I remember having a conversation with a particularly "special" 'American of Irish descent' [sic] where he expressed puzzlement as to why people looked down on Imperialism. After all, for millennia superior civilizations have conquered lesser ones, imparting better education, healthcare, engineering and science even if to only better utilize and exploit native resources. Give it a few thousand years and everyone will look back with relish and fondness of the great European Empires, then American Empire and then whatever follows that - after all, the Romans are universally agreed to have been the best thing since anything invented by the Romans.
I can see why my brain brought that memory up, why it would bring up a macrocosmic conundrum in relation to me seeing my area develop. I took a walk out today and it was absolutely gorgeous. The sun was out without being scorching, and as it reflected into the green waters I was reminded of a stroll by a Malaysian reservoir where the only sound was the buzzing of flies and birds and the world didn't need a purpose. I was struck back by the huge fish that swam in the Albion channel, where once the fish were only the size of fingers and had tumors, growing up in waters regularly infested by blue-green algae, pondweed and foreign bacteria imported by Thames Water to kill the former two. When I went down to lower road to pick up 4 pints, I was amazed when I walked past the neatly-trimmed hedgerows that once rendered the footpath unusable, and into the council center where the whole place was alive with the chatter of smartly-dressed individuals and shining buildings that made the whole place look like some high-end central London district, and the amount of traffic was beginning to reflect that. On my way back I remembered all my old favourite stores and restaurants, of which all have now since closed down and been replaced by retailers, and laughed at something tragically hilarious. KCL was building a new campus or something over a tract of wasteland that was only occupied by trees and patrol dogs for the news factory a bit further up from there, and some other local chaps had graffiti'd some of the most polite protestations I'd ever seen onto the barriers the construction workers were using to keep the riff raff out. Things like 'more trees, less police,' 'respect the people' and after the French were attacked 'je suis Charlie.' Someone had actually looked at that and thought to paint over it all with black paint just to deprive them of that one small act.
Honestly I don't know what I'm so sad about. The great big powers that be have chucked millions, if not billions of pounds into the area and the area is now objectively better. There's a great big library that people actually use, several cafes which are nothing short of bursting with life, for the first time ever I've seen hipsters and businessmen in the area (not a good thing in of itself, but they are a sign of money), the old gangs are pretty much all dead or have been pushed into Peckham (even quite recently they shut down a weed plantation in Bermondsey), other than the monthly shooting or stabbing no one dies, developments are being made on a phenomenal scale (with a close call being to the construction crew who dug into a WWII bomb), house values are going up and even the shopping centers have been bought out by the Arabs after Tesco went to financial shitters, and the Arabs are sign #2 of money interchangeable with Russians, the French and Chinese. The only thing left is to actually have a local GP that isn't total shit and to have good schools and this place would be downright utopian.
Yet I still feel at odds with this. Perhaps it's general resistance to change, like finding out the old gas holder outside my house is going to be demolished, with the area losing its last industrial and ironically, imperial heritage. I find it extremely disturbing when figureheads start championing diversity whilst desperately doing their best to try and make everywhere from Jamaica street to Canada water look absolutely the fucking same.
There was never some great realization one day where I noticed this happening, it's been going on for the better part of two decades and each time I grew to accept each change.
At least with all this money in the area they might finally build a fucking bridge to the north in the east. I actually walked through Rotherhithe tunnel once. Emphasis on once, as the TFL estimate that only 20 pedestrians use Rotherhithe tunnel to cross the Thames a day compared to tens of thousands of cars. And in all honesty, I'd expect that number to be much lower. It was worth it just for the bemused looks of drivers and it's not something I would've done without a banterous friend, but on the way I passed an old iron stairway midway that was closed down due to damage from WWII that was never repaired. Fitting that such historical artifacts are either trapped underground where only 20 people will see it, or forged into metal maps of a dockyard sitting atop hills, maps of a dockyard that no longer exists.
But that was a while ago, and this is now. Walking home... I remember talking about how Willows were never negative trees or just symbols of decay to me; they were always the trees which leaned over Albion's waters, where under I could sit through the sun and sit through the rain, whose locks of leaf-life hair were a comfortable sight for me for when I returned home in day or dark.
And as I returned home I saw a neat, bright, green, pristine and clean grass lawn, only broken up by one irregular patch where there was a Willow tree's stump.
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Topic: Things that made you sad today thread. (Read 9699385 times)