THE BIGGER PICTURE Shalini Sinha: There are a lot of shaky people in the world. There are a lot of people who, at first glance, appear to be together, intact, relaxed and functioning well. Many of these appear wearing the right clothes and hairstyle, providing us with friendly, welcoming smiles. Many also seem to know exactly what to say in a social situation, showing themselves to be intelligent, informative, witty and generally "cool".
And yet, as our gaze is drawn beyond the head and shoulders towards the edges of their presentation, something small often takes our attention away.
There is something undeniably inconsistent in the picture: the hand shakes, the knee bobs, the foot dances in place. There is a crack in the armour, a break in the dam. There is unrest where one thought there was rest. An emerging quake seems to exist within, refusing to be suppressed and showing us how much more is going on beyond the facade.
The pressure to uphold an image of calm comes to us from the forces of our economy. The people we believe to be fine, successful or admirable, are people who have managed to succeed in our elusive financial system. They are the people who have learned the secrets of the matrix, and pragmatically made decisions to gain access to it.
These are the people we strive to be, the people we honour, the people who get to project a persona of being happy. It is these people we believe are the most together in the world, and wish we could be like them.
It is certain that when they go home at night, they love themselves and are loved by many. They feel safe, secure and comfortable with who they are. They how it's all going.
And yet, I've never met a person who didn't believe they were the one being left behind. They were forgotten and on their own.
If we have the time and courage for a closer examination, we might discover that even our most revered are struggling. Even our ultra-successful, the ones we believe worthy of our pride and admiration, at the end of the day, are only human.
Despite appearances, no one in our current society is completely secure. No one at present is completely free within his/her self. No one has full and complete access to either their potential or imagination. It is not possible.
We have developed and sustain a society that systematically mistreats people and turns a blind eye. While it is fuelled by the mantra that (in general) things are okay, every now and again we are made aware of cracks in the structure and the fragility of pretence.
Nowhere in the founding principles of our economy is the idea that any human being should feel secure. Rather, those who have enough should hoard more (just in case). Those who do not have enough should continue to be exploited for the benefit of others. In this world, human beings can be dismissed, even murdered, if it is a profitable direction.
We must understand that the manufacturing of military equipment is desirable because it creates jobs, and that human resources must be maximised.
Our lives are ruled by a code of ethics that decrees that a product's value should be increased if the need for that product is greater. Indeed, false needs should be created and promoted in order to sell completely useless items on a global scale.
The majority of people are of benefit only to manufacture products that others will own, and consume those products so that the others will profit. Our free market survives by undermining basic security and getting us to agree that this makes sense.
Within all of this, the television media plays a most powerful part. It is probably our most influential means for creating image and shaping 'reality'.
If a war breaks out in our neighbourhood but no cameras capture it, the world might believe it never occurred. If everyone on television is beautifully dressed, delivers clever dialogue and accesses plenty of resources, then perhaps we can be sure that things are okay.
When we must watch bombs go off and human beings terrorised and killed, if the commentary assures us that this is necessary, just or even legally justified, we do not revolt or vomit. We accept it.
However, even if this world is ruled by image, even if we seek to believe in an appearance of calmness and order, even if our view is inadequately selective, the real situation cannot help but come through. It seeps out of the cracks - sometimes roars and crumbles.
We have not yet found any medium strong enough to hold back truth. The impact of human experience is undeniable and ripples into our lives inevitably.
We have crime and chaos, pain and suffering. While a vast amount of resources go into the continuing maintenance of pretence, reality makes itself known - the fingers twitch, the pen rattles, the toes tap away.
Shalini Sinha in an independent producer and journalist. She is a counsellor on equality issues, has lectured on women's studies in UCD and presents RTÉ Television's intercultural programme, Mono.