Rant of the Weekend

Last Night I started to watch the film version of 'Till death us do part' .. I'd only intended to watch a couple of minutes but actually got into it and taped the rest which I watched today. At the time, there was a lot of debate about having a racist portrayed on TV, but so many people missed the point that he was in fact a bigoted old fool, albeit at times, maybe, an endearing one.

The thing for me in the film though was the times it was set in i.e. late 60s and early 70s. Now there has been a lot written about these times and often glamourised. I was a bit of a punk in the late seventies and I guess being a nihilistic 'yoof', I took a certain amount of pleasure in the grimness of the times. But watching it last night, it occurred to me that the one thing we definitely seem to have lost in the meantime, is the ability to stand up for ourselves and not be walked all over.

Yes, at times there were serious inconveniences with the three day week, strikes etc, but now, people seem to accept the overwhelming power of corporations .. many of whom have more money than some countries. Sure, there are groups such as anti globalisation groups opposing this but taking the general public as a whole, they seem to meekly accept it. It reminds me of A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley where people were fed Soma to keep them happy and ignorant, and it seems to me that today’s Soma is consumerism and celebrity idolisation.

How does this relate to Buddhism? Well.. isn't it just an extension of 'never seek the gohonzon outside yourself'. In a way this means never seek happiness outside yourself which is exactly what many of us do, as can be seen by the ever rising debt problem in this country. We want and want and want and are never satisfied.

On a personal level, it really bugs me when people moan about the NHS or Public Transport being crap, but when you point out that it needn't be if people paid more tax, they go up in arms, but this is what society is isn't it .. a shared environment which we all have to contribute to as well as taking from. But no, people won't pay another £100 a year or whatever for a decent health system/public transport etc but they'll fork out much more than that for a digital flat screen TV or some other gimmick, which whilst nice, isn't exactly essential.

So ... how are we to stop this planet self destructing if greed overcomes us all ? I guess the answer is that we can't UNLESS we all change our attitudes and priorities and look for happiness within ourselves and not outwardly.

And I really can't remember where Alf Garnett came into this ... but cheers anyway Alf :-)