What's it all about? We bet that's what you're wondering this morning. Who doesn't start Friday with a bit of an existential crisis? No? Just us? Perhaps you've got it figured out, are supremely confident in the meaning of life, but feel like you'd just like some specific guidance, someone to tell you how to act. Or what to think. Luckily, there are plenty of people who will do that. The latest group are the British Humanist Association, who have bought a load of advertising space on the London underground in which they will share/promote some humanist beliefs. They should sit nicely alongside the posters reminding people that you'd really have to be frightfully rude to eat smelly food and the aspirational advertisements for holidays and designer watches. The thing is, we're not ones to avoid a bandwagon. And we have opinions. Plenty of them. So the Squeamish team have been racking their brains to decide what it is they would most like to tell their fellow (wo)men. What piece of advice would we emblazon on a poster in letters bigger than our own heads? Turns out we're a bit of a cynical bunch really...
1. I find most inspirational posters to be insipid and bland. They try to make everyone feel like a special, unique snowflake filled with unlimited potential, and frankly most people aren't. I'd like more honesty in them: You are an average person, just one more face in the crowd amongst billions of others. You'll probably never do anything exceptional and be forgotten by history. Most of your endeavours and struggles will be overlooked or ignored. That said, try to make the most of today - something truly wonderful could happen! But, based on the laws of probability, probably not to you. Gareth
2.I was all set to come up with something truly life-changing. A sentence that would make people realise life is short and we can make it better for each other by loving one another and working together. Punching up, never down, and targeting injustice wherever we find it. I really was. But the problem is, if this is a tube poster, there is really only one thing I want to say to people and that's: Get out of my fucking way. Louise
3. I think that people should stop being so polite when it comes to getting what they want out of life, so the quote I would share with people on a giant billboard in the centre of town is: If you don't ask you don't get. That also applies to learning things - if you don't know something never be embarrassed to ask. Squeamish Nicola
4. There's only one answer to this one from me, and it's a lyric by Black Box Recorder: Life is unfair. Kill yourself, or get over it. Sounds harsh, but those really are your only two options. F1 Kate
5. I find all these campaigns a bit smug. I don't have a problem with BBC Radio 4's Thought for the Day or Humanist thought but I do have a problem with everyone insisting they never 'get a go' and congratulating themselves over things such as this. Congratulations now you all sound like babies. So my inspirational poster would say: Everybody shh. Next to a photo of a cat precariously hanging from a branch.Which I have never seen in real life but enjoy thinking about because I dislike cats. Squeamish Kate
2.I was all set to come up with something truly life-changing. A sentence that would make people realise life is short and we can make it better for each other by loving one another and working together. Punching up, never down, and targeting injustice wherever we find it. I really was. But the problem is, if this is a tube poster, there is really only one thing I want to say to people and that's: Get out of my fucking way. Louise
3. I think that people should stop being so polite when it comes to getting what they want out of life, so the quote I would share with people on a giant billboard in the centre of town is: If you don't ask you don't get. That also applies to learning things - if you don't know something never be embarrassed to ask. Squeamish Nicola
4. There's only one answer to this one from me, and it's a lyric by Black Box Recorder: Life is unfair. Kill yourself, or get over it. Sounds harsh, but those really are your only two options. F1 Kate
5. I find all these campaigns a bit smug. I don't have a problem with BBC Radio 4's Thought for the Day or Humanist thought but I do have a problem with everyone insisting they never 'get a go' and congratulating themselves over things such as this. Congratulations now you all sound like babies. So my inspirational poster would say: Everybody shh. Next to a photo of a cat precariously hanging from a branch.Which I have never seen in real life but enjoy thinking about because I dislike cats. Squeamish Kate
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