Is this(still) a beginning?; a few baby steps?; do I want-outside the Writing course framework(it ends tomorrow)- to continue with it,(stops and starts at wayside halts and all)?
Is it the end?
so, WHAT IS,indeed, at stake?
QUESTIONS TO BE PONDERED/MEANDERED UPON
1.PERSONALLY-pychologically-emotionally, for me, Steven Benson, the writer/author.
2. At stake for Myself as writer in a CONTEXT(socio-politico-epedemiological)?
3. For any THIRD person protagonists: Paul/Michael, or whomsoever……
4. What is at stake in writing more re this subject
5. What is at stake in stopping, or just pausing, writing on this tentacle-like subject
I want to take the last two question first.
Psychological distress; but then we are, de facto, living through a time of deep group and individual trauma.
So, does it cause more emotional pain trying to negotiate the hydra-headed demon of Covid-19(and its ramifications)/making these (mainly) EXplicit, as I have done in this series: OR
Does it engender greater mental disquiet NOT writing at all on the octopus? Its like repressing trauma of other kinds; but, as my dear mum used to say (she was a social worker) you have to look at someone’s ego strength in assessing how deep to go in exhuming a PAST trauma; but then it is a CURRENT/NOW trauma, which we are FORCED into wading through (at various degrees of mud-depth) because-however much we “process” or not{how do you psychologically work through the implications of a plague and a chaotic(best analysis) or sinister {worst analysis} “governmental” reaction/”dealing” with it}?
Probably, as writing mirrors life (and -to a lesser, but real, extent:vice versa), I am best charting a middle course…IS there a median course in a Plague and right-wing callous (at least) government, on BloJo’s desert island, huddled together (but, largely, not allowed to touch)
There probably isn’t….More of a zigzag path then….negotiating stone-like obstacles; in fact, I/you are, primarily, HEWING out these paths for ourselves (only rarely will our dear government and Premier get things right,{and that’s only because, statistically, you cannot QUITE ALWAYS be wrong}); viz, wending in and out of, and travers a, creative denial; with some head-on clashes with the medical and psychological reality of “these times”.
Thuswise, I am writing this listening……..to Mozart who, likely, had plagues around him then; but still wrote exquisite-nay, ineffable-music.
perhaps that is why this narrative is (SEMI-)deliberately topsey-turvey/hodgepodge/patchwork/rhizomatic {et al}: periphrastic meandering is the only way to cope…………
I think I will INTERSPERSE my roughly-around-Covid narrative with others, like the last one on the joys and hauntologies of collecting……
On the other hand, inside/outside {the outside is, currently, now the new INside…..}”Letters from No- place” is a good, appropriate place to end it, park it, fuck it…..wotevs
YET YET YET YET YET YET YET:
We have the highest death-rate(per capita: horrid phrase) in THE WORLD
We have the most gaffe-prone governing-entity outside the US one of dear Trump; and(possible exception of ) Iran(now reputedly struggling with a second wave).
We are WELL outside the window of (in)competence: New Zealand,N. Korea, Iceland and Germany being some of the most effective at suppressing the spread of the disease (Germany is a big country).
I know easy to say -as I am not a government minister- but our “leaders” seemed to have SET THEMSELVES UP(worst) or (best!) SLEEP-WALKED INTO VERY POSSIBLE ERROR AND MISJUDGEMENT:
Not testing residents of care homes till VERY late
Not testing all NHS staff
(STILL) not testing the general populace, unless you have symptoms{and that was very late too}(when it is reckoned over 40% of people with Covid have NO presenting symptoms)}
{MY MIND KEEPS BLANKING-selfdefence-in this atrocity of litanies}
refusing EU offers of acutely essential PPE.
Failing on Tracking and Tracing (still not tracing enough contacts),WHILST unlockdowning, in an ingenuous/transparent need to get people-fodder back to the shops{a friend reports it is difficult to socially distance in Church St, Liverpool}
saying go back to work “if you can” (subtext: if your employer won’t furlough you)
Banging on re the economy; valid on one level; but you need to keep bailing people out to keep us safe….then worry later re paying off the debt : the UK was WELL bankrupt after World War Two, yet (socialist) Attlee managed a massive (council)house-building programme; increase the furlough scheme and grants/loans to businesses, increase the safety-nets of Covid-ESA and of Universal Credit; THEN pay it off. The semi-demise of the economy: of COURSE, it effects peoples’ mental health and psychological health, but there are ways of managing that( elucidated above) without putting/pitting maintaining economic livelihood against health……including, also, emergency funding for mental health services, statutory and voluntary (Samaritans). A lot of this would be solved by Universal Basic Income; but-amongst it being too sensible and KIND a proposition-to this “administration” that would be just a tad too Jeremy Corbyn/John McDonnell and socialist…….
So, I DID let it all out….
I can’t psychologically survive doing this all the time….. so I think Steve (amalgam of first and third person?) will keep wending and wafting his way amidst the debris of failing(to be rescued at ALL costs) capitalism, trying not to trip up, trying to stage the journey, to find psychological provisions on Johnson’s barren desert island…….
towardsutopia 
Thx Gill:) xx