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[ 9 minute read ]

Only good for processing

The blackberry bushes, more a hedge really, along the road to the next village are liars. But they are super-good at reproducing. Not that I have found their offspring. The fruit looks great and there is, if I wanted to pick them, probably a whole bucketful ready to be picked. They don’t taste good, like the ones in my garden, and they are full of mature seeds. Practically inedible to humans, unless they are swallowed whole or unless a stick is used to dislodge the seeds from one’s teeth. Even the birds are wise to this and look skeptically at them. I never see any near the bushes, and as I say, there is a lot of fruit.

Most of the people I know in the village won’t pick these berries because they are only a pavement away from the traffic on the road. I suppose there might be less than three hundred vehicles a day passes them. What a waste. If I buy a sieve I could make wine I think, because the only useful derivative of them would be a blackberry juice that could be fermented. I don’t have a demi-john though.

I have just described most of my memories. Almost every one of them is barbed and shaded. I do have some good and clean memories of my children but in the main, all the others are stained and tainted by awkwardness and strife. I overlay the difficulty I had over the course of a event or circumstance. One might imagine casting mould over ripe fruit as being a good way of seeing what I do to my memories, but all my memories look good on the outside, or at first glance. It is the exploration of them that reveals the bitter seeds that make them unpalatable. I could be wrong in the process of how I perceive my memories. I could be sitting in a private cinema and the screen shows a happy time with good lighting and everything to a secret observer looks fine, but I throw a dark veil over my head and look only through that. I think there are two ways to overview this: There might not be any shadows in the scenes. It might be that I can read the meta-data for the 'film' now and see it all simultaneously, or it is already woven into the recording. I am beginning to think I am darkening my memories with leaching of my current sorrow, rage, and regret.

But I am not morose or depressed. I am merely processing my thoughts from a somewhat objective standpoint. I am trying to understand how I live the weird home-life that I do; how things that seem to matter to my neighbours and the world around me are merely gimcracks and gewgaw objects, and exercises of futility to me.

When I went to school for the first time, I wouldn't eat at school for three weeks. Just how significant that is, is outside of my ability to understand maternal deprivation at such a young age. Millions of people can say the same about how their child was unhappy going to school for the first time. I saw a little girl a few years ago, in an early September, hiding from the other kids who were laughing and playing in the playground. She was quietly keening. I knew exactly why. She just wanted to go home. At least, I think I know that. Of course, I summoned a playground monitor person. I soon blended in at school, but not before the school tried to stop me crying in class by making, first my sister sit with me, and then my brother when I still wouldn't stop crying. I remember my brother sitting with me when I was, I suppose five then. We sat right at the front of the class and he sat on my left. And, I remember me crying.

There is a whole story of a deliriously happy childhood that played out in parallel to horror, fear and psychological inner torture, that is my young past. I remember a good bit of it, and could easily write a book, if I was inclined to do so. I am not going to though. I don't want to fall down a well of self-pity. I would rather cherry-pick memories to add as special ingredients to how I process the world around me today. 

I have been homeless, deliberately so. I am resourceful and I am assured of it with memories of success by my own hand. I hitch-hiked to Greece to pick oranges in the European Winter; lying on frozen ground with no kip-mat and no tent, in minus 10 degrees Celsius (14 F.). Truth be told, most of the time, I didn't care if I died. I got hypothermia years later outside of Amien, France, doing a similar thing. You really don't want that!

It is not surprising to me that I have no washing machine; that I hand-wash all my clothes and bedding. It is not surprising to me that I have only recently acquired a fridge-freezer after having no cooling apparatus for over a decade. I know that warm weather spoils food, but I also know when it is spoiled and how to slow the spoiling down without refrigeration. I know what food to eat and what I can safely store and carry in a rucksack. It is not surprising to me that I have pitched a tent near to where I have started a job a long way from home, and only gone home for the weekends until I could save enough to own motorised transport. I learnt to do all this; live without luxuries when I was in my twenties and was already independent from the age of sixteen and working in Germany at age seventeen. Incidentally, I spend, on average, in the Summer months, £46.19 on electric for a 31 day month. You might not be surprised if I look at lamenting people with some skepticism. In Winter, I spend about £150 per month on electric. There is no gas supply to my home.

I live as though I am in the film, 'A Quiet Place'; the 2018 American post-apocalyptic horror film with aliens in it that have superb hearing and snatch anyone who makes the slightest noise. I live in a maisonette above someone else. I have learnt to move quietly and to be gentle in all my movement. I have little rubber cushions on all the kitchen cupboard doors to prevent them making a noise if I am a bit clumsy. They, below me, tell me they can only hear me if I drop something. Making noise, to me, will attract something akin to the aliens in 'A Quiet Place'. For me, this is my older brother, crazy from drugs, alcohol and grief. I expect to get attacked despite him no longer being alive. It is not a ghost that will attack me now; it is my memory. I learnt to live quietly when I lived in a wood, even though I was practiced from living with my brother. I didn't want to disturb the wildlife. All the time, still, I am afraid of the listening aliens. Not real aliens; my brother. If someone else makes a noise I am frozen. I cannot stop your noise or my neighbour's noise. I irrationally think I am going to get attacked.

I have strong memories of living frugally and being fine with it. Today, I sleep on a mattress on the floor; I don't have cupboards or wardrobes for my clothes or a chest of drawers; I don't have a sofa or armchairs; I don't have a television; I don't have baths or showers, I boil a kettle and use a bucket and a cup while I kneel in the bath; I have no need to listen to music or fill silence with noise, and I especially despise social media. I do, however, have a good reason for shying away from regarding digital chit-chat as beneficial. 

A long time ago, even before WiFi and mobile phones, I lived, by myself, in a house in a beautiful village with a river running through it. I was at home when there was a power-cut. Everything went silent. It wasn't the silence of the air not being disturbed. It was an inner silence similar to hearing the fridge running and then it stops and there is quiet. I stress that this was an inner silence. It was like a cold drink on a hot day. My thoughts were clear. It was refreshing. It was like breathing out after holding my breath. Typically, I had no noisy devices running, like a radio or telly, so the shaking of the air had not changed. After about a minute, the power came back on. I felt it more rather than had any solid reason to know it. I can't remember how I knew the power had gone off, I must have had something electrical running. Yet, the overall feeling I had when it came back on, was of fuzziness. I went under the stairs and turned the electric off at the mains. It had no effect. I was working on the principle that a house is enveloped in a magnetic field due to the electric wires running throughout every room. There was no longer silence. There have been short power-cuts recently. There has never been silence; mobile phones.

I once got a prolonged electric shock of 110V. I heard the hum of the electric, before I managed to escape the contact. 

Because I remember that, and have experienced the silence of Ireland, I despise radio waves. Even my laptop gives off superfluous harmonics, I think. Of course, there is nothing I can do because you all have mobile phones. See what I mean; the joy of silence in my memory is spoiled by my resentful attitude towards modern persons, relentlessly chatting. It is not their fault, it is mine. I am different, jaded by other people. I can despise you just because you are sociable. But I won't let you be sociable in my mind. I instead regard people as dopamine addicts, and feeble in their own esteem. I am not a nice person. I am mean and not at all charitable. 

Of course, I understand that someone brought up with being driven to school in a Rolls Royce would absolutely NEED to be surrounded by luxury as an adult to feel only normal. It is all relative. I grew up running around a three acre garden with animals everywhere. But all that is seared out of me. I know devastation; not like the devastation of wars. The devastation I know is a scribbling over my memories with graffiti using a permanent marker. Effectively, my upbringing both shapes the way I live and negates any enjoyment in the way I live. So, I can, with some effort, sympathise with many lamenting people who feel they cannot afford food or electric, but I feel that there is a solution at the same time. It, unfortunately, isn't an acceptable solution. 

Taking a few moments to sift through some memories.

Isn’t it strange that fruit is so abundant that we, where I am, don’t even bother with it. Even the apples left outside of people’s gardens stays in the cardboard boxes unwanted by the dog-walkers and school-kids. I think the sour ones deserve a bite if only for the contrast to expectations and as a new experience.

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I am not on YouTube or social media

[ 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.

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

[ 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.