Tiny Flying Vulvas

[smokingboot]

It seems the internet is in the grips of hysteria again, folk relentlessly switching between currents of indignation, working as hard as possible to stay angry. I'm watching social contagion in action and am suddenly thankful for a background that, with all its faults, taught me to treat the many with caution. They are seldom kind and never clever.

Also this. I feel it today.



I am not always a fan of Dali, possible because his stuff was everywhere in the 70s/80s. Wherever you went you saw posters of leaping tigers and melty clocks, to the point his works were right there all over ubiquity hell with that blasted swan thing and JH Lynch's dusky sirens. I recall being at an exhibition in Bruges where some of Dali's sketches were for sale. It was like flipping through the portfolio of a schoolboy's wet dreams, tiny flying vulvas doodled everywhere. Takes a lot to make vulvas boring, but Salvador managed it. I'm surprised his estate never turned this stuff into wallpaper.

Having said that, I loved Destino, his animated creation with Walt Disney.

It suddenly occurred to me remembering the preposterous eras of my youth; there was a helluva lot wrong then, society has hugely improved, technologically, socially, etc...

But I am not seeing much evidence that people are happier, in fact it feels like the reverse. This conclusion makes no sense but it's hard to avoid. My observation must needs be shallow and subjective because I feel like the exception; a lot happier now than I was as a girl growing up, thanks to resolved issues and a bit of luck and learning. But leaving my sphere of preciousness, it seems that people are actually unhappy and angry pretty much all the time. And whether the internet instigates it or amplifies what's there, it feels like very dirty water.

So no to that. Instead, I bring myself this wonderful memory, a most refreshing gorgeous thing, possibly the best advert of all time.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/621123984262937

Comments

[mallorys_camera]

Those horses! 😀

I think the Internet amplifies the 24/7 news cycle, which makes it seem like humanity's dangling into the void by a thread. Of course, we are—but then we always have been.

[smokingboot]

The internet is a shrill screaming idiot right now. I have heard/read more stupid things in the last 4 weeks than in decades before, now with added klaxons. Ugh.

But the horses of Manannan Mac Lir make everything better!

[jfs]

Ahh - when Guinness were trying to teach the English how to pull a pint :-)

At the time I was much more a fan of the Rutger Hauer Guinness ads, but with time I think you’re right. There’s more depth (pun intended) in the sea.

As for modern life, my fear is that we can see so much of what everyone has that it is difficult to be content. And as I get older the more I have come to believe that contentment is better than happiness for our souls.

[westernind]

I do think that part of it can be ascribed to the phenomenon that - as a generalisation - we are happier when we are young and then it returns as we get older.

You’re not wrong about the ‘many’. Which is a nicer word than mob.

[smokingboot]

we can see so much of what everyone has that it is difficult to be content.

Good point. I wonder if contentment is the precursor to happiness of a lasting kind?

My suspicion is that it is.

[smokingboot]

a nicer word than mob Isn't it? And they're so nice themselves, the many, provided they are never challenged or disagreed with.

Maybe it's always been this way.

Agree with what you say on happiness in youth and age, I have found everything much easier since the end of the menopause. Belinda's speech in Fleabag 2 hit the nail on the head for me.