Shame & Responsibility

I may be wrong, but I don't think I have anything that I need to be hugely ashamed of. That's not to say I'm perfect, far from it. I make mistakes & when I was younger I was far more volatile & emotional about things. But I do tend to think about what I do & say. I also have quite a noisy conscience & inner voice. 

Shame - "a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming, or impropriety"

              "a condition of humiliating disgrace or disrepute"

              "something that brings censure or reproach - something to be regretted " 

Occasionally eyebrows are raised because I do sometimes swear. For some reason people don't expect an 80 year old to swear. I also probably hold views considered by the "woke" to be politically incorrect. But actually I'm not ashamed of either of those. I don't aspire to perfection. I'm happy with my flaws. 

I am ashamed about some elements of our world today. I'm ashamed of how we have polluted our wonderful planet from the air we breath to the oceans & continents. I'm ashamed of how lacking in any moral compass politics & some international organisations & companies are. It's all very destructive. I am ashamed of how we have allowed inexcusable polarity in wealth & access to basic rights in the peoples of every country. I am ashamed of the current death & destruction perpetrated by countries on innocent victims casually referred to as "collateral damage". 

I do feel resonsible for some of this. I have watched climate change for decades & have contributed to it by my choices. Sometimes unknowingly, but not always. I have been responsible for some of the pollution, again sometimes unknowingly, sometimes not. As I aged & was wealthy enough to travel more worldwide & work in countries like Malawi & Nepal I realised just how fortunate I was. Seeing poverty in places like Yemen, Ethiopia & India makes you realise clearly how much we in the Northern hemisphere take for granted.

Although I was politically active when I was younger, family & work took up most of my life. I didn't do enough. Now I do have time, I'm only physically capable of supporting carefully chosen charities & politically lobbying a lot. The main thing I try to do is act as a primary source & commentator, through this blog. I will never be an influencer, but I do know I am read on Europe, Asia, America & Canada.

I believe the existential threat humanity is facing means that everyone has a responsibility to be well informed & to take action. We should all be ashamed of some of the things that are happening in our world & our lifetime. 

We all need to be brave enough to speak out & say "Not in my name".