This one is very, very late (it's 9.15pm as I'm typing) - I had a bad night with insomnia on Saturday night, & that led to "hangover wake-up" this morning (Sunday was just a complete write-off).
I haven't been able to meditate today (thanks to the insomnia hangover), but I've still been able to "make some observations as I go through the day" (which can be a kind of meditation, if you bring that intention to it - which, today, I didn't, but which I have done on other occasions.)
The most impactful observation centres around the final final realisation that, yes, my sight loss is now so advanced I need to use my guide cane every time I go out - which came courtesy of falling flat on my face because I didn't see an uneven patch of pavement. And yes, of course there were other people around when I fell.
That led to deeper observations, about why I don't like to go out with my cane, which ties in to the deliberate deconstruction of the working class.
I am working class - if I don't show up when and where I said I would, and do things other people have asked me to do, I don't have income. If I don't have income, I don't have anything. I end up in jail, literally on the street homeless.
I was raised working class - my father worked in factories, as did my grandfather. My mother, when she worked, was a care worker. My grandmother, prior to her mental illness escalating to a point where she was regularly being sectioned, and was unable to do much of anything, was a cleaner.
I live in a working class area.
But "working class" has been deliberately tainted by the addition - courtesy of middle class disregard - of what I call the "social refusenik" class. People who believe "working class" means "not giving a shit about anyone else." People who believe working class means "doing the bare minimum in every given situation." People for whom working class means "slobbishness and self-interest."
If I lived in a purely working class area - as I did when I was growing up - I would have started using my cane regularly long before now; because in a purely working class area, I would feel secure in the sense that people had concern for one another, that we looked out for each other, and that help was just a direct but polite ask away most of the time.
In the polluted, no longer purely working class area I now live in, and particularly as a man? There's a significant percentage of the population who view disability as weakness, or as borderline criminality. People who see disabled people as legitimate targets for mugging, assault, and worse.
I have a wife who is more disabled than I am to protect.
I have to be able to work. I can't afford to not be able to work.
As a trans man, in 2025, under Keir Starmer's government and Wes Streeting's NHS, it is no longer safe for me to have to go to hospital, especially not if I'm taken there by ambulance.
I don't like going out with my white cane because it increases my risk profile in the area I live in - my road alone sees fights almost every night, features daily screaming at kids/partners/dogs that is happening inside houses, but can be clearly heard as you're passing by on the street, there've been two arson attacks, an acid attack, and at least three knife attacks in the past decade. And that's one street.
But this is the second time in less than six months I've fallen while I've been out; that doesn't make me safe, either.
Working class once meant community; now it means competition, a ridiculous, pathetic, but potentially lethal, fight for too-few resources, often including a significant minority who aren't even entitled to them. Constant predatory patrolling of assumed and appropriated "territory". Callousness and casual cruelty. That's not because of working class people; it's because of social refuseniks who identify as "working class" without knowing the first thing about what that phrase means, the history and weight it carries, the responsibilities that come with it.
I am working class - but I don't feel comfortable identifying as "working class" any more.
I haven't been able to meditate today (thanks to the insomnia hangover), but I've still been able to "make some observations as I go through the day" (which can be a kind of meditation, if you bring that intention to it - which, today, I didn't, but which I have done on other occasions.)
The most impactful observation centres around the final final realisation that, yes, my sight loss is now so advanced I need to use my guide cane every time I go out - which came courtesy of falling flat on my face because I didn't see an uneven patch of pavement. And yes, of course there were other people around when I fell.
That led to deeper observations, about why I don't like to go out with my cane, which ties in to the deliberate deconstruction of the working class.
I am working class - if I don't show up when and where I said I would, and do things other people have asked me to do, I don't have income. If I don't have income, I don't have anything. I end up in jail, literally on the street homeless.
I was raised working class - my father worked in factories, as did my grandfather. My mother, when she worked, was a care worker. My grandmother, prior to her mental illness escalating to a point where she was regularly being sectioned, and was unable to do much of anything, was a cleaner.
I live in a working class area.
But "working class" has been deliberately tainted by the addition - courtesy of middle class disregard - of what I call the "social refusenik" class. People who believe "working class" means "not giving a shit about anyone else." People who believe working class means "doing the bare minimum in every given situation." People for whom working class means "slobbishness and self-interest."
If I lived in a purely working class area - as I did when I was growing up - I would have started using my cane regularly long before now; because in a purely working class area, I would feel secure in the sense that people had concern for one another, that we looked out for each other, and that help was just a direct but polite ask away most of the time.
In the polluted, no longer purely working class area I now live in, and particularly as a man? There's a significant percentage of the population who view disability as weakness, or as borderline criminality. People who see disabled people as legitimate targets for mugging, assault, and worse.
I have a wife who is more disabled than I am to protect.
I have to be able to work. I can't afford to not be able to work.
As a trans man, in 2025, under Keir Starmer's government and Wes Streeting's NHS, it is no longer safe for me to have to go to hospital, especially not if I'm taken there by ambulance.
I don't like going out with my white cane because it increases my risk profile in the area I live in - my road alone sees fights almost every night, features daily screaming at kids/partners/dogs that is happening inside houses, but can be clearly heard as you're passing by on the street, there've been two arson attacks, an acid attack, and at least three knife attacks in the past decade. And that's one street.
But this is the second time in less than six months I've fallen while I've been out; that doesn't make me safe, either.
Working class once meant community; now it means competition, a ridiculous, pathetic, but potentially lethal, fight for too-few resources, often including a significant minority who aren't even entitled to them. Constant predatory patrolling of assumed and appropriated "territory". Callousness and casual cruelty. That's not because of working class people; it's because of social refuseniks who identify as "working class" without knowing the first thing about what that phrase means, the history and weight it carries, the responsibilities that come with it.
I am working class - but I don't feel comfortable identifying as "working class" any more.
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