Weeding time today. I try to limit the use of chemicals – I tend to use flame, particularly for weeds growing in cracks in paths. I also had a good collection of dried weeds ready to get rid of. It was just too tempting.
It managed to get the neighbour to peer over the fence. And then came the confession. He has 100 toilet rolls at home and 500 at work. He finally told me that it wasn’t because he was hoarding, it was because he made a mistake with the ordering system – he thought the unit was a toilet roll when in fact the unit was a pack of 48 toilet rolls. So I guess I can stop worrying about him trying to steal my toilet roll.
On the other hand he did admit to being short of hand sanitiser. Must remember to electrify my fence to stop him getting at mine
This week is back to a normal work week. Still as busy as ever. The world is still turning as far as transport is concerned. Still, managing time to read the latest crazy theories. Strikes me that one thing about the virus is that people feel the need to blame somebody. It could take the form of a secret lab or a government response, but blame needs to be appointed.
I think that is one thing I really liked about visiting Greenland. There was an acceptance that there are things outside our control – when people arranged to collect you in a boat at a time they would often add “immaqa”. In a sense this means maybe, or perhaps “god willing”, but it really conveys the idea that there are forces we do not and cannot control. Perhaps the need to blame is linked to a deep desire to feel we can control this virus.
In a sense we can control it on a national basis, but at an individual level there can be a sense of no control. We can’t see it, and if we get it we have nothing to fight it, there are no drugs. So we blame somebody for the lack of control, or we invent magical cures to give us control, and suddenly we are in charge of the world again.
I remember talking to a colleague from Japan a year before the Fukushima accident whether they had considered massive natural disasters like 15m tsunamis – his reply was “We are not God”. He later thanked me when I reminded him about this. This wasn’t a religious reply – it was a scientific reply – an acceptance of the limits of human control. It can be hard to accept we are not omnipotent, but sometimes we need to face up to it. I would dare to suggest that the social gatherings in parks are part of this reluctance to accept our individual impotence. Oh, and my colleague from Japan designed equipment that sat on a dock and survived the tsunami – he didn’t design to meet a safety rule – he designed on the basis that he couldn’t predict the future.
Talking of Greenland there was one encounter that sticks in my mind. I was visiting a village that the guide books said had a part time cafe. I walked around the village and finally found the building that housed the cafe. It was closed. There was a guy sitting at the door. I walked up and started talking to him. I asked “When is the cafe open?”. His reply was “Sometimes”. I like that way of living.