Some exiistential thoughts in late January.

.The sky is clear as I look up. It is very cold in Ystradgynlais. The gate is frozen solid and needs all my strength to pull it open. The sound echoes down and around the street. This third week of January is the most difficult for us all. For many the bills come home like black swans. For others the short days stir the past and bring up the ghosts long hidden at other times in the past but in other Januaries. This third week is the quietest of the year, yet the problems more acute and more dangerous. We are perhaps more isolated and more narcissistic in these cold early weeks of the year. Our shadows stir and our resentments bubble over. My phone rings rarely this week but each call dramatic and complex.

Amongst the political activists i know the impact of December 12th continues to reverberate throughout lives. As Brexit nears we become increasingly unsure in just what we are mourning. Leaving no longer means what it's supporters desired and remaining begs the question to just what remaining means. Each term is a code for a discourse about something else in a long cultural war. The war moves on to a new area this time the declining Royalty of the British state. It's about misogyny and racism but those on the side of tradition and knowing your place cannot see their own misogyny, racism and prejudice

It is so difficult for us all to be aware of our own blind spots or our own narcissism so well hidden by rationalizations and self justifications. As 2020 unfurls we are unsure and haunted by possibilities that may never happen frightened by fears self created and yet still threatening. This is the third week of January popularly described as the most depressing week of the year . Yet it is self created individually and collectively by us all in that period long ago before we understood, or had insight into our actions, our choices and our needs and desires perhaps the January we get we deserve as an existential moment realised on a dark cold morning. The myths and the rituals of our lives , of the state and society are apparent at this time of year ... brutally clear....