Return of the Orbs

I am mean sometimes. Not money mean, but motive mean; I don't always believe generously, possibly because of a tendency to take too much on trust at first. After discovering myself to be a bit of a sucker, I become a bit of a cynic. A better person would find the middle ground.

Orb Lord has sent a grand and mighty apology on FB to over 50 peeps, including myself. Here it is. Where he refers to himself by his present name/persona, I call him [Orb Lord]. When he refers to himself by his past name/persona I put [birth name].

[Orb Lord] wants to ask for your forgiveness.
[Birth name] did a lot of things, he was a courageous man who battled through Aids and a near fatal head injury: and always kept a smile on his face.

As far as I know this is true. He gave me a huge amount of help dealing with someone close who was HIV positive, he was sunny and kind and up for a good time. In over 10 years we never exchanged a cross word.

But I, as he, offended an awful lot of people. My self defence mechanism, having been diagnosed with Aids aged just 20 years old (and literally walked into by a baby [Orb Lord]) was always a little confused, to be honest. Where exactly was his place on this planet: having somehow internalised the multiple aids-defining illnesses, and wanting to such an extent to not have anyone feel sorry for him.

[Birth name] never offended me whatsoever. [Orb Lord] is a knob-end. Also, walk-ins? Really?

But this eagerness often spilled over and was mistaken for arrogance or a thirst for the spotlight. [Birth name] never really had much that.

Arrogance no, thirst for spotlight? Of course you did. And still do. That's just very human.

But he [Birth name] was just plain rude on a number of occasions to very many people, and for that I, [Orb Lord], ask you to forgive me from the bottom of my heart.

Then at the bottom, he puts the address of his new website, where he claims to be an alien channelling messages from Archangel Metatron. For about £48 a year you can get... Oh I forget. Some rubbish.

A moment's rudeness isn't going to touch our friendship. The problem is that accepting Orb Lord's apology means accepting his paradigm, a paradigm which cloaks his spiral into psychotic breakdown fuelled by a head full of Tina and G.

Real friendship means saying things he doesn't want to hear; that he is exhibiting signs of serious mental illness, that he has an evident drug dependency. But this destroys the whole confection not to mention his current business plan. He'd rather have a nice 'apology accepted,' from the world around him, plus a check out of his webpage and subscription thank you very much. Love and Light, mwah!

A little bit of research brings much to light. He's been banned from two large FB groups focused on crop circles, and even his mum pleading for him didn't change matters. These were his major areas of focus, where his audience/potential customers lay and now he can't reach them. So back he comes to the arena of old friends.

I don't know how conscious any of this is.

But I do know he won't listen to bald truth.
Who wouldn't rather see themselves as an alien messiah than a 40-something addict with a life falling apart?

Yeats at the G7

Easter 1916, quoted by President Biden. Many are talking about the way it relates to the world changing so much over the past few years. Hmm. It has a far more presently political resonance than such an interpretation indicates.

The poem refers to the Easter 1916 uprising of Irish Nationalists against the British Government. They were crushed, their leaders executed, and massacres of innocent civilians took place. One effect was a movement of Irish opinion against the British. Without thinking much, necessarily, of individual rebels, Yeats felt for their cause, as many came to do.

I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
...

Now BJ, though a lazy scholar and deplorer of detail, is not entirely ignorant when it comes to literature. He may prefer Kipling to Yeats, but he'll know what that quote means, and I don't doubt the POTUS does too whether or not the demarche really occurred.

Interesting times.