Today, like every other day, before I had even had breakfast I had already absorbed a lot of information about how to live for ever. So has everyone else. On my way to the shops, several pavement pounders almost charged into me, and they were, I note, all plugged in and checking their devices, apparently monitoring their run.
Permanent monitoring is the new job of modern life and seems exhausting. One must monitor one’s calories, steps and sleep pattern just for starters. The goals are ever-shifting: first there was clean eating, then came clean sleeping. Now we’re in the era of clean feelings, with the rise of emotional hygiene. When you are not flossing your teeth, you should be flossing your mind, getting rid of pesky emotions such as anger or self-doubt. Write them down. Reorder them. Cleanse your brain.
These instructions are everywhere and predominantly aimed at women. All the health advice in the world could be boiled down to: eat less, move more, don’t smoke and hope for the best. But that’s not enough for a book, still less a TV programme or an app. And so we’re constantly offered variations on this stuff. One day, we’re told to exercise to prevent cancer; the next, how to exercise when you have cancer. And on it goes, as exercise is no longer only about the body, but is also said to be good for cognitive function and mental health. No one would dispute that this discovery is life-changing for many. But, really, give all the advice a rest.
The explosion of self-care advice doesn’t operate in a void, with its suggestion that we are all atomised and individually caring for our own bodies and psyches. It operates in a world where we are in a crisis of actual care: caring for others is low-paid and low-status work, and mental health services are at breaking point. Audre Lorde’s formulation of self-care as an act of radical self-preservation was echoed by fellow writer and activist Angela Davis. They both understood that many black women who organised politically had to work and look after kids, and therefore had no time, ever, for themselves.
Obesity and diabetes are related to poverty. Depression can be too and, yes, of course a more holistic approach is needed, but self-care is pumped out everywhere, often with no clear purpose except to achieve some Instagrammable, Zen-like state. Gratitude is more becoming than rage. We should strive to be thankful and positive, and therefore in control. We should be using our commute to find five beautiful things, we should hang out with people who radiate energy instead of drain it. We should have things called a “self-date”. Clearly, I am beyond this. I have stood myself up too often to bother.
This advice is a kind of keep-calm-and-carry-on gloss. It is an illusion that perhaps works for young people in a stressful world. Strive to be healthy, sure, but sometimes shit happens. Half of us will get cancer and it’s not because we once ate a sausage sandwich. Many of us will have issues with anxiety and depression, and it’s not because we didn’t love the trees enough or perform endless mini-declutters.
We should look after ourselves better – we know this. It’s why we don’t do it that is the complicated bit. Middle-class people telling working-class people how to live better, preaching self-care, boasting of their own tedious regimes doesn’t seem to me – how can I put this? – very caring.
Our children are being murdered on the streets – where is the outrage?
The killing of children and young people in London is disturbing beyond words. The fact that some people won’t accept that those involved are children and respond by saying they’re boys who stab and shoot each other is part of this problem. Are they really not children? And are they not our children?
Rhyhiem Ainsworth Barton, 17, was shot at the weekend. His grieving mother, Pretana Morgan, called for an end to violence, as mothers always do: “Let my son be the last and be an example to everyone … Just let it stop.”
She took his baby teeth to his shrine; he had only recently returned from Jamaica, where she had sent him after he was stabbed in the chest in London. How do mothers in her position protect their kids? Who can they turn to when they know their boys are in trouble?
What is causing this escalation of violence? Amber Rudd – remember her? – said in April that blaming cuts to youth services is too simplistic. She said the cuts in the number of police officers on the street was also not relevant. Instead, this rise in violent crime is blamed entirely on the drug trade. This may be a big factor, but, let’s be honest, there can be no one solution, as the drug trade is not going to be closed down. The grant from central government to the Met police has fallen by £700m since 2010/11. Are we seriously to believe this has no effect?
Other causes for the increase in murder are floated: “zombie knives” are not meant to be sold any more, for instance, but they are. Social media should not host posts in which gang members taunt each other, but they do. None of these things is new or unknown.
But this level of murder is new and is now a national emergency. It must be declared one.
Has politics ever been more deadly dull?
No one won the local elections, or everyone won. Either everything good happened because of Corbers and the young Momentum enthusiasts, or not much did because, weak as May is, old people keep voting Tory. The main strategy of Labour, and indeed the remain side of the Brexit argument, often seems to be no more than waiting for a certain generation to die off. After this, the glorious revolution will happen; meanwhile this political stasis is horribly fitting. If you talk to MPs, they are frustrated and in a holding pattern. Brexit is taking so much time and energy while sucking the life out of everything. There are those preoccupied with Brexit and those who would rather talk about anything else. That gap is defining politics and, my God, it is deadly.
