It is what it is

"It is what it is", reckoned my brother-in-law. I on the other hand was the first person on the streets of the UK protesting about the lockdown. It was a little ironic that as most were locked at home, there were not that many out and about to protest to. Some of those safely indoors were beaten each day, many intimately, making the concept of being safe at home laughable. Imagine being raped each day, every day whilst the TV spews out the same wretched message, "stay home, stay safe". These were the ones I was fighting for. Stoicism has consequences. There were millions of extra cases of domestic violence directly caused by lockdowns. I repeat extra, not simply millions in total. Caging people alters their behaviour dramatically. It is unnatural.

Stoicism has a place. As does action. The idea behind stoicism is the resignation, the acceptance that there are many things that we have no control over. These things we need not get ourselves in a stew about it. Let it be and take what you can from life.

I knew that one man on the street will make no major impact on the status quo. However, it was a start. And this start began to change people's minds. Bit by bit it adds up. We gradually realign the view of the majority. One chap saw me, stopped his car, and came over to me. It was a relief for him to see me there as a beacon of sanity. He thought the world had gone completely mad. We conformed and allowed tyranny to take hold. Using sly nudge theory, they gradually upped the control. First making us wear muzzles, aka face masks on public transport, then in shops and then in the bath. We became stoic about it and thought we were doing some good - playing our part in a futile game of trying to stop an unstoppable virus from spreading.

I never wore a mask. Not once. I got a few dirty disdainful looks. They were the symbol of compliance. They spoke loudly, visibly that we agree to the nonsense. Nonsense that made no sense. A young couple braved it. They walked sheepishly through a shopping centre, spotting me casually, indifferently walking by - mask free. They thought they might be the only ones. I gave them encouragement and confidence. One person can edge us towards a tipping point. Have faith, have belief. Stoics here achieved nothing.

Your stoicism, your happiness gleaned from making the best of it, is what the tyrants want. Eat your cold thin soup and thank your lucky stars that you have at least those few morsels to stave away the hunger. It is what it is. Dictators rely on mass compliance. China's ridiculous eternal zero covid policy came to an abrupt end when the stoics were defeated.

I set out to say to people that our health service might not be saved by locking down, by delaying so many treatments in preference to treating those with a virus. I set out to say that the final death toll may end up being far higher if we lock the county down. Was I right? We have 15 hour waits for ambulances. We have untold numbers dying by the day from cancer that could have been treated well before it spread so far. We have Strep A killing children at unprecedented rates - albeit in small actual volumes. We have half a million children that never completed their education and will die far younger as a result of a poorer lifestyle. No one can prove beyond doubt whether I am right or not. We will bring up fallacies. We will say that we didn't know what we were dealing with at the start. We will say lots of things and rewrite history in our heads. The stoics would have prolonged the lockdowns until we died from the subjugation.

You can't do much about the weather. We can be stoic about that. There are fights that are worth battling and fights that are better left to someone else. Stoicism has a place in our lives for sure. However, each conversation you have, each time you get your points across it helps turn the tide. These things take time. A lot of time. I had a conversation and then wrote about how it is so difficult to create a true differential between men and women. I published the findings twenty years ago, in 2003. People laughed at me back then. Now look at the debates on that subject today. We have another fight now which is saying things that is once again years ahead of its time. The battle to defeat feminism. To bring equality in, in its place. Men are barred from leaving Russia and Ukraine. Taiwan is enlisting men ready to fight China if needed. Women on the other have female privilege, they need not serve their country and be expended as pawns in the games of their leaders. Female genital mutilation is outlawed, and male babies have a chunk of their genitals torn off - often taken and used to make face cream, for women.

It is quite simple. Ask yourself this. What if all the fit strong women were banned from leaving and forced to fight whilst the men were offered to share a house in a safe nation? What would we think if women's clitorises were legally snipped off to make face cream for men and male circumcision was outlawed instead?

I write regularly in the comments section of The Times. I write about the plain blatant discrimination men face. The result: I am largely blanked and derided. When I write other bits in aid of women the result is overwhelmingly different. I asked a homeless, ex-serviceman what he thought about the vile practice of giving free passage to women to come to Europe whilst the men are left to have parts of their body blown off. He still has his lower jaw so could explain that "you wouldn't want a woman with PMT anywhere near a machine gun". I know the road to a better more equal world is a long one. Nevertheless, I planted a seed in his head, and I must plant many more. It would be easier to be stoical and just brush past the suffering of other men.

"The single most important practice in Stoic philosophy is differentiating between what we can change and what we can't. " That is useful to get to grips with for our wellbeing. The issue lies within the differentiating. People believe that some things can't be changed because the forces at work are so great.

Some people will show a remarkable degree of tolerance. They will let thing go. They ask themselves how much does this affect me on a scale of one to ten? If it is below eight, then they let it be. They may put up with a minor discretion, a minor infraction - maybe a little rudeness or odd behaviour. One can mull over our interactions with people and worry far too much about whether we were right or wrong. We can deliberate for hours and not get to sleep, ruminating over what may actually be something rather small in the grand scheme of things. By rating the issue, most can discard the fears quickly. Whether you have been offended or they have caused offence to you, it need not play on our minds for too long. Rather than toss and turn in bed we say to ourselves, this can be put aside for now and I can give it more consideration tomorrow.

I know that change is slow. Some think that they can glue themselves to something and cause a great deal of disruption to get action right away. They have not got the patience for steady protest. They can only see an emergency on their hands. Support for your cause takes a while to build. Jumping in headfirst with major direct action can end up being counterproductive. One also needs to be brutally honest. Take the climate change issue. Whether it is all man made or not we need to consider the impact of uncontrolled population explosions in parts of the world. No matter how much each nation reduces their fossil fuel consumption, having more people is always going to make things more difficult to manage.