What gets through the filter?

A bit about death

There are certain voices that sit somewhere in your childhood and never really leave.

You don’t think about them often, but when you hear the echo of their catchphrase in everyday life, its in their voice.

I saw recently that John Virgo had died.

It’s not common in my everyday life, but the phrase “Where’s the cue ball going?” will always be spoken in his beautiful dolcet northern tone.

Then there was Dawson. Not even his real name, just Dawson, only made 48.

James Van Der Beek from Dawson’s Creek, which at the time felt like it explained everything about my life growing up, which now feels like a strange, earnest time capsule of angst.

And Catherine O’Hara, Kevin’s mum in Home Alone.

Pure chaos, some warmth, neglectful parenting no doubt by todays standards, but that slightly frantic energy of trying to hold everything together when things are falling apart seems to have held truer in the modern day hasn’t it?

It’s odd how these people become reference points without you realising.

Until you’re reminded that time is, in fact, doing what it does.

A bit not about death

Teenagers at easter has the potential to become just you hiding eggs for someone who’s still asleep at 1pm and would rather have the cash equivalent.

However, Easter came and went in the way I assume every parent hope’s it does.

Everyone home. Slower mornings. Food that lasts longer than it should, probably too much booze, and slightly later nights than the dog would thank me for when he wants to go out for a wee at the crack of dawn.

We played games and even though the kids are teenagers now, no one stormed off. No one pretended they were too cool for it. It was lovely.

Spring seems to create just enough space for things to settle, its the end of something gloomy, with the infinity possibility of the the most generous seasons yet to flourish ahead.

And it also means the Positive Nature Network is back. We have now create a lunchtime space called Positive Steps, our first, a gentle one at Dartington was beautiful.

Nothing fancy, a handful of us. Just people, a bit of movement, and proper conversation without an agenda, but it felt nice to be connected to something bigger too.

I always forget how much that helps until I’m in it again, it seems to understated to be profound.

You go in with your head full.

You come out with space.

Not fixed. Just… less tangled, something has shifted.

Back to death

Then, in the middle of all of that, something happened that cut straight through it.

A friend of mine nearly died.

He’s in his early fifties. One of those people who gives far more than he has ever taken. Shows up for everything. Carries things that aren’t really his to carry, because someone has to, and he can.

Then one day he couldn’t.

He was rushed into hospital, seriously unwell. For a while it wasn’t clear how it was going to go, and when I caught up with him the other side he said he closed his eyes a little bit too long, and when he came around he was told he was lucky to have done so.

He’s home. Recovering.

But going to see him, sitting with his family, talking through what hit him and what now has to change, that will always stay with me.

It wasn’t dramatic in the way films are.

It was quiet and honest and really raw.

There’s something about those moments where the filter just drops. No performance needed or called for. Just the reality of it.

A bit about filtered life

Have you seenThe Manosphere by Louis Theroux yet? It’s uncomfortable viewing.

Not just because of what’s being said or shown, but because of how it works. The certainty. The performance. The way strong, simple opinions travel further than anything thoughtful ever seems to.

It made me think less about the people in it, and more about the systems around it.

What gets rewarded.

What gets amplified.

What gets filtered out.

You can almost see the algorithm nodding along in the background.

A friend of mine recently said “Happy Easter if you’re religious, happy two films in an afternoon if you’re not”. On that note, I have a second film for you:I Swear.

Properly human. Funny in places, painful in others. 

It was based on the life story of John Davidson and his tourettes, and yet the awful irony was hard to miss when he  later became the centre of outrage after involuntary verbal tics were heard during the BAFTAs. 

The film itself exists because of that lived reality. Still, many people rushed straight past understanding and landed on offence.

For about a week after watching it, I challenged myself to observe my own initial thoughts (and admittedly, I dont have Tourettes so it’s not the same), but they weren’t great though.

Some were funny, in a dark way.

A surprising ammount were judgemental.

Some obscure, but all were things I would never choose to say out loud.

And that’s my point, most of us walk around with the privilege of a filter. A layer that softens things. Shapes things. Stops our first reaction from becoming our final one.

Because when you see what happens without it, or when people choose not to use it, the world feels very different.

Sharper. Harsher. Less forgiving.

I wonder if the online hate was thought through or gut reaction? 

A bit about death again

Filters.

Nature gives us a filter. It slows things down just enough for you to think properly again.

Family gives you another. A reminder of who you are outside of everything else.

Culture, at the moment, feels like it’s stripping filters away. Rewarding reaction over reflection.

And then life steps in, every now and then, and removes all of them for you.

No warning. No choice.

I keep thinking about my mate, how often is acceptable to checkin to be supportive without creating a burdon. About sitting there, talking through what changes now, how he will do that and if I can help? Its hard and confusing.

And yet it sor t of makes everything else feel a bit simpler.

You don’t get unlimited time.

You don’t get unlimited energy.

And you don’t get to avoid the consequences of how you spend either.

I was looking for something to wrap all this up, and I think it might be this:

“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”

Simone Weil

It feels right.

Because whether it’s a walk in nature, a film that asks you to understand something properly (or just nostalgia that binds your loved ones together), a conversation in a hospital room, or even just catching your own first thought before it escapes, it all comes back to attention.

What you notice.

What you choose to understand.

What you let through.

And what you don’t.