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      Mental Health

[ 6 minute read ]

I once lived in a bedsit. The other bedsit residents and I got on really well. One of them was a lovely twenty-one year old woman who lost her care job because she kept using the office telephone to phone her boyfriend. She turned to luring men into thinking she would have sex for money, and got the money up front and then ran away. She did this to pay her rent for her bed-sit. I was earning more money than I needed from the job I had, but I managed to spend it all anyway. One day, she told me that she would actually go through with the deal she made with the next man who paid. She stole a bottle of Archers and got drunk. Instead of just going out when she had drank her drink, she came to my room. She told me she was going. Then she left. I let her go, and it will haunt me for the rest of my days. I hope I never forgive myself for that. I was selfish and mean, and I let her go. Days later, she stole the wardrobe from her bed-sit and never came back. I let her go a second time. I am so sorry, Emma.

Some time ago, I was on a writing course and our task was to describe someone else by answering certain questions, such as 'What makes this person happy?' and 'What makes this person sad?' There were more questions asked than I had alpha-numeric character space for, so I made two posts on that course into a forum.

However, I decided that I would 'show' two more characters by having them describe the character. I chose the character's partner in Victorian East end of London, and her mother. The description of the character is entirely speech from these two other characters, who are not directly described themselves, so their own speech pattern and use of language describes them, which I hoped would add to the background of the person they are describing.

The third piece here is my post on the same course in response to, 'Describe somewhere where you like to write', I think. I find it difficult to just answer questions in a straightforward way because my mind fizzes with possibilities, so I wrote about someone else's place to write. I used a technique that cinematographers used to use for the opening shots in films. I started from the outside and zoomed through a broken window into a building. This, I hoped would convey the setting in which the little scene took place.

Stitched together, we can get a sense of the downfall of a person from a good position to poverty, (bathos). What remains in the character is that she hopes to get out of her predicament by writing. Of course, in Victorian times she would never be published as a woman, but she still hoped to be, one day.

This little start of a story has appeared in one of my earlier posts. I added into the little story a music-box to tie all the three pieces together.

She doubts herself

       "She doubts herself at times but then once she seems to get it together she just can't help letting you know. Mind you, she is very capable. The funny thing is though, for someone so small she can't 'arf make a big mess when she's angry...lot of tidying up to do afterwards. She's a tornado. Funnily enough, that's what makes her 'appy; tidying up, I mean. And that's what she does when she is happy, she sings; and she dances around her broom, and pulls faces into puddles of spilt water and fallen spoons. I came into the kitchen once when she didn't know. Singing away she was. Blimey! You've never seen anything like it. Frozen, she was. Solid. White. Scared witless. Then she kind of deflated, like a balloon. From a block of ice to a candle held too close to a fire. Melted, she did, right down to the floor. I laughed and laughed. I couldn't help it. I'd come home early from the pub. She couldn't work out why. Thought she had done something wrong. So, she rises again, all pitiful and about to cry but holding it in, like. Then she sits, all crumpled up with her head in her hands. I could see she was sobbing, quiet like. I couldn't understand it - she knows she's my bit 'o jam."

       "Quite frankly, I cannot fathom why she is with him. He won't marry her. As her mother, I was always the one she came to, but now its him. She's stuck to him like a limpet. All I did was care for her and show kindness, but him.....it's hot and cold with him. I suppose its the making-up. You know, the contrast. He bought her a music box. It doesn't even play anymore, but she winds it anyway and goes off in a dream. She's completely forgotten he over-wound it and that she cried for weeks; more than when her animals died in the fire. She can't stand cruelty - unless it comes from him!
We went to the sea-side last week, she and I. She absolutely loved the Punch and Judy. I honestly thought she might die from laughing. But she can be quite embarrassing. One of the donkeys was in the sea and....passed wind. She pointed at it and shouted 'Ooh Look! Bubbles'. Helpless, she was. I had to walk away from her; quite embarrassing. Tut!
Sometimes, she looks so sad. I asked her one day, "What's wrong, Darling?". She didn't want to tell me. She just looked at me. "Mother, I am scared he might leave me one day." It reminded me of when our gaslights went out at home, and I found her in the dark."

****************

Among the crowd and the cries of the hawkers; where the pickpockets struck, a horse-drawn tram came to a faltering stop. From the rear, into acrid gas-lit fog two men in black capes stepped down. They paused and briefly looked about them, then moved towards a grimy two-storey building. The crowd parted. From an upstairs broken window came porcine grunts. Inside, coins changed hands, but always the shame remained in the smaller body. A clatter of clumsy footsteps retreated down the stairs, paused, as an obsequious greeting was muttered, and then resumed. The two men stepped into the room causing the pale woman to flinch and draw back. Her mouth formed a silent 'o'. She had a pen in her hand, torn paper, ink, a music box, and a single flickering candle before her on a tiny, rickety table. Her belly, once swollen, lay slack from recent childbirth. A flea jumped from her washed-out blue shawl to her hair.

       'Mary, we have come to take you home.' she heard.

She glanced into the shadows at her baby and a tear formed in her eye.

-end-

The last sentence in the scene was never written in my writing exercise. The story could have gone a number of ways, including arrest by two constables. I chose for her to be forgiven and rescued.

The flea jumping allows a pause in movement in the rest of the grimy room.

Further editing would vastly improve the whole of it. 

*****************************************

Samaritans

If you need someone to talk to, we listen. We won't judge or tell you what to do.

https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan/

Samaritans phone number 116 123 (free 24hrs)

jo@samaritans.org (It can take several days to get a response by email.)

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

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

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[ 5 minute read ]

Stop being nice

I am having relationship problems. My neighbour, Sally, the one with the wry smile, keeps reciprocating my desire to give gifts. I left two tomatoes by her doorstep and she left half a dozen eggs on mine, again. If there is a scale or chart to consult for reciprocating gift-giving and she has it, I shall tie a small pony to her gate to see what she does; maybe she will leave give me a car, but I would prefer a goat or a sheep. Unfortunately, I would have to buy some more to keep it company. And, I would have to sell the lawn-mower to buy some fencing to keep the animals away from my crops. I might even need a field instead of a back garden, and a tractor with a hay-bailer, and a barn, and a helper labourer. I am now so looking forward to the end of the tomato-fruiting season. I hope Sally doesn’t like Giant Winter Leeks. I shan’t ask her, just in case she does.

I really have a big problem with not sharing my aptitude for occasionally getting things right in my jagged, and lazily vicious garden. Many of my neighbours simply say, ‘I don’t have the right soil.’ (meaning they don’t), when I ask them if they want any vegetable seedlings or tomato plants. I think this means, ‘I can’t be bothered; we have a shop in the village.’

Sadly, ‘The Tomato Plant Gatherer Family’ lives just a few doors up from me. When I specifically grow tomato plants to share with my neighbours, they, ‘The Tomato Plant Gatherer Family’ don’t want to leave any for anyone else to take; and I suspect that nearly all of the Art Supplies I left outside my home for people to take and enjoy, went to their house for their four-year-old; even the coloured permanent markers, so, I can’t leave anything ‘free’ outside any more.

How do I tell Sally to stop? There are simply not enough gift-givers around for my gifts to Sally to be ‘anonymous’.

Many people are leaving windfall apples outside their homes, so there is some evidence of people putting effort into gathering and sharing unwanted fruit. There was a full bucket of apples opposite my home a couple of days ago, but now it has gone. I expect ‘The Apple Gatherer Family’ took them all. With the ten tomato plants they took from me in March, they should be able to make Apple and Tomato Chutney. They wouldn’t even need to buy sugar for it.

I have mentioned that I like to invent Toast Toppers. I have made one up from Instant Noodles. About five times a year I cook Instant Noodles (they have nasty ingredients like flavour enhancers in them). However, I shred vegetables and include them in the boiling up part of the cooking process. If you can get the amount of water right, you can get a fairly good dish out of a poor product. I had Chicken Flavour with grated Sweet Potato and shredded Cabbage today. Thinly sliced Mushrooms could have gone in too. There was some left, after I had surrounded a bowl-full. Cold, I later heated it in the microwave, added some scrambled egg, and grilled it on a couple of slices of toast. Soy sauce and the missing sliced mushrooms, or a small amount of grated cheese, would have improved it. Shredded bacon roughly mixed through it, without the scrambled egg and grated cheese, would have lifted it beyond measure. Obviously, if the noodle mix with shredded vegetables is too runny it won’t work.

I have my Winter hobby lined up this year. ‘The Book Fairy’ left some cook-books in ‘The Magic Red Telephone Box’, in the next village. I have to take my expensive bicycle if I want books from there, to blend in. I can cook, and almost never follow recipes, so it will be quite different for me to try to make something that other people think is normal, for a while. Indian food and Italian food over Winter for me then. It’s really expensive to cook from recipes though. I lived in a bed-sit a while ago, and met someone in another one in the same building, who didn’t know you can make chips at home. I also had a lodger, in a big house, who didn’t know that mashed potato is boiled potatoes that are mashed. He had only ever had dried and processed potato flakes in a packet, boiled in water!

       ‘Gentlemen, I give you the gift of the raw potato, hot oil, and hot water!’

You know what? I think I might write a book on gift-giving and receiving. I think England needs one. I won’t waste time on research though, because ‘it is the thought that counts’, isn’t it? No, really, I don’t have a clue what to buy a woman in love with someone else (when I was married I saved a lot of money by not buying her any gifts). or a dog that has just been washed at the dog groomers.

I do know that yellow roses are different to white or red roses, and one is different to six or twelve. Any research in that area would be straight off the internet, but if I come across a florist I might lightly interrogate them. Here is how I would start the conversation:

       ‘Hello. I am an idiot.’ I find that I can save a lot of time if I tell people something that will they come to realise later on anyway.

       ‘When would you give white, yellow or red flowers, specifically roses, and how many would you give when? I just love how we can destroy school English Grammar lessons, if we try really, really hard. In truth, the extent of my English Grammar lessons was to be told to leave a gap as wide as my index finger between words, when I was still learning that a pencil is not just for drawing with.

It seems, to me, that we have been trained to feel guilty if we get something for nothing. That doesn’t include the ‘Tomato Plant and Apple Gatherer’ family down the road, though.

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

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

I am not on YouTube or social media

[ 5 minute read ]

       mild humour 

I just had to mess it up

Good Crikeyness! I can be a real monster of disruption. Maybe that should read, I am a monster of disruption.

It was pretty windy yesterday, and I went to the Post Office shop. All the customers who subsequently came into the shop expressed their view on the weather. We are British; it is imperative that we make such comments. I suspect that when we all one day live in an eco-dome that is climate-controlled we will cease to be British.

       ‘Phew! That is windy out there!’ cried one woman as she came in.

Stupid me, like a goofy March hare, returned, “Good sailing weather.” You can almost hear me following it up with the cartoon-like "Uh huh, uh huh!", and "Sailing!", as I fervently nod, manically grinning

I just can’t keep my mouth shut. I have too much nervous energy. The conversation should have been something like “Windy isn’t it?” “Yes, it blew my tree down” or something. Anything that people can relate to. Not me, though. I am different.

Another woman came in. “Uh!” She brushed her hair from her face with one hand.

       ‘Good kite flying weather!’ She gave me a blank look, so I continued with, “We would need rope instead of string though!” My sunny disposition isn’t really as much fun as I would like to believe. Nobody answered. They looked away.

I gave way to a woman carrying only a litre of milk because I had two transactions to make which I knew would take a few minutes. She thanked me. Big mistake.

       ‘Well, I thought maybe you might need your morning coffee to wake up.’ Thinking about it about a few seconds later I realised I had just inferred that she was dozy or wobbly in some way. Who knows how she might take it. "Shut up, Martin!" I silently shouted at myself. She, however, bore it quite well, and responded admirably.

       ‘The wind has woken me up.’

I tried to give way to another customer but she had her own plan. I suspect the shopkeeper was in on it. My transaction did take a while and he seemed embarrassed that the new technology was stymieing his efforts to be quick. He wanly smiled at me a few times.

       ‘New technology.’

       ‘I know.,’ I said, ‘It is the young folk who have to prove their worth by inventing stuff other people find awkward to use.’ I relentlessly went on to explain, "Maybe that is a bit cynical, but A.I. should be able to recognise what needs to be done, and only a monetary value should be entered." I offered.

Reality can jump up and smack us in the face. He was embarrassed for me. He wanted me out of his shop as quickly as possible. He knew that we had, had a similar exchange on technology and A.I. a couple of weeks earlier. He just wanted me to stop harassing his customers. His anguish was palpable.

However, I was using a shortened version of conversation that should only be used in exceptional circumstances. Somehow, I had egregiously conflated polite and safe greetings with actual conversation. The distinction between the two, for me, was entirely missing. That mistake was further heightened because I recognised that time for a conversation was extremely limited; a couple of minutes at best (or enduringly long for the other customers if I am in the same shop as them).

There is something in what I said about the relentless production of new devices. If a device works and does a job exceptionally well, in my mind, there should not be a replacement. However, designers would lose their jobs; “Sorry, there simply is no space for innovation these days – everything works fine. We are not hiring. In fact, we are laying people off.” STEM undergraduates would have nothing to do. Essentially, they would become history students. In my happy world, they would become kite designers, hopefully. 

I used to own a 26ft ( almost 8 metres ) sailing boat, and taught myself to sail in a 17ft ( almost 5.2 metres ) sloop off the Essex coast. Almost drowned a few times. Completely irresponsible but what a rush! While mucking about trying to work out what the anchor was for, I noticed a car-sized catamaran with two men on it; one on a trapeze. It practically took off in the smallest gust. They were experienced sailors. “Gust in five, four, three, two, one.” One of the hulls lifted from the water and they shot off. My near drowning fun was nothing compared to my imagination of what they were experiencing. I was jealous. I suppose I transpose that remembered imagination onto my conversation and because I am living it in my mind I weirdly expect others to be able to see the video in my mind. That kind of inter-connectivity we do not have. Why do I think otherwise? Why would I want it? Telepathy? Do I actually believe in it? Of course, I must do. Reality slaps me around the head with a wet fish and tells me that I am seeking someone with similar experiences, a bit like being in a doctor’s waiting room and turning to another person and saying, ‘My knee hurts’ and hoping they say something like, ‘My arm hurts.’ I want to hear about someone’s agony. And then like Sybil in ‘Fawlty Towers’, I can say, “I know.... I know.... I know...”.

In truth, none of that conversation took place, but it could have. This is what really happened:

I was in the Post Office shop waiting in line behind someone buying a newspaper. A woman entered.

       ‘Phew! That is windy out there!’

       ‘It is!’ I replied. I love those two words together. You can put great emphasis on them and even draw them out. She went to find what she needed. Another woman carrying a litre of milk arrived from the back, just before I was about to be served, and I gave way to her.

       ‘I have a couple of transactions that might take some time. Please go ahead of me.’ She thanked me, paid for the milk, and left.

The shopkeeper tended to my needs and apologised for the delay in completing the transactions.

       ‘It’s fine. Don’t worry.’

When it was all done. I cried, "Woo Hoo! I can update my spreadsheet now!" The queuing customers who had been patient and only mildly interested, all simultaneously looked at the floor. I noticed a couple had raised eyebrows.

I just had to mess it up.

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

or search for 'martin cadwell' or 'martin cadwell blog' in your browser. 

I am not on YouTube or social media

[ 6 minute read - 1312 words ]

Janky Thoughts

Usually, I just start writing and edit as I go. I don't use third party software to edit my words. Personally, I think I would be judging myself to be weak if I handed my creativity off to some algorithms that take everyone's efforts and makes an average but informed guess as a returned output. I would like to think that creativity is personal, like handwriting. No, I shall never knowingly use A.I. to represent my personality and character. 

Usually, if I just start writing, with only an inkling of an idea what is going to happen, I have a theme in my head and as I read, editing as I go, I access my memory for parallels to the foremost thoughts in my head; essentially where I am in the thought process of what I am writing. Sometimes, I abandon hundreds of words because it is not going anywhere and it is boring. And, right there is why I find writing entertaining; it is a fun journey for me. I have no idea what my next sentence will be, or when I can stop writing. I need to have an ending, of course, and I am particularly pleased if I can make the whole episode sort of cyclic. I get a lot of satisfaction if I can write the first sentence or the title as also the last sentence.

Rarely, I make haphazard notes. I refer to these when I am tired or my mind is lazy. I look on my hard drive and occasionally concatenate ideas.

Here are some words in a file I found on one of my laptops. Clearly, I was going to do something with it. I just write stuff and forget why:

'I have just been watching some footage of The Beatles in the years of their hype, on YouTube, Good Crikeyness, it is getting hard to follow an interest in something without someone else’s idea of what you ‘ought’ to be interested in, these days.

‘Yeah, I see you, King, your like for the old, and what we now call the Third Degrees. You like our flag, the way we move, Step it Step it, you make us cool’

‘Ladies and Gentlemen’, I might suggest, ‘We are here to witness how a phenomenon lyric writer who was young and was once an idol, but sadly today is only remembered as a royal HERO, though from our past is worthy of knighthood, as bestowed by Queen Elizabeth the second, is here, now….is here now…is he coming?’

He did. But why would he? Knighthoods were, according to common British memory, awarded ‘in the field’.

       ‘Champion job! That fox nearly outfoxed me.’

He though, wasn’t about to be knighted because he is more fox than a fox, in a fox hunt.

Here is an anchor point for my position; which should be considered to be only as good as a pigeon startled enough to wonder why the other birds are growing fat from food I do not eat: a report made by the BBC today, 16^th August 2025, The last surviving Victoria Cross recipient, for efforts in World War Two, John Cruickshank, died today, in Scotland, aged 105.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy4d7j18v5qo

Walter Raleigh, as I recall from storybooks from my most valued education, was knighted for throwing down his cloak over a puddle over which Queen Elizabeth (England) gratefully trod.

Much else, surely went on before she was quietly told that it was he, that was in fact, the sailor, Walter Raleigh.

       ‘Oh dear! Didn’t realise. Cloak over puddle? Privateer? Of course!’ Let me wave a sword over his head as though I am in thought as to cut off or uplift his head.’

The history that pertains to the Elizabeths, or Elizabethans, I should not like to dwell on; I can hear, perhaps, triumphant music from the norths of Scotland (Viking) that do not mesh with the influx, or perhaps suffusion of new ideas. That was then, you told me; now this is then.

Sir Paul McCartney, whom I have never trusted.'

A bit random isn't it? I wonder if I wrote myself a kind of code for creativity; spikes of weird clarity that I cannot fathom today.

I can unravel some of it, such as YouTube makes playlists of music for someone who only wanted to hear / see a single music video which means an algorithm has decide that an average person would like to listen to a whole bunch of music for entertainment purposes. This, to me, makes YouTube less of a tool for learning and more a device for, begging your pardon, 'lunching out'. I know that people listen to music while they work or study.

There seems to be something inspired by a Lucozade ad I adapted to be about King Charles. I may have quoted that.

Then I have Sir Paul McCartney stuck in my mind. It seems obvious I was bemused as to why he refused an MBE in the sixties yet accepted a knighthood. Rudely, I cannot help thinking that the spouse of an MBE recipient gains nothing while the wife of a knight becomes a 'Lady'. Harsh and cold thinking. Yet, it would fill a story character with intent.

I am a bit puzzled how a rugged and strong 'Knight of Olde' (sic) is now a civil servant or poet.

What on earth was I thinking in my notes when I am talking about 'my anchor-point position only being as good as a pigeon startled enough to wonder why the other birds are growing fat from food I do not eat'? I think I may be wondering why it is interesting, for many people, that the last surviving recipient of the Victoria Cross has died. I know that over the years since Queen Victoria came up with the idea of a medal for outstanding bravery in armed conflict, it has become progressively harder to be awarded one. I think that if you are still alive after your heroics you will be denied decoration. But the pigeon thing is an example of my creative thinking. I suppose, it could be a parallel line of thinking in a story. I could make it so.

I think the bit about Elizabethans and Scotland relates to my understanding that the monarchical Tudor line stopped and was superseded by the Stuarts. In 1707, Scotland, one hundred and four years after Elizabeth I died, was annexed by England, and Scotland has never recognised England as being a country. I believe that there must be unanimous agreement by all countries in the United Nations that a state or province is a sovereign country. I think Scotland is a UN member and has still not stated that they believe England to be a sovereign country. Maybe something to do with James VI of Scotland (James I in England), from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until his death in 1625.

In the last sentence of my notes; 'Sir Paul McCartney, who (whom) I have never trusted.'; you know when you meet someone and you get a feeling that they are sneaky? I get that feeling when I see Paul McCartney claiming perhaps more credence for his song-writing than John Lennon would agree with. 

Overall, I think my notes were a kaleidoscope of my thinking that swirled around my confused distaste that reward and celebration often goes to people I think are not as deserving as someone else. Perhaps knighthoods should be more like Victoria Crosses. Perhaps they could be given posthumously. But, let's face it; no-one today wants a Victoria Cross. Sometimes, I come across, perhaps tongue in cheek, a desire or hope for a knighthood in celebrities I see in media clips. That isn't a dark thought for anyone's earthly demise. 

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

or search for 'martin cadwell' or 'martin cadwell blog' in your browser. 

I am not on YouTube or social media

[ 5 minute read ]

Access Denied

There is a 1992 sci-fi horror film called 'The Lawnmower Man' with Jeff Fahey (Jobe) as an intellectually-challenged gardener and Pierce Brosnan as a scientist who tries to enhance Jobe's intellect using virtual reality simulations and drugs. There is a scene in which Jobe is somehow locked into a computer program and had become malevolent. Jobe tries different routes to escape the software and escape into the real world. 'Access Denied; Access Denied; Access Denied', hundreds of times.

Buying a new phone on monthly terms is the same. I have two Sim plans. I don't want any more plans. I intend to get rid of one Sim and its plan in favour of an unlimited plan. Great! A new phone with an unlimited plan with my existing service provider. Can't do that. Access Denied. I have to buy the phone with a useless 50GB data plan. Quite simply, I would throw that Sim away and buy a Sim elsewhere for less per month that has unlimited everything. 

I am beginning to understand how wretched the world's population is. Even I, who have absolutely no need for a SmartPhone have to buy a 5G device in case 4G becomes obsolete in the next ten years. I, however, insist on a phone with no A.I. installed as standard. Nor can it be a Google thingy. Any phone I have will be exclusively used for texts and voice, but I don't want any voice recognition technology listening to me or the other person I am talking to. Access Denied.

Look at it this way. Now that we have A.I. we all need to security vet our closet relatives every time they call or text us, even face-time us. Our voices and our faces, from those photographs on your phones, can be reproduced and animated, to fool even our own mothers, spouses or partners, and our children to make them reveal secrets to A.I. Your A.I. reproduced face can be used to face-time your children and tell them to meet you somewhere remote. Of course, you could set up security safe words but you would never be able to use them because it would be one of your character attributes that a bad actor using A.I. would definitely use. There are no photographs of me beyond the age of eighteen, and even that one is an oblique view of me. Any guesses why? I don't use MS Teams or speak or have my webcam on in Forums or Tutorials. Unfortunately, last year, I was compelled to talk in real-time to my tutor. Serious security breach! People are uneasy if they cannot build some rapport by also making other people vulnerable though. Nobody needs to see me to understand what I am saying. 

My bank tells me it is removing an extremely secure way for me to log in online that only allows me to see the balance. I cannot do any transaction other than cancel Direct Debits. I would never want full online access to somewhere where my money is. Soon, I will need to keep my money under my mattress. Before the end of the year, the only way to access my bank account online will be by using an app that provides full access and allows any transaction including money transfers. Maintain Good Security - Access Denied.

I have to get a SmartPhone to safeguard against future rubbish that someone cooks up as being healthy living. 3G is being switched off by the end of the year. Phone Security - Access Denied.

How horrendous it must be to recognise that this is the life we live, in which we cannot have peace because other people do not know peace. We cannot have good security because other people are caught up in a frenzy of revealing their own information by storing personal stuff on SmartPhones, and a blanket and SIMPLE way to protect them is necessarily thrown over all customers of digital services. This is a nightmare. I am wondering if it might make me feel bullied rather than steered towards purchasing stuff I absolutely don't want. Later, I will have to talk to someone in Customer Service, who has little customer service training, at my phone service provider, to TELL them what I want. I will, inevitably have to have a discussion on my needs. I don't want a discussion and if any marketing is attempted I will change service providers at the end of the contract in November. I tell them this, but the marketing goes on and on. I could end the contract early, today, for £23.83. I don't even care if I lose my phone number.

I don't get addicted to anything, except maybe sugar which would take me about two months to give up. I can gamble, get drunk or smoke cigarettes and then just stop, and never crave a return to them. Advertising has zero effect on me. I sometimes hear what is being advertised, but I never buy it. NEVER! I am immune to desire and want. I am only compelled to have what is necessary to freely exist in a crazy world of greedy clamour and chaos.

I am beginning to understand how difficult it is for people to conduct normal lives, when they are forced to have superfluous conversations when a simple click online would be easier. Access Denied. Businesses are too far ahead of themselves. They cannot provide something that they want to sell. No wonder it takes so long to get through to talk to someone in customer service or the 'tech' department. Everyone is forced to go into lengthy detail about what they want. Oh no! Maybe people don't know what they want, and so they are 'guided' into catering to their 'want' and desire for things they previously did not know exists. Oh no! How sad! 

You know, I am not particularly interested in being social for the sake of sociability. I definitely do not need to incessantly chat or be in contact with anyone. In that, I am wholly fortunate. There are so many ways to avoid customer service rubbish calls. Take 'roaming' for example. I would never upgrade my plan. I would simply buy a monthly unlimited plan for £20 upfront somewhere, and then never allow more payments. Job done. Or, like I normally do, buy a Sim in the countries I am in and put it in an unlocked phone. I can't understand why anyone would voluntarily want to mess with a phone or Sim plan, ever. 

A long time ago, when people went into supermarkets there wasn't much choice between products. Take breakfast cereal for example. There is a whole aisle of poison to confuse shoppers these days. The list of ingredients on one product has only one line. 'Wheat'. I actually haven't looked at Shredded Wheat boxes but an advert told me that a couple of days ago. In Shredded Wheat there is only wheat. Simple living.

I studied marketing at FHEQ level 6 because I wanted to understand how people are fooled into making purchases. The overall driving force for purchasing is family, friend, school and work colleague, famous person  influence. Parents are the major influencer. The marketer's job is more than halfway done before they even get out of bed.

Such is my frustration. I almost bought a phone with a Sim plan that I would pay for, but never use, simply to get the phone and be able to get on with my day. I can buy a Sim plan that I actually want separately. Is that what people do, to get what they want? Pay through the nose for stuff that is useless but is essentially tacked on to something they do want?

I have a dumb-phone but because the world has SmartPhones My security protocols must be compromised by upgrading to a device that will inevitably replace Chip and Pin that is already replacing money transactions. Even though I won't be using the SmartPhone, I have to buy it now because all SmartPhones will have A.I. installed as standard. That then, will be the time to throw all your talking and viewing devices away. However, I suspect no-one will, so I won't be able to either.

Thanks a lot!

At 8 o'clock this morning I will have to talk to someone about getting something I fear and loathe; ultra-connectivity to entities I detest.

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Hopefully, no-one will jump on the band-wagon and high-jack this theme, if only to keep the blog posts diverse.

[ 6 minute read - 1200 words ]

Pathetic but I respect him

I have only to go to the shop to get into an awkward moment. Seventeen and eighteen year olds use it during their school lunch-time. Big lads these days. A couple were standing by my bicycle when I came out and I jokingly thanked them for guarding my bike. It has a lock on it anyway, It is plainly in sight. They politely smiled and each murmured something unintelligible. As I unlocked my bike, I asked them if they were studying at the academy. They both nodded, one more than the other. I asked the more lively one what he was studying and the answer was ‘BTEC Business’. But he seemed a little embarrassed like it is not a real subject. Perhaps his heart was not in it. He did say later that he didn’t really know what kind of business he might form, but was adamant that he would not be using his studies to become an employee of some kind.

Having been in business and previously been an employer, I offered him some tidbits, such as any business you do must be the first thing you think of every morning, and you cannot switch off until you fall asleep. All day, I told him I was always thinking how I could improve my own business or save money.

A small crowd of other lads gathered, around us; about twelve of them. They all listened to what I was saying. I glanced at one who said. ‘Carry on preaching.’ Odd, I thought all I am doing is telling two lads how I ran my business. I carried on talking to the two lads and went on to say that he should probably expect to delegate all those ponderings to A.I. I then related a story I had heard about how Chat GPT had assisted a fourteen year old boy to make a final and fatal decision. I said that I don’t trust A.I. one bit. Just as I was about to leave the weird lad said, ‘Thanks Daddy’ in a fawning voice. I didn’t react beyond giving him a long glance. "Bye, Daddy, Bye Daddy". I stopped readying myself to get on my bicycle.

       ‘Don’t be weird. Don’t be weird.’ I said. He didn’t expect me to confidently respond to him and moved to the safety of the other side of the group where I was previously standing. Another lad looked at me and said, "I’ll have a word with him."

I told the weird sarcastic lad that he had just negated everything I had said. That if there was anything that was good he had destroyed it. I said if I am an idiot that is fine, but the other lads might have found something useful in what I had said, but now they might dismiss it as just entertainment due to his desire to be noticed. He apologised and hung his head.

I really wanted to dress him down, humiliate him. Unfortunately, he had triggered me with his public heckling and attempt to discredit me. Some time ago, my inner rage had been fanned by a neighbour who consistently allowed his pack of six Staffordshire Terriers to terrorise my elderly neighbours to such an extent that they were afraid to put their rubbish in their refuse bins. Eventually, after having probably seven separate conversations with him in the shared residents area, to which he had no permissible access and certainly not with his pooping dogs, I challenged him and six of his friends to a fight. It wasn’t a formal challenge, like, ‘I say, old man, would you care for a little fisticuffs?’ or slapping him in the face with a gauntlet and then throwing it down. Neither was there going to be pistols at dawn. Mindful of the tiny little ornamental fence that separated me and him, I knew that I would trip over it if I had to step back if I approached him to be close enough to clout him (start the fight). So I just made a right hook that missed by about two feet. The fight started. I nearly won but was eventually overwhelmed. If I am triggered I am fearless.

Among these lads, I certainly was not about to be physically violent and I was not inclined to be verbally violent either. I was triggered, but I still valued all of them. The point is, that there is a slow burning fury in me that I am always trying to dampen. But, an overwhelming feeling of resentment fans the embers if I let bullies, mockers, hecklers, and parasites near me. This sarcastic lad was facing someone with a high IQ and an extremely strong desire to defend himself. He had no idea. To him, I am just someone with no education at all, because I am not at school. However, I would lose a verbal argument because it is likely that he would not be able to understand me speaking from experience. It would simply become nonsense after a while.

I could have harangued him and brought shame on him for his silly attitude. I could have convinced at least some of the watching crowd that he is pathetic and disruptive, even narcissistic in wanting to be the centre of attention. I didn’t. Not because I care whether any onlookers would gauge me as a tyrannical bully or as someone spreading scorn on him too thickly. No, because it would serve no purpose. Instead I said to his peers, “This lad might appear to be foolish, but he has a quality that I admire and these days rarely find. He has listened to me and accepted responsibility for his actions, and he has apologised. In business, it is vitally important to accept responsibility for our actions. Good luck.” Nobody spoke and I rode away.

At home, I replayed the scene over and over again, as is my wont. I could improve my approach in addressing young lads. I could watch myself to make sure I am not patronising. I am pretty sure that the sarcastic lad felt a bit humiliated by my boorish monologue. I could have finished by saying, “Some of you think I am a fool but you might want to think about what I am doing wrong and try to understand how you would do it differently.”

Study with the Open University has armed me with two questions that I could use to fend off scorn. The second, I think, is the key to undoing verbal attacks if it is considered by the attacker.

‘What did I just say?’ and ‘Why did I say it?’ Even by itself, the second question acts as a derailment of a continuous train of invective.

These lads might be amenable to such questions. Despite children being forced to attend some form of training up to the age of eighteen, these lads were interested in their chosen subjects. I would not expect to find them in the village recreation ground drinking cider or getting stoned. I doubt if I would be strong enough to hold my tongue if twelve lads were truculently abusive, such as I once was.

Ultimately, I could have shut the sarcastic lad down by saying “I am talking to these two lads. You have come up and listened. I let you listen but it is not right that you should comment on a conversation to which you are not included. You are only part of an uninvited audience.”

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[ 8 minute read - 1771 words at 220 wpm ]

My Neighbour's Cat

My neighbour's cat recognises the sound of my neighbour's car and goes to it when my neighbour parks. It also seems to know the time as well. During the week my neighbour, Sally, gets home around about 5pm. At the weekends Sally doesn't come home until after, I think, 7pm. 

One of my problems is that if people do not stick to a plan, I can get quite irritated. Hyper-vigilance can also be a problem too, even though I have previously described it as a super-power.

This year, due to the dry Summer, I successfully avoided blight on my tomato plants and ended up with a lot of tomatoes. Because I give most of my plants away, I end up growing between five and twelve plants, but, I am not very good at growing them because I don't REALLY know what I am doing and I am lazy. The laziness is the worst part and the most devastating to the plants. 

To me, tomato plants are an expensive plant. I also grow strawberry plants. There is a difference here that makes strawberry plants cheap to me. Tomato plants in the UK are annuals; they die at the end of Autumn if they are indeterminates or once they have produced a flourish of fruit if they are determinates. Strawberry plants are perennials. They seem to be able to survive really quite harsh conditions. They also produce runners for new plants to grow from the 'mother' plant. I can experiment with strawberry plants. I cannot experiment with tomato plants. That is why I am rubbish at getting even a small crop each year. Quite simply, I don't learn. I use an artists brush to help to pollinate them, but I never thin out the leaves, like you are supposed to. I don't trust the weather. If I wound the plants today, it will be wet and warm for the next ten days and they would get blight, so I don't wound them by 'pinching out' new growth and old leaves. Removing old leaves and allowing air to freely circulate around the plant reduces the chance of 'blight', a fungus that affects all the Solanum family, including potato and Pepper plants (perennial, believe it or not). 

What am I getting at? In order to have 'hope' for a good yield, I use my laziness and uncertainty to ignore the need for practical work. If I put no effort in I will be less disappointed if the crop fails. In other words, I fail to put effort into my life. Bit of a large leap, you might think; jumping from ignoring responsibilities brought on by myself to cheating myself of a fulfilling life? I suppose, if I made of list of things I like to do and focused only on the top five at the expense of the lower five, we might consider that to be fine; as long as I still co-operate with my environment and attendant responsibilities, right? By environment, I mean normal existence in the UK and local conventions. 

The thing is, I do put a lot of effort into growing tomato plants. They attain a value greater than any other plant I grow in the 'doing' of growing them. But then, I just kind of forget them once they are big. This translates as I put a lot of effort into bringing something into maturity and then fail to maintain it.

I have a surplus of tomatoes this year, so, yesterday, I left some in an egg box outside Sally's door, about nine of them from different varieties.

Sally's cat was in the garden waiting for Sally to get home at tea-time, but the cat doesn't know about weekends. My hyper-vigilance had noticed another neighbour coming out of Sally's front garden, a couple of days ago. This neighbour feeds Sally's cat when Sally is on holiday. Normally, the cat sprawls in the front gardens, you know, all relaxed and large. Before 4pm it did this. I kept looking out of the window to see if I could see Sally's car. I probably looked three times between 3pm and 6pm. The tomatoes on her doorstep are valuable to me, and if Sally is on holiday I should retrieve them and eat them myself. For some reason, I felt that I still owned the tomatoes until she took them inside. Weird. 

The cat got up and went to where Sally usually parks on the road, to check it had not missed her arrival. It then walked up and down the road. I never see it do that; she avoids the other cats in our road. Eventually, it settled on walking the outside perimeter of Sally's front garden, and then stalled near the gate. I felt sorry for it, but I wasn't going to spend all day watching a stationary cat. The next time I looked it was meditating in the front garden by the gate. Bless it, I thought, it misses Sally. While the cat became anxious, I grew irritated. Irrationally, I felt that my effort to be kind was wasted. I am lazy, I didn't want to retrieve the tomatoes; but that wasn't it. At 6pm, my task should have been complete by now. But, that pesky hyper-vigilance had put an event in my mind that interfered with my pleasure in giving: the other neighbour coming out of Sally's front garden; Sally must be on holiday!

I look out of my window a few times a day because I use a VDU quite a lot throughout the day and periodically check my eyesight by trying to make out the car registrations some way across the road. I have had eye-surgery on both eyes to improve my vision. But yesterday, the tomatoes on Sally's doorstep, the cat and the other neighbour put me into a very uncomfortable position, because I was primarily looking for Sally's car, like her cat.

If giving is stressful, why do I do it? This morning, I think I have a solution. At Christmas or other religious occasions when gifts are given, the exchange of gifts is not complete until the recipient actively accepts the gift, if both the giver and recipient are together. Just be aware, I rarely give wrapped gifts. If I give a wrapped gift, I feel that I own it until it is opened. Then it is yours. I think I need to reel myself in a bit and consider the gift to be yours once I have wrapped it. Essentially, the job is done; careful selection from a huge choice of alternatives has taken place and an effort to conceal it for an element of surprise to occur has been accomplished. Job done. The easiest part is simply to hand it over. That is pretty callous isn't it? It is no different to handing someone a hairbrush that their aunt gave them last year. This is yours. I have no use of it. I place no value to it beyond the respect I have for YOUR pleasure in owning it. 

And there it is. For a brief moment, a gift-giver owns some of the future pleasure of the recipient. This is a recipient handing over their vulnerability to someone else. For someone like me, terrifying. Perhaps, for nearly everyone else not feeling vulnerable, curiousity; 'Oooh! What is it?'

Am I looking too deeply at it? I think so.

In giving Sally some tomatoes, I was not reciprocating kindness. I have a protocol for that. Of course! A couple of years ago, Sally bought me a baking tray, not as a gift but because it is easier for her to transport it than for me. I gave her the money, and left some lemon juice, white vinegar, and olive oil on her doorstep (she told me she eats a lot of salads). She also got a Christmas card from me that year, thanking her for her kindness.

A long time ago, I acquired an American style double-door fridge-freezer from a customer and gave it away to a relative. I wasn't bothered that my relative didn't jump up and down with glee. What bothered me is what my relative did when I was absent from the room. My relative's daughter told me that the recipient hugged and kissed the fridge-freezer and cried, 'I have always wanted one of these!' She went on to tell me that the recipient did not want to show me her happiness because she did not want to feel beholden to me for such an extravagant and suitable gift. I think the 'want' exceeded the actual money value though. Sad isn't it?

It was a gift from me. I don't charge people for receiving gifts from me. It is entirely free. Free from reciprocation, guilt, or dishonour. It is free. There is no emotional debt.

I had learnt a valuable lesson from a past girlfriend when I was eighteen. I had been working in Germany and got friendly with a local girl. The English Channel and hundreds of miles separated us later, and I wrote to her a few times, but she never replied. Eventually, I resorted to telling her that she was being disrespectful by not responding because she was beholden to me because I had gifted her so much. I received one letter from her in German, despite her English being excellent. Essentially it said. 'Never add up what you have done for someone, in case they can add up more that they have done for you'. She gave me something intangible, friendship and intimacy.

In leaving tomatoes on Sally's doorstep though, when I was becoming convinced she was on holiday, I had negative feelings building. Not so that I would be angry or not sleep, or anywhere close to that, and certainly not so I would want some kind of recompense. I think I was sad that my gift would go unopened and the sentiment behind giving would dissipate. Only I would be aware of the moment and nothing would be shared. It would be another isolating event for me. Eventually, I handed over responsibility, in my mind, to the other neighbour to put the tomatoes in Sally's fridge when she came to feed the cat. It was in doing that, that I no longer owned the gift. Absolutely the same as if I posted a gift. 

Sally did come home yesterday, and I hope that she smiled when she realised that the egg-box didn't have eggs in them. It did have a note inside that read, 'For your salads.' I am still freely grateful that she helped me a couple of years ago.

And, Petra, in Germany, you gave me more than you can ever know with a single sentence; you taught me that I should let go.

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[ 12 minute read ]

Detached Emotions

In 2012, I took a long look at myself and recorded what I found. Fortunately, I saved it, and it is reproduced here, unadulterated, or rather, unaltered. I chose 'unaltered' over 'unadulterated' because this is raw, rude me. It was never intended for publication. But much of it is residual in me, and I am ruthless with myself. After it, I have briefly interviewed myself in a pretend studio as though my 2012 statement is a video statement, with questions I ask myself today, such as what did I mean, and how have I changed or adapted.

PTSD and Detached Emotions (raw speech)

'I suppose, straightaway, I should make myself clear in that my view on how I want to be approached by other people may be distorted by a certain degree of misanthropy as a culmination of a series of bad relationships stemming from my early childhood through adulthood to the present day.

The prevailing thought I consciously hold when considering the world about me is this: Stay away from me; do not get in my space; definitely don't bore me with your mundane words about your everyday lives; all you want to do is massage your own ego, to stimulate your mental processes or otherwise gain something from an encounter with me. What makes it worse for me is that these people don't even realise why they are talking to me. They think they are being friendly when they are actually sub-consciously establishing an hierarchy; checking out whether I am dangerous or can be dominated. This thought is in no way limited to any individual, or group, religion, creed or colour nor is it dependent on gender, looks, ability, race, health, wealth or intelligence. This thought is the result of empiricism and, in my view, has been tested and proved countless times. Another way of saying it is for me to say 'I do not directly require you or anything you possess; you do not have anything I want and never will; I do not need or want your company, comfort, conversation, or opinion; I do not want your wealth, your food, your benevolence or pity'. Again, this is not directed toward any individual and certainly should not be taken personally if it causes alarm, concern or negative reaction. That is to say, it is directed towards everyone and no-one in particular.

The one thing I primarily want, need, fantasise about and crave is consideration. This is consideration for everyone, from everyone and by everyone. But most of all, CONSIDER THIS EVERYONE: I don't like you and I am not going to like you, because if you cause me to react, respond to you or otherwise force me to discover and develop a new set of rules just so I can make you happy enough to go away and leave me in peace, you will leave me feeling irritated, cheapened, used, and with a feeling that it is me who has been considerate, patient and empathic to your needs. Again, this extends to everyone and should not be taken personally.

My maxim for a fruitful life is: do not cause negative feeling in other people. This is the 'Golden Rule' with a slight change. Do not do to others what you would not want others to do to you. This maxim has negativity woven into it, though it is controlled and purposeful, to avoid negativity caused by doing to someone what you want them to do to you. After all, how can we be sure what others want? Is it the same as I want? I will leave that question there for fear that further exploration would leave me open to inquisitive persons asking me what I want and me having to adopt a pleasant, non-patronising mode of behaviour which hopefully would not induce a negative feeling in them and would still cause them to leave me alone and never approach me again without them ever knowing the truth about what I am really thinking, because, I fear that due to the human condition, their egos would enable them to override common-sense and make them believe that they would be doing me some service by offering me a biscuit or something.

They are probably generous, perhaps even kind; perhaps they find that reciprocal generosity in a symbiotic relationship works best for them and thus they subscribe to the original 'Golden Rule' of doing to others as you would want them to do to you….. I feel sorry for them because I shall never covet what they have or need their company, whereas, as humans, they probably feel the need to belong to a group, to exercise their existence in the many roles they play in the world; to indulge in mental stimulation through conversation (banal or otherwise) or have their egos stroked – all of which demand the attention of another person.

Sometimes, I take a reward or praise when I am offered it, not because I want it, I don't, no, solely because I think it helps people to think that we are getting on okay. I derive no pleasure in satisfying people's need for platitudes, if, indeed, that is what I am giving; I feel no superiority or pride; I am just relieved that for a while my future refusals to accept gifts or reward will not be perceived as an outward sign of wanting to be disconnected from others. Without a full understanding of me and without full insight into my life I feel that they would, like so many others, mistakenly take it as a personal snub.

I am not contemptuous of people who live symbiotic lives, not a bit, no, I am jealous that they have never had to develop coping strategies such as I have.

I am puzzled by complacence, irritated by complacence, which I believe is the product of what the Germans call 'gemutlichkeit' – 'comfortableness'; something I feel that I can never now achieve. Complacence, for me, is the attitude one may adopt if one feels there is nothing to worry about; or does not perceive imbalance. 'Learned helplessness' is its pathetic friend and is, to me, arrhythmia that is recognised by the individual but feeling that nothing can be done about it, so one fears but tolerates the consequences. Neither attitude is acceptable to me and I live in a constant state of searching for either escape routes or solutions that satisfy the situation, though not necessarily me. In real terms, this means to me; Fight tooth and nail using smiles and kid-gloves to attempt to achieve an unrealistic vision of peace (which even worse, provides only temporary succour) against people who would vindictively tear my guts out if I show my soft under-belly, simply because it is in their nature to do so.'

September 2025 (a real interview between me and myself, in a fictional studio having watched the video of 2012 me)

       'That was you in 2012. Pretty raw stuff. Thank you for sharing it, Martin. How do you feel seeing that today?'

       'Quite alarmed really, and disappointed. I had been like that for decades by then. I find it difficult to believe that I could be so cold. Yet, it is a defence mechanism that stems from an even darker place.'

       'You started by saying that people are merely massaging their own egos and that they are not friendly towards you; what did you mean?'

       'I think I had read somewhere that people are more stimulated by talking than by listening and so I thought that people are really talking at me, rather than to me. Of course, I desperately wanted to talk to people and then to talk to me. I wanted to explain how I felt and be understood. I wanted to hear what they are saying and understand how they felt. But I felt that no-one was letting me do that. I knew that it would be a long process to carefully open up to people, each and every time I met them. Unfortunately, I actually mean every time I met the same person, because as soon as I was away from any conversation I would unconsciously rebuild the wall. No-one was going to give me that much time or space; they have their own lives and thoughts to contend with. As I say, I wanted to know them, their thoughts, theirs and mine, but ultimately, all I ever heard was mundane chatter that masked their true identity. I was certain that the lightness of their words was never a reflection of how they felt, so to me, it was just rubbish that they would endlessly spout simply because they were mentally stimulating themselves.....at my expense.'

       'Do you think that perhaps many of the people you encountered then were not as troubled as you thought; that you might have been projecting yourself on them?'

       'I am not sure I was projecting myself onto others any more than everyone else. I was absolutely certain that I was seeing the world through a dark lens but it was a lens that was made up of my perception of other people. That is why it was so important for me to understand other people and how they dealt with emotional pain. My world completely stopped when I was twelve. I was emotionally catatonic then. Like every child, I was supposed to learn from my surroundings and my peers. I had no chance to emotionally recover from my breakdown because I had a brother who would vindictively remove any opportunity for me to feel safe. It is as though he saw me as a threat to his superiority and felt he must reduce me to a helpless mess. This meant that as I grew I was only able to learn from my environment with no emotion attached to it. Everything about me is a construct, a careful fabrication of social etiquette and conversation; all without emotion. I heard only words not feelings. This was borne out in places where I stumbled, such as not recognising a hint, I still can't.' In 2012, I saw myself as a mirror to everyone else. I did not see myself as an individual person, only you, and you, and you contained in me. However, because there was no emotion there was never an ebb and flow in relationships; never moments of quiet. I just wanted more information with which to program myself.'

       'You eshewed gifts and rewards. Can you tell me why?'

       'Many people only give gifts at specific times; birthdays, Christmas....I recognised this while still in my teens. Most of us do. Because giving gifts and rewards generally is an emotional outsource, there is an expectation that emotion is reciprocated. Of course, I was not able to do that. Someone could have given me a brand new car and my reaction would have been the same as if I was given a banger. It was only the practical aspect of gifts and rewards I saw then. By 2012, I would have been pleased to be able to drive and not walk but that emotion would never be directed towards a gift-giver; it would only be realised in actually using the vehicle. Nonetheless, gift-givers would expect me to show gratification. Worse still, like most people, they would expect a reciprocation in kind. I simply could not understand why. I deliberately did not celebrate my twenty-first birthday. Many people regard the attainment of that age as seminal. But, it is no longer the attainment of majority as it once was. So, in my mind, by 2012, having not celebrated any birthdays or Christmas's since age eighteen, my idea of reciprocal gift-giving was pretty well shrivelled. I didn't know how to respond if someone even offered me a biscuit or a cup of tea. I had to have protocol for accepting anything. I would always refuse it twice and only accept if there was a third offer. By the third offer I would be feeling so uncomfortable that I would have to accept. Put upon really. I recognised that the offerer is feeling uncomfortable because I won't accept their hospitality. Looking back, I suppose I was insulting them. EVERYONE accepts their offerings and has a chat, why not me? they were asking themselves.  I was compelled to eat a biscuit, drink tea, or accept reward for doing a chore for them. I just wanted to be left alone in that emotional department. To me it was a form of bullying, but to them it is a ritual part of connecting.'

       'You said you are not contemptuous of people who live symbiotic lives. Can you elaborate on that?'

       'Ah ha. Hmmm. Most people are not going to like what I am about to say. These days i can put myself outside of myself and to some extent look at myself from how someone else might perceive me. I am not sure I really want to be honest with you now. It is uncomfortable for me right now. However, one of the most important things I promised myself that I would do, because I understand I am fundamentally flawed and will always be, is to be honest, to be honourable and to have integrity, no matter what the cost to myself. It is imperative I do not knowingly cause harm due to something I have overlooked in myself, so honesty is my safeguard...... I was contemptuous of other people who need symbiotic relationships in 2012, and I still am. I can't do that. It is completely absent in my make-up to be able to trust anyone with anything. I was practically orphaned at age sixteen and my legal guardian was a drug and alcohol crazed older brother. I grew up with an independence that I hold hard to my heart. I won't ever let go of it. I can't. It is my shield. It saves me from you and them and her. I regard seeking help from others as weak. Collaboration, to me, is a signal that someone is inadequate. Symbiosis, of course, is living among each other in a mutually beneficial way. All of how I felt in 2012 is residual in me today. It will never be displaced with something else. It can only be tempered. I will never know love, like you know love, because love came to me from a crying mother. I have to accept that I am ruthless but mostly polite and respectful. Yet, I must also understand that my ruthlessness extends also to myself; I let it, because it is only fair. I will not allow myself to solely cast contempt on the world, because in reality I am contemptuous of myself. But, it is true to say, I only see people in three aspects, beneficial to me, in the way, or as a non-playable character in a video game, as being entirely neutral and just part of the scenery.'

       'Yet, you do subscribe to symbiosis.'

      'Of course. I am not unkind. I understand that people are unaware of much around them. Someone who gets up, cheerful, and walks towards the bus stop doesn't want to meet ruthless and contemptuous me. When they call 'Good Morning' to me, I would have a terrible day of guilt if I did not return it, as cheerily as I can, even though most of the time I am acting. It would break my heart to know that someone vicariously suffers because they meet me. I don't have a filing system for emotions or a box in which to neatly to place them. At any time one will jump out at me and I will cry. But it is not crying for the present, It is crying for the past. No-one wants that on the way to the bus-stop, so I have a personality I present to the world. It is of course, wooden, but it includes trying to give people want they need as though we are in a symbiotic, though brief relationship.'

       'Would it be fair to say, Martin, that today, if you are completely honest with yourself, you are jealous?.'

       'Of course. Hugely.'

       'Martin Cadwell. Thank you.'

If you like music and would like a musical representation, one that I think matches, of how I was feeling prior to being able to break myself down again and resemble some of the pieces in a semblance of order and understanding in 2012, you might consider listening to the Album 'My Life in the Bush of Ghosts' by Brian Eno and David Byrne, released in 1981.

I have decided that I have been neglecting my neighbours. I am usually not prepared to stop and chat with them as I whizz past on my bicycle. They wave from their cars and smile at me and I barely glance at them. Very recently though, I have come to realise that my stand-offish attitude is sub-standard for my village. I don't live in a cold and sterile environment bereft of human interaction. I live down a lane where people stop and pick blackberries next to a pasture. The birds sing, children laugh and dogs bark. My world is full of fun and happiness, of kindness and concern. It has people who care about other people, who help each other. I live in a village in which one neighbour cuts another's hedge. People here are not afraid of each other. We don't look away when a teenager is in trouble, or a dog is pining for its owners while they are at work. We don't selfishly pass by if a car battery has run down overnight and the car won't start on a winter morning. People talk to each other at the bus stop.

One of my shopkeepers spent a long time helping me to understand Buddhism to help me with a TMA, while the other helps me to understand the flavours of the Asian foods he sells, and he introduces me to new products. I make him tarts from the, to me, strange flavours, with my own twist on them. My village interacts in a fruitful way. I borrowed a neighbour's ladder and he borrowed my car to take his mum to hospital. Yet, still, I can do more. When I bought Art Supplies and left them outside my house for young mums, teenagers and the elderly to take, I carelessly thought I had done my bit. Now, I can remember that one of my neighbours said, when she stopped in her car to read my sign, "I must do that for my church." I am glad that I am inspirational but saddened that I did not immediately offer to help her implement it, or offer to give advice on Art.

I realise it is a cruel and selfish man who will find an excuse to never offer help. I realise now, that it is a broken man with a hard heart that will ignore another person; to have no will to engage, other than to make a conscious effort to undermine. I know when I see these types, because that is how I got part of my PTSD. My PTSD is a vicarious one. It was brought about by narcissism and psychopathy in one part, and by the direct effect of World War Two on one of my parents who suffered at the hands of an officer in the Sturmabteilung (S.A.) in another part. 

I vow never to be selfish or mean or jealous and critical of others, or feed off other people like a parasite, or piggy-back off their efforts. In fact, I have a reminder on my wall: 'Rare is the person who can weigh the faults of others without putting his thumb on the scales' - Byron J Langenfeld (World War One aviator). I will however, paint pictures of how I see things. I am not a writer and never will be. I am alive. My eyes are not stones and my ears are not closed.

I am pleased to discover that I am alive, that my PTSD does not shut me off from people as much as it could and once did. I was once entirely numb. I am not bitter. I forgive the people who hurt me. i am not jealous; I want people to succeed. I am pleased that I have grown and can find some peace where there was only isolation. I am pleased that my neighbours have admiration for me and the feeling is reciprocated. 

I am pleased that I have original ideas. I am pleased that I can invent shops and shopkeepers and streets and churches and people and cars and ladders and leaves as I please. I am glad that I do not have to.

One of the reasons I made money as an artist instead of a photographer is because I wanted to be able to add or subtract from a scene. I wanted to embellish or attenuate at will. I wanted to throw paint on a canvas and think that looks like a dolphin, I will go with that! I am pleased that I can make contrasts to act as a background to how I really feel. I am pleased I have an outlet. My world is not black with no light. It is not bleak with no hope of approbation. My world is colourful with no need for approbation. I am having fun.

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or search for 'martin cadwell' or 'martin cadwell blog' in your browser. 

I am not on YouTube or social media

[ 7 minute read ]

Me in a fantasy Medieval Village

I am confused. I already know that if I saw myself coming towards me down the street I would cross the street to avoid having a conversation. Yet, I would love to have an identical twin with the same thinking characteristics as me; we would have such fun. Of course, I am able to stand outside of myself and have deep discussions with myself; you know, one of me sitting at the kitchen table, coffee cup half raised to my lips, and the other paused from doing the washing-up, while we hone in on a fine point. I am an old hand at that. We all do that, to some extent. In fact, sometimes I refer to myself as 'we'. Don't go distancing yourself from that. Whenever, you ask yourself a question; as in, taking a moment for solely pondering an issue, hands on hips or hand to chin, you are doing just the same. It is merely looking at something from a different perspective.

Yet, I would still avoid myself in the street. 

Because I know that, whenever I notice an anomaly and can be bothered to shunt it to 'Processing' I rewind the tape to see what I just did. My local shopkeeper, while I am at the counter trying to 'meet' him periodically looks away, just above my left shoulder. Does my breath smell? Is he offended by the bent of my words? Should I have washed a little better? Paranoid or observant? It is no secret that I have (I was going to write 'suffer from') Post Traumatic Stress Disorder PTSD. In most cases, I understand, people with PTSD have attendant hyper-vigilance, I think because danger might jump out at us at any time. 'Once bitten, twice shy.' I have hyper-vigilance. It turns out that there is a CCTV monitor on the pillar to my left, that makes up part of the shop counter. Yep, definitely paranoid that time.

Hyper-vigilance with a high IQ is a super-power, if one wants to combine the two for good practical purposes. A driving job is enhanced by hyper-vigilance and a high IQ offers creative solutions to sudden unusual events. Good problem solving skills on my CV doesn't mean the same on my CV than on my neighbour's when I am interviewed for a job. Most of the time, I am trying to not skip a few steps in conversation so the interviewer can keep up. I once met a woman outside ALDI and as usual, I intellectually ambushed her. Don't worry, everybody gets the same treatment. Yes, I know, it is as rude as that - ambushed. However, you realise I am in charge of these words and I could rewrite a sentence or two to make it seem as though I am nice; I didn't. We'll come back to her.

Intellectually ambushing someone is a shortcut to a conversation, and for me is not at all consciously deliberate. 'Lovely weather' is an accepted opening for a conversation. I don't do that - waste of time. My autopilot is set to seek like-minded people as rapidly as possible. In a supermarket setting there are only a few seconds to displace the distractions of the supermarket shelves with something that compels the shopper to disengage from their collecting task and engage with me. I am not rude about it though, outside of interrupting people's thoughts. Guilty!

Back to the the intellectually ambushed woman (everybody gets the same treatment). Only three per cent of the worlds population (when it was still seven billion) have an IQ that matches or exceeds mine. For some context, Madonna, the eighties pop queen has an IQ ten points higher than mine. The woman outside ALDI - It was really hot last Summer, and she had bought a multi-pack of ice-lollys to take home. Yet, she was so fascinated by me; and it was keenly reciprocated, that she let her ice-lollys almost completely melt before she tore herself from our mind-meld over two hours later. There was no physical attraction between us and we openly discussed how we fancied someone or other. In other words, the pursuit of a physical union between us was far from our thoughts. That would have been the most shameful waste of our time. Our conversation took the form of making bullet points that the listener instantly filled in with content; skeletons of conversation that the other person fleshed out; connecting the dots. The rapidity of our conversation was intense while the breadth and depth seemed boundless. We, obviously, could contain it, because she, plainly, could match my IQ, or even exceed it. This was something I had longed for all my life; this conversation. She told me about how she fancied a man that all her friends warned her was a narcissistic psychopath. 

Let me just take a moment to colour-in the outline and shape of the meaning of the word 'psychopath'. Don't think 'mad axe-man raging through the woods'. Instead, think about the car driver who cuts-in at the last moment at dual carriageway narrowings, or someone who doesn't understand the impact that their actions has on others. I rather think I have described a narcissistic psychopath in the driver who cuts in at the last moment. Another metaphor is a driver who overtakes a cyclist immediately before braking for slow traffic (the cyclist will not be impeded by slow four-wheel traffic; narcissistic psychopath).

Back to the woman in the car park: Her friends had warned her that her beau is a narcissistic psychopath. What they mean is: he is a drain on everyone's resources; spiritual, financial, physical, emotional, spatial. He, being a psychopath, doesn't realise he is a drain, and he, being a narcissist, believes everything should come to him. I have deep experience of being held down and physically, mentally, and psychologically throttled by just such a person. I have PTSD from just such a person.

Let's make it colourful. we are all familiar with Disney cartoons, wherein the characters are enhanced for fun, like Baloo in 'Jungle Book'. Most of us are familiar with darker characters in video games. Let's imagine a fantasy medieval scene in which the characters have a market and the houses are oak-beamed. The woman and I are chatting in the market place while chickens in woven willow cages cluck nearby. Other women are nodding and pointing at us, though not maliciously. A few come over and say to the woman, 'Mardor is evil, stay away from him' and 'Don't fall under Mardor's spell'. They don't mean me. Right before this woman is me, known for my wit, also saying to the woman, 'Stay away!' 

This woman talking to me in ALDI car-park is that woman. I know she had never met anyone like me; she was in awe of me. She didn't realise that she was beyond equal to me. 'You're amazing', she told me. I was finding it hard to keep up with HER! You also have to understand that both of us are not good at convergent thinking, and tend to operate using largely divergent thinking. Fuzzy lines and fairies rather than grids and maps. You would think that she would listen to the women in the fantasy market and me in the real world when we say 'Stay away!' yet, she told me she was still not sure. Mardor is a Wizard. If this woman and I stood together as the 'Power of Two', no Witches or Wizards would succeed. Needless to say, she had already confessed to having PTSD and other mental disturbances. She was adrift, just like I am; remember I am confused. The chances of finding a healer in the fantasy medieval village that was cleverer than either of us is slim, at best. With only three percent of the world's population matching or exceeding our IQ any advice she gets from the local herb-gatherer will only be wheat to her. She had told me that she has hyper-vigilance, yet in love and attraction, she has none.

Most people think me a fool. I am a fool; having a high IQ doesn't make me clever. Indeed, many people can tie me in intellectual knots. For me, with divergent thinking I will probably outmatch near everyone who leans heavily on divergent thinking, but in everyday life, me with low convergent thinking, any person with uncluttered convergent thinking and an average IQ is my senior, if they have some divergent thinking (I believe it is called imagination).

I am fairly certain that the woman in the ALDI car park will be a constant source of nourishment for her 'Mardor', for some years to come. She and I were speaking an 'ancient language' well, and still she was not convinced. The 'ancient language' is the same as everyone else's and a poor attempt at a language that aliens speak.

But, I am still confused.

The Stanford-Binet method of IQ testing gives results for 40 - 60 in large parts of Africa. Without too much research it can be understood that this method of testing is for The Global North. Africans are highly adaptive, and I would perish within days if I suddenly found myself in their environments. My understanding is that someone with an IQ of 70 or less needs 24hr support to survive in the West, so go figure! as the Americans say. Since a huge part of the world's population is in Africa and Asia it should be considered highly improbable that my IQ is matched or exceeded by only 3% of the world's population, since testing for parts of the world should be conducted with a different approach to survivability in the Global North.

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

or search for 'martin cadwell' or 'martin cadwell blog' in your browser. 

I am not on YouTube or social media

[ 6 and a half minute read ]

The Caveman's List

One of the things I dislike about communicating, is that there are rules to it that are not written down for the unwary to, well, be ware of. Of course, anyone who writes something down is using a form of communication. The words could be written, such like, as a shopping list. The words on the paper, or perhaps papyrus in Ancient Egypt, could be purposely recorded for a number of reasons, and the reason may even change as time passes. 

The Caveman's List 

Woolly Mammoth meat the size of twenty fist-sized apples, or at least four rabbits

So many nuts that it would take seven trips to carry them from the tree to the cave using only both hands, or one crushed handful of the leaves from the plant that has purple flowers shaped like ears

Ah, shopping lists for the people who are learning what to look out for, and are easily distracted by clashing two stones together as though they are fighting, or kissing. I found the words carved in a piece of stone I found in my garden.

Hakim, the spirit avatar I created, when I was sixteen, to protect me from harm while I am sleeping had an opinion; always welcome. Wild, or more creative, but definitely always welcome. Who wouldn't consider the view of an avatar who specialises in all things spiritual?

       'No. I think... No, they are the ingredients in a recipe.'

Harrari, the abandoned alien I discovered in a wood in which I had been living in, had her say; always welcome. Ruthless, and dangerous with it, one might think that I have no choice in letting her speak; but, her reasoning comes from a blending of an alien 'hyper-technological' existence and an absorption of knowledge on the flora, fauna, and things that we humans cannot see, on earth. As I say, always welcome and never, never denied, let's just leave it at that.

        'You both think too simply. You, Martin, are practical in your approach, and you, Hakim, are creative and living in the sensual. The writing on the stone chip is a Stone-age agreement to pay.'

It is not Hakim's job to understand bartering, but he knows that you can't get something for nothing.

       'Money?'

       'A credit note? I mused, a quiz on my forehead.

       'Money and credit is now the same thing. Your money was once a piece of something valuable that had universal value in the area in which it was used. But a merchant buying a large amount of stock could be robbed of the valuable universal 'coin', before they could hand it over to the supplier. Not only that, the accumulated 'coin' might be heavy indeed. The words are a record of a negotiation at the primary stage.'

       'That is why there are alternatives...or.' I nodded, realisation undoing the crease between my eyebrows.

It is easy to decipher the words on the stone, now under lock and key in my library, as meaning any of our offered opinions, and there is still more. It could be a purchase order that a boy was tasked to take to the cave-man shop. 

       'Run all the way there, and all the way back.' There was no expectation he would be burdened with goods.

Harrari, grateful that we understood the value of my discovery in the garden concluded with, 'Further thinking could open up an understanding into whether these cave-people understood 'bundles' of goods or were offering a Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA)'.

       'Marketing?' Hakim looked up from pretending to fill his imaginary pipe. He smoked it when Harrari bothered him, because he was convinced that she could not tolerate the smell. Open to a wide scope of possibilities while he was clutching his Diploma in Creativity, he now used his pipe to show that, for him, reason had reached a limit.

I smiled, but mostly inwardly. For all I knew, Harrari could smell completely rancid and could tolerate anything I might imagine. She almost never appeared in our human visual spectrum and I had to conclude that our olfactory senses were similarly limited, and work in a narrow bandwidth, because other than a, very infrequent, floral scent that seemed to originate from nowhere, I am pretty certain that I can not smell her. Even then, I might be smelling next-doors washing on the line. Yet....in Winter, in the rain?

My final pondering on how big a caveman fist, hand, or a rabbit might have been, was broken by my wife coming in. She didn't know about Harrari or Hakim; I had never told her about my past. I wasn't really sure that she even knew that she was married to me, because she spent a lot of time keeping away from me. She had some of her friends with her; even now she separated herself from me.

       'Hello, Martin' He winked at me, the one I had seen so many times with my wife, yet strangely never alone. Neither of us nodded. Social protocol loomed before us. Should we wrestle? Should I punch his perfect smiling face? Should I shake his hand? Hug? Or should I just politely say 'Good Night' and leave them all to it, whatever they thought 'it' is. I had my own idea of one version but there were too many in her group of friends to be about to play Bridge or Monopoly; four, and my wife made five in her group.

I left without responding to him, and similarly ignored the rest. They all looked remarkably familiar, as though I once knew them, but I simply could not remember their names. I knew that I once did, but they belonged to younger people; much younger.

Back home, in my own untidy mess and glad to be away from pristine neatness, I went into the library and checked that the stone was still safely stored. That guy really bothered me. In fact, I am not really sure he exists. After all, my wife has an exceptional imagination and might have invented him just to annoy me. How she could get me to perceive him was beyond me. Hakim and Harrari, between them, would help me to figure it out, if I ask them. I hoped it had nothing to do with that photograph on her wall.

Faced with a wide scope and scale of environments of interaction, we are constantly relying on our understanding of previous events for a template from which to work. It is sometimes said that when we are falling out of a window, our whole life flashes before us. Hakim would say that we are trying to send signals for help while flicking through a scrapbook of memories; memories that include spiritual help. Harrari, the perspicacious one in our group of three, with her analytical bent, would say that we are seeking a set of rules or formulas that have worked in similar circumstances to find a solution that matches not landing on the ground at a pace that would hurt us. Hakim wants an angel with wings, and Harrari needs her molecules to dissipate, and effectively become dust that is shifted by the wind.

Of course, it matters whether there are manuals for life; childhood; marriage; getting a job, or not. But I think I need to find a manual on how to read in an appropriate way. I need to understand why the writer wrote whatever it is they wrote, and what the writer left out. Unfortunately, there are no tests in the real world to be certain we have all read the same books and how we understand them, unless we write an essay that reflects back a good facsimile of the lessons to be learned, or in social environments, shake hands to say hello, or just politely say goodnight.