Rebel against the narrative

Here is the news: everything is awful, and you can’t even trust that. Nope. You can’t trust the news, don’t be silly. That’s not where we are anymore. You can’t trust history either. Or the future - nobody has predicted anything correctly since, what, the war? 

There is, in fiction, a concept known as “the unreliable narrator”. We are at the mercy of an unreliable narrator, drunk on power, spewing out overblown characters and unlikely plots, lurching from dystopian horror to biting satire so rapidly that some of us are feeling a little unwell.

And at the hands of such a tyrannical narrator, what are to do? How to stay alert, and kind, and engaged, and forgiving, and empathetic and brave against the pull of this narrative tyranny? 

The answer? Rebel. Quietly if you want to. In your own way. Resist the pull. This is a Public Service Announcement: break the rules. 

Kids are rebelling all the time. They’re upside down, they’re pushing buttons labeled DO NOT PUSH, they’re asking far too many questions. I went into the city a few years back and there was a year seven kid who had literally hand-cuffed himself to a pole in the middle of a school excursion. Up to you how far you want to take your rebellion, I’m not going to judge. You do it your way. A friend of mine told me she did a series of cartwheels alone in the local park a few weekends back and - at the age of forty - she had people coming up to her to talk about it for the next twenty minutes. She found it hard to leave. Rebellion is bold and exciting and interesting and people find it freeing to have permission, so go: do a cartwheel on your own as a grown human adult. 

Not up for cartwheels? A fake hip and arthritis in your left wrist? Fine. Sing. There’s a bloke near where I live who has perfected the arms-crossed while cycling with a straight back move, which he deploys while singing opera at the top of his lungs. “Piccalo, Piccalo, Picaaaaalooooo” he booms, and again, everybody looks up, and nearly everybody smiles, and all he did was sing a little song on his bicycle like we all did when we were seven.   

Talk to the person on public transport who nobody wants to talk to.

Spend time in nature. Disconnect from the shouty monologue and hear the insects. It’s always a good thing when the loudest things in your day are insects you can’t see, in a place that smells of the earth.

Sometimes it’s good when there’s a little thing happening that’s quietly lovely, to concentrate your whole mind on it and think: this little thing right here is just absolutely splendid. The other day, I was at a public park that had a lake in it, and I was talking to someone - a friend, about a work-related problem - we were right into the nitty-gritty of it, she said this, he said that - and as we were talking, a waterbird took off from the water’s edge. The lake was muddy and reedy and messy and the waterbird was scrappy and unexceptional but it flew quite low and, followed by its mate, did that great thing waterbirds do where they putt-putt along the surface of the water with their feet as they fly, splitting the lake in half with a great line that gets wider the further they are from it, and my friend stopped - mid-word - and said “hang on”, her hand on my arm, and we watched the birds until they were up in the sky and off, the lake dividing behind them like two cells quietly splitting. My friend looked at me, smiling. “Absolutely splendid”, she said.

Some of the best rebels are the quiet helpers. The volunteers. The tree planters. People who are nice to old people and quietly resistant to nastiness. 

Or you could handcuff yourself to a pole in the middle of the city when your class is on the way to an excursion at the library and really mix things up for everybody. Totally up to you. 

This has been a Public Service Announcement. Rebel against the dominant paradigm. Promote the tiny moments of excellence and take from the stream of unhinged horror only the impetus for quiet rebellion against it. Be your own reliable narrator, and try, wherever possible, to notice the birds.