Everything is Very Orwellian...

This always happens. Focus on one subject intently, and you see illuminations everywhere.

So my focus on George Orwell (see previous post), changes everything around me. I mean, that focus changes my perception of other things, and guides me to notice, and choose, other things accordingly. Suddenly I find myself changing the soundtrack of my life, listening to the two great "dystopian bands," Pink Floyd and Radiohead almost exclusively.

"Orwellian" - "is an adjective describing a situation, idea, or societal condition that George Orwell identified as being destructive to the welfare of a free and open society. It denotes an attitude and a brutal policy of draconian control by propaganda, surveillance, misinformation, denial of truth(doublethink), and manipulation of the past, including the "unperson"—a person whose past existence is expunged from the public record and memory, practised by modern repressive governments. Often, this includes the circumstances depicted in his novels, particularly Nineteen Eighty-Four[2] but political doublespeak is criticized throughout his work, such as in Politics and the English Language.[3]"

Both Roger Waters and Thom Yorke have obviously been influenced by Orwell's writing. Think especially Pink Floyd's "Animals," "The Dark Side of the Moon," "Wish You Were Here," "The Final Cut," and Radiohead's complete catalog of records (one long dystopian nightmare).

And Water's late great "Is this the Life We Really Want?" seems to carry Orwell's critical eye, and laser-light intellect into the present time.

I have also been lately binge-watching episodes of the late Anthony Bourdain's "Parts Unknown."  Of course, I learned after his suicide that Bourdain was a great admirer of George Orwell.  I finally put two and two together. Bourdain in "Parts Unknown" is like an American Orwell traveling around the world. Bourdain and Orwell, so different in many ways, have so much in common; a trust and love for "common" people. A trust in the simple things. A trust in simple observation. What do people eat? How do they dress? What do they do day to day? What is on their minds? How do they explain themselves?

This is a method that gets to the truths of life and living. Check out Bourdain's episodes about Jerusalem or Grenada, or Houston. Your mind will be illuminated, expanded. Stereotypes bloom and fall away. Bloom and fall at the same time. What you thought you knew about a place and it's people may no longer be operative. It's the same working method that's alive in Orwell's "Down and Out in Paris & London." We learn how poor people, street people live. What they eat, what they wear, how they treat each other, how they curse, how they see the world.

There is something life-affirming about this method of living. Digging for the obvious truths. Tuning out the noise, not accepting the stereotype, not being distracted by ideologies, or political programs. Using our two eyes, our two feet, our brains, our hearts to look, to see, to be surprised. Oh yeah, and also to take in the pain, the suffering, the dislocation, and alienation, that we swim in too.

No one promised us a rose garden. But see the flowers? Smell the bouquet? Don't forget the thorns and the worms, the shit and the dirt.  We get it all. It's very Orwellian.