The solastalgia club

I am thinking of organising an all ages Grumble Club – for people like me who are feeling 'out of place' in their world. An alien world.

Older folk might be nostalgic for times past – every generation must feel that. But I think it's MORE than nostalgia that we are feeling. I feel nostalgia and a sense of loss for 'how it was' when I was young. But that is not what I am feeling.

Nostalgia is what I MAKE MYSELF FEEL via a memory. My feeling is a hopeless, frustrated nostalgia – and I can tell that others feel it too.

So I think Solastalgia is a more powerful word that encompasses the deep emotion we might be feeling even though it usually describes the suffering of a nation, people or displaced group. I think we are feeling it now, in our own country.

Landmarks of solace that are used to comfort are no longer in my land


Freedom of speech
Now there is now legislated thought control and speech control

Freedom of movement
Now we are now surveilled

Personal Anonymity of ordinary people
Now we are a statistic from birth to death, in sickness and in health

Friendly Police
Now Police now enforce state regulations and submit statistics

Freedom of community behaviour
Now Health and Safety regulations control us

A friendly protective state
Now an intimidating state whose legislations are so numerous as to be unknown

Church/Religion was valued
Now scorn for Religion/Church, new atheism, disdain

Communities knew their own + trusted
Now CRB checks, paedophile neurosis

Frontiers and borders
Now Free immigration

England/Great Britain
Now Small Britain - only a tiny EU island

Garbage Removal Council Responsibility
Now Re-cycling our responsibility

Teachers allowed to discipline classes
Now Dis-empowered Teachers

Parental autonomy
Now Dis-empowered parents

Real famous people
Now manufactured 'celebrities'

Sex as 'mysterious', discoverable
Now Sex as a 'flouted' commodity

Innocent children
Now 'Adultised' children

Society - naturally
Now Scientifically 'sculpted' society

A meaningful vote implementing change
Now a worthless vote – no change

The Family Doctor – an intimate 'friend'
Now impersonal doctors filling their Govt. statistics only offering options according to their Govt 'list' and not advising anything

Home remedies, old wives and grandma
Now Big Pharmaceutical companies are driving medicine and influencing doctors

Hips failing, fatness, diabetes, high blood pressure were once unlucky 'conditions'
Now most Illnesses are now OUR fault – we are to feel shame, take the blame

Old, wise-men politicians
Now commercialised 'Pretty boy' Politicians

Free Press
Now manipulated Press

Marriage as a base for a family
Now Marriage unrequired

Mysteries, paranormal, spirit
Now Scientism/skepticism denies/refutes all

Science as a method
Now Science as a priesthood

An accident used to occur, accidently!
Now there is no place for an accident – someone is to 'blame'

People with money sued others, most folk felt safe
Now everyone now can sue anyone – everyone feels nervous

When you were old, you looked old
Now it's your fault if you look old

People smoked
Now smoking demonised, children mustn't see it! False scientific 'statistics'

Science was used to prove something unarguably and re-testably
Now science is used to prove something for political purposes (like SH Smoke, Man-made climate change, vitamins are bad etc)

Winter, spring, summer, autumn were reliable – forever. Earth was our stable home.

Now climate change is OUR fault. We are killing our home – even by breathing!

God was God
Now Darwin is God

The Government was a Democracy
Now it wages wars in the name of its disagreeing citizens, and signs the Lisbon Treaty and passes laws illegally.


The debilitating effects of Nostalgia can occur when you are physically displaced from somewhere you call home. Solastalgia occurs when the environment you call home changes unrecognisably for reasons beyond your immediate control. Solastalgia can lead to distress and the psychological defense against solastalgia is apathy and hopelessness.

My personal view is that there is some kind of 'sickness' abroad in Great Britain, millions are suffering solastalgia and the symptom is an impotent apathy.

A solastalgia club would be a place to discuss the pain of living in a 'foreign' country that used to be 'home'. We would achieve solace by discovering another person who feels the same as we do. We could grumble, complain in my club – or even DO something about our world and in getting together, we would affirm that we are NOT helplessly APATHETIC!