The reason I’m writing this isn’t an expected one..
Basically I’m pretty much at rock bottom. The life I have led for all my adult life has become increasingly untenable and intolerable, no matter how many times I’ve tried and tried afresh.
This life I’ve led has been flakey from the start, but the ideal at its core was to find a work/life balance that enabled me to be pursue my artistic talents.
Rewind 25 years, I couldn’t wait to escape lad culture; the groups, the sports teams. The general atmosphere that defined high school was one in which I felt small, often humiliated and misunderstood. My biggest fear was almost respiratory-based: I could never breathe in such an environment. The mere prospect of being in big groups, being barked at by a pedagogical bully was the stuff of nightmares. At least I would never have to go into such an environment ever again.
Fast forward to the present, and I’m increasingly dysfunctional. I feel increasingly isolated and unable to connect with people, increasingly reliant on alcohol and increasingly in despair about ever combating the persistent inner critics that mock my life.
All in all, the line my generation swallowed, that we could and should ‘be whatever we want to be’ and ‘live in whatever way we want to’ has left my mental cogs burnt out. The mental weight of having to constantly pick and choose based on individual satisfaction has left me burnt out – right now, in possibly one of the lowest ebbs I’ve experienced, I’m crying out for someone to tell me exactly what to do next.
The image in this blog is from a BBC show called ‘Ladhood’. Based in Garforth, I really connected with how close elements of this show felt to growing up in the late 90s/early 2000s, 20 miles down the M1.
If only I’d had a better encounter with pedagogical structures as a young person, if only I’d been socialised and skilled up for this life with compassion and solidarity rather than by macho downward punching, I might have become a much more well-rounded person.
The thing is, when the Tories announced they would bring back national service this weekend, they had no good intentions in mind, it is purely a political strategy to create division in Labour’s electoral base, by putting young against old. We’ve seen it so many times before. The Tories know they’ve no chance of getting the vote from the people old enough to be made to do national service. They are trying to get older people to vote Tory out of resent for young people
However, true ‘progressives’ who want to see the back of the toxically individualistic neoliberal society, shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bath water. A variant of national service, albeit with less of the ‘national’ and definitely less of the ‘military’ to it, could be just what we need to both re-socialise society and in turn help with our catastrophic mental health crisis.
This isn’t to play into patriarchal ideas, but I could have done with experiencing both compassionate and life building male group friendships in my young life. In fact I think I would have been a far healthier and happier person now if I’d had that.
Look around at the community care organisations picking up the pieces at the moment (recovery organisations, Andy’s Mans Club etc), and you can begin to imagine how compassion and solidarity could be at the centre of another kind of national service.
It might be too late to rewire the damage for people like myself, but when thinking of the huge challenges we have ahead, especially with climate change, or even how we treat the homeless in our city centres, a society of people who feel confident to step up, for compassion rather than any jingoistic cause, cannot be a bad thing.
John B Ledger 