There is hardly a moment's peace in the omnipresent and strangely overstimulated world of media. Short of turning every device off and ignoring the newspapers (now far fewer than of yore), it is impossible to get away from its constant jabbering. It fills every space and then forgets the contents of the space it has filled, as if the last event has somehow disappeared or never existed in the first place. This odd amnesiac tendency sweeps away whole lives and narratives as if by magic, though we know the real reason is more a hyperactive hunger to fill the next gap in the cycle.

I think the ultimate effect of all this noise, for noise it is, is to create anxiety. I am not saying that the intention is to make populations anxious, but that the management of news ends up with people feeling dislocated, worried and uncertain about the world around them. There is very little balance between so-called bad news (war, accidents, murder etc) and good news, those stories that tell of positive human endeavour. I am told that the latter does not sell, but I am skeptical. We have been trained to expect the worst by our news services.



On a quite different note, a friend asked me what the haiku in my previous post was about. I was surprised that anyone read this blog, let alone a friend. She guessed that it had something to do with the funeral of King Rama IX (correct!) but did not understand the last line. When I wrote the poem, I was struggling for a way of more symbolically portraying the passing of the King's funeral carriage. I decided to use one of the Thai Royal Houses's own symbols, the discus (Chakri). The Chakri, being circular, is wheel-like. This reminded me of the Wheel of Dharma, a Buddhist concept you can investigate for yourself. So the Wheel fits nicely(in my head, anyway) the relationship between the Royal House and the Buddhist faith that it upholds.