WHERE DO WE EVEN BEGIN?

Sofia Bajerova

Ileft the tube station, aggressively double clicking the side of my phone to ensure that Apple Pay, custodian of my Monzo card, was ready to do its job before I subjected myself to the stares of the people behind, not so secretly shouting obscenities at me in their heads, I am sure of it. I went through the two wings without a hitch, unlike a gentleman who had a less lucky experience, and as a result, for a brief few minutes, our lives intersected. Dressed in a blue suit with a carefully placed Prostate Cancer UK badge attached at the lapel, he strolled through the station with a wide stance, and an increasing rhetoric of disappointment. Without remembering his exact words, he claimed he was shocked and dismayed at the state of the country, that was in his mind, in decline without question, leaving him feeling ashamed and quite clearly, particularly vocal. His bold statements filled the exit tunnels, turning heads, turning eyes in their sockets, and turning cogs in my brain trying to think of the right thing to respond to this complete stranger clearly wanting to engage in some sort of a rant. The best I could do at the time was, acknowledge his statements, nod a little, put on an attempt at a soothing smile and agree that things were seeming particularly glum, it was a Monday after all. As we went our separate ways, I wondered how long he would stay angry. Was that it? His big grand stand against the system, a rushed, incoherent rant to the whole of ten people in a tube station on a Monday evening. I wondered if he went home and caught a second wind, perhaps venting to a partner or a child or a pet. I won- dered if it would keep him up that night, the state of the world bothering him as news of more horrific things probably troubled his phone screen to add insult to injury. Most of all, I wondered if he would go as far as to try to do anything about it.

I recently read an article that reframed several statistics and claimed that if we look at it from a different perspective, 2023 and the future in general, cannot possibly be as bad as everyone is making it out to be. Deep breath out I thought, the statistics made sense, it was a matter of perspective and this perspective really made the view a lot more palatable. Realising, things now seemed a little better than I thought, the anger and concern dissipated and I just went about my day. After my brief encounter with the man at the tube station, I questioned whether this article really did me any good. It subdued me, calmed me down and allowed me to go on with my life. Paired with the numbness I now feel when reading the news, completely unsurprised by mass shootings, natural disasters and political nightmares, as the BBC banners fly in, I wonder if there could possibly be anything that surprises me anymore. I remember watching the news religiously when Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine began, heart racing when notifications flew in and slowly over time, without me really noticing, my fight or flight was unmoved. Have I adapted to tragedy? If I have, it begs the question, is this really a survival tactic or is it what is actually killing us all, planet included?

I am sure that publicly venting made that man feel a little bit better as he looked for comfort in the reassurance of strangers that his verdict was correct. Just like clapping for the NHS made millions feel better during the pandemic. Donating a fiver, posting a black square on instagram. Those things, so easy to do, pain reducing, comfort inducing acts, all feeds that want for change, the passion to make things better and subdue anger, after which we return to our lives as usual and wait for the next thing that shocks us to spur us into a split second of simple action. But what about doing something more, something bigger, bolder, more successful? What is it that stops us?

Perhaps it is a fear of failure. I recall friends and stories of perfect strangers who have risked everything to fight for a worthy cause and have failed, unlike the heroes in my childhood storybooks. The fact that in this world evil can triumph, no matter how much we believe that good will out in the end, can be rather off putting and demotivating to say the least. If not fear of failure then perhaps the confusion and complexity. Those simple acts we all do are not out of laziness but because they are things we can do. Things we can do without major disruption to our schedules, bank accounts, and personal lives. Perhaps it is not heroic or particularly changemaking, but it is feasible and sometimes feasible has to be enough, for the normal working person at least. So are we just stuck in a world that pans out nothing like the storybooks told us, buying into the ideas that those that came before us penned as fantasies to escape their own tragic realities playing out before them, with no real chance? Or do we all need an awakening, the right thing to make us angry enough and passionate enough, for long enough, and the stamina to pursue that battle? Where do we even begin?

Perhaps this is all the case but there must also be another truly bold act to be discussed. The act of pursu- ing happiness in and amongst all the chaos and the pain. The joy felt when seeing a loved one smile, when seeing something funny happen on the street. The happiness that the man on the tube might have inspired by wearing his pin in support of a charity that may have impacted the lives of several commuters he encountered on his journey. The bold choice to continue to find a way to smile on a gloomy day when the world seems to be falling apart in all comprehensible ways. Perhaps that is how we realise that there is still a lot left to fight for, that there is hope, and that’s where we begin.