the important decisions in the community together. You’d do well to join us, » she was rather pleased with herself.

I thanked her but stayed apart remembering how I’d  been rushed for several fraternities and remained aloof then too.. For a social person I’m really quite the loner. Today I most enjoy hanging out with my dog , going for walks and getting together with the girlfriend on weekends.  I have a few close friends and many acquaintances I hold fondly. I’m anxious to get close to people at my age. So many of my closest friends have died and divorces and betrayal has taken it’s toll on my trust and socialization. I feel rather raw perhaps as a nature of my work, sensitive to the ‘loudness’ of peoples emotions.  

I encounter people today who disparage me as a ‘radical’ politically but I’d characterize myself as middle of the road,  libertarian really. It’s ironic how those in their left or right bubbles believe they are in the middle.  It’s difficult being in a world where people argue constantly about two humped versus one humped camel. Frankly I don’t care much about camels.  

People often identify with the larger group to give their own meaningless insignificance value.  The family is brought into the tribe and the tribe the nation.  Now there’s the Globalist One World Order. They want everyone to identify with their latest totalitarianism.  I cringe.  So often I want to be left alone.  Often I feel even a bit paranoid as if  I’m targeted already by the Borg Like government burearocrat. If I don’t ‘conform’ I’m one of the  ‘enemy’.  

I  read Voltaire , « Patirotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings’.  Identification with the group and knowing right thing to say is fear and anxiety reducing.. 

There’s comfort and solace in being ‘in’ .  I so enjoyed reading Arendt on the ‘Banality of Evil’ after she’d seen the Nuremberg trials where everyone denied accounatability.  Robert Graves in the Golden Bough said that the choice of a king or chief was that he could be sacrificed while the group survived.  It’s like blaming the mind today as ‘he was of two minds’ and couldn’t focus whereas in the not so distant past it would be said ‘his heart wasn’t in it’.  I’m always reminded of my colleague who specialized in anal surgery. Asked why this rather than heart or brain or kidney, he replied, ‘I’ve done them all but when I could relieved a person’s constipation they were the happiest and most grateful. I get cards at Christmas from patients I saw 30 years ago ».  Not surprising we call people assholes when we’re not fond of them .

I must remember I’m loved by God and that first and foremost I must love what I am and have for so many people driving Honda’s wish they had Lamborghinie’s,  So many people poor wish to be rich.  There is never enough in this world.   reigns.The wise also warn that we should beware of what we wish for.

The Buddhist master describes the west as  suffering ‘spiritual consumerism’. It’s no surprise that addiction rules not just the gutter world but Wall Street and politics.

I’m reading David Baldacci’s the Calamity of Souls. It’s a story of a trial of a black man accused of killing white people in the south.  It’s set in the time of Rosa Parks.  

In the 70’s I eventually moved home to Canada.  I haven’t been called a ‘colonial’ in decades.  The feelings of shame have come and gone for other reasons.  Life is changing.  I still feel an outsider a lot. 

Shakespeare’s King Lear said, « So we’ll live, And pray, and sing, and tell old tales and laugh at gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues talk of court news , and we’ll talk with them too - Who loses and who wins who’s in who’s out - and take upon ‘s the mystery of things as if we were god’s spies,’