Personal Blogs

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

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

I am not on YouTube or social media

Cadwell NOT Caldwell

Tell the truth

[ 6 minute read ] 

Come back, I haven't finished

For many years, I have been aware and wildly frustrated that people I am talking to take snippets of my words and run with them; off into a wilderness who knows where. As a teenager, I became aware of this, and bought a Thesaurus to help me try to explain my teenage angst, or whatever it was at the time that meant I had to try to make someone's mind stand still long enough for me to poke my own thoughts into. Really, that is so close to taking their mind hostage as to make me feel more than a bit queasy.

Realistically, I really did want the other person to stop thinking and just listen to what I am saying and then with all the facts, premises and other vastly important information I had elucidated, let their mind start working and process what I have said. Control was NOT in my hands!

Personally, I have a slight problem with making direct declarative statements. I think most people do.

       'Just say what you want to say. For Goodness Sake! Spit it out!'

       'Promise you won't be angry.'

But I never have those kind of conversations any more. If anything, the first person speaking, in that little conversation, is at fault. Their words show impatience, a lack of focus, and an inability to hold information in their heads. The second person might be scared, confused, or just not able to summarise what is in their head.

I suppose it takes training and a will to learn how to listen, in order to not make any judgement on what we hear. We should, I feel, wait until the other person has stopped speaking; interrupting is a sure sign that we are processing information, when we should probably just be listening, because most of us only pass information obliquely.

       'Does my bum look big in this?'

       'Does this shirt look good on me?' (Buttons straining just above the waist).

The second question could well be the perfect answer, under the circumstances, to the first question.

I was weirdly curious to know if anyone was using any of my old business names (dissolved now) so I Googled one. Actually, I 'Ducked' it (DuckDuckGo). I was amused that the returns, on the first index page, were all on how to write essays. I wish I had found those sites two years ago, when I started having to write essays. 

It has long irked me that The Open University doesn't have a unit on essay-writing and a unit on arguments at Level 1. Instead, I feel, that I had to fumble in the dark, guessing what I was supposed to do, and having no checks on my progress until the feedback from the first assignment comes back. For me, there is a huge lack of available information. Essay writing is not like riding a bike; none of us need to get a feel for it; there are hard and fast rules and personalising essay formats is just not tolerated. 

       'Do this, and do that!' 

       'Yes, but how?'

       'Work it out for yourself!'

Does that sound familiar? Now then; I want to be able to have conversations with people who know how to have good conversation. It is entirely useless to me if someone cannot present an argument, or give good instruction. Are there any lessons on how to give good instruction for beginners? Of course, they exist for school-teachers and qualified people, but wouldn't it be fine if everyone could get some kind of instruction on how to instruct?

       'Right then, young school-leaver. Here is where you will be working. Get on with it.'

       'How?'

       'Work it out for yourself' This said under their breath.

The first thing I would do is make sure no-one had a mobile phone they could dive into with the slightest excuse. I was on a forklift training course and there was a chap who had poor English. On the same course as him were two English people. Instead of engaging them in a conversation, he used his phone to translate a word, which he did not understand, in a 'work-book' .

Now, call me a fool, but wouldn't he get a better learning outcome by discussing the meaning of the word?

Anyone who is paying attention, must by now have noticed that I started by expressing my desire for linear conversation, without the bells and whistles; just straight-up honest and direct statements, and now I am promulgating an idea that fuzzy conversation works well for me. Am I confused? Not at all. Both modes of conversation are essential in good social interaction, in my crooked mind. The issue is, do any of us know how to effectively use each mode, and when is the best time to do it?

I can't help feeling that I am outlining the ever-frustrating position we all find ourselves in; there is no manual for life. Why not? Because no-one bothered to write one. Just like at a pantomime, the crowd shouted as one:

       'Oh, no-one ever could!'

Let's look at this from a different angle to how we might have become accustomed to looking at things.

If you have a secret, you use your mental ability to conceal it. If you know a secret, you might find it pleasurable to keep it or reveal it as gossip. In this latter position, of knowing a secret, we reward ourselves by thinking we are favoured to have been told it; trusted. If we reveal it, we hope to promote ourselves in the eyes of the other person, the listener; we are revealing our hierarchical position in another relationship.

This reminds me of a kind of joke I heard some years ago.

A man and Kylie Minogue are marooned on an uninhabited island. Eventually, she and he have sex. The next day, the man walks all the way around the coast of the island and comes back to Kylie Minogue, and says:

       'I just had sex with Kylie Minogue!'

       'I know!'

       'I just had to tell someone!'

Back to my point:

If we keep a secret, we are measured in our conversational approach. If we are clever, we will not have conversations that might elicit any questions on our activities that match the secret we are trying to keep.

       'Who ate my biscuits?' cried the woman holding the cupboard door open. In this case, it was you. You ate them.

A fool might mention biscuits in a conversation in the following week if they stole the biscuits. But, most of us wouldn't; quite simply because we know we would re-ignite the wounded and silent accusations that the victim might be harbouring.

From this, we can easily understand that we can indeed control our conversation if we are properly invested in it; emotionally, financially or academically. So why do we not feel invested in our everyday conversations? Why do we have only passing respect for the people we just shove our feelings at, or carelessly push information towards?

It took me over ten years to stop practicing not lying, and just be comfortable with the truth. It took me the same ten years to be confident that I am honourable. There is a problem though; it scares the heebie-jeebies out of some people. It might even make them feel somehow inadequate. It shouldn't; I chose to make an effort, that's all. If I was fit and energetic, I wouldn't run past people shouting, 'You lazy slug!' It has had a negative effect that Jack Nicholson in the film, 'A few Good Men' brought to the fore:' You can't handle the truth!' I never remember that important point.

A while ago, I had a problem with someone jumping on my 'band-wagon' of what I had written about. I was, at the time, practicing giving just enough information to allow the reader to be stimulated and then ponder the subject. The 'idea-thief', excited by his new thinking, filled in all the gaps in his own subsequent blog posts; effectively giving out 'spoilers'. How crass! In his fervent desire to be relevant, he robbed readers of their own thoughts and any chance of waking up a bit.

'For many years, I have been aware and wildly frustrated that people I am talking to take snippets of my words and run with them; off into a wilderness who knows where.'

https://www.monash.edu/student-academic-success/excel-at-writing/how-to-write/essay/how-to-build-an-essay

https://subjectguides.york.ac.uk/referencing-style-guides/harvard

(includes how to reference all sorts of sources, including Act of Parliament, emails, maps and films, etc.)

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

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

I am not on YouTube or social media

    Mental Health

[ 9 minute read ]

You frazzled yourself

Oh me oh my! Everybody is after something all the time. Such dissatisfaction I have never before experienced. I keep banging on about people seeking validity of themselves; because I am amazed at how pernicious it is. I had a conversation with my doctor a while ago and forgot to ask if people were different before the Covid 19 thing. Of course, anyone who followed the rules and locked themselves down will be different to how they should be now. Likewise, anyone who didn't lock themselves down will be different to how they should be because other people locked themselves down.

An expansion: I didn't lock myself down. I just carried on as usual. Oh no! How irresponsible! No, I had no need to change what I do to conform with not spreading diseases. When the UK Government said 'socially isolate yourselves' to the people, I thought, no change there then. I found it interesting that most people were not actually acting normal for themselves, when they stayed at home. Normal for me! Welcome to my world. 

I read somewhere that people have a distorted way of recalling the past. Most people, I believe, cannot remember what the world was like five years ago. I understand that we use selective memory to recall our childhood. It never rained during Summer holidays at the sea-side, for example. I don't think social media chatting platforms have changed much from how they were five or six years ago, except that everyone seems to think that it is entirely normal to use one. I have an email from my tutor that contains a link to an app to be able to make a booking for a one-to-one 'tutorial' initial telephone meeting. Why? Why does the tutor think that students want to meet the person who marks their assignments? And, why an email address to send a link to an app to be able to receive a telephone call? It is really confusing to me. Either I was affected by Covid, or I am one of the few who wasn't. 

The point I am getting at, in a round-about way, which I am only now starting to understand, in the way people now process anything, is that conventional rules for communication are ignored, unheard of, or obsolete. There is a technological reason for that, but it is the human factor that interests me. 

Have technology will use it

I met a woman in her sixties in an ALDI car park, 2021. Just in passing, but I like to talk; you know, to people, not VDUs - like computer screens and phone screens. Let's just separate that out: Typing (texts and emails); looking at a moving picture (face-time, video-conferencing); and telephone calls. Talking to people is none of those. Phone calls is talking to thin air, hoping that we are heard. Typing is moving our fingers and the only response is alpha-numeric characters appear on a screen; and talking to a screen is precisely that. There is no-one there. It is all fantasy. We are all just hoping that someone is there to receive our message. No, we TRUST that there is someone there. We believe it. Believing someone is there when they are not, is so close to being psychotic that most of us would be paralysed with fear if we knew that, that is what we are. That is where we are currently at. We have to get a reply to our cries in the air. 

Back to the woman in the ALDI car-park.

       'I haven't spoken to my grand-children for six months!' she wailed. I inwardly shrugged, 'And?'

This woman, I thought, can remember when we didn't see relatives for years at a time, yet she is emotionally wiped out when real conversation is denied us. I couldn't help thinking, 'Welcome to my world,' when people bemoaned their isolation. 'What!' 'What is wrong with you?' 'What?' 'How needy are you?' At the time, I thought that this woman's grandchildren would probably be relieved that she is absent. I imagined that they would groan when they were called to the phone to face-time Gran. But they wouldn't have been, unless they were previously bribed into liking Gran with sweet treats, or money. The fact is, they were probably brought up to misuse communication devices.

I have a low qualification in Business Administration. One of the things that was taught is what form of communication is appropriate when and why. Phone someone in an emergency. Text someone a burst of information, such as an address, or meeting time. Texts are notes for someone else to read. They are not chatting messages. Email someone with a report or draft contract. Emails are not, definitely not, for chatting. Providing a link in one of these to another form of communication is just plain nonsense. Mixing up communication platforms requires the recipient to switch their attention. It demands something of the recipient that is outside of the form of communication. 

Try this; I got an email containing an app link to arrange a telephone call. Just phone me! You have my number! leave a voice-mail message! Q-U-I-C-K-E-R! Why over-complicate a conversation? Even though I have a SmartPhone, I won't ever be using it for emails or accessing the internet. Why not? Because emails should not be text messages. Emails are opened on computers so links to websites can be included. To presume that anyone is foolish enough to open an app using a computer must mean that Covid fried their brain. 'Use any means to communicate! Break convention! Ignore cyber threats!' The conspiracy theorists must be peeing their pants laughing at this madness. Invent a disease to make people use digital communication with a desperation that causes them to be careless about cyber-security and maintaining security of their personal details. Make them show their faces on phones with service contracts so we can use facial recognition in shops and at airports. Dean Koontz would love this time. We all know of '1984' by George Orwell. Koontz wrote, 'Night Chills' in 1976. (Published in Gt. Britain in 1977 by W.H. Allen & Co. PLC) 

It is not without some dark bemusement that I read about people having their mobile phones stolen right out of their hands. If you have £200 would you walk around holding it right in front of your face?

       'The police won't do anything!'

Why should they? If millions of people decided to walk into brick walls and then phoned for an ambulance, the emergency-call-handlers would be compelled to ask? 'Did you deliberately close your eyes while walking towards a brick wall?' They would look at each other in their office and roll their eyeballs. 'Covid! Another person affected by Covid!'

If someone is instrumental in my immediate future and offers me a chance to 'chat', I have to do it because I am certain that they are ill and will be negatively affected by my puzzlement as to why they want to 'chat'. If they are instrumental in my immediate future, I have to make sure they don't dislike me for blanking their need; because I have to pass through a period that allows me to later distance myself from their confusion. Yes, I am being harsh. I recognise that people have the same universal need, but to satiate it, I have to become an addict, like them, to 'chatting' to thin air or a video display unit (alpha-numeric characters or digital images - it's all the same to me). Of course, this offer of a 'chat' may come from someone who thinks I need to inanely chat.

But I know what most people really want. They want to build a rapport. What I don't understand is why I have to do something to make them feel more comfortable. Personally, I don't need to set up a procedure to build a temporary rapport with someone, because I don't use people and I respect people. Whenever someone needs to build a rapport with me, I am forced to lie to them to make them go away and leave me in peace. 'Yes! Yes! We are getting on fine! There is no need to worry!'  I don't want anything to do with someone that is so insecure as that, without them also knowing they are mentally unwell. Generally, it is professionals that need to know they are doing their jobs right. If they don't know, I suggest they are in the wrong job.

I ran a very successful business a while ago. One learns to separate one's personal life from business. Today though, UK businesses have taken the stupid Americanism of personalising everything. In business and marketing, this is the after-sales service. 'You bought.....Do you like it?' or 'You are important to us, so we will pretend to show that, by making sure we don't have to waste time satisfying our obligations to our duty.' They do this using a universal means. Texts and emails. I think, 'Just sell it to me, or deliver it and I never need to know you even exist.' No, instead, why don't you just waste my time with inane conversation? But in reality they are hoping that their mediocre attitude and incompetence will not be noticed. It is not excellent. Why would it be? All they have to do now is sweet talk people who want to feel valued and validated for being fooled.

I know what cognitive dissonance is. I know why people feel it. How about businesses just doing what they are supposed to do and adhering to a good code of practice so customers do not expect more than is actually available?

I had a valid complaint about O2 services (UK telephone service provider). Their policy is, if the customer asks to speak to a manager, don't quibble, escalate the conversation or complaint. O2 doesn't do that. They have inadequately trained staff trying to sell more services like upgrades or something similarly ridiculous. Why would anyone upgrade? I just get what I need to satisfy everyone else, and then I stick to it. That wasn't true, but it is now; it has to be this way.

I bought some operating systems a while back to avoid MS Windows continual upgrading. The reason for doing this is because I recognised that eventually hackers would find a way in, that I will not be able to detect. In the past, whenever I detected strange software on my computers I simply formatted the hard drives and loaded an operating system from a DVD. The data on a DVD does not change. This means I can run the same operating system on two identical computers and only allow one to access the internet. Any changes in performance is detectable and directly attributable to downloaded updates. Now we have A.I. as a standard feature in our lives. It is even in used for searching the internet. I don't want assistance that favours what everyone else wants. However, at last, I have found an operating system that was created before Unlimited Data plans were a thing. It currently recognises that it uses a 'metered' internet connection, so it has paused ALL updates until it detects an unmetered internet connection. So, it will not download any updates, and most importantly, any that use A.I. to assist me by scanning my internet and computer use, and getting to know me. No updates make it harder for hackers to use Trojan Horses.

Me, measured in conversation; I get it now.