The UK has made its decision to leave the EU. Instead of moaning, wouldn’t it be better to embrace it positively? When the dust settles in the coming months, I think many of the Remain people will be glad we left the EU.

Why? Because we can now grasp the opportunity to open up to the whole world and shake off the shackles of the EU permanently. Lets face it, who would want to belong to a club struggling with economic weakness, debt problems, large-scale migration and growing geopolitical instability?

The people finally won over the Establishment. By the Establishment, I mean: the elite, the centers of power, the leading politicians, judges and law makers, aristocrats, the privileged ruling class, the rich and powerful, best educated in the society. But these people are NOT necessarily the ones that make the best decisions!

This Establishment and its self-serving political elites are the people who, for years, have ignored the anxieties and aspirations of the electorate.

The Establishment has been out of touch with the people and they have had ENOUGH. Millions of people in the UK don’t embrace the liberal views of the elite. They don’t enthuse about diversity and it’s their right to object. Their values and opinions have been ignored for years and that has promoted frustration and discord in the population.

The people, were and are, fed up with being called, “racist’, just because they, were and are, concerned about large numbers of migrants breaking up the infrastructure of their country.

Cameron and his cronies have persistently represented the interests of Europe in Britain rather than standing up for Britain in Europe.

Now, we have the opportunity to make our own laws, set our own taxes, make our own trade deals and control our borders. In other words, to control our destiny, because you don’t have a country if you can’t control your destiny!

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So, by voting for Brexit, the people have defied the pleading of the Establishment to stay in the EU. They, the elite, could not bear the idea that there might be a better way of doing things.

As far as the young people of the nation, who feel this decision is to build a wall and pull up the drawbridge, I don’t think so, just the opposite. It will open up this country to the rest of the world, which is a great opportunity and it will be a benefit to the young people. It could be a very prosperous future it they work toward it.

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I always felt that Cameron’s Project Fear was a shameful deceit and a pulling down of this country. This infuriated the people.

I feel business will engage with Brexit and it will work with a minimum of disruption.

It’s a fact that the 28 member EU was useless at negotiating free-trade deals with the rest of the world. If the EU is to survive, it must make drastic reforms or die. And I don’t think the EU is capable of REAL reform.

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This could be the beginning of a period of growth and prosperity and higher living standards now that we are OUT of the EU. There will be prospects of increased exports to areas in the world where we didn’t do much before (Mid-East, Far-East and North America).

With freedom from the Brussels bureaucracy there are great opportunities for the UK to seize the day.

There is no need to be frightened, Britain will not just survive, but it will THRIVE.

It might be a rocky road at first, but with the freedom to be a self-governing, outward-looking society, the skies are bright.

HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN!

Since I am a writer in my retirement, I am starting to study Shakespeare, which I never did in my youth. I am finding many lessons in the lines of his writings. They are woven in the fabric of his plays. His words contain a great amount of good advice and wisdom.

Here are some that have stayed in my mind:

“We know what we are but know not what we may be.”

This means to me, that we are certain of who we are in the present but not in the future. We don’t realize what we are capable of.

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“The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.”

This probably means our life is full of positive and negative experiences and they are interconnected. Life is full of ups and downs.

It also could mean the unraveling of the threads of our life as we grow old.

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“What is past is prologue.”

A prologue is an intro or preface. So the quote means your past has set the scene for the present.

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“I wasted time and now doth time waste me.”

We all waste time. When we are young, time appears to be unlimited. But as the years go by, the finite nature of our life reveals itself. So the message is: Live each day to the fullest.

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“Give every man thy ear but few thy voice.”

This means to practice listening more and less speaking. The world is full of talkers but listening is a virtue.

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“Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.”

We all have self-doubts but when you wallow in them, you prevent yourself from achieving your goals.

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“A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.”

There is wisdom in knowing that you don’t know everything. The wise man realizes there is a vast amount to understand and he is aware that he knows little.

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Yes, Shakespeare is full of lessons.

“Words, words, give me the words and I will write wonderful stories.”

I made that one up myself!

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What are some of the quotes that are meaningful to you?

Recently, I watched Mike Leigh’s film, Naked. It was an excellent demonstration of Sartre’s philosophy of living an authentic existence versus living in bad faith. Also, it illuminated our ability to make right or wrong choices.

Are we, as individuals, able to choose? Who, or what, is in control of you?

Who is in charge? You must decide that you do have a choice, you do have free will, if you fear this decision you will lose any free will that you had!

To begin, I think we need to define the two terms:

Authentic Living—one must take responsibility for the actions one chooses. One must not lean on preset rules and objective norms.

Living in Bad Faith—failing to recognize the many choices that are available. Bad faith is the habit people have of deceiving themselves into thinking that they do NOT have the freedom of choice. They fear the consequences of making a choice. So they fear choice, which is a choice in itself.

Naked is a raw movie, where people are stripped of their protective layer of civility and compassion. The three male characters refuse to face facts and make good choices. With pressure from society’s rules and norms, they adopt false values and disown their freedom. They don’t take responsibility for their actions.

The story is how these male characters interact with the women in the tale.

There is Johnny, the sociopath, Jeremy, the violent class conscious person and Brian, the night-watchman, who is a voyeur. They all live lives full of bad faith. They are all misogynists.

Johnny is a person with a personality disorder which manifests itself in antisocial attitudes and behaviors. He never tries to get himself out of being an educated derelict. He is naked in the sense that he has nothing of material value and he has lost his identity and security.

Jeremy believes his high social class gives him the right to be dominate over others. He is violent toward women and he takes but doesn’t give. He believes he is very masculine, which is his essential role. His personality is expressed through his massive consumption of objects, cars and luxuries.

Brian is a security guard, he guards the building at night for the daytime people. To him, he guards nothing. He has no sense of identity. He watches other people with no interaction with them. He feels he has no freedom of choice and denies any responsibility in his world.

The male characters in Naked, are all caught in bad faith, they deny their freedom of choice or try to avoid it.

In conclusion, we must choose to act and take responsibility for those actions. We must make sense of our lives. This is living authentically. We cannot feel that we are victims of fate, or mysterious forces within us, or of heredity, or pressure from society, for all this is to be living in bad faith.

The end result of your existence here on earth will be the total of the choices you made while you were here.