Shouts From Down Under

Svetlana Alexievich. Those voices are the silent screams.

Have you ever screamed inside your head, constantly, over a long period of time, until even to you the sound is just a tinnitus-like whine in the background?

You've screamed, or wept maybe, mentally, for so long you've grown used to it until finally you hardly notice. Internal trauma, sorrow, loss, frustration, panic and whatever else is an ideal ingredient to include in "chaos soup".

I heard a scream once that made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. I can hardly describe in words what hearing this sound was like, but it was of human origin, it was genuine, and it seemed dredged from some era in the dim past of humanity, somewhere back in cave-man times, before screaming became silent like it mostly is today.

Here is the note I wrote in my iPhone that day, over 12 months ago.

Scream from Anneliese. Deep. Soul slicing and visceral. From the back of the cave in Neanderthals' era, when the Pterodactyl had...
The Cause? 5 nights at Freddie's
First scream / power cut and teddy bear flashed up on the door.
Second scare on the 4th night. creepy phone call, pausing, spaced out, weird stuff. not finished, following 3 nights of tension / on edge, but not freaking out on edge cos relaxed sort of. when the fox / rabbit (?) jumped out, gamer scream or monster scream, distorted and ambiguous face on screen / wrong caused earthquake type scream of laptop destroying fear. Couldn't breath. Crying mess, rush in to mum.
16 years old.

In this case, her scream, although due to a mere computer game scare, and with the benefit of hindsight of humour value, was so loud, and I do not exaggerate, that I felt the vibration through the house, through the floor, to the other extremity where I happened to be sitting on the toilet.

I was glad this was my location at that time.

Do you have this level of scream in your head? I'm sure if you do it isn't a joking matter, but still you keep it hidden, and forever silent.

Screams hide right there in people's heads. Mental issues hide there too. Divisive thinking. Bad stuff. We can meet someone, not knowing anything about them. You might say our first impression of them blurps out of our brain printer onto a blank canvas of what we think of them, this new "friend".

Yet, it's not long before we see that there is something off about them. Something inside their head, be it an attitude, a bias, an opinion, an extremity, a predjudice, a viewpoint, a conundrum, a set of goals / acheivements / aims that only they know.

We soon know as well, but not always. There are some of these little "spiders" hidden away in some people's psyche that remain out of sight of even the most discerning and sharply analytical observer.


http://gizmodo.com/a-multi-function-clip-that-hides-a-toolbox-in-your-hair-16110...

I still feel a ridiculous adhesion in my mind, even after decades, whereby the idea of a man weeping, crying, being emotional outwardly like this is weak. I know this is not the case; in fact the truth is the opposite. Those who are able to openly show how they feel, I think, have a much better chance at being, or becoming a strong / stronger person.

What is a strong person, to my way of thinking?

A strong person is one who, though they appear stubborn and old fashioned, out of touch and even just plain wrong, they stick to something they feel sure about, even to the point of unanimous ridicule.
They remain lodged in whatever way of thinking, no matter the opposition, no matter who finds it offensive, no matter what their peers think, or how they may be excluded from whatever group of people.

Regardless if they are right or wrong, they stick to their guns. They are a person who lives their life as them. They are independant. Although they still do need and cherish people, they don't let this human need control their journey in life.

The Emperors new clothes
http://andersen.sdu.dk/vaerk/hersholt/TheEmperorsNewClothes_e.html


And the strongest person can hold the loudest screams, the longest silence, the deepest grief and the biggest disagreements locked in their head, and no one would ever know, not even their mother.

We live in a disappointing world, where people who disagree are excluded, derided, outcast and worse.

Hasn't this always been the case though? Not just these days? Well, yes, but I think these days someone who disagrees with popular opinion can be elevated so much more easily into world view. Everyone can know within seconds on social media if someone has "bucked the system" or chosen to be vocal about some volatile subject.

So people are under even more pressure to keep in their heads these potentially catastrophic ideas, whatever they are.

What is the meaning of this? Where do I fit in, and why have I written about this in a bog entry, written in such a vague, allusional manner? Almost as if I'm avoiding something, carefully treading, being secretive, hiding something shameful.

Well, would I admit it if it was shameful? Would I have the courage to be that person who digs in and holds to their opinion, or belief, come what may?

My mother used to be wise before one day forgetting where she lived, or her name.
She was a keeper of many people's financial books. A Bookkeeper is a bit like a Beekeeper but with one less kay and they deal with swarms of taxation figures, not insects. (Although both have stings in the tail)

STATIC

My Mum The Quiet Achiever  (E) A tribute to the one who nurtured, supported, befriended. #1933161 by Sparky

She would rarely say philosophical things, being too busy raising two families worth of kids with a husband contract shearing a days drive and motel rooms away.

But she once told me to be careful of what I say about people, particularly critisism, even if it was accurate. Much better to keep a good relationship with all of the community. You may depend on them later. For your life.

Here is an author of a book, a book which records the voices of people with every reason to hold a scream in their heads.

Svetlana Alexievich.

I congratulate you on winning the 2015 Nobel literature prize for your book Voices of Chernobyl

}

You have certainly earned that award, and if those people were here today, if any are still alive, then they will be weeping tears at this news. It may not seem like much, but perhaps now their memory will not vaporise, or recede, as quickly as their lives have since that day in 1986.

Please. Enjoy this story of the journalist who wrote a NON-FICTION Nobel prize winning work. And even as she absorbs this news, she never forgets the "ghosts" whose voices have come alive in her mind, and by her pen, and...by her "voice".



http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-34475251

Another example of a silent scream, whose vibrations can be heard across an entire region of Japan, Fukishima. Yes, echoes of earlier screams, screams still going on today at Chernobyl, screams and weeping that still whisper their impossible utterances in the wind that blows through the ruins of Pripyat, and through the ruins, through the cobwebs, and through the radioactive topsoil where 120,000 Fukishima people are still absent from their homes.

STATIC

The Garden of Pripyat  (13+) This poem is dedicated to Lyubov Sirota & Pripyat. Click the links to learn why. #1899777 by Sparky

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3263714/Destroyed-man-reclaimed-nature-A...

What is your scream about? What gigantic world is contained in the single tear drop that rolls down your cheek, right now?


Sparky