Is Life a Spectator Sport?

We start today with questions. Do we jog through life watching others, participating in fewer and fewer things ourselves? Are we afraid to grab life by the balls and just live, even a little dangerously? Did we notice when we stopped living?

For me, it has been a year of change. New location, becoming a student again, getting to know my community, learning about the land. I'm feeling invested in this new life, yet I still feel I'm holding something back. I am often glad when others take the initiative, happy to applaud from the sidelines as they achieve things I once dreamt of. Sometimes I feel too old to get involved, too broken to play, it's easier just to cocoon myself at home, watch a tacky movie, while scrolling on my phone.

My phone which is rarely used as a phone anymore. I can count on one hand the number of people I actually speak to during the course of a week. I receive more missed calls, unknown numbers, spam attempts than I do actual conversation pieces. It is a games console, although I'm getting bored with that. Over the past three years I have learned two languages, although I doubt I'd be confident enough to vocalise my knowledge. It keeps me up-to-date with world affairs. But in a world gone mad, is that really what I want?

I no longer know what is reality and what is fantasy. Facebook posts that turn into semi-novels, saying the same thing every day. Well written but not actually achieving much as those of us who read them (I tend to skim), have already brought into the fact that America is dead, so pour the champagne. Yet another day dawns and nothing changes. Wars rage on but nobody really reports on them for precisely that reason. Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan - we saw the rubble, the bodies, the land soaked in blood, we shook our heads in despair maybe even shed a tear or two, but we did nothing.

All the protests, the marches, the placard and flag waving - for what? The leader of the free world still lives in a Cinderella fantasy, painting the world orange and delighting in awards that mean nothing. What next, a golden ticket to Willy Wonka's new factory?

We see the desperation in the eyes of the children too hungry to move or speak, the hopelessness on the faces of the carers who bravely fight to heal the oppressed. We go about our daily lives trying not to dwell on what we've seen. But are we living or merely spectating?