Whether the word Brexit inspired or disheartened you 18 months ago is now secondary to the feeling that has been replaced in all of us. The feeling of uncertainty, dare I say dread. For me, it feels as if there is a Tsunami out at sea careering its way to the UK and there is nothing we can do to stop this force crashing down upon our shores.
Regardless of how any of us voted, we are in a time of guesswork but be sure, no leader can act as Moses to swerve the Tsunami away. I personally consider Theresa May to be a brave woman to take on Cameron’s job after he cowardly fled the scene when he was caught out asking a question when he was not prepared for the answer. Any replacement leader was therefore, the one to shield Cameron from the battle and is the one to be harpooned by the poison spear that is the task of leaving the EU.
I believe May is damned one way or another as she is a puppet on both sides. Let me explain, she is a puppet for the EU leaders to punish the British for leaving Europe but back home, she’s a puppet to the wolves in Westminster praying for failure so they can leap into her shoes. These politicians I consider to be damaging, as right now, the UK needs unity and strength to ensure the best outcome for us all.
In our own lives, there are also personal periods of instability and not knowing how our lives will go rarely instills excitement. We don’t know the outcome to a decision and we don’t know if we’ve made the right one until the result is shown. It’s as if there are times in our lives that are like Laboratory science experiments, except we are the white mice hoping that the men in white coats know what they’re doing. We are vulnerable in our cages and we just have to sit and wait for the statistical data to come back that it’s okay, the experiment has worked. We’ll live.
The extract from my book is Olivia explaining this very thing. She is at the end of her stay in Australia and has met life long friends, from James and Carolanne who are genuinely kind and who only have her best interests at heart to Tatiana, a shallow woman who only has image at heart:
“Recently, Jason, my dear reader, I learnt about ‘Existential Anxiety’: We are not told how to live our short existence to the greatest to ensure we don’t waste a drop. We are not told how a fulfilling, fun and frivolous life should look like. Instead, we muddle through a collection of possibilities as to what could offer the ‘life best spent’ if we just took this ride or that ride or another ride down life’s river. It’s like a gambling table where the game is our life, the dealers are those around us and the cards are the choices we are thrown. If we gamble well then we get to make the most of our existence but if we take the wrong hand then the table wins and we must live with the consequences of an unfulfilling life.
The night of gambling is short from dusk till dawn but it could be even shorter if the decisions we make are particularly poor and we are dealt out of the game before the sun has set. We have only a short time to play and we play without knowing the rules as these are revealed the more we gamble and understand the card game – more often, this expertise comes at a time when dawn is soon to break and the table is to be packed away. Accelerated learning is a consequence of playing a poor hand.
But how do we decipher the best hand to play until after we have played? The night is slipping away and the gambling money pile is getting smaller and smaller. Thus, we live in a permanent state of anxiety that our hand is poor and our decisions are worse. It is part of our innate sense of survival that we migrate towards the wisdom of others on giving us hints as to how we play our hand without losing our chips. It is why we join a queue when queuing is not necessary or why we accept the teachings from a weekly magazine astronomer whom we have never met but who know all there is to know about us from slipping us into one of twelve bags.
I was a young girl influenced by popularity and beauty and so, the only person whom I naively perceived to understand me then was Tatiana and she was the one I chose to throw my chips onto my table.”
It was a deciding point in Olivia’s life as she followed Tatiana to London and lived with her. This subsequently steered her in the direction for the next chapter in her life.
For us, no one knows the outcome of the decisions we make. It’s a cruel irony but wisdom only comes from living through the fallout of these events.
We don’t know what the aftermath is for the UK but I know that whether you agree with it or not, that Tsunami is coming for us all and the best defence we have is not to blow political words at it but for us all to hold hands and brace ourselves for the storm. It will pass and then we pick ourselves up, assess the damage and rebuild with what we have. I’m actually optimistic for the outcome. The reason: I believe in the Dunkirk spirit of the Brits. We’ll get through it as long as we all row together for the shore.