Personal Blogs

Inexerienced

All my posts: https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/view.php?u=zw219551

or search for 'martin cadwell -caldwell' Take note of the position of the minus sign to eliminate caldwell returns or search for 'martin cadwell blog' in your browser.

I am not on YouTube or social media

Cadwell NOT Caldwell

Can't get on with it

[5 minute read ] 

Opinion

I have just finished reading Oscar Wilde's, 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'. To me it is overly mellifluous in its flowery word content. The best bit is the end when Dorian Gray just gets on with action and Oscar Wilde has stopped waffling on about how the character's thought processes unfold. I have a book list and bought four of them at the same time despite the four not being relevant at the same time in my studies. Oxford University Press charge £5.50 delivery charge for a single book or a number of books, so since four of the books on the book-list are published by Oxford University Press I bought them together. 

I am not one for reading introductions, but I know I shall have to at some point. However, I opened Mary Elizabeth Braddon's book 'Lady Audley's Secret' and read a bit in the foreword or introduction section which alluded to why there is a sort of glossary or list of explanation at the end of modern Oxford World Classics books. Incidentally, having read a paragraph or three, I know I shall immensely enjoy reading 'Lady Audley's Secret'. Mary Elizabeth Braddon was clearly a clever woman, just as Oscar Wilde was a clever man, but she, I feel, didn't pontificate about 'Classics' as Oscar Wilde did in 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'. I can't help but feel that gentlemen of his time were judged by how well they might orate, and on what subjects. Thankfully, it seems that women of the same time were not expected to do so, and this may be why Mary Elizabeth Braddon was considered, no doubt by prominent men critiquing her work, as being somewhat unruly and even 'second-rate' in her writing, but good at being so. My kind of writer, to be sure.

The explanations in the Oxford Classics are there to, let me quote, '[...] Each edition includes perceptive commentary and essential background information to meet the changing needs of readers.' (From the second page of the first leaf in 'Lady Audley's Secret') 

Initially, having read that, I thought 'I can understand pretty much all of the words or sections selected for explanation in 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'. I have a good bit of healthy experience of reading and an avid curiosity that compels me to learn, and a number of years that have been available to me to indulge myself in learning. I immediately understood that many younger people have not had the same opportunity as I to tap into the same resources I have been able to do; the most obvious and crucial is, of course, time. So, fine, without having links to people to whom many of the archaic expressions were familiar to them, young people may be clueless as to the shape or depth of an expression and not have ready references to fill in any blanks; which is how we all learn; we have to make leaps of insight, and try out our expectations of what we think something means. We can't do that if we are isolated by our learning and knowledge (no-one nearby can understand what we are saying or trying to say). For example, I know what a 'mullion' is but only when I read it in the appropriate context. 'The windows were uneven; some small, some large, some with heavy stone mullions and rich stained glass; others with frail lattices that rattled in every breeze; others so modern that they might have been added only yesterday.' (Mary Elizabeth Braddon, 'Lady Audley's Secret' p7). I wrote that section at length, such as it is, because I love semi-colons and many people are confused by them. Here we can see how they are used as separators between sentences that are fundamentally linked as one following sentence adds to the content of the previous one, AND they are used as may be substituting bullet-points in a list. 

After a little more consideration, I came to think that these Oxford Classics would not be read for the joy of reading them so much as being used as study aids for studying English Literature. One of the important messages I have received of late is that good story-telling must flow, sentence after sentence, and not cause the confused reader to leave the text to discover its meaning. In other words, it should not be disjointed or confusing or jump about too much from scene to scene or time to time. The Oxford Classics by dint of necessarily including the explanation for the perceptive explanations, must recognise that they fall into the category of poor writing for the modern world. This however, is not the fault of the writer, who wrote for their period comtemporaries. 

I, myself, adore the Victorian-style written speech in Thomas Hardy books; its complexity, respect and manners. I should like to emulate such speech patterns in my everyday life. In truth, I changed something in my speech some years ago. A Columbian girlfriend, who had like so many non-native English speakers learnt English differently to me, an England national, introduced me to a different option. Indeed, the beginning of the previous sentence shows it. Instead of saying or writing 'I would like...', I say and write, 'I should like....' Breaking it down, effectively I might be saying I am compelled to think in a particular way but I reserve the right to negate what I am saying with an explanatory following clause: 'I should like to thank my esteemed colleagues (but I owe the nothing).' Nonetheless, I am wholly comfortable with 'should' instead of 'would'. I don't use it with any reserve. I even think it shows a smidgeon of education. 

Just like it takes me a little time to get used to the Victorian speech patterns in Thomas Hardy books simply because I am so time-distanced from people who may have spoken so, I am also, in the same way, saddened that the same erosion is continuing and younger people than I need to be coached in understanding words, expressions and meanings that I find quite easy to fathom. Perhaps reading books by Victorian writers is as difficult for them as reading books by 17th and 18th century writers would be for me without translation into modern English language. I haven't seen a Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) 'Gulliver's Travels' book, but I am certain the ones I have seen, using modern English, can be easily read by both young and old in the modern world. It may seem that there has been considerable ironing out of the archaic text to make it acceptable. Shockingly, the story has the protagonist weeing on a burning castle. Try putting that in an animated film for infant children! But I am talking about language, not actions.

'Robinson Crusoe' written by Daniel Defore, was published in 1719. It can be easily understood in modern English and it for me distinctive because it is just a story, like Swift's 'Gulliver's Travel's'. The author is not trying to show off their word-smithery or classical education. But as I said earlier these aspects may have been essential in the kind of world that Oscar Wilde either did live in or aspired to live in, even if he imagined he did or didn't. I suspect there was a good deal of fantasy and falsehood abounding in the higher levels of Victorian society that the poor found utterly shameful. 

Normally, I find books written by many modern women follow a distinct rule for writing; 'Show and don't tell.' This is a writing technique, that I find abhorrent and is currently taught as being essential in Creative Writing courses and degree modules; I can easily do it, and I think quite well, but I definitely won't do it through my own volition. I find it wordy and boring. Having detached emotions most of the time, my enjoyment in reading books is not heightened by reading, at great length, about other people's emotions. I certainly don't want to waste time scrutinising my emotions to get someone else to feel the same way. If my emotions are bubbling to the surface then fine, here they are, otherwise make them up yourself.

The approaching storm on the horizon means people are going to get wet and the trees and shrubs will continue to live. It never means, to me, that one of the characters is in for some personal trouble. I suppose, just like inexperienced readers of Oxford Classics, I don't have the internal tools to help me 'get it'; to make appropriate association and connections when I read books that freely utilise the 'Show and don't tell' technique. I do, however, seem to enjoy books written by Victorian women. If I am honest, I just now questioned myself on why this might be, and briefly considered that it might be that they were bound and circumscribed by their circumstances; circumstances that, I understand were largely created and ordained over by men. I am not a sociologist and had to dispel any notion that I had hit upon something that may be slightly significant. Yet, I cannot dispel an idea that Mary Ann Evans, who used George Elliot as her pen name when she wrote 'Middlemarch' had to be believable as being a man. I think I am supposed to understand a little more about English Literature to even hold this notion in my mind. It is, I should add, not my considered opinion or even a suggestion that there is any validity to my thoughts; they are just questions. As questions they are interesting. As premises for an argument much less so.

It remains that I abhor flowery and wordy messes in books that seem to be there for only three reasons, to show off; or because the writer is inadequate to succintly explain; or because they had fun immersing themselves in an imagined scene. The last is the one that scares me the most since I cannot help but feel they likely live their lives the same way, just as it seems to me the Victorian gentleman lived in a fantastic theatrical sphere that required him making clear his education to all and sundry. If I was better educated I would fit right in, I feel.

All my posts: https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/view.php?u=zw219551

or search for 'martin cadwell -caldwell' Take note of the position of the minus sign to eliminate caldwell returns or search for 'martin cadwell blog' in your browser.

I am not on YouTube or social media

Cadwell NOT Caldwell

mental health

More mental health

[3 minute read ] 

I have PTSD. I didn't have many of the symptoms I think i have until a psychiatrist told me I have PTSD in 2016. Everyone suffers PTSD in different ways and childhood trauma is much different to trauma experienced as an adult. Think how you might describe every wave in every ocean and you get some understanding that each of us, sane, insane, troubled, smoothly happy, angry or at peace is experiencing life in vastly different ways and at different speeds and volumes too. 

Just like believing you have the force 'that can' creates the force 'that can', being told you have a reason to feel a bit less than you feel you should be feeling means that we can easily create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Much of my inability to operate at a level that I feel I should be able to operate at is down to poor sleep patterns and a poor diet. I am old enough and ugly enough to know what makes me tick. Saying I get fatigued in the afternoons is a denial that I am a morning person who is unfit and probably skipped lunch. Of course, there are many people who have real diseases that fatigue them; that is a given but I am not one of them unless I want to say my nervous energy drains me. 

the truth of the matter is that I own whatever trauma I experienced. I was handed a poisonous plate and I was compelled to eat from it. That was a series of meals (events) that changed the way I thought and still think. Yet I know this and now everything I do and think is entirely my own doing. I should like to blame evil monsters and psychopaths but at least one of them is dead and another might be by now. 

Getting treatment for PTSD is difficult. I argue that because I have had it for so long it is now a psychiatric malady because the dendrites in my head (we all have them) that connect the axions in my brain and allow thoughts to form are so hard-wired that psychology-led treatment has to first destroy those dendrites in order for me to form new ones; in effect I need to be completely rewired. That, i argue means taking medication that shuts down the highest thinking for a time so the dendrites shrivel and die, then or doing that process psychological work can be done of the mundane day to day stuff such as any misanthropy. Usually, conversations with mental health staff gets no further than that. They won't believe me when i tell them that believing something that is not true is no different to seeing something that isn't there. It is all down to perceiving intangible things. The psychiatrists I have seen disagree with me on every point.

So, I am nuts, crazy, and misaligned. That makes me the same as everyone else; the difference is, I don't fantasise about living a life that I planned long ago. That isn't meant to pillory the public. It really is choosing the red pill over the blue pill in the matrix. 

Here's how I suspect it works:

       'Hmmm. I think I am different to everyone else. I wonder why.' Bingo! the pills are presented. Self examination can only lead to a dual personality state. It can only lead to measured behaviour which isolates an individual from a group if the members of the group act spontaneously. Because they never considered themselves to be different they never had to choose which 'pill' to eat. Watching oneself and comparing oneself to others is the certain course to mental unease, or if you can master it, complete peace and satisfaction.

After years of self-analysis I have concluded that it is my high IQ that separates me from the average person, and not my PTSD. When someone sees in colour and everyone else sees in black and white it is difficult to use the colour of the sky as an example to explain a mystery. Years ago, a friend of mine said, 'I wish I was not so aware'. I knew exactly what he meant and I recognise that he considered his high IQ more as a bane than a boon, just as I sometimes do; but only when I am in the company of others. One lesson I must learn is to keep my mouth shut; hide my light under a bushel, if you will.

Right now, I am deepy troubled that the external examiner plainy failed to perceive the derivation and complexity of a creative writing EMA I recently submitted. That worries me intensely. If they override a tutor's marks I am doomed towards a low degree. Not acheiving my potential because someone else lacks a high IQ will crush me; quite simply because i was held back by a low intelligence psychopath brother who tormented me into self-doubt through public abatement. 

When I say I am control of my PTSD, I was fantasising for a bit; any bully can trigger it and any low intelligence authority can destroy me.

All my posts: https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/view.php?u=zw219551

or search for 'martin cadwell -caldwell' Take note of the position of the minus sign to eliminate caldwell returns or search for 'martin cadwell blog' in your browser.

I am not on YouTube or social media

Have we met and what did we do in the future?

[ 5 minute read ] 

What chapter are you on?

It seems I am a ghost or a zombie and quieter than a cat. Sally, my next door neighbour, was cutting her hedge and didn't notice me when I walked up to her, bare-footed, with a handful of strawberries for her. The look of horror on her face will stay with me for a long time; probably the whole weekend. What did she expect after she jumped out of her skin?

We just stood there, staring at each other; she with shears in her hands and me with my right arm extended as though I wanted a fist-bump. Eventually, she placed one open palm under my fist and I released the strawberries. I wouldn't say there was a sense of relief but I would also say I felt a change in her. She didn't smile and thank me; she, instead, turned away and started walking towards her front door; not a word. I told her, to her retreating back, about the damp and mould experts who visited me in the week. She smiled then.

It puzzles me.

In a fantasy medieval world, I might have been paying a token amount for entry into her secret areas:

       'This is the last time, Martin. I know you serve the community well and I suppose I can contribute to the goodwill we all want to offer you, but I am a good Christian and I have only myself and sanctuary in my home to give. You know I live frugally.'

On a spiritual plane, we might have once met before and she thought she had killed me but I am alive or re-incarnated:

       'I see I was not ruthless enough, and left off from drowning you too soon, and I have failed to suppress your force long enough to make it last. What now?' She walked away in silent resignation.

She was alarmed! Both of those imagined scenarios are steeped in resignation, aren't they. Yet, she might have simply been confused. How did I manage to suddenly appear next to her when she is convinced her hearing is so acute that she can hear the hedgehogs munching outside with the noise passing through double-glazing, and she is woken by her cat walking towards her bed?

Of course, Sally has a very loving cat and I know Sally is affectionate and caring. I am pretty certain that her cat recognises the change in Sally's breathing as she starts to wake up and pads across the floor towards her for a cuddle. Hearing hedgehogs is a bit of a mystery to me though. I am no expert but a passing car is pretty loud and cannot really penetrate the double-glazing. Maybe, Sally leans out of her window and listens.

It doesn't signify. That is an old expression I got from the writer C.S. Forester in his books on Hornblower. Through some kind of magic transmogrification it means 'It doesn't add up' or 'It doesn't make sense as it stands'. Just like Shakespeare wrote in a language that the people of his time could understand, but modern people need a translation book for, it seems that Sally and I speak different languages, or have lived on different planets and now both find ourselves bumping up to one another on Earth.

If Sally and I were reading the same book but separately, I imagine she might have gotten to the pages where we know each other much better and either we are close, as in relaxed in each other's company, or have fallen out for some reason. It isn't hard for me to lazily lean on an old and obsolete notion that she might be, as a woman, absorbing the passion of a story of love and betrayal, while I, on the other hand, stereo-typically, as a man, might be reading the same book but enjoying different parts; the interplay of characters but with a bent towards understanding the function and progression of relationships; work-like, if you will. It is difficult for me to put this notion aside. Of course, this is glaring sexism, even misogyny, by the back door. Yet, I would offer that I have detached emotions and all people are romantic fantasists to me; people who skillfully and silently weave their own lives into stories, with a hope for a future they have already secretly enjoyed.

Sally, is an intelligent woman. I admire her. She is not silly; she is practical. I sometimes think I have had glimpses from the future. Certainly, when I was driving throughout Europe I have had a prescience that there is something blocking the road beyond a blind bend and braked almost to a crawl as I rounded the curve. Yup, loose cows or broken-down vehicle. I think Sally might be a few chapters ahead of me in the same 'book' we are reading. Actually not, she has somehow flicked forward a few pages to read a passage or two and then returned to the 'story' in the right place, where ALL of us are reading. You know, when something is happening in a story and we simply must know the resolution; will they, won't they?

I have had a few relationships, both romantic and platonic, in which there was an expectation that I would fill a role. The classic one in the romance realm is when a long-term relationship breaks down and then, unbeknownst to me that there ever was one, I turn up; perhaps even having been snared by a well-prepared web, and innocently think I am entering a fresh relationship, only to find that it is stale from the outset. I have had to fill the role of a long-term lover, even a married man of many years. It is really sad. I see new relationships as green buds of potential growth that are shaped by the environment and nutrition that the people involved in the relationship give to it. Old relationships, of course, need fertiliser, just as plants and trees do.

I married a woman who had a notion of how we should be. She didn't tell me. The marriage failed after only a year or so, but trundled along for another three years. Her fantasies had advanced our relationship so far that even with a limited amount of prescience I was left only guessing. Truth be known, I never tried to guess or work out what was going on because I was always wrong-footed.

       'Why won't you comply with what I imagined you to be like?'

       'Why, are you not in the now, without ever having read forward to see what the resolution is in a fantasy novel?'

All my posts: https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/view.php?u=zw219551

or search for 'martin cadwell -caldwell' Take note of the position of the minus sign to eliminate caldwell returns or search for 'martin cadwell blog' in your browser.

I am not on YouTube or social media

[ 6 ½ minute read ]  195 words per minute

Spirits unite against Laws of Physics

A placard I saw in a dream of a protest

A fun conversation I saw on an online learning platform is on researching fantasy. I noticed a comment that mentioned that the commentator is an academic writer and wonders about researching fantasy, ostensibly to assist her in writing fantasy novels. A while ago, I wrote a short story, on the fly, with almost no editing, as is my style. It was about visiting the spirit world. It never occurred to me that I might do any research before I wrote that.

It is easy to assume that one is fey or in some way connected or directly associated with some kind of spirituality, even having a direct link with a supreme being. It is not for me to make any argument as to whether anyone does have a link or is fey. I recognise that when we are alone in the dark and things rustle in hedges we might not be rational and momentarily think that it is a spirit or ghost or something. We might assume it is a rabbit or badger or rats. But, it is not rational to assume. Making assumptions is really using heuristics as adults, summing up blocks of acquired information to make a decision; which I suppose, is why the younger that children are, the more nightmares they have; they don't have enough experience to have built enough mental tools to allay confusion and fear.

It crosses my mind that as adults we might never see fairies and only see faeries. Good luck is much harder to discern than bad luck. While some of us might arrive at work early and cognisant that all the traffic lights were green, most of us, I believe, will only recognise that all the lights were green because we arrived early. If we are running late, and before we arrive somewhere, we tend to notice every red traffic light in real-time. My point is that we notice bad things more readily than good things. Finding a one pound coin or a dollar, is less impactful than losing one and not having enough to pay for our shopping. But, the thinkers among us will notice that there are other factors involved. In economics, the missing pound may have more value than an extra pound (its 'utility' is different). Not only that, green traffic lights have no impact on our driving, we just keep going, whereas red traffic lights have a consequential pattern of action that needs to be performed at every single one of them. Being early to work has little impact on our lives, but being late means having to catch up, or explain ourselves to someone (which means weakening our position).

Fantasy stories, I concluded from the safe discussion elsewhere, still abide by the Laws of Physics we are all aware of. When Superman punches a super-villain, the punch connects with a body of mass and force is definitely obvious as the mass hits a solid building; bits fall off the building. Flying without wings, however, means that there is either no mass or very little mass. When something with very little mass punches something else Newton's Third Law of Motion, which states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, tells us that the body of low mass should move away from whatever it has punched. Superman does not move away; so, the Laws of Physics are suspended. 

The spirit world, I suggest, is nothing like what we assume it to be. Even if we don't know, or have never heard of Newton's Third Law of Motion, we all know that there will always be consequences for everything we do, or don't do, and these go right down to every decision we make. In marketing, I came across a paper that stated that we make a decision about half a second before we realise we have, and we actually tell ourselves that a decision has been made. It is somewhere in one of my laptops and since I am not trying to convince anyone of anything, I am not going to hunt for it in order for me to cite it or reference it appropriately. However, a very quick online search gave me a paper in which the abstract matches my statement. I have set the link so it opens in a new page:

https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10001129/1/Wiliam2006Half-second71.pdf

Telling ourselves we have made a decision half a second after we have made a decision would fit into a fantasy story. A whole half a second to interrupt the message is a really long time to act. (Such is my wont to not edit, I am leaving the tautology of having a whole half right there). But interruption isn't outside of the realm of possibility in today's technological world; perhaps eye movement gives clues as to the decision-making process. In a fantasy story however, telepathy might be used to prevent a purchase being successfully conducted. 'No decision has been made!'

In Contract Law, there is an offer and acceptance. If the offer is made there is still half a second before the person selling something realises they have made a decision to accept the offer. If we sum the transaction up in terms of available time for thought interference, a nefarious entity would have a whole second to play with, to prevent the transaction being finalised. 

       'Hmmm, I don't know' while standing before a display of clothes in a clothes shop doesn't necessarily mean you haven't made a decision; it means you haven't told yourself that you have made a decision. If you are delaying in making purchases for too long (is there 'too long' in retail therapy?) you might want to look around for someone staring at you; but then you might not see something with no mass. It might only be a disappointed wisp that fell from someone who lost some money, who passed you by earlier. Their decision to buy, thwarted by the physical inability to complete a purchase.

From psychology: cognitive dissonance is the feeling we experience when we have bought something and are, quite soon after, disappointed by its use or aesthetic value, its utility. It is less valuable to us then we first thought it to be. 

Not being able to buy something because we thought we had enough money and then discovering we do not (disappointment), mirrors cognitive dissonance in that, from economics, the assumed utility (value to us) of the contents of our purse or pocket is less then it really is (we are disappointed by the utility of our available money). Because money is money, a single unit of currency can buy a number of things, so its utility does not change. It is when it cannot buy what we desire that its utility is considered to be inadequate. £10 (ten GB pounds) buys less than £9 (nine GB pounds), so it is the sum of the money and its utility that changes and not the individual unit of currency.

The indecision to buy something comes from experience of being disappointed and we use heuristics to help us decide what to do; in this case, empiricism. A young child sees something and buys it because they like it without knowing that they could be disappointed. How many parents notice that their children played with something for an hour and then never again? Young children, I suggest, find disappointment and cognitive dissonance difficult to process, so they make decisions to buy quite readily. 

Initially, I thought that the academic people who professed a desire to research fantasy [stories] were on a fools errand, but now I am not so sure. I can't decide.