Two Tweets

On Tuesday, YouGov published a heart-breaking tweet from one of their surveys: ‘A quarter of Brits (26%) - and 41% Leave voters - say they’re bothered when they hear those from a non-English speaking country talking to each other in their own language whilst in the UK.’

But it wouldn’t have been as painful with a bit of rewriting and a slightly different question: ‘Almost three-quarters of Brits (74%) - and 59% of Leave voters - say they’re not bothered when they hear those from a non-English speaking country talking to each other in their own language whilst in the UK.’ 

The story about myself I own isn’t just mine. It’s shaped and influenced and contaminated by others. This is the side effect of trying to be connected, of working in a network of human beings with their own hopes and fears, their conclusions and preconceptions. Meditation (at least in my case) works as a response: to guide myself in that second between those two beliefs. Between the narcissism of many so-called victims, and the blindness of shallow naivety. 

And now, re-reading the two tweets above, I suspect that the actual truth must be somewhere between them.