Really really o/t but... Im going through this now, having just returned to the UK after a number of years away. Last time I felt this way was when i left a vi

Really really o/t but... Im going through this now, having just returned to the UK after a number of years away. Last time I felt this way was when i left a village bubble for the bubble of London village. That said - I'm amazed at how 'broken' everything is - schools, doctors, police, roads. And so much of London is still 'up and coming', i.e. a dump. However, it can't have changed that much. Friends are still comfortably numb and tolerant of the entropy and propaganda. As I was before - indeed, I maintained a rosy view of Blighty all my time outside and it served as my benchmark for other countries. Im sure the change is more with me - I see this place with new eyes and feel like a foreigner tbh. It's an interesting position. Travel (not tourism) perhaps doesn't broaden the mind as much as create a cognitive dissonance. We deal with it by either denial and retreating into our set patterns or adapting. The former is a living death. Embrace change or be consumed by it. wrt UK - gov here is stealthily setting up their own great wall. Given the well established corporate news filters, speech censorship and language planning, its no longer in anyones interest to speak openly in public. What a system we have created for ourselves! Still as Kierkegaard reminded us: people lay so much store by freedom of expression, but not so much for freedom of thought. They can't take that away from us (yet)