SPECIAL ISSUE
Notes from a small window Content for this issue includes:
tirades, complaints, arguments, the merits of being obsessed with fantastical television sagas , and an all-round discussion of how confusing life is in general.
CONTENTS p2) POLITICS: Will Trump Triumph and be the One to Rule them All?
P5) FEATURE: Why is ‘thin’ still ‘in’? p5) FEATURE: Why is ‘thin’ still ‘in’? V
p9) ENTERTAINMENT: Nostalgia from the Who-niverse
p12) FEATURE: Does ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ mean ‘Shut Up and Keep your Head Down’?
p15) Take a Break: REVIEW: 11 years of Supernatural in 350 words
p17) BRAIN-WORK: Are you monochromatic or kaleidoscopic?
1
POLITICS
ALERT: What would it be like if Trump ruled America? I’m sure many of you have asked yourself the same question, with just as much dread as I have. I had honestly presumed that surely somebody would have hit him in the face with his own trumpet by now. His ignorance staggers me daily.
‘Those wives went home to watch their husbands knock down the world trade centre – I would certainly go after the wives who absolutely know what’s happening…the definition of what I would do I will leave to your imagination.’ This threatening open-endedness only further emphasises the repressed rage and violence that guides Trump’s questionable morality and goals. It further solidifies his place of power by reminding that he is capable of far more than he says; considering the amount of controversy he does come out with; including declarations that he will make America, ‘so big so powerful, so strong, that absolutely nobody is gonna mess with us,’ then what he omits to say must be even more threatening. Considering he even refuses to answer after the abortion debacle about the extent of his views towards women who choose to abort, only shortly stating that he views abortion as murder.
“There has to be some form of punishment.” (Trump on: Women who seek abortions.) He later retracted this, only because there was a sudden media outburst of glee that Trump might finally have gone too far and have lost it; that was but a few short weeks ago. Is he serious? Unfortunately I can no longer refute it. How do you define a ‘good guy’? ‘ “The good guys, if they want to, they should have guns.” He defines himself as a good guy. If that is what the definition entails, someone who is all for literally unspeakable/unutterable violence against oppressed wives forced into terrorist marriages, then the definition of a ‘good guy’ needs some serious re-evaluation.
The full extent of his bias must really be bad if he chooses not to say something, considering his inclination towards deriding political correctness, and his rejection of respectfulness towards otherness. He refuses to fully detail the extent of the despotism he would show towards entrapped and victimised women were he given free rein. He further shows how he appeals to public preoccupations – he didn’t want to go ‘too far’ again and cause more sparks of outrage that could affect his plot. 2
POLITICS
Sorry, his presidential campaign. We need to take those who exhibit such outdated sexism, racism, and violent undercurrents seriously, not play them off as buffoons.
‘We have to stop terrorism. The way is through their families….I’m gonna bomb the shit out of them. I don’t care.’ ‘What’s too far?’ He demands; ‘Why wouldn’t they report it to the police?’ He fails to understand anything about the realities of female oppression and abuse, the total encompassing fear and pain of both the mental and physical kind that they are subjected to. He completely ignores the realities of the violent and abusive repression of women in countries that are nothing like America.
Trump: ‘I understand the whole world.’ Oh, clearly, not that you’re part of the miniscule class living in an unreal world of depthless privilege and wealth. He takes America as the world – in reality it makes up a very small portion of it. His casual racism emphasises his delusions of grandeur and supremacy over other races and nations. And genders.
When I heard that he had proactively expressed his desire to build an actual wall, closing off America to from Mexico, I genuinely thought it wasn’t true, that it couldn’t possibly be true that someone in a positon of such power and favour had publicly endorsed that idea.
‘Nobody builds walls better than me, believe me.’ Why on earth did ex-Mexican president Vincente Fox feel the need to apologise for reacting with understandable outrage?
Trump on Mexicans: ‘They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime; they’re rapists.’ It was the first time that I truly realised why Trump was being aligned with Hitler. The normalisation of such perspectives is abhorrent and petrifyingly perilous. ‘Everybody wants to be politically correct and that’s part of the problem that we have.’ These are dangerous, ignoring, self-glorifying, misogynistic views that show no intuition as to how the world really functions, and the dangers and horror that ordinary people face every day. Not everyone has a tower with their name on it in big flashing lights and enough money to fill a swimming pool. Not everyone is treated with the admiration he seems to feel he is entitled to, when the reality is quite obviously that people are attracted to money, wealth and glamour. All you have to do to see that is open a magazine or turn on the television. Or look out of the window at any poster pasted over environmental or charity oriented posters, of course. After all, “we can’t
afford to be nice, folks.”
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POLITICS
Evidently why he desires a “complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the USA, including Muslim-Americans currently abroad, American citizens. "Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on." — Trump's campaign in a December statement.
depicting them as solely using and manipulating ‘poor, unsuspecting’, entrapped men. He has also, as is common knowledge, made disturbing remarks concerning his own daughter.
When considered as a whole, the principles of this man are more than just a little disturbing.
He has been constantly racist and sexist, frequently resorting to insulting women’s looks, as a part of his campaign, even. He only backtracks his statements when he loses favour. He plays to public fears, hysterias and represents the misogynistic, divided and segregated past, rather than looking to the future. ‘I would bring back waterboarding and
I would bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.’ His definition of America’s greatness is firmly rooted in its history of oppression. ‘26,000 unreported sexual assaults in the military – only 238 convictions. What did these geniuses expect when they put men and women together?’ (via @realDonaldTrump – Twitter)
This is from an ever more terrifyingly likely candidate for the presidency of the land of the free. Which says all you need to know about what people consider to be ‘freedom’ these days. How can he be seen as a morally acceptable or viable leader? He stirs up anger, inspires intolerance, encourages division and violence, and normalises sexism and racism. Like many others, I am completely and utterly lost as to how America can go from electing someone like Obama to someone like Trump. I couldn’t believe that he would get this far; I was sure America would wake up and see sense. ‘Staying shocked…is hard…it is also absolutely necessary.’
Enough said. In his 1997 book, Trump: The Art of the Comeback, He also kindly takes the time to segregate women into three despotic categories, describing them as ‘calculating’ and ‘advantage-taking’ and 4
FEATURE
WHY IS THIN STILL IN? A woman drops from size 22 to size 8 in 2 years after quitting sugar, obsessive punishing exercise and ordering glorified ‘health foods’ from an exorbitant website instead of eating cheap and natural foods. To what extent is this article a promotion story for this website and product? To what extent is this a glorification of dangerous obsessions? To what extent do ‘health foods’ extort the unwitting and desperate? So many questions, not so little time, but nobody wants to talk about it. We would rather contribute to these unnervingly borderline unhealthy obsessions to validate our own societally ingrained anxieties.
Why is this news? Unhealthily rapid and drastic weight loss is being encouraged through a multitude of similar articles, constantly created to encourage and glorify weight loss and promote joy and desire towards the idea of ‘throwing away those size 22 dresses’. We live in a hyperaware society, constantly documenting ourselves, our images, constantly comparing ourselves to often edited personalities and airbrushed images.
We emulate the impossible and are exposed wherever we click, wherever we look, to countless stories and info-graphs that happily reinforce the necessity of obsessing over appearance and the number on the scale. This glorification of self-obsession and encouragement to bend all our thoughts on achieving a biased, misogynistic, superficial outward appearance is only contributing to the disturbing and ignored rise of mental health issues, and not just in teenagers. She admirably changed her life to avoid a multitude of health problems that are naturally consequential of obesity and surviving solely on processed and junk food. But the mind-set is dangerous to glorify. Despite her real motivations, to avoid illness and the mentioned diabetes of her father, her extreme methods and the fact that they are being admired and praised in the news is not only triggering to eating disorder sufferers, but also exhibiting the same obsessive and life threatening behaviours that are drilled into them later by professionals as abnormal, unhealthily, and quite often, ‘mad’. It is encouraging them for their own sake, for the rapid changes achieved, rather than sending the necessary warning about extreme dieting that more and more people could do with hearing.
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FEATURE
This mind-set is dangerous and should not be publicised, particularly when it is so petrifyingly prevalent regardless of where we turn.
We are being told to focus on our external appearance to the abandonment of everything else.
It didn’t have to be emphasised that she dropped to one of the lowest clothing sizes, and it didn’t have to reinforce that relief and joy should be felt at the prospect of throwing away plus sized clothing.
This woman’s life is clearly devoted to it, from ordering overly priced ‘health foods’ to rigorous daily over-exercise, for the purpose of losing weight, not for the purpose of being healthy in itself.
Why do we still, today, have a tendency to glorify unhealthy obsessions, when we are constantly, contradictorily bombarded with the message that obsessions are self-destructive?
That her approaching wedding day was the motivation that initiated her weight loss obsession, not the danger of obesity and constant junk food to her health, only further clarifies the misogynistic origins of the idealisation of weight loss for attractiveness.
You don’t have to be underweight to have an eating disorder.
The message is being sent that to be loved, to be beautiful, you have to be thin. Wishing to be somebody else, to appear as somebody else, to obsessively exercise for that sole reason, to change your entire life, is symptomatic of the discontent that society’s ideals instil into our minds.
Even though this is relatively common knowledge, it is still surprising how much it is seemingly ignored. Encouraging eating disorders, already rife and yet still taboo, ignored and looked at with bemusement, indifference, and often scorn. Eating disorders take both an extreme amount of self-control, and paradoxically a complete loss of control, spiralling into an obsession that rules the individual with an iron fist.
In a disturbingly large and cancerously consumptive, ever-expanding corner of the internet, there are girls who are the furthest from even approaching ‘chubbiness’, openly epitomising the effects of being perceived through the distorted visions of societies worldwide that are clearly fitted with lenses that distort appearances; this devolution and disintegration of vision is a worldwide taboo. Fitspiration is the new ‘thinspiration’; it is just a more socially acceptable and sly way of exalting the same unhealthy and self-destructive ideals that contemporary male-dominated society has brainwashed many individuals of both genders to define themselves and rule their lives by.
Losing this much weight this quickly and turning her entire lifestyle upside down for so long with the same goal, of losing weight, in mind shows how obsessive restriction and selfcontrol are once again being posited as the ideal way to be. 6
FEATURE
As Harriet Williamson perfectly encapsulated this problem:
“This is what makes the concept of ‘fitspiration’ so potentially damaging, because it aligns itself with good health and the positive benefits of exercise whilst still fetishising thinness and promoting body dissatisfaction.” The woman in this article encourages entirely quitting sugar. The effects of doing this coldturkey have been scientifically discouraged, yet obviously not publicised enough. The effects on the body of quitting sugar, especially after a large and constant intake, would be horrendous. So is suddenly changing your diet in any way, let alone to the extent that comes with extreme restriction. From experience, and a multitude of articles comparing the effects to drug withdrawal, I know full well that she would have felt horrific for a good long while. This article documents the effects. I also noticed that it deliberately promotes the same mind-set of self-harm that is being publicised here:
‘You know what they say – No pain, no gain!’ Once again, we are being informed to hurt ourselves, inflict ‘pain’ upon ourselves, in order to achieve society’s standards of ‘beauty’. Of course, this could not be mentioned, as it would not be endorsing her life-consuming quest towards unrealistic and unhealthy standards of ‘beauty’. ‘I feel so much better in myself and love my new look.’ - Meaning: ‘I felt so much better in myself because of my new look.’
Extreme weight loss to one of the smallest clothing sizes for the benefit of idealised wedding photographs would then not be promoted, a main goal of the media. Since as this article only further serves to reify, external manifestations of beauty are all that matter. I suppose it just astounds me every so often how people can be ignorant to why people develop eating disorders. ‘News’ of this kind should be celebrated personally, no doubt, she has escaped health problems due to her previous eating habits, and obviously the mention of her father’s diabetes evokes the sympathy of readers and makes her motivations seem clear. But I disagree, clearly her motivations are for the sake of appearance and a fairy-tale wedding and the presumption that thinness equates to happiness. It doesn’t help that this makes this saga a classic ‘rags’ to ‘riches’ story, aligning riches with, again, thinness. I don’t think ‘riches’ should be aligned with skinniness, and it should not be publicised to be cited as an example of willpower and dedication, when really an image depicting the consequences of willpower and dedication should probably instead be of a 5 stone anorexia victim surviving on an NG tube and not being allowed to get out of bed, or the bulimia victim with a torn oesophagus unable to speak or move. Those are the consequences of obsessive selfrestriction and constant over exercise, when they go too far. But it is these behaviours that are being idealised and encouraged, through articles such as this, whether they are deliberately manifested or not, those are the messages cutting straight to the hearts of the staggering 90% of teenagers in the UK who are dissatisfied and unhappy due to their appearance.
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FEATURE
Perhaps if news remained news and showed some small degree of sensitivity, the massive mental health statistics would be less horrifying. Perhaps gender equality and gendered preoccupations would be less encouraged and therefore less prevalent.
Don’t let your life be overcome with self-hatred, hatred of your body. You are more than your body. The mirror lies to everybody, I promise.
Since mental health treatment cuts are also continuing and worsening, it is even more terrifying that the societal messages that further manipulate those descending into these illnesses, stand even less of a chance of help than the crumb they may have been offered before. Eat what you want to eat in moderation. Care for yourself. Prioritise your internal health, your organs, your heart, your blood. Not your face. Not your thighs. Not your stomach, sucking it in to see your ribs. Don’t punish yourself. Weight loss to save your health and weight loss for aesthetics are very different, and it is the aesthetics that are being encouraged by the media every day.
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ENTERTAINMENT
24 Little Things that
Doctor Who Has Taught Us Despite its divergence from what is generally considered to be ‘reality’, The Doctor still imparts some life-lessons applicable to most of us. Most of the time.
necessity. Having a home to go back to should be appreciated. Although really, if I had a Tardis, I’d be pretty down with that being my permanent and only home.
1) Rule 1: Don't wander off.
5) Everybody makes mistakes. Even if you are a Time Lord and are almost immortal and can traverse time and space with a snap of your fingers. And providing your time machine is in a good mood. 6) Everyone can be selfish. But it doesn’t make you a bad person. 7) Rule 7: Never run when you're scared.
Especially when you’re drunk. You may make a night-long friend in the girl’s toilets but you may also get lost and/or end up in a bush. 2) We are many different people throughout our lives, even if we don’t always realise it, and often we do. But change is necessary for survival. And it doesn’t mean we entirely lose the person that we used to be.
Face your fears. Running away just makes them stalk you for 50-900 years.
8) The most unlikely friendships can form.
3) To appreciate having a home to go back to 4) Savouring the moment of arriving in a new place. Savouring experiencing new places. The freedom to go out and explore is a privilege. Many never cross the borders of their own country. Many Syrians only flee Syria out of
Don’t take them for granted. You will only regret it.
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ENTERTAINMENT
9) Tell someone how you feel about them, or you may never get the chance. Do it today, not tomorrow.
16) Do everything The Doctor tells you. (Although I suppose we should probably listen to the medical ‘professionals’ as well. Even when they don’t really know what they’re talking about.) Because: 17) The Doctor(s) can be wrong. We can challenge them, ask them, because sadly not enough time is allotted to them for enough time, attention and consideration to be paid to their patients. Even if sadly they sometimes refuse to listen, try anyway.
10) Enthusiasm for history. The Doctor’s enthusiasm is always infectious.
18) If you don’t have family, it is possible to find another one.
11) Don’t care about what people around you think of you.
19) To never give up. Even if it won’t mean the end of the world. Maybe you’ll at least get some satisfaction for having tried and failed than having done nothing at all. Even The Doctor can’t always save everyone. You have to take care of yourself, too.
Be enthusiastic whether you think other people will scorn you for it or not. Hiding it means you will feel ashamed for no reason and won’t get to enjoy the experience of something you care about or love. And the chances are there are people hiding exactly the same thing. 12) You are capable of far more than you may ever realise. 13) Love unconditionally. A cliché, but still rarely applied, so always a necessary reminder.
20) Be as big a hugger as you can be. Be affectionate if you have the confidence and capacity. Sometimes people (like me) may automatically react with terror, but a surprisingly large number may often also secretly appreciate it. And still more will probably solely be appreciative. It’s okay not to be a hugger too. And to be socially awkward.
14) The Doctor has also helpfully informed us of the answer to the mystery of time: Rule 408: You should always waste time when you don't have any. Time is not the boss of you.
15) Don’t ask stupid questions. 10
ENTERTAINMENT
21) Okay, Rule 27: Never knowingly be serious.
heart-breaking moments and storylines that have served countless times to remind me to appreciate the little things, to not take time, or people, for granted.
22) Normal is boring. Wear what you want. Wear a bowtie, a fez, a rainbow scarf. 23) DON’T BLINK.
INSPIRATIONAL PEOPLE
Angel statues are evil. If you take your eyes off them for even a millisecond, they may transport you back in time and you will grow old in the past, alone. (You may have needed to actually see the show to get this one. You will also need the same supplies as those you would personally require to make it through a horror movie. If you’re the most brazen and thick-skinned of them all, this episode may still make you jump.)
Omaima Hoshan is 15 years old. She is campaigning against underage enforced child marriage. From the middle of the Za’atari Refugee Camp in Jordan.
(It didn’t help that they used a shot of an angel from near my home to further instil fear in me.) 24) Sometimes people won’t like you for no reason at all. Obsessing over it and hating yourself for it won’t change their minds. People are irrational. So am I.
READ HER BRAVE STORY HERE.
In short, despite its removal from humdrum reality, Doctor Who genuinely has some 11
FEATURE
A Dangerous message? What Does ‘Keep Calm and Carry on’ mean to us today?
accompanying the phrase surreptitiously reinforces nationalism and is an unconscious reminder of the higher social status and exclusion from liability that includes monarchies and governmental ‘leaders’.
I don’t believe that ‘Keep calm and Carry on’ is now just a wry British cliché, or the wartime encouragement it was designed to be. It has been negatively appropriated to encapsulate an excuse as to why we turn our backs on those in need, build walls instead of breaking them down, and hide our heads in the sand. The poor, the desperate and the disadvantaged are still exploited and slavery still exists in all of its incarnations. We use what little power we have to destroy our world, bit by bit. Geologically, environmentally and socially, we are divided and irreparably damaged. We are draining the oceans, the resources we are fortunate to have. The damage we are inflicting is leading to it striking back, rising up and smiting us in vindication and justification. Yet we carry on and pretend it isn’t happening. It is a phrase that is used to encourage emotional detachment and ignorance of reality. To pretend everything’s going swimmingly, to ignore the problems that whirl around our heads, our hearts, countries, nations, continents. Nationalism is becoming as big a problem as it was last century, and every century before that. To ‘carry on’ regardless, as though nothing affects you or matters, further encourages the disinterest and disbelief in the consequences of mental distress as well. We are idealising emotionless and discouraging individualism. We are being programmed to be more and more robotic, more and more apathetic and disinterested. Perhaps the image of the crown usually
To me it is a reminder of their exemption from reality and consequences and the power they hold over the rest, with the phrase more representative of a reminder to ignore it and pretend that major inequality isn’t a major issue in countless incarnations worldwide; that we have no power to alter our positions and that the same will be true ad infinitum. After all, when the media jumped on the ‘end to austerity’ hope, it almost immediately fizzled out, a false, tantalising dream. It also upholds what those who actually give a damn about mental health know to be one of the most damaging and dangerous behaviours a person can engage in. We live in a contradictory society. We are snorted at for needing therapy; jokes are made; and medication is often hidden out of shame. In Japan, where a woman’s parents are too ashamed to get her help, not that there is any more than a disturbingly scarce amount, unsurprisingly similarly to the UK, for a life threatening eating disorder, and with the way clinics are being shut down left right and centre in the UK, it is evident that there is a worldwide problem that nobody is talking about. 12
FEATURE The ‘ideal’ of image being more important than anything else, both physically and in terms of reputation, is something that should not be ignored.
dismissive non-diagnoses, only emphasises the age old attitude towards those who cannot pretend that everything is okay any longer.
The taboo and blame that alcoholics and drug addicts are also subjected to is also something that should not be so ignorantly and immediately dismissed as their fault. The deeper problems that are causational of these addictions of self-destruction scream out silently that our society is deeply deeply flawed in even more ways than the majority of people deign to acknowledge. Mental health problems remain taboo, are ignored, despite the fact that they are on the rise, massively over the past century. People are categorised and labelled with ignorance or disinterest. These problems are never solely to do with the media, or selfishness, or weakness, or vanity, as they are ignorantly attributed to. Those suffering are ignored because they are labelled with ignorance and treated inhumanely, as lesser than those who can claim that they are not mentally different – ‘abnormal’, rather than ‘normal’.
The fact is that this mantra, although encouraging and relatively well intended, also carries a sobering message that hints at an unsettled ocean of problems that are entwined within the foundations of the attitudes of society – an ocean that we deliberately ignore, suppress and dangerously refuse to deal with. An explosion is inevitable. And quite often it is an invisible one, which rips apart the individual yet is undetectable to the naked eye.
We are obsessed with being normal, fitting in, because we trust that that is what is required to not be alone. Being different is universally and has historically meant being isolated, distrusted, hated.
Another thing it makes me think of is that it represents the propensity most people have for ignoring others who are struggling for our own convenience, as well as the fact it makes us feel ashamed of ourselves for being unable to suppress or hide illnesses, dilemmas, and struggles.
This archaic perspective, of the ideal of suppressing our turmoil, remains the reason that so many who cannot physically or mentally do this any longer, (usually after suppressing and hiding to avoid hurting or troubling people) to this day are mistreated, ignored, or derided.
It encourages self-absorption. It is the mind-set that helps us be able to walk past multiple homeless people daily, because we ‘keep calm and carry on’, brush it off, stiffen that upper lip and carry on, think of something else. We assume, because of a few who abuse kindness offered, that they must all be the same, a classic example of society-wide, destructive black and white thinking. We see graphic images of human suffering almost daily (unless we are hiding under a rock) but we are generally a selfish race, whether by choice or not. Everyone lives in their own private universe. We do not question what benefits us.
‘Female hysteria’ being an age old term for depression, bipolar, who knows how many other
Quinoa is now a massive fad. We do not consider that it is a main staple for other societies, in 13
FEATURE Bolivia for example. We abuse and take it despite having other alternatives, without question, without thought.
Why? We don’t care why. As long as there is a faceless soul to clean it up, then we do not and will not bother ourselves to care.
I am a vegetarian, and PETA’s response (detailed in the above article), does not emphasise that there are other more economic and less expensive grains that we could use as an alternative.
Our apathetic attitude to the world as a whole is affecting us more than we notice.
We are buying it because of the media frenzy. Perhaps the media as a whole should think before it reports. Something that seems to be sadly lacking the further we blindly hurtle into the future without thinking about the consequences of our actions. We throw mountains of rubbish out of car windows, half empty cans in a bin that will leak all over whoever has the job of dealing it. We literally break the functionality of the sewers that we are extremely reliant on, with ‘Fat Balls’, clogging them up with fat and oil because we cannot be bothered to dispose of waste economically or with environmental consideration. We are supposed to keep calm and carry on. Maybe we should look back and listen rather than clap a hand over the mouth and walk on by.
14
REVIEW
I gave myself 350 words to sum up
Supernatural and this is what happened.
Two orphaned-by-the-second-season brothers, Sam and Dean, traverse America in a beat-up ’67 Chevy Impala - the only real Kerouac-ian correspondence - ghostbusting and staking and generally fighting monsters, rednecks, hot chicks that are really demons in disguise, etcetera; ‘Saving people, hunting things; the family business’.
SUPERNATURAL Genre:
Obscure. (Fantasy/ Horror/Dark Comedy?)
Creator:
Eric Kripke
Run time:
Approx. 45 minutes
Seasons:
11 (so far)
Aired:
2005 – present
Dean: Sam: Castiel:
Jensen Ackles Jared Padalecki Misha Collins (Yes, seriously.)
Lucifer is creepy, yet coolly attractive and he knows it, and haunts Sam periodically after possessing him for a while, whilst Dean fights off his bodysnatching brother Michael.
Heaven and Hell are real. Heaven is some sort of transcendental 1984 dictatorship of feuding archangels with posh suits and repressed rage and Daddy (God) issues.
Gabriel is Loki, just to make things slightly more confusing.
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REVIEW
Cherubs are real too; all-American-Cupid-esque who are some sort of nudist sub-class of Angelic order, who live up to their legend, with possible tendencies towards partaking in hippie rites of passage such as some sort of heavenly marijuana and séance deal.
A scruffy angel in a trench coat, called Castiel, bearing little resemblance to his Biblical namesake, the Angel of Thursday, rescues Dean from Hell at the beginning of season 4 and becomes their sidekick/best friend.
times for each other and traversed Hell, Purgatory, Heaven, just casually.
Dean and Sam frequently enjoy emotional selfsacrifices in the name of brotherhood, frantic sprinting through haunted forests, arguing with the King of Hell, getting their asses kicked by girls in small town America, and saving the world. And accidentally causing the Apocalypse, Armageddon and the like. TLDR; horror stories are usually real, and sarcasm doesn’t solve everything, but it definitely helps.
Castiel is the polar opposite character to his actor’s overt enthusiasm for tormenting fans on Twitter. He is a socially awkward angel with the usual angelic repressed rage issues and may be in love with Dean, according to the Internet. Since he’s been rather busy since time immemorial, angeling, he has never really got to grips with technology, or music, or human culture. He’s like the Sheldon of the group. They all occasionally go dark side and there’s a lot of anguished fighting alongside the staple of Demon-hunting. They have all died multiple
350 words exactly. BOOM. If you have never watched Supernatural, I recommend it highly, especially if you like any of the following: Buffy, Being Human, Heroes, Doctor Who, Harry Potter, The Walking Dead, or fantastical fiction in general. It is also surprisingly enlightening about Mythology and Religion. 16
BRAIN-WORK
“For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” (Hamlet) Black and white side by side is a striking contrast that makes an impact. But it excludes every bright permutation of colour that exists in between. Their differences, their otherness to each other, is what makes them a perfect pair. They combine in their difference to create a whole. However, they are defined in their opposition. Humanity as the tendency towards thinking in terms of direct opposition too. Normal is good. Different is bad. We are still intolerant towards minorities, whether it is racial, social, sexual, whatever. We separate into cliques and are defined by one commonality. Tattooing is illegal in Korea. Why? It’s been around for millennia. Gay marriages are still illegalised in the majority of the world. Oldfashioned ideals and a refusal to tolerate change is both naïve and blinding.
My point is that we should get out of the habit of seeing everything in black and white terms, in absolutes. Nothing is ever so simple. Usually it is advised to explore the foggy grey area, necessarily disorientating and fighting a losing battle.
One erroneous act negates a lifetime without any, yet an abundance of good deeds frequently cancels out one mistake.
The LGBTQ movement have got the right idea by brandishing rainbows symbolically. It is naturally reminiscent of hope, natural beauty, awe, inclusiveness and diversity coexisting collectively. They had the idea of ascribing a different aspirational ideal to each colour. Perhaps we would all do well to think in these terms instead.
We often sympathetically avow that everyone makes mistakes, yet we berate ourselves incessantly anyway.
What are the effects of thinking in limited, prescriptive terms?
The grey area is even more confusing and impenetrable than being lost in fog. The yin-yang emphasises the necessity of harmony and balance, of inclusiveness and combination, rather than exclusion and ignorance. 17
BRAIN-WORK
We are undeniably a race defined by extremism and judgement. Is it natural or is has it just become ingrained? It gives us a false sense of security and the tendency to categorise and label. No person is inherently perfect or inherently evil. We are all an amalgamation of opposites and we are all subject to unexpected events caused by random people, snap decisions and unpredictable chance. We are all flawed and none of us are irredeemable. We should accept our flaws, motivate ourselves to work on them at our own pace, embrace the aspects of them that can be transformed into positives instead of focusing on the negatives.
We wilfully blind ourselves by black and white thinking, leading to ignorant, biased opinions.
"In movies we tend make things black and white: you're either this, or you're that."― Bill Skarsgard These contribute and are responsible for most contemporary and historic issues worldwide; wars over insults and honour codes, Hitler, the class and caste system, the status of women, who are defined in opposition to men even today. Even today, being alone, or unmarried, is viewed with dismay, and dishonour, exemplarily in China, as was recently brought to my attention. They are even labelled as ‘Leftover
Women’. It seems horrific, to be made to feel that way, just for not participating in an antiquated presumption that women are born to be married off, dishonour and shame being the consequences of personal freedom. At least in some of the world, women have the ability to be alone; archaic traditionalism such as this encourages feelings of inferiority and guilt and destroys individualism and the independence that is achievable.
We are told both to talk about our feelings, let them out, deal with them rather than avoid them, and yet doing so leads to simultaneous ridicule. Perhaps it should be examined why so many have to pay a therapist to have a voice, to be heard, or acknowledged. Too many people are categorising every Syrian refugee by the actions of a few, every Muslim by the actions of a few, etcetera. We ignore the displaced and oppressed that are fleeing persecution, war, and death.
Many of these women are isolated and labelled horribly, ironically by their desire for a life of their own. Many beliefs are segregating and antiquated. They rely very much on distinctions. There are Heroes and Villains, what is in between? Humanity. Black and white thinking is a very real problem. It’s time we started questioning our presumptions, using the rationality we are all capable of employing, and looking at things in depth rather than ignoring human nature, which is incomprehensible despite our presumptions of knowledge. 18
BRAIN-WORK
We don’t know how everything works. Look at the surges of technology in the past half-century alone. Surely, it is time we realise that we are childlike in the face and complexity of infinite things.
endowed propensity or the product of natural luck, but it seems to me a pretty big hint that maybe that’s the way we should regard the world as a whole, in its vibrant spectrum, rather than thinking in black and white.
Besides, don’t you relish the fact that we are capable of seeing colours? Maybe it’s a divinely-
Thank you for immersing yourself in this Special Edition of
Magazine.
We hope you are not too befuddled. 19