“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”
―F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Crack-Up
The tension many of us feel right now—the sense of disquiet, something out of kilter that we sense but cannot name—has always been there.
It gets submerged when things are going well for us, or even just alright. Sometimes it rears its head, but we can submerge it again through busyness, or the anaesthesia of consumption. Another holiday, a better car, or the many other readily available and expertly marketed dopamine-laden offerings.
But at times like today, when the many symptoms of the disquiet we feel connect, we can no longer ignore it. The passive aggression of frightened people looking to populists, the sense that “work’ is no longer a refuge but a wasteland, and that organisations we have been brought up to rely on, such as the NHS, and our Education system are being b…
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