28 Apr 2009
She stoops to conquer
If there are only two emotions – LOVE & FEAR – then the only people in love with London right now are tourists. Americans and those doped up with the euro currency exchange rates are feeling what the Brits have loved for 10 years traveling the world with the strong pound, money talks and feelings of power. It’s like that Yorkshire woman Viv Nicholson in 1961 who after winning the pools ( to the equivalent of £5 million today ) famously said I’m gonna SPEND, SPEND, SPEND!! but thank god tourists are here in record numbers filling the capitals coffers otherwise the London media would be on suicide watch.
The rest of us living here are plagued with newspaper reports that tell us day after day that the end is nigh, like the man that walked along Oxford Street for many years placard aloft. London house prices, london jobs and london’s importance in the world is down, down, right down and we are heading for disaster. Londinium will have to fake it to make it, to stoop to conquer. To cheapen itself, to prostitute it’s talents, having spunked it’s inheritance up the wall by city traders.
FEAR is an unhealthy motivator to practice but since fear and fear of change was one of our first emotions down the birth canal we can confuse life with death in our memory base . . will I make out there or just die? The baby prepares itself for the helter skelter ride two weeks before the adrenalin rush to appear, floating in amniotic fluid totally blissed out to the end. You can’t get more loving than that – totally supported by natures spiritual wonders. No wonder we take drugs to forget entry into this world, to take us back to the time we felt fearless, a time when we were floated in safety and protection. The combination of fear and the fearless white powder has kept the city army marching for years on trading floors. The Goldsmith play " She stoops to conquer " first seen in London in 1773, illustrates how a lady needs to cheapen herself sometimes in order to seduce, to conquer and ward off spinsterhood and like Kate Hardcastle, the said lady within the play, LONDON can play cheap when needed.
Even coke is down in price.
If we listened to the news we would never go out. Everything is down except crime and rail fares, so become a TOURIST and start to love LONDON.
Take one of those naff open top buses outside Planet Hollywood, walk the South Bank, wander the FREE galleries and museums and eat a £2.99 Kebab reduced from 4 quid just a year ago. LOVE the fact that even when it’s raining the view from Waterloo Bridge means " you have arrived home ", that Soho offers a plethara of playthings to observe . . and its FREE. Get an OYSTER card and smile that tourists paying £4 for a few tube stops are paying for your £2 return journey. Nice one.
To stoop to conquer fear, to bow to the power of surrender, to reduce the requirement for anxiety, to shift lives is the purpose of THE SWARMITE REHAB teachings. It does not suggest that you will float along pathways like magic in a fairy dell or demolish fearsome thinking overnight but it might test your ability to live without it. Living without fear is a mighty but magnificent task. Londoners have embraced change and dangerous times for centuries where money and debt have indicated class and social standing. Ask Goldsmith, Pepys and Ben Jonson. Now we all stand buggered together. Living without or reduction of standards is new, fearful and threatening with many taking the current financial climate personally without taking on board their part in it. Remember the slogan that Debtors Anonymous use as a path to acceptance – Compare & Despair. Once you start comparing your life, your money, your luck with others the cream turns sour. Avoid victimhood at all costs and trim your own cloth not envy those with the facility to SPEND, SPEND, SPEND. A Course In Miracles reminds our anxious minds that " everything is temporary " including what you feel today.
Even LOVE is temporary if FEAR wins the battle of the day.
When you say it’s pointless or the purse is spent – it’s temporary. When you read about credit crunch and loss of jobs – it’s temporary. If someone pisses you off you have a choice – linger with the fear, the perceived attack or let go with love and make it temporary. Todays task is to list what fearful acts you are prepared to release in order to free yourself of the weights that tie you down. Daily practice is the route to love, it’s FREE currency, so spend it.
Viv Nicolson spent all her money. She found a solution in Kingdom Hall eventually, as this link will tell you. Not my chosen route for spirit but hey at least I can have a blood transfusion. LOL.
Indeed! Pointless to waste a day or days fretting over what might have been, what you should have done, thought you wanted to own etc and end up missing what you could have done with the day you have right now.
While I don’t watch a lot of TV, (didn’t like paying monthly fees so I could be barraged by ads for stuff I don’t need or want) thanks to the ‘net I DO keep up with the news, but am able to select how much I want to see. Recession? Ok, yeah, but I’m still living each day & enjoying my life. Swine Flu? Ok, yeah but I’m not running out spending money on masks & crap. I’m enjoying each day.
Worrying changes nothing & the stress will probably do more to endanger your health than the flu will.
Kind of all over the pond comment wise here.
I like the way you think!
Lafang
May 1st, 2009 at 1:46 pmpermalink
hey I like this Lafang!
” Worrying changes nothing & the stress will probably do more to endanger your health than the flu will. ”
Fear, worry and anxiety is our biggest dis-ease.
Footwork is the only soldier we need.
theswarmite
May 1st, 2009 at 2:01 pmpermalink
Thank you for your enlightening article. It made me realize how important it is to recognize fear in our daily perception in order to deal effectively with its cause. This is especially relevant in the current economic uncertainty surrounding us. You made me remember of how fear stopped some of my friends in school from learning how to swim when actually it is being gripped by their own fears that is stopping them. Similarly, if we are gripped by fear now or under whatever conditions at all, we may be led into a spiral of self-fulfilling prophesies. At the time of writing, stockmarkets around the world are rebounding from the credit crunch, yet many doomsayers are sticking to their guns. What, one wonders, would actually make them happy?
FiredancerX
May 10th, 2009 at 9:15 pmpermalink
Many thanx FiredancerX and for linking your blog to this article. I think the drug of fear is bigger than any substance. Present times are offering the fatcats a chance to review where happiness lies perhaps and if they take this opportunity for a rethink we will all catch the vibration. Love from London.
theswarmite
May 10th, 2009 at 10:26 pmpermalink