Politeness is a much-overlooked virtue. It's seen as hypocrisy. But we need to get to a stage when you're for conviction X and someone says, "Well you know, I did act on conviction Y (possibly the opposite of X)," you politely ignore it. You move on. Because you've agreed on 90 percent of things, because you have a shared view on so many things, and you politely differ. And I think that's what the religious wars of late have ignored. They've ignored the possibility of harmonious disagreement.

If we don't like a situation, why don't we just leave?

We don’t need, I think – I hope – to detail too extensively here the exact answer to that question. Bullet points: an immediate fear of being shouted down, insulted, or blackmailed preceded by months or years of exploitation of the weakest points in your psyche by masters of the art; an erosion of your liberty, agency and financial independence (if you had any to begin with), coupled with a sense of shame and stigma and a lack of practical options; no money, no voice, nowhere to run. To top it all, a sinking feeling that says you've already accepted and internalized your lowly place in the scheme of things, your defeat, your ignominy.

Much as your difficulties seem important to you, ultimately you are that grasshopper near the washbasin that begets a shudder of revulsion as opposed to genuine empathy. Or, at best --one hopes-- pitiless indifference.

It is all a prickly listlessness. Cat's hair, the farcical
Theatre of the rest of your life
Playing out against the whirr of an engine, drowning you
Out. Who you were, who you will never be
To whom you may never Belong
To whom you are, once more, a mere client, a mere
Nothingness. Why bother?

Listen. To the gentle thrum as they saw you in half.

Hello again the one-handed
Zen clap
of a slammed door, a question, and a silent repudiation.
This temporary oasis, like all others, has dried up and shrivelled
all mirth
any last (unclutchable) straw of
Consolation.
Decision pronto, no appeal. FLOAT
from one day to another, listlessly, a bloated,
gassy
Corpse, coughing and sneezing both with and without shame.

Allow the tremors of every yearning, every ache for
a new life a fresh start a stupid stupid hope
dissipate...
There is the sharp, the suffocating moment.
And that is all, as ever.

Does the customised debauchery
Do the unticked boxes from TodayYesterdaytheDayBefore
reveal anything
At all?
No.

It never stops.
It never stops.
It never stops.
It never stops.
It never stops.
It never stops.
It never stops.
It never stops!