We've got it all wrong.

10 years ago today I was just me.

It's amazing what can change in that time... ????

... and how much can stay the same. ??

A [long] thread (cross-posted here & here)

Home is indistinguishable... 

... ten years with my wonderful wife, part of a real team 

... three little people (one of whom made us pancakes!!) ...

... my ten-year-younger self couldn't contemplate the mixture of warmth and terror that comes with being a parent (& husband).

Work too is pretty indistinguishable... 

I think/hope Deep Blue Sky has made a real difference, helping to get ???????????? (& a little ????) money directly to folk in the global south who can bring about real #SRHR change.

It's taught me how vital *transparency & accountability* is.

... and we've made a real pivot to move from "building other people's dreams" to focus our energy on OneSub.

Becoming ur own client after 20 years is scary as hell.

I only hope, 10 years from now, we will look back & know that we've helped make the world better: for everyone.

What's most striking though, is what I haven't done in 10 years.

The sad truth is that I'm a white male privilege archetype.

That's not a choice I made, I can't undo my upbringing...

... but I _am responsible_ for any passive apathy that I have had towards the issues that have found renewed voice these past 11 days.

The truth is my inaction makes me an active part of the problem.

.. and honestly I'm not yet sure the best way to be part of the solution.

What I do know, have known for some time, is that we need change - real, deep, fundamental, systemic change.

What I do know is that we've got it *all* wrong.

- How *and why* we educate

- How *and why* we work

- How *and why* we interact online

- How *and why* we live...

If you really look at education, healthcare, social care, industry, the economy, art, history... 

... if you really look at how it all works ... 

... we have got it *all* wrong.

Why do we have politics?

The job of a politician, really, is "to make the world a better place - for everyone."

** That's the point. **

That's why *we give* them power over us.

Where the fuck have we gone so, so, SO, wrong!?

Why have we let them set their own goals!?

Why do we have healthcare?

The job of healthcare is to make society healthier - for everyone.

Then why is *all healthcare* really about selling the cure?

None of it (really) is about preventing the root causes.

Illness makes money. Sugar, alcohol even social media! 

... Healthcare in the UK, the US and elsewhere is increasingly about keeping people going and keeping them addicted to destructive behaviours. That is all.

If healthcare was really *for* society it would be about root-cause prevention & reduction.

Be honest.

It's not that.

Why do we have education?

The job of education is to help children find themselves.

Education is to inspire, to build strength of character, to build the confidence and skill to go into the world and live a full life.

Oh wow!! That is *not* what our education system does.

I could go on.

My point is - we are all apathetic about something and most of us are apathetic about *a lot*.

Economics distracts us from the truth about the world around us.

The truth is that we are all just cattle. ??

Some privileged few are "free range, organic"

Most are intensively battery farmed.

We are all being milked, twice daily, for the benefit of the farmers; .. the Trumps & BoJos, the Epsteins and the Cummings of this world.

The fight today is for a huge proportion of our society who have lived their whole lives gaslighted by micro-aggressions I can't begin to imagine.

This fight is vital - in the very truest sense of the word.

Honestly, I know not how to add my voice to that fight without sounding disingenuously woke. I am a straight white man - none of which are things I can change.

What I can do is to focus the next 10 years [and 10 more, and 10 more... and on...] of my life on helping to reform the world around us all.

What I know is: ** we cannot continue like this **

I'm desperate to say that we need to start by reforming how we treat each other... 

... but while we *must* do that we *also* need to be honest with ourselves... 

... that this is treating the symptom not the cause.

We need also need to reform:

How *any why* we govern ourselves.

We need to fundamentally re-think what politicians are for.  

They must not be to better the interests of industry (which is the reality today). 

They are *OUR* public-servants - for equality and a better future.

.. and we also need to reform:

How *and why* we educate.

School must be about building strong, self-confident people. School saps the strength, creativity and confidence of generation after generation for what? WHY? Who does that serve!?

Education must work *for the child*.

... only then.. only when we are governed for all our futures, educated to build strength of character.. 

... only then will any reform make now have any real teeth.

Anything else will be yet another sham to placate the disenfranchised and distract us back into our cages.

I started this thread as a celebration of 10 years being a husband and father.

I'm sorry if it's become an outpouring of frustration.

The truth is, that if I'm terrified for the world my children will inherit... then I can't being to imagine how scared so many other people - people who are not straight white men like me must - be for their families and their children.

I am so sorry for what those of my race, gender and sexuality have done to bully everyone else for centuries...

... all in the name of keeping power and control.

This is not a world I wish to live in or leave behind.

It must change.

"Always remember to put other's needs above your own fears."

</rant out>