Geography GCSE, wilfull ignorance and of course rats

What I've learnt in my Geography GCSE (aside from a head-full of statistics that are wholly outdated and likely incorrect) is how we are taught about the huge wealth disparity and suffering in the world - from a carefully unbiased perspective - and how people come out of the exam with no better empathy or understanding at all.

Indeed, the course dryly confronts floods, earthquakes, migration, rivers (and yes, the infamously boring Ox Box lake), birth control and a whole wealth of information which, credit due to the exam board, was actually pretty interesting and useful.

However.

Never once in a lesson have I heard even the slightest tone of outrage or upset when reading aloud how mx + c people die when badly built factories collapse because we wanted our trainers cheaper and so the MNC (look, I'm learning and repeating!) cut down on the building structure.

It is remarkable that people nowadays need things to be presented to them with an obvious slant and bias for people to actually think about and/or/perhaps/ifyou'relucky have an opinion about any of it. In fact, it is an indicator of the dangerous level of reliance and ineptitude that our generation possesses.

The "West" (we also learnt that there is more to development than what side of the map you live on) has bloody hands. We 20% produce 60% of the pollution, stirring up Global Warming, leading to worsening tropical storms killing 1,100 in Bangladesh. We consumers cause the deforestation of the rainforests and extinction of the creatures we have cheaply printed onto canvases for our living rooms. We self-proclaimed humanitarian charity-donors are stirring up civil war across the world due to the wealth disparity, corruption and suffering we create across the world.

Furthermore, our fuse is burning down.

I saw the film "Interstellar" a while back, and one scene really stuck with me. We're talking a few generations into the future. Land is infertile. Most people have died. Humanity has only a few years, winds of dust and corn, left. The protagonist (a father) has a meeting with the headmistress in a "careers guidance"-like meeting. He talks of his daughter wanting to be an engineer. The headmistress replies that the world doesn't need any more engineers. It needs farmers.

And indeed, how many more bankers/marketers/programmers/yoga teachers/film directors does the world need. And how many can it support? "Education" is held up as the redeeming path of all evils of humanity. I want to finish by questioning this.

In my History GCSE (the best one. Seriously.), I read a letter by a Holocaust survivor, addressing the UN. Begging. Begging for education to be given a moral compass. For the engineers made bombs, the chemists made extermination gas, the politicians condemned millions to death and the people allowed it all.
The survivor asked what the point of education is if it doesn't make the world a better place.

Emily Dickinson, agony and of course rats

I like a look of agony,
to quote Dickinson

I LIKE a look of agony,
Because I know it ’s true;
Men do not sham convulsion,
Nor simulate a throe.
The eyes glaze once, and that is death.	5
Impossible to feign
The beads upon the forehead
By homely anguish strung.

this is the poem that really first made me realise that she's totally different to everyone else.

The image combing "beads" and "anguish" on the "forehead" recalls (to me) Jesus on the crucifix [which may have been her intention. Dickinson definitely found more genuine meaning and personal connection (and comfort) with God and Jesus (and religious passion (in the agony sense)) than most other people. Somehow she manages to make all her poems about God not feel trite or a following of the establishment. She conveys a more real image of God, I think). And yet, this image of Christ dying is interesting because "the eyes glaze once"- and of course, Jesus doesn't really die once, or at all. Some may see his death as "feign[ing]". Perhaps (now this is on a real limb. An "alternative interpretation" to the obvious one) this poem is partially reconciling the impermanence of life and death and agony with the permanent afterlife; the simplicity of "and that is death" mirroring the holy simplicity and restfullness of it all. And all the agony and life and death and permanence is crystalised by the real truth of agony and pain, which she indeed saw as "homely" - perhaps something grounding and comforting, as she is used to agony. Maybe she saw this constant agony as a gateway to the better, "true" existence, similar to a purgatory.

I love the image of a kind anguish, stringing beads upon her forehead (like a crown or Indian jewelry). However, it makes me question what "beads" mean: one assumes it means "beads of sweat", or perhaps rosary beads? Or like a child, when they make you a necklace out of shitty yellow wooden beads. Either way, this poem overall conveys to me this image of a woman totally at one and affectionate for the agony that plagues her and fellow humans, a link between all the superficial shit she encountered. The delicacy of a row of beads on her forehead giving whispers that the pain isn't permanent: the eyes "glaze once" and the calmness of that juxtaposed with anguish gives a sense of acceptance. This association makes it unclear whether she sees (in this poem) death as painless. "anguish" feels like a resignation. the simplicity: she "like[s]" a "look" of agony.

it's all rather quiet.