[Name redacted by tired Editor] is an American anti-vaccine activist, Republican politician, and interior designer.

Why am I reading this? I think wearily. Because I wanted to know who [name redacted] was, and why the legislature in Maine censured her. The answer? According to who you talk to, she's either a brave defender of the rights of a large group of people, or somebody who put a teenager's life in danger by using their photo to score cheap political points. I think you can guess what I've concluded.

I did this searching right after I tried to puzzle out a storyboard on Bluesky. The author of the storyboard has a children's novel they want to pitch. I won't go into too much detail – it's their story, and I wish them all the luck with it – but it involved an adventurous wheelchair user, some pirates, a lot of magic, and a (to me) terrible tortured metaphor involving swedes. Again, good luck, but I wish these writers had access to intelligent coaching.

In the midst of the madness we're experiencing – and yes, I know it will only get worse until either a miracle occurs or something gets irrevocably broken – I'm still trying to figure out why WB Yeats was right.

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

That's what he said, and I've just seen it in action. In the midst of possibly the stupidest people outside of a collection of Shakespeare comic-relief characters all trying to run a government (and don't believe for a second they aren't as surprised as anybody that they're getting away with it), some politician from what was supposed to be the side of the grownups told their colleagues that the best course of action for the opposition party right now would be to sit on their hands and do nothing! The ensuing chaos, so the 'reasoning' goes, will give the public time to appreciate them. They appear to be miffed that the voters 'let them down.'

Bro, the voters aren't supposed to be there for you.

That politician's response to being dissed at the ballot box reminded me of a performance of Coriolanus I saw half a century ago in Munich. In that play, Coriolanus, who is a Roman patrician doing that career thing they did, is standing for public office. Literally. He has to stand in a public place wearing a white toga, the toga candida, or specially whitened toga. Yes, that's where the word comes from.

Coriolanus doesn't like standing for office. He doesn't like to be questioned by mere commoners. He hates commoners. They figure this out – and hate him back. The disaffected patrician stalks off, declaring, 'There is a world elsewhere.' He becomes Rome's enemy.

Of course, Coriolanus's problem is that when it comes to Rome, there isn't a world elsewhere. That's why exile was such a potent punishment two thousand years ago. Our problem right now is that, like it or not, certain countries have more clout on the world stage than others. Much as you and I might prefer that not to be true, when those particular countries' governments get out of whack, we all suffer. Which is why I am mad at these politicians. They'll hurt all of us, around the world, just because their noses are out of joint. What kind of behaviour is that?

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned. . .

That's WB Yeats again. 'The ceremony of innocence' is why I mentioned the writer with the turnips and the pirates. You see, I was thinking hard about why writers with really good intentions often have really bad ideas. (Not saying the swede analogy is a bad idea, because I haven't read the book.) And here is what I thought: it's hard to describe new things. And, like it or not, certain ideas that shouldn't be new at all seem to strike the majority of people as new. You have to be extra-good as a writer to get those ideas across.

Of course, if you succeed, you'll be a pioneer. People will praise you for that. But as an old German proverb says, beginnings are always hard. New ideas need space where they can be nurtured. There will always be growing pains. What all of us need to do is to honour that space and applaud the gardeners.

Instead, unfortunately, we usually get. . . what we're getting now. Somebody who owns a thousand-acre farm who's yelling at the top of his lungs that his neighbour's little backyard vegetable garden is stealing all his water and besides, his expensive, genetically engineered seed probably wandered over the fence and it's unfair to him. . .

You see what I mean?

Robbie Stamp told me his 'message to the future' would be, 'Beware the horrors we unleash on each other in the name of certainty.' That's a good one. Insecure people like to feel that they have all the bases covered. They like complete systems of thought and action. The problem with that is that, as Arthur Koestler said a long time ago, it's a closed system. Closed systems are bad for all of us, not just the 'outsiders.'

The real problem with allowing these periodic hissy fits – where people overreact to their neighbour's need for a little breathing space – is that we risk creating a monster out of our own fears. If we're not careful, we're going to experience the rest of that WB Yeats poem.

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

I don't wish that on us. Who's with me?

Dmitri Gheorgheni

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