In my neighbourhood nobody clapped for the NHS but I have read about it. I have also read one ex-Brit's facebook post: "I live in (named EU country) where they praise their health system by funding it." Ouch. Like so many, I was attracted from the mid 1970s (when I first visited; finally moved to the UK in 1994), by a sense of a quite unique sense of liberalism - be it expressed by a posh man rolling up his trouser legs in his lunch break and lounging in Hyde Park between Hippies and others while reading (insert name of news paper) or the more formal 'we just have to agree to disagree'. Certainly not an expression easy to translate either. I am not going to moan about how social media and other influences have sharpened the edges of often black-or-white discussions. What I am reflecting on, today, in my personal life as elsewhere is this: We all still have the ability to keep an open mind - by holding paradoxes. 'And we need it, Both is true' of course, if taken seriously, is a statement that boggles the mind. Once I have broken through the discomfort of isolation, watching too much telly ... the silence of solitude takes me back to the point where I can hold a paradox: Both is true - some of what comes to mind now: The NHS is fantastic - and crippled through self-obstructing managerialism (not just lack of funding in my view). Brits are unique in their willingness to be charitable and volunteer while also far too willing to vote against their social interests and look away from outdated political (and judicial?) practices. I hope to keep breathing the freedom that can be sensed rather than thought, thinking of some of my previous social work clients who taught me so much about living in the midst of paradox.
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