The Theatre of Over-Reaction

 

You'll know my blogging style by now. Writing on a whim, on a hunch. Very little research or statistical information to back my claims up. Just a whole lot of supposition and hearsay. That's just how you like it or you wouldn't still be with me after 10 years and thank you by the way. Thank you for reading this.

I'm going to draw a comparison between Will Smith's slap of Chris Rock and Putin's invasion of Ukraine. I actually wrote Afghanistan there before correcting it to Ukraine. Putin is the subconscious of the old Soviet states. This has been churning over and over in the back of his mind since before 2014. When he was a KGB agent in Dresden and when the Berlin wall fell. Like ET he phoned home to tell them and nobody answered. Boris Yeltsin had said in hindsight that it had been a mistake to promote him.

Will Smith the former child star in an open relationship with Jada Pinkett Smith. A lot of tinseltown water has flowed under the bridge since he started treading the boards. He reacted to Chris Rock's insult of his wife like Putin reacted to NATO's fucking about in the Ukraine since 2014. Rock got a slap in the glare of cameras and Ukraine has been bombed mercilessly since Russian troops invaded. 

They both reacted but they both over reacted to the contents of their subconscious. If Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud were both standing over the minds of Will Smith and Vladimir Putin when they over reacted what would they say?

Freud might speculate that Smith had not been getting enough sex. He might speculate that Putin had been getting too much. Jung might say that the anima of both men had been diminished to such an extent that all they saw was Chris Rock's cheek and Ukraine's ostentatious flirting with the West. 

It wasn't about the inciting incident but all the crap that had been left to fester inside Smith and Putin's subconscious. They hadn't done their spiritual spring cleaning. A boiler needs a service every ten years minimum, ideally once a year. How long had these guys gone before having a Kundalini Yoga Session or going on a mindfulness retreat.

I feel sorry for both in so much that even though they have to deal with their demons the world carries on in its unconscious format. Hollywood and the Ukraine are symbols of unconsciousness. If you keep poking Will Smith and the Russian Bear they will both react. Smith to his 'loveless' marriage and Putin to the fact that the west have demonised the Soviet Union and Russia since the Hammer & Sickle was hoisted over the Reichstag in 1945.

The West has bullied and demonised Russia since 1917 when they had the audacity to overthrow their monarchy. Imagine if the poor of America had overthrown their ruling elite during the Great Depression where would they be now? 

How many of us can honestly say that we have never over reacted? It's not about what is said or done at the time but about what it triggers in us. Many of us are walking time bombs carrying around a dreadful amount of psychic and spiritual shit from the past. If we don't kill others in reaction we end up killing ourselves. As you know there just aren't enough therapists to go around.

Chris Rock niggled Smith as Ukraine and NATO have been niggling Putin. They both reacted without self restraint. They both reacted and we are where we are. The most amusing thing to me in a deeply tragic way as a common and garden blogger and social commentator is that we 'the others' just have to carry on in our own sweet way. Plenty to see here but we can't allow it to stop our banal lives. We have queues to join at Manchester Airport or Lorries to park at Dover.

Atrocities in the Ukraine are being described as War Crimes. The biggest crime is the way that we are living in reaction. Watching 24 hour news and taking to twitter as our collective subconsciousness is being hastily eroded. Take a side, pick a side we are told when in reality there are no sides to pick. 

We go to the kitchen to boil the kettle and Jung and Freud are waiting for us.