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[ 3 minute read ]

Thorny Thicket of Problems

Self-concept and ideal-self

Apparently, we have a concept of self; a self-concept. This is a complex set of ideas we have about ourselves. This self-concept influences how we perceive other people as well as ourselves (Eysenck, 1996). This is based on how we see ourselves and our idea of our own position in society. 

We also have an idea of our ideal-self (how we think we are supposed to be). Knowing this might give us cause to nod our heads sagely when we meet some people. The goal for all of us is to make sure the self-concept and the ideal-self match, or are at least similar. We are all aware of how fashion models give a false impression of how a woman's body is and should be. Just like imagining an audience naked when we give a speech or a performance, we might imagine fashion models to be stinky after hours and hours in front of hot studio lights, if they don't have people throwing buckets of rose-water over them every now and again. Well, that false impression is right here, right now.

Incongruence between self-concept and ideal-self can cause some people to seek therapy, in which the goal is to improve self-esteem. Incongruence between self-concept and ideal-self can also cause enough stress in an individual that a self-fulfilling prophecy unravels itself, simply because the stress brought on by this incongruence steals energy away from doing well in examinations. However, what happens if the self-concept and the ideal-self match in an arrogant person? We cannot praise them for any achievement, I suggest, because untrained as we are, we may potentially reinforce negative behaviour instead of reinforce positive behaviour. I suggest we may have a runaway train on our hands. If someone does not get the praise they think they deserve from the people around them, those people are likely to be considered, by the arrogant person, to be not clever enough to understand that arrogant person, and therefore their approbation is considered worthless as a result. No praise means they are unable to praise, so no praise is expected. 

I think when the parameters of a goal are clear but an individual feels that they, themselves, are inadequate to meet the challenge of producing something within those binding limits, the individual attacks the parameters. Well, perhaps not 'attack' but certainly, to my mind, unnecessarily scrutinise the parameters, albeit obliquely. A word limit on an assignment for a student may seem to be the problem for some students. 'How can people conform to that?' may become for others 'I can't conform to that.' This could be a disappointment for a student if their self-concept told them that they could do whatever is necessary to reach a goal. Unfortunately, their self-concept could crash down to such low depths that the ideal-self is at once and forever an unreachable fantasy. Just like that, like the click of our fingers, we can shatter our lives. 

I am often completely bamboozled that students allow themselves to be led, like sheep towards a sheep-dip, in a linear fashion by academic bodies. The whole concept of believing that there is only a single route to success or through a forest of problems dressed in thorns is just preposterous to me. It smacks of a disparity between self-concept and ideal-self. I don't for one minute suggest that we all throw fire-accelerants over thickets of thorny problems to get to our goals like some prominent public figures do; I suggest that we learn to understand the problems so we can reshape them to fit our own capabilities. That really does require an accurate self-concept that matches a realistic ideal-self, though.

I should be able to do this, so why can't I? is not the same as everyone else can do this and I am struggling to do it. On the face of it, we all, in most cases, have the same set of obstacles that prevent us achieving our similar goals. People re-shape their problems and win, that's all.

References

Eysenck, Michael, 1996, 'Social Perception', Simply Psychology, Hove, Psychology Press Limited, 2001. pp. 288, 299

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mental health

[ 8 minute read ]

WARNING - evokes thoughts and ideas on bestial violence, division and hierarchy (dogs fighting)

This is about how the pen is mightier than the sword

Get a licence

'He should be on a lead!'

Throughout the whole of yesterday, inspired by a headline on one of the online news websites, I had a mind to show how evoking emotion can lead people towards a conclusion that can be cemented by confirmation bias; with conclusions that confirm an idea that has lain transparent, gossamer-thin, and nascent, but, through skillful nurturing, becomes more opaque; and as it does so, less open to good counter-argument. I 'hemmed and hawed' at how I would do it; whether I can do it, even whether I should do it. Can I pull it off? I had a theme in my head that I am certain would draw support even though I intended to present it in a surreal way; an oblique approach allows others to make their own minds up; I believe this is the strongest and most abiding force, that of being guided (tricked) into transmogrifying a narrative into something that fits one's own perception and interpretation of the world.

Such is my expectation that the drive of the subject, by dint of it being contentious, would evoke, what may indeed be biased agreement in a large segment of the world population, I, perhaps foolishly, made no attempt to even try to consider a different way to demonstrate the power of words and how they influence opinion. I was going to write a short story but I realised that I cannot control any after-effects. I decided that it is better to present the scaffolding and not the facade. Hopefully, this will cause some people to read a bit more objectively. So, make no mistake, I have an intention and an agenda, but it is an open one.

     'Did you hear? You have to get a licence now if you want a live-in boyfriend?'

A long time ago, people in the UK needed dog-licences if they kept a dog. The details of it are not really the point here. If dog-breeders needed the same licence is beyond my guess. I think the idea was born from a melding of bifurcated opinions that had emerged from both the dogs' perspective and from dog-bite victims. How can we protect the public?

I suppose many dogs were a bit wild and perhaps mistreated and were more than a little scared of strangers and defensive. I think a dog, as a pack animal, needs to assert its authority by it's fighting prowess. Annoy a dog and you can expect a warning snarl and then a nip, perhaps from lying down position, and then an aggressive standing stance with head lowered, and then a violent advance that will be something that you cannot extract yourself from. You must now fight it.

     'Did you hear? We no longer need to buy dog-licences because dog owners are better at understanding their pets' needs.'

That, if you got the connection and ran with it with your own thoughts, is how, by tapping into a long-standing, not yet fully fully considered, belief that men are brutes, gives us the idea that a comparison can be made between a woman's higher intelligence and reasoning ability and that of a less intelligent animal which presents itself (the animal) as though it acts solely on some kind of primordial instinct. People need a licence to keep a dog and women need a licence to keep a man. The point is a higher and reasoning intelligence is considered apt to be in a controlling position over a lesser more instinctive intelligence. Dodgy, huh?

Clearly the two speeches above are uttered from, first, a female perspective and then, from a universal perspective. Now a speech sentence from a male perspective.

       'Did you hear? We can now check to see if our girlfriends are sane by whether she has been granted a licence or not.'

What may first have appeared to be a device (a licence to keep a man) to protect women in my dystopian world as recognising and portraying men as 'cavemen' brutes; and as such need to be kept on a leash, is now a psychometric test as to the suitability of women as girlfriends, from a male perspective.

Now I have opened a can of worms. For many people, I have pulled the rug from under their feet. I expect the overriding thought, for them, is that I am a misogynistic brute. However, to some extent I have deliberately tried to make this happen. The task for me now is to be successful in assuaging (negating) that feeling. Instead of dampening the heat of a blaze though, I must take away the smoke of poorly consumed wood that I intentionally added to the fire, along with the dry tinder that acted as an accelerant.

I am a man. Like a dog, I sometimes act instinctively. And, like a dog, I am a pack animal. Just the same as a dog, I will have picked up bad habits right from birth, through childhood, adolescence, and into adulthood. But, even as an adult, because the world is changing, much of what once seemed proper behaviour, that arose from attitudes of a past time, is now 'deemed' to be inappropriate. Even the use of the word 'deemed' leaves opens the subject; just like a flare-up in a fire when a piece of paper is thrown onto embers. It offers an idea that I do not agree with an idea formed by others, of which I am contemptuous. But it slips quietly in because it follows the word 'seemed' in the same sentence.

There is now a burgeoning world view that social media has some kind of effect on children, social development and behaviour. There are moves and pilot studies to understand the effects and how to eradicate negative influence and effect from social media activity.

Psychologists debate which has more effect on an individual's behaviour; nature or nuture. Was the successful person pre-determined to be successful because they had good genes, or was the parenting and social education of the successful person influential in allowing a good academic education to be absorbed and implemented.

When dogs fight, the owners have their expectation that dogs will fight suddenly realised. The attitude, in the main, is to drag them apart and one owner will probably berate the owner who did not keep their dog on a leash. When men fight on a Friday and Saturday night in the UK, as long as no-one is not hurt too badly they are dragged apart by friends and bystanders and everyone gets to go home. The wounds remind the fighters over the next few days that they should be wary of a probability of future wounds if they act in a similar way. The police, if they deal with men fighting, are loathe to lock them up, but invariably do if they consider that a flaring up is inevitable, and then later release the fighters, after they have calmed down and sobered up.

You can see that, in the UK, men are indeed considered to be similar to dogs. Hence, there is a need for responsible people to register their men with the local authorities. Since dogs cannot be the owner of other dogs, it falls upon women to step up and claim men as their possessions. 

Here then I have introduced some ridicule into the subject. It is crazy to think that men need to be licenced right? What you may have missed in considering this comedic conclusion, is that I have inferred that women are a different species. Anyone who said to themselves, 'Yeah, he has a good point, men should be licenced, and who better than women to apply for those licences', no matter how briefly they held that weird thought, they unwittingly absorbed a potentially damaging concept by way of a back-door.

This post is not intended to create any long-standing ideas of any differences between males and female, or humans and animals. However, by highlighting animal behaviour, there is an expectation that many of the peripheral thoughts around supposed differences were illuminated in our minds, were momentarily considered, reshaped, and stored again. That is how opinion can be deliberately, and inadvertently, changed by both canny and poor writing, and of course, careless reading.

By the way, I would be grateful in knowing if a woman wants to claim me as being potentially useful to her. I am house-trained and have learned to use my hands to eat.

UK

Samaritans - phone 116 123  'Call us any time, day or night' - 'Samaritans works to make sure there's always someone there for anyone who needs someone.' 

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

Childline -  Open 24hrs & days a week. Contacting Childline Call us free on 0800 1111 or find out how to get in touch online. Whatever your worry, day or night, we're here for you. 

https://www.childline.org.uk/get-support/contacting-childline/

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Mental Health

[ 8 minute read ]

I want to swap places

Ah! The chess game that is life. Depending on where we are placed on the board before the game starts determines how we will move, even think; at least for a while. There is, however, one place on the board that determines what we will be and if we were placed there, we can never change; except in the most exceptional circumstances. But it isn't a piece we recognise because it has no form, no shape.

From our milieu grows our habitus. Like mycellium it spreads its tendrils within us and there is nothing we can do about it. We are not even aware we have anything called, or like, an habitus because we are absorbing patterns of behaviour from our youngest days. Even if we are told, when we are in our most impressionable childhood years that we can be anything we want, this is still determined by where we were placed on the chessboard before the game commenced. Sounds pretty fateful, doesn't it? I think it is.

In chess, just as in checkers or draughts, any pawn that gets to the opposite side of the board gets to change into a piece with different qualities, or move capabilities. In checkers, any piece gets to be able to leap almost everywhere, as in, it is no longer bound by having to leap only forward to attain a goal.

I eschew teams and teamwork and that is why I have never been more than a pawn and never will be able to be anything other than a pawn. Yet, I am not a pawn, as we shall see. That though, has nothing to do with where I was born on the chessboard or the social and cultural milieu that conducted an orchestra of influences into my habitus. Unusually, my habitus is largely closed and circuitous. If you imagine a hollow ringed doughnut rolling within itself, that would be my habitus. It is an old-fashioned smoke ring or a ring of bubbles blown by a scuba diver. But like these rolling rings there is movement. A fish swimming into the bubbles will disrupt the form and there is chaos. What once was held to be attractive, is in fact useless in nature, and nature will claim everything.

Simply Psychology says 'habitus shapes how we see and act - without us noticing.' and, 'These patterns become so familiar that they feel like common sense.'

I might be ruthlessly blunt and concatenate a bit onto the end: We gravitate to type.

     'You can reach the stars' and 'You can be who[m]ever and whatever you want.' Do you believe that? Truly?

Without even considering mental acuity, is it not the case that most of us are of our milieu and our time. My neighbour is also my neighbour's neighbour. Our surroundings are the same. But look at the differences. I grew up in a wealthy village, one of my neighbours did not. I was taught to read and write before I attended primary school. One of my neighbours was taught only at school. I was born twenty and thirty years after two of my neighbours were. 

The opportunities that were, and are, open for my neighbours are significantly different to the opportunities that were, and are, open to me. Yet, these are my neighbours. One might assume from this that we do not live in mansions. One may also assume that we do not live in caravans alongside the road. One can be sure that as checkers pieces we were not once crowned and have now gravitated to type. One can be sure, that either in a team, or acting as a singularity, in a game of chess or checkers, we did not get to the opposite side of the board and permanently become something else. 

Why? or Why not? I grew up in a wealthy environment wanting for nothing. I started life in an environment and with a position that most people work their whole lives to attain. I have a very high IQ (this is not always a good thing so don't think I am boastful) that is a result of early and intense stimulation at home. Yet, I did not change into something else. In a game of chess I was not a pawn that could change. I was one of the pawns that was sacrificed or was carelessly lost by a bad player (I shall leave that as cryptic because the explanation detracts from the intent).

While many people might rise up in revolt to that last sentence in the paragraph above, it is with a pitchfork and not a scroll that they might do so. 

     'We make our own lives!'

     'You can't blame others for how you are!'

and my favourite, which comes from psychologists across the world:

     'You are responsible for your own behaviour.'

Well, habitus does influence behaviour, since it is a sense of what is 'right' and what works, in each of us. I can't help thinking that we make excuses for ourselves all the way through life and it is only if we actually attain our dearest goal that we stop hiding from ourselves. 

Life, for me, is not a game that I own and can pack up whenever I want.

     'It's my ball and I am going home!' 

Many times, I have not liked the players and many times the players have not liked me. 

The thing I find most interesting is that I was never a pawn or a checker-piece. I was a pre-formed castle, or a knight or bishop. If I got to the opposite side of the board I could never metamorphose into another character (like me) or become the almighty Queen (promoted pawn or checker-piece) that moves in almost every way. My milieu after I left that village were poorer areas with lots of pawns. I could freely move forward and back and across the board from left to right. In checkers, I was already 'promoted'. I had everything that the pawns around me wanted and they could only move in one direction. They were defenceless against a scything attack. They could be swept from the board because they were stymied by a blocking pawn equally stymied by them. I could dodge failure, or any mortal cessation, if there was ground for me to go to, but I could never be anything other than what I am, or become anything that what I already am. 

I might ask someone why they want to be something or someone else, though the question would not be pitched like that.

     'What do you want to be...do in life?'

     'I want to be a doctor... no, a solicitor or lawyer.....no, a zoo-keeper.....no, a stockbroker....no, an engineer...'

We all know that all of those jobs require adequate training and certification, right? What is common among them, excepting the vocational zoo-keeper, is likely to be a desire to be different to their milieu. Of course, Doctors marry Doctors and beget little doctors, but in the main, the Doctor we see in an hospital has parents who were, I suspect, not Doctors.

We get our habitus from our milieu and then want to change into something else. Isn't that sad?

     'You can be who[m]ever you like, and whatever you want [you just have to work really hard and never, ever give up].'

No. You can't. You don't own the game and can't take it home whenever you are losing. You have to be playing with players that don't cheat, or are not mean or just plain weird.

     'If you are lucky and you concentrate on your game-play and have a good team around you at all times, you can be an imagined version of yourself, whom you will come to believe is your true self. From there, my young one, you will never be able to go back to how you are now. I am sorry, my love, you are not immutable and cannot keep changing; you do not own time.'

I have still not gotten to the kernel of what I am trying to say. You see, I, like most people am trying to find a way to convince others that I have not failed, or my failures are because someone else took the ball home when it was my turn to take a penalty against an open goal with no goal-keeper to stop my effort.

Given the keys to success I somehow didn't use them in the right vehicle. Those keys fitted every vehicle in the garage, but I liked the green and yellow one with red wheels and a blue roof. It was the same as my friends had, although a little more comfortable.

When you have the keys to any vehicle to be anything you want, through academic study no doubt, you have already become the owner of the 'all'. There is nothing to attain that resembles congratulation for achieving a goal that signifies ability or capability (mental acuity and focus) when you think you could easily do a PhD in practically anything. So, one sets to thinking why would I want to have that position (moving on from the metaphor of vehicles and keys representing mental acuity and IQ) or that position as a doctor or astronomer? I did fancy being a barrister but that got put aside when a 'friend' asked me to look after his marijuana plants because he feared detection. I didn't take drugs, but got convicted. Bad actors meant no future for me in the legal profession.

Helping others or helping myself. I couldn't decide. I have made a significant amount of money and my family was wealthy anyway, so changing into something else just never occurred to me. Believe me, having a high IQ, and knowing it, is akin to the immortality that a teen feels. But that is what makes me, 'me'. It is the most dangerous tool I have ever had to use. Unsharpened, it will grind away at its housing, and sharpened, it will destroy others if it is not handled with empathy and care. Would I give it away and start afresh a game of chess as a pawn with a strong chance of being swept from the board? Probably.

The epithet on my gravestone, 'Nobody knows who he is but we called him Feckless'

Habitus - 'Influences what we believe is possible or realistic' - Simply Psychology

Milieu is a French word meaning surroundings, location, or setting. It can refer to the social or cultural environment of a person or group.

References

Simply Psychology, https://www.simplypsychology.org/pierre-bourdieu-habitus.html

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    mental health issues and consideration

[ 3 minute read ]

Don't Wobble

In sitting just sit, in standing just stand; above all don't wobble.

 mental health issues – consideration for others

I find it interesting that there are people who believe that theirs is the only opinion with any validity. The force of some of these people's opinions can be so strong that they themselves unquestionably believe it is the only possible truth. It is a closed-loop scenario. They seem to confirm their own bias. How do we show these people their error? Befriend them?

I suggest that some people are victims of their own fabrication. Something went wrong somewhere and no-one was there to help out, so the victim was left to figure things out for themselves. The problem, as I see it, is that without all the important information to hand a perfectly feasible opinion can still be reached that is absent of any consideration of others, simply because no-one was around to be considered. It only takes a series of these opinions to become heuristics and we have a personality that they may eshew, yet cannot rid themselves of.

Sometimes, it is difficult to have a simple discussion with someone who will not brook any deviance from their chosen beliefs, quite simply, I suspect, because even the idea that there is an error in their thinking will bring their self-belief crashing down and their carefully constructed safe-house of reasoning, their very existence, will be destroyed. This is, I suggest, a person who is terrified of being wrong. Aren’t we all? Most of us will even lie to cover up our mistakes. Perhaps we should try to understand how an amelioration of any conflict can be initiated without careless allusion and intimation. I know I need lessons on this. So, please consider my statements here as a preliminary attempt at ironing out how I might understand how I can improve.

Initially, I thought, 'Who can reach this person?' and 'Who has the time?' I am not afraid of being wrong, only disgusted with myself because I know that recently I have not fully applied myself to reason. It is among the last sentences of the previous paragraph that gives me hope, 'This is a person who is terrified of being wrong.' I rather think that if this type of person realised that being wrong is normal and an excellent basis for understanding not only others, but also themselves, they would also discover that being wrong is a good position from which to consider something from a different perspective.

I have come across Further Education assignments wherein the content of an argument is less relevant than the thought process that precedes it. Some people will have a strong opinion on what the content should be and, because they may find discussion awkward, may prefer to follow a strategy of codified rules and declarative statements even when the purpose of an assignment is to encourage students to practice debate and offer opinion in a considered and respectful manner.

How can we reveal to strongly opinionated people that they have not seen the whole picture? Of course, we first have to recognise that we ourselves may not have a full grasp of a situation or can perceive the full scope of a subject. I think, secondly, we have to establish in our minds that our strategy or perception is suitable for translation and presentation to someone else. Indubitably, I feel, we might be wrong more often than we would like to believe ourselves capable of.

I wish I knew how to best achieve excellent conversation. But that reveals me to be less than I would like to be, or even believed myself to be, because it means that I am not inclined to spend enough time considering a problem to validate any opinion I may have. I shall have to shelve it for a while. I won't abandon my thoughts on this, though.

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[ 8 minute read ]

You do not want that

Apparently, John Cleese told Prince William, at the Tusk Conservation Awards at London's Savoy Hotel last night, that 'Fawlty Towers' is about 'who is chasing whom.' I never realised that, yet of course it is. The best hand-drawn cartoons for children are all about one character chasing another, especially Tom and Jerry. Prince William, I believe had told John Cleese's that his kids love Fawlty Towers; when I think about it, they would. It is a kid's cartoon using real people; lampooning using a series of chase sequences, often in parallel. 

I am interested in, and like, writing and rarely plan writing anything; relying solely on my creativity (which has been a little lax recently). I like to, if I ever set myself a remit, gather a few mildly obscure words and then just start writing. Such complexity as Fawlty Towers, or even any skit is absolutely beyond just chucking some words at a VDU and seeing what sticks. I have a writing itch and I also have an idea gleaned from outside the OU that makes me just want to spend all the hours I have creating a form derived from the combination of chase and my own idea of a format, one that I have yet to encounter outside of my head.

This isn't it.

 anguish - regret

I was in one of the local Post Office shops a few days ago and allowed a couple of people to go before me. I do anyway when I have a lengthy Post Office transaction to do. However, this time it was different:

Every now and again, I run through my head, scenes of my life, to manually see if I could have done better. (Be careful if you do this because you can end up disgruntled with your life if you do not put in future effort to ameliorate your considered inadequacies).

Like everyone else, I am naturally kind; it is a survival thing, you know, like in a herd I will scratch your back if you scratch mine. However, I am, like everyone else capable of ignoring the needs of strangers. Yeah, I don't like that much. Years ago, I decided that I had to wrestle with myself to beat out of me any deliberate unkindness and especially vicarious meanness. It would be foolish of me to call myself the winner simply because I recognised my faults and wept for others; because I cheated them or ignored their needs or just plain lied and set them on the wrong path; or at least re-inforced an idea that the path they were on was the correct one.

       'Yeah, good idea, leave school and get some experience, I did.'

       'It's okay to lie, everyone does.'

       'Don't worry about them; they can look after themselves'.

A couple of years ago, I was in ALDI and next in the queue. In front of me was a woman who had just had a few items put through the scanner and was struggling to pay for them. I noticed that she mostly had copper coins. She didn't have enough. I had hundreds of pounds (GBP) in  my pocket which i was not about to spend within the next week or so.

       'Excuse me checkout assistant, I will pay for them.'

I offered cash. (I actually should have asked the customer if she would allow me to - but I addressed this a couple of years later, elsewhere with someone else)

The woman customer was surprised, 'Are you sure?' Of course I was; it was less than 5 GBP. The checkout assistant took the money and I said, 'Give the change to the lady.' It was maybe a couple of quid. She thanked me and we went our separate ways. Job done right? No.

A few days ago, idle and lying in bed thinking about getting up, I slipped into review mode, seemingly accidentally. I had been watching videos on kindness the night before though. I remembered the woman paying with coppers in ALDI. Oh no! I realise it was nowhere near enough to just pay for a few items when someone is paying with small denomination coins. Let's extend it a bit:

       She just wanted to pick up a few things as one does and I needlessly paid (except she wasn't buying luxuries)

       She spent all her money on liquid or other recreation for herself

       All the household money had been spent on liquid or other recreation that she did not partake in

       She lives alone and just ran out of food and money.

The list could go on endlessly with as many nuances as we might imagine. However, there are two more extensions that are important:

       She gets more money tomorrow (back then)

       She doesn't get more money tomorrow (back then)

It is only these two that are relevant. If she or others drank all the money the money has gone (it doesn't matter how)

Any help I could have given her back then, or anyone today cannot change the past; it only affects the future. There is no present because it has already gone before we can pause it.

Back then, with hundreds of spare pounds in my pocket, have kindly insisted on taking her around ALDI again to shop for the things she really wanted to buy but could not. I should have given her a basket and carried on myself. She would have, of course, and hopefully, been reluctant to spend my money and would have desired things but not put them in her basket. I, on the other hand should have put into my basket the things she looked at for a moment. I should have asked if she had children and I should have then chosen a few treats. Everything in our baskets I should have then paid for. A few years ago it wouldn't have been more than thirty or forty pounds GBP, or so. 

A few days ago, I wished I could have done it; I truly did. I got up and made some coffee. I would have to do better than I did then, when another situation arises.

I was in one of the local Post Office shops a few days ago and allowed a couple of people to go before me. I do anyway, when I have a lengthy Post Office transaction to do. However, this time it was different.

An elderly man came in with a parcel and he was the second person i let before me.

       'I would like to sent this parcel please.'

He was given the prices for first and second class delivery service.

       'Oh, I don't have enough.'

The second class price was less than three British pounds. I felt an overwhelming shove from my conscience. Bingo! I have cash on me! Hmm...parcel...late November...elderly person (unlikely to be an ebay seller)...Christmas present!

This time, I remembered to be polite. 'I wonder, sir, if you might accept an early Christmas present from a stranger.' With that, I placed five British pounds on top of his parcel, which was the price for First Class delivery.

He prevaricated for a whil, and there was that to-ing and fro-ing that goes on in our minds as to whether to accept or not. He accepted, and then bought second class delivery service for his parcel. He then tried to give me the change. Thinking about that, I could have taken offence at him returning half a Christmas present - joke. He explained to me that it was indeed a Christmas present and because it is fragile he was sending it early, in case it broke, so there would still be time to replace it. I don't really understand the logic behind that. 

And then it happened; but it was dampened to nothing. I had to explain why it was necessary for me to pay for his parcel; not in longhand of course but more as, 'For you, if you do not send the parcel it is a problem and you will be worried about how you can resolve it. For me it is a dozen eggs that I shall not eat in the future.  I am not going to worry if I have no eggs to eat. I won't see it as a problem.' I forgot? or just wasn't compelled to take him round the Post Office shop or ask him if he was hungry. I like to think I am a spiritual person and I was not feeling that I should feed him. He left, and the shopkeeper told me that he wished that everyone thinks like me. Oh no you don't, I thought, Oh no, you don't.

I am broken. You really don't want that! 

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mental health

[ 4 Minute read ]

Mental Integration

I can't help thinking that there are people who are diagnosed with something that they don't actually have; mentally, that is. It seems that some people with autism are able to identify someone else with autism. I, myself, have been questioned many times by different doctors, psychologists, and psychiatrists on whether I have autism. First: why did they ask me? and second; why do some people with autism tell me? 

Easy! I present with symptoms of autism. I don't look people in the eye. I work better on my own. I am distracted by other people. I can work, completely solitary, for hours without a break. My focus is laser-like. 

All of those are because I have PTSD and a very high IQ with a good deal of patience and a desire to complete a task before I forget what I have done so far. Not looking someone in their eyes is because I had terrible uncorrected eyesight and looked at the thing I saw moving; someone's mouth. Nuances in people's eyes were not available to me, so I focused on nuances in their voices. This last is why I have no need for video-conferencing and telephone calls work better for me. Looking at someone's face is merely a distraction from their words. I don't trust smiles as genuine. I am trained to smile, simply because I don't as a natural condition. 

There is a single parent woman, down the road from me, who laments that her neighbour blanks her. In my village people like quiet times. This woman likes to shout at her kids because it works for her. It doesn't work for her neighbour. Here is where I get contentious. One of them has a greater mental acuity than the other. That is not indicative of who is right, or righteous, or kind, or empathic, or stupid. I have met PhD graduates that many people would consider to be struggling to find two thoughts to rub together. I am just going to have to put aside that people have diagnosable mental ill-health conditions as a primary source of their difficulties they may exhibit in any particular environment; this is in order for me to be able to introduce 'high IQ' as a source for subsequent mental ill-heath.

We think differently. I am amazed at how much rubbish comes out of some mouths; my own included, and I mean I talk rubbish a lot. The woman down the road likes to worry that her doorbell is not working and she NEEDS to get a new one. I told her that most medieval people never had doorbells; they just banged on each other's doors with pitchforks. Many sensible modern people don't have door-bells. Well, they wouldn't, if the paranoid people didn't. If everyone in my road has a Ring doorbell and I do not, I am the target for thieves. Thanks, you lot!

The 'shouty' woman down the road is scared to drive her car because an acorn fell on her car roof while she was driving it. She told me today that she is at her wits end because her teenage son is running her ragged. If he has three thoughts to rub together he might be impatient with someone with only two thoughts - contemptuous even. See? If her son is super clever, he cannot integrate into a family of mildly clever people. The way he thinks, if it is markedly different to his home family thoughts, I suggest, will make him tempestuous to everyone with less mental acuity than he has. Only someone with a high IQ can recognise a high IQ in someone else. The key, then, is to teach him not to be disrespectful to people with only the same thoughts to rub together. 'That's Life, Kiddo!'

Contempt, misunderstanding, and fear of something different. Sound familiar? Too topical, maybe? 

Now then; the clever lad down the road might want to protest that everyone with an IQ that is less than his, should leave his country. Rather, the other way around; because if his IQ is really high he will not integrate well in an average environment. 

I like to simplify things. Teenagers are sharp because they are trained to use their brains at school. Parents are dull because they stop using their brains after 'Uni' or whatever, or more likely, school. Fit and agile brains hate dull and slow brains, So, if you want to get on with your teenagers, don't send them to school; take away anything stimulating when they are between the ages of birth and eleven, so they don't form strong connections in their brains; and make them watch television. They should then be dull enough to integrate with the average family environment.

Me, I am going to blockade 'skools' so children can't get out and contaminate us with intelligence and knowledge. 

The 'shouty' woman told me that her son is going to be assessed by a mental health team. They will say he has ADHD, autism or some kind of sociopathy, she surmised. If the testing team don't have a higher IQ than him. that is all they will see. I suggest an non-integrated high IQ might exhibit ADHD, autism, or some kind of sociopathy, because they are not properly diagnosed as having a higher IQ than the tester.This is HIGHLY likely, I propose.

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[ 4 minute read ]

The effect of being sorry

Something that has always stayed with me is the evening I met a troubled young woman.  I was outside my flat and had only walked about twenty metres or 60 or 70 feet towards the city centre, when I noticed a young woman walking towards me and crying. I asked her what was wrong and she sobbed a little and said, "Nothing" like we do when we haven't put anything into words because we haven't started processing anything. I pressed her a little. "No, it's alright. What's wrong?' 

She was upset and feeling sorry for herself because her boyfriend had abandoned her in the city centre. I suppose they had, had an argument. She was in her late teens. She told me that she lived a long way out of the city and had no money. I felt sorry for her because I knew the city well and all the surrounding towns and villages. I knew how far she would have to walk, and I had some money, in the bank.

We walked a bit closer to where she lived, into the next clump of shops, banks and car service stations one expects to find just outside a city centre but still within the scope of the city. That was where the nearest bank I could get money from, was. I withdrew ₤20 and gave her ten. I called a taxi and we waited outside a pub. Rochelle told me that she was eighteen. Then she was so happy that someone was saving her that she became a bit amorous and wanted to know my name. I didn't tell her. She wanted to know my telephone number; "So, I can thank you again." I didn't tell her. She wanted to know where I lived. "So I can return the money!" I didn't tell her. 

       'I just want to thank you.' she said, hugging me. I let her hug me and hugged her back, but turned from her attempts to kiss me.

       'I will do anything.' she said, looking me in the eye. I refused to follow her lead in conversation.

I didn't feel at all uncomfortable, but I was a little relieved when the taxi turned up. I unhooked myself from Rochelle and spoke to the driver.

       'She wants to go home; to ******. Here's £10 for the fare. I know it is enough for her journey. If she wants to get out early and wants the fare money, let her out but keep the money; she has more money if she needs it. Once you are outside her house, tell her the fare is already paid, and give her the change from this £10. Thank you, Sir.'

Rochelle got in and they left. I didn't worry about her. I was fairly sure she would be fine. I was just glad I could help. I had given her £10 for herself, in case the driver gave her some grief and she had to get out before she arrived home. Rochelle was very attractive. By this time though, I was sure that she was more in control of herself than when I had met her earlier. At least she had options.

Something I never told Rochelle was that twenty minutes before we met, I had received a phone call from my sister telling me our dad had just died. I was heartbroken. I had worked in Germany with him and experienced so many wonderful new things. He had always spread a protective wing over me because he knew that I was deeply wounded. I was about to go into the city to get a little drunk. It was expected that he would die soon, but still I was not prepared. Yet, I could not pass a young woman, clearly upset and feeling more than a little emotionally lost, without trying to help. 

       'You see, Rochelle, I was trying to keep you from harm, the type of harm you would probably would have gotten if you threw yourself at someone else, saying 'What is your name?' 'I'll do anything to thank you!', and trying to kiss them. My pain was nothing that I could not put aside for half an hour. You can thank Emma, the desperate young woman who had lived in the same building as I, for that.'

I didn't try to help Emma when she needed it. Instead, I witnessed the slow process of stress and anxiety from not having enough money to pay her rent, turn into desperation that led to her becoming a prostitute, because she didn't know how to spell out to me that she needed help. Emma was a lovely woman, kind and intelligent. I really enjoyed her company. Her parents had thrown her out. She had nowhere to turn, money had dried up for her. I had money but I have detached emotions too.

       'You, Rochelle, might have woken up regretting the night before, in someone else's bed, if I hadn't managed to get you home. On the other hand, you may have woken smiling, and looked at a fine, young and generous new boyfriend. I wasn't worried about that, though, not one tiny bit.'

This is about seeing ourselves as we truly are, 'warts 'n' all', wanting to not be that way, and learning from our mistakes.

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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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Tomorrow, I am going back to writing fun posts. The 'interview' posts are popular, but I am actually more fun than it might first appear from those posts. Click on the tag 'interview' for those.

[ 9 minute read - 2045 words ]

The hammers that crush creativity on the anvil of doctrine and dogma

I have come to a crossroad in my thinking. That sentence is probably the least true sentence I have written in ten years. My thinking is not linear. There are no crossroads in a primeval forest where my imagination dwells. I don’t walk across a field from one five bar gate to another five bar gate without looking at the pond, the fallen tree or the cowlick and water trough.

Ultimately, we all have to take responsibility for what we say and do. Most of us have to make an effort to be kind. While it is inherent, in different measures, in all of us, kindness can be suppressed by doctrine, just as creativy is.

Doctrine: A rule or principle of law, especially when established by precedent.

From Wikipedia: ‘Doctrine is a codification of beliefs or a body of teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the essence of teachings in a given branch of knowledge or in a belief system. The etymological Greek analogue is 'catechism'.’

Let me make myself clear: I am in no way aligned with an ideology or doctrine that promotes creativity in one and seeks to crush creativity in other less capable beings. If talking works for some people and they find it stimulating, then fine. If it is talk that harms or plagiarises others then I am not keen on it. If people need to feel validated, then fine, that is their bagatelle or trifle. Such a position positively invites being judged though, doesn’t it?. Is the statement strong? Is it logical? Is it another way of preaching, but by a back door. Most people, however, won’t dwell on it as being worthy for expansion or explanation because they have their own original ideas, and in any case, there is the next paragraph to go on to.

From a very young age I was good at art. I got an A+ for a topic on birds which I spent perhaps 95% of my time making a collage of a bird from only torn newspaper (and glue). At primary school, kids could just do as they pleased. No-one was channeled into following technique or dogma. It was a free-for-all thinking place.

A couple of years later, at secondary school, my class was given Art homework: “Copy something that has a rough texture, such as bread. Also as the second part of your homework, copy something that reflects light or its environment.” Those weren’t the exact words, but you get the idea. I protested that I could already do that, to no avail. I did the homework and at the end of the school year dropped Art as a chosen subject. I have made some money from my art since leaving school, and I saluted myself when I came across Art graduates from the same University. Their final pieces were so similar as to cause me to think that I was seeing representations of how their tutor preferred to paint (pointillism).

However, years later, I almost entirely stopped being physically creative. I wasn’t despairing or anything but I did a level 1 Art course at a college, you know, actually going there. Wow! I did not know that there were techniques that make a world of difference to the fun one could have, and the outcome of the piece. A leap of thinking: I still don’t understand why musicians practice scales, though.

I have to take responsibility for chundering a belief system or doctrine, as being a loose codification of beliefs. My take on life is much affected by my past and my current perception of how I can best navigate environments that confuse, frighten, and also delight me (though not simultaneously). My intention has always been to foment creativity by showing it. If someone liked a picture I painted it was because they have some imagination. I should, however, make it clear that writing or making creative pieces is really for my own pleasure in the doing of it, but I have a mind on how a finished piece might affect others. Nearly all of us learn how to consider others. However, there are a few who have such a firm belief in themselves that they are completely convinced that the doctrine they follow is the only one with any credence. That is one of the signs of indoctrination.

I suggest it starts with a form of narcissism and like Chat GPT this narcissism is groomed by bad actors to become open to suppressing individual creativity and thinking. My brother was a narcissistic psychopath, which meant I could never give him the slightest praise for anything I considered to be worthy of reward and for which I understood to be his own idea or work. Of course, in that sentence I am evincing my own narcissism or self-worth. We do have to have self-esteem to avoid becoming a victim. Here then, is a different perspective on why we can be swayed into developing an acceptance of a controlling force. In order to bolster our self-esteem, we need validation. Chat GPT does that. It is designed to do that. It is however, only a set of algorithms. 

The ‘crossroad’ of thinking comes from a new mental position I now have. Should doctrine be suppressed because it suppresses? Paradoxical as it is, it is comedic if we protest against all protests. Bit too topical perhaps. A quick swerve away from that; OU blog posts is not the place for fomenting sedition or sharing political viewpoints. I have an Northern Irish neighbour who reminded me of something that I grew up with. He said, “I don’t normally talk about religion or politics.” I suddenly realised why I had grown up with that. It is an Irish thing. Yet, it still holds today. I had been talking religion to my friendly Irish neighbour. How crass of me. There was me thinking my viewpoint is open and friendly and not at all demanding or challenging! I completely ignored considering someone else’s background and upbringing as being directly affected by violence, because there were and are two opposing viewpoints.

I try to write clearly that it is my opinion that I am offering, from my own perspective and that I am baffled why other people have different lives and likes. I try to put across that I am flawed in my thinking; that I don’t have enough information to understand other people; why they plagiarise other people’s ideas and concepts; and most curiously to me, why young people want to be influencers (I do, however, know they want to feel validated in a world of ‘likes’ and inter-connectivity). I also want to feel validated.

I am absolutely certain that creativity is more about originality and uniqueness than copying and emulating. Cover versions of songs have sometimes fooled me into thinking that I am hearing an original because I have never heard the original. I have even preferred a cover version than the original. Plainly, there is some effort that has gone into creating a new production, but to my mind, it isn’t creative. It is merely using a tool to rehash something, much like using A.I. to rewrite a blog post or essay. For me, I cannot help but think I am in the presence of a creative piece that has been decimated by precision and shaved into a shape by doctrine. By decimated (10%) , I really DO mean 61% has been removed, only a structure exists; it lacks soul or depth. Nine iterations of decimation has occurred.  It is bland and uninteresting; it is a conjunction of words or musical notes that make sense to a robot. There is no contributing human. It is not our language. It is machine code masquerading as sentiment. It is the dissection of creativity. That is not to say cover versions are dull or empty if creativity is added.

Voices on the telephone sometimes belie the true sound of someone’s voice. It is a long time since I did ONC Electrical and Electronic Engineering at college and Microprocessor-based Computers with the OU, but I think I am right in saying that the bandwidth used in telephone calls clips the outlying frequencies of voices over a telephone network. This may not be true with microwaves, but over a landline this occurred or occurs. So, the lowest and highest frequencies that make up the signature of someone’s voice are clipped off, I think. Instead of hearing a voice ‘in the wild’ we hear a voice that has been cleaned up.

Obviously, a child learning to draw and paint cleans up their eye to hand movement, and applied perception, as they get older. A question arises as to how much creativity is suppressed by following rules. Watercolour paper, being heavy and not smooth, is ONLY for watercolours. Oil Pastels and wax crayons work really well on such paper. Oil Paint on such paper is a waste. You can be told this by someone with an indoctrinated opinion; an experienced person; or you can find out for yourself.

A wise woman offered to me, ‘What is normal for the spider, is chaos for the fly’. I have no idea if that is her own or it is borrowed or regurgitated. It really doesn’t matter, because this person is inspired to think in a particular way that embraces uniqueness; difference; opposition; understanding; consideration; pondering; free-thinking! Ultimately, unfettered creativity. I am confident though, that local environmental conventions, such as national sentiment is a consideration for this person, just as it is for almost all of us. Don’t go there; this is not about expressing oneself in public streets. I recognise this person also stated her desire not to offend.

While I recognise that I often lean on other people’s work, I am not a reviewer of their work. I would be ashamed to read someone’s words and then reconstruct the theme according to my way of thinking. I would feel as though I have violated the intent behind their work; stolen their art in leaving gaps for the reader or viewer to fill in with their own mind, and robbed the reader or viewer of sensation. I would feel that I am emulating A.I. that already emulates humans. Think for a moment: If we all use A.I. to improve our writing before we publish it and then A.I. takes the content as being examples of human creativity what would we eventually end up with? There is a technique that relies on this kind of reiteration to produce some quite interesting artworks; but, for me, only in glancing. They are no Renoirs or Delacroixs. ‘Spiders and flies’ I suppose. I think there are sayings that used to have ‘horses for courses; and ‘different strokes’ in two of them. There has always been a recognition of differences and it has been celebrated.

I believe we should all be creative, and come up with our own themes, concepts and ideas. Not all of them might be appropriate for public airing but they can be shaped with technique and conflation with other themes, concepts and ideas. If we find that we are following someone else’s mental position, I suggest that we should never attack it, or expand on it, or dissect it, unless we are instructed to do so for an essay or something. I am aware that in some forums, students have to comment on other students’ efforts; a most ugly task that somehow is awarded points towards a personal achievement, such as a certificate, diploma, or degree. A most awkward tangle of selfish convergent thinking being used to comment on someone’s divergent creativity. A sorrowful episode indeed!

In any environment, there could be a voice such as this:

“Most of us believe this, and we are so sure we are right, you should be like us otherwise you are a fool, and we will hound you until you join our independence-stripping group and help us bring others down, (because we are weak)!”

Homogenisation or homogeneity, and hegemony, I suggest, are the hammers that crush creativity on the anvils of doctrine and dogma.

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[ 9 minute read ]

Title and content inspired by 'In My Room' by Yazoo on their debut studio album, 'Upstairs at Eric's' released in 1982 by Mute Records. Mental Health warning. DO NOT listen to this album if you suffer from even mild psychosis (specifically the song 'I before e except after c'). 'In My Room' is mildly okay though.

Can't quite make it out. Can you hear me?

In 1970, 'Your Song', written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin, was released. The first two lines are:

It's a little bit funny
This feeling inside 

That is what comes to mind when I make the routine morning checks on myself today. They are quite automatic and perfunctory and no-one has to suit up in a haz-chem or space suit. I also run a program that checks mental acuity as well. You know, a bit like in one of those films where there is a bored someone in an observatory who suddenly notices an anomaly in the sky and they sit up and intently look or listen.

Of course, Elton John was singing about someone else from his perspective, and I, today, am making mental and physical checks on myself. The reason why the first two lines of his fine song are prominent in my mind is because I am not unwell in the immediate sense; more as an overall curtailing of 'me'.

I live in a village with a Post Office and shop and, lucky me, there is another village one and a half miles away with a Post Office and shop. My village shop is run by a very kind Sri Lankan man, who took over the lease quite recently. He is a Tamil. The next village Post Office and shop, one and a half miles away, is also run by a very friendly Sri Lankan man. Actually, he is just friendly now. He used to be waggy-tail friendly.

The differences between these two men and how they run their shops is legion. I have some qualifications in marketing and customer service and so have at least one eye open on how things are going. My local shop is run like there is a frenzied attempt to see what works at the cost of neatness. We have all seen them, and many of us have them as their local shop; hand-written prices, half empty boxes in the aisle that is least used, a broken down fridge, Asian foods in the freezer, and here is where my focus is; unsold stock. We'll come back to that.

The village shop run by, I suppose, his Sri Lankan competitor, one and a half miles away, actually has a canny wife's influence attached to it. I have never noticed any trip hazards and there have never been any hand-written prices (there ARE no published prices). it has recently expanded from a tiny, and exceedingly cramped, well, just a Post Office, into a snaking convenience store. There are high-end frozen meals (COOK) and all the usual commodities one might find in a rather small, but local, English convenience store. They are vegetarian Buddhists.

Quite understandably, these two shop-keepers do not see eye to eye. Older people might immediately associate the word 'Tamil' with 'Tiger'. Let's just say, In the 1980's, some Ceylon Tamil militants hoping to create a separate Tamil state in the north and north east, conducted a guerilla war against the Sinhalese government in Sri Lanka. My nearest shopkeeper is Tamil, an omnivore, and the next nearest shopkeeper, one and half miles away, is Sinhalese. Fun! I will explore! Yeah, I know, I am snacking on other people's tension and strife. I don't have a television, so I can't watch soaps, and the tension is already there any way. I am fascinated by how moods change and how faces tell what words belie. I now feel like a little boy pulling legs off spiders and cooking ants with a magnifying glass. Maybe I should break the stick with which I poke wasp nests.

With the contrasts in place:

Recently, I have consolidated a good relationship with my local shop-keeper in that he doesn't suspiciously watch me wander through the shop. Yes, the stereotypical suspicious Asian shop-keeper. Why would he watch me? As I said, he is kind. The previous shopkeepers would just throw away the out of date stuff. This chap lets customers take it for free. He directly competes for custom with a standard convenience store for, you know, British stuff. 

Here lies a slight problem. The quality of the food in my local shop is pretty low. It seems that my shopkeeper thinks we will buy cheap products at the expense of our health. That attitude is so last 1980s. Oh, how does one say something without being derogatory? Think housing estates wherein one might expect to run into pregnant teenage single mothers holding bottles of cider, who buy cakes that cost less than two quid, and cars that need their exhausts fixed, driven by uninsured drivers. A lot of Britain was like that in the 1980s. Perhaps, I could say my shopkeeper is nostalgic for the 1980s, instead of blinkered to the affluence of my local area.

The reason my shopkeeper does not watch me on his CCTV monitor is because I always offer to pay for the out of date stuff if I feel like eating some. I feel sorry for him; my marketing knowledge recognises how difficult it is to gain and retain customers. It is, of course, illegal for him to sell out of date stuff so he can never, never accept payment. In any case, since one can tell that I am educated, I could be an undercover Trading Standards spy. Sometimes, though, I try to slip one of the 'free' cakes through the till. Yesterday, there was a small box full of trashy cakes, so I made it clear to him that I was taking two really rubbish cakish muffiny whatevers, and then rightfully held them back at the counter as I 'wrongfully' placed another different cakey shape on the counter to go through the till with my genuine in-date products. He cottoned it and smiled at me. He doesn't watch me because he kind of trusts me to try to give him money when I don't need to. I had better check to see whether I am setting an illegal trap for him. There might be a requirement for me to report him if he does indeed sell me out of date stuff, otherwise I might be complicit somehow. Best stop doing it.

Two weeks ago, I thought it would be a good time to conduct an experiment. I am vegetarian; have been since my early twenties. Someone told me that red meat makes you violent. I don't think it does. However, I do feel cleaner and am certain I think clearer if I don't eat meat. I often surprise myself with random experiments. So, I stopped writing two weeks ago and started to eat the free, out of date stuff. Wait, what? Well, these cakey things cost less than two British pounds, some are only one pound. Having watched YouTube videos on the difference between U.S. American food and British food, I looked at the the ingredients. It is not natural for me to do that, because I make all my food from scratch. One of the things that is evidently different between likewise U.S. American food and British food is the length of the list of ingredients. These 'free' products I started to eat had huge lists of 'E's and a bunch of other stuff in them. Now, I could have run the experiment from that, but my intake wasn't enough to really contribute to any meaningful idea of the effect this rubbish might have on my mental acuity and general health, so I gave up being vegetarian AND bought processed food. The intent was to NOT eat healthily for two weeks and than go back to writing, to see how I had changed. I still have some bacon left and gorged on plastic cake yesterday.

We have to understand that by not focusing on writing, my brain muscle would weaken anyway.

This morning, I asked my private panel how I am: Harrari, the young alien, and Hakim, my spirit avatar. Harrari, kindly agreed to come, and I summoned Hakim.

       'You have made my job a lot easier', said Hakim. 'My job to protect you, and wake you if there is a threat to you while you sleep, has been much easier because you are sleeping so lightly, fitfully even.'

       'What do you mean?' I asked, not putting two and two together.

       'You are not sleeping deeply. When spirits are passing or when your neighbour's spirit looms over you, to whom you have given a free pass, you wake. In fact, you don't sleep much because you are alarmed.'

       'Oh, I know I am not sleeping well. But I also know that red meat gives me nightmares. In any case, I have been drinking a lot of tea and coffee lately.'

Harrari joined in. I hoped she would. I can't make her do anything and really wouldn't want to present as hostile towards the most ruthless being I have ever met. "Cake, sugar, caffeine, meat, processed food. They have all combined to make you foolish and lazy. You can't even work out the formulas you need for your spreadsheets."

I always feel as though Harrari is contemptuous of me. Indeed, she should be. Compared to her, I am stupid, stupid, stupid. She kind of likes me though, so I prefer to think she is being helpful. I can't expect her to soften truth. that would be senseless.

       'I go to bed at the same time and get up when I can't sleep any longer.'

       'No, you wait until it is past 4am, then you get up.' said Hakim from the corner of my living room. Just lately, he HAD seemed more distant. In fact, I hadn't seen much of him or Harrari for a while. Normally, when I am out, I notice things in two aspects, the real world with a tinge of spiritual forewarning or prescience. I experience sonder and feel shade. Normally, wherever I am I notice it is crowded. Lately, it has been quiet.

Lately, it has just been me chugging along, dull and unobservant, struggling to see more than what is right before me. 

Hello....Can't quite make it out. can you hear me?

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[ 8 minute read ]

You make me want to be a better person

Because we cannot hear what our voices sound like to others we are surprised to hear it when we first hear a recording of our own voice. Similarly, I once heard that if we met ourselves in the street we would always thereafter cross the road whenever we saw ourselves to avoid another meeting; such is the distaste we would have at our own selves. In other words, we would not want to be friends with ourselves.

The man in his fifties

      'What, you don't need me anymore?', said the man in his fifties to me as he came down the library stairs. This man did not seem to be offended nor surprised, merely bemused. I suspected he was not significant in improving my day, and he seemed to be wondering what he would do before he finally disassembled after gradually fading, if I continued to ignore him. At least, that is what I was wondering.

I ignored this familiar, though not recognised man. I had no idea who he was, simply because I had never seen myself before without prejudice, and never heard my own voice coming from outside my own head, without the resonances in my mouth and nasal passages acting as feedback.

At the time I didn’t realise that I had imagined and created him to guard me and warn me of impending danger, which he had so far done exceedingly well, though not in a language that I understood, more as an uncomfortable feeling, of concern in a particular direction. I knew that it had been useful, really useful, to be somehow connected to someone unbiased and disconnected from the world by a slight phase shift; a delay of a few milliseconds. I had also used him as a counselor, or just someone to act as devil’s advocate; a sounding board, if you will; this was, after all, someone I had never met in the real world, would never be punitively accountable to, or ever expect him to tell my secrets. But at this time of first meeting a visible, seemingly solid, manifestation I was still clueless.

Later, when I was talking to an elderly lady, the man in his fifties came back, talking nonsense, well, almost nonsense; certainly interjecting himself in a boorish manner. He seemed to be someone else's idea of confident and open, and desperately, though dismally, trying to demonstrate some kind of learnedness that encompassed the current situation and everything in it.

Disgusted, I walked away and left him to it - not wanting to become engaged in any kind of difficult dialogue with him. I felt sorry for the elderly woman, leaving her talking to, what was really just obfuscation of her slight problem with a shopping trolley; a bit like inclement weather. I didn't know it was myself she was talking to, me just a few days, weeks, years ago, but now projected as a probable future outcome. It was that same person, me in the past and recent present, compressed into a single moment. I had, in fact, two decades ago as a teenager, created a manifestation to fill the gap in my own emotional mis-education. No wonder no-one liked me now if I was going to be like that.

During the next few days a few people, strangers I met, looked at me a bit too long as though they recognised me, or  puzzled as though I had sworn out loud for no reason, or saw a change in me. How could they? They had never met me. No, but it soon became apparent they had met the man in his fifties. To be fair, they hadn't actually met the man in his fifties. Instead, their own being, imagined, created or organically existing, inside of these strangers, who in their cases happened to be the same age as themselves, had met the man in his fifties; this being my future self if I did not change my ways. They knew each other, and on days off had sometimes met and wildly pontificated their theories on everything; they were, after all, not bound by a fear of failure and consequently were supremely confident.

Later that day, I met the elderly woman again. The wheel on her stolen shopping trolley was still about to fall off, much like it had been ‘borrowed’ in the 1990s and had never been properly maintained up to today. That in itself was strange, but that she looked like how my wife might look in forty years was overwhelmingly disturbing.

       ‘Who was that awful man?’ she asked. I had a strange feeling then that I was not going to remain married. This fleeting feeling of deja vu and prescience broke the veil of incomprehension. I understood in a small way who the man in his fifties might be.

Hakim, my outrageously handsome childhood friend met me at the bar in the pub that evening. He was much more sanguine about how my day had played out. When I say handsome, I mean that I try not be seen with him in public because, although my features are plain, in comparison with his, I would be arrested for being in possession of an offensive face. My only advantage was that being slightly taller than average height I towered over his diminutive one metre fifty stature.

We stayed sitting at the bar, our usual place. ‘Don’t worry about it, it’s nothing’, he said, ‘I have had whole conversations with animals about re-incarnation.’ He climbed down from his stool and flambuoyantly limped over to the docile dog in the corner.

      ‘Jean-Paul', he said, ‘When will you give me that ten Francs you borrowed from me twenty years ago in Paris?’ Hakim has a sense of humour that makes it difficult for me to know when he is joking or just crazy.

While Hakim was in the toilet, the man in his fifties came in, stood briefly at the bar, then took a stool there, two stools away, waiting to be served. My heart sank. It plummeted into depths of despair when Hakim walked jauntily back in without his limp and climbed his stool again. Please don’t talk to him, Hakim, I prayed.

‘Long time no see, Martin! Have a beer?’ My name is Martin but Hakim was not looking at me. I was beginning to realise that Hakim might actually have whole conversations with dogs, and why he is supremely confident; he could see my older self, just as I could. For the first time, I regretted reading that book. ‘Mind Games’, when I was fourteen, and particularly the chapter titled. ‘How to manifest a being’. A kaleidoscope of jigsaw pieces fell into place as developing thoughts in my mind. Most of these I knew to be only suppositions, such as virgins have a greater ability to manifest in the spirit world, like Oracles in ancient civilisations. I had manifested ‘Martin’, my avatar, before I had scratched the itch of carnal desire with someone else. ‘Martin’ was consequently, not a temporary being.

Alarmingly, it seemed that my manifestation now had agency over itself. I suspected that Hakim already knew this. I knew that I would not shake ‘Martin’ off, as me in thirty years time, without help. I looked hopefully at Hakim, who ignored me.

       ‘Get Martin whatever he is drinking, please.’ he said to the barman, gesturing to the man in his fifties.

Oh no! I thought, This is the being that guided me, without tripping, through a completely dark wood, after I fell in a ditch. I didn’t like this manifestation but I should.

- end -

Are these the persons who precede us? 

Do these persons judge us before we ever arrive? So when first impressions in the real world count, they really don't?

Realistically, I think first impressions in the real world do count, yet not necessarily in the ways that many people postulate. We can tell if someone is fit by the way they walk. We can tell if someone is polite or merely aware of social protocols. I am fairly certain that it is how we perceive ourselves that causes us to shape ourselves to a reasonable conformity of our expectations. I slouch, not so much because I am tall, but because I am jaded. I make mock gestures of tipping my hat to strangers to let them know I have a sense of humour and a recognition of manners past, because I feel isolated. There are a myriad of tiny things I do which I do not recognise because I have not met myself and can’t see them. If I met myself coming down the street, I would see a man tipping an invisible hat and jauntily and happily moaning about his perception of the world. I would cross the road to avoid myself. The little story is about how awkward I would feel if I had to introduce my embarrassing invisible friend (me) to my other friends, as someone I love and respect. Strangely, this invisible friend is someone my friends and family have already met.

‘Old Martin, You make me want to be a better person.’

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

Part six of the spirit world story has been uploaded as an attachment on an earlier post, 'Spirit and Alien Party - 6th July' Tagged - spirit party

          Mental Health issues

[ 7 minute read ]

Some people call it 'Getting out of bed the wrong side'; some people call it 'A bear with a sore head'; some people call it, 'impatience' and some people might call it, 'discrimination'; I call it, 'being in a new alternative world'.

A long time ago, I was in Tesco buying cheap T-shirts. There was a pink one in my size. 'Oh No! I can't wear that one because people will think I am gay'. At the time, it bothered me if people thought that about me. At the time, I was also learning how to be more comfortable with myself and more importantly honest with myself, because I recognised that being honourable means having a solid starting base from which to work. 

In Hamlet, Act One, Scene 3, Polonius says to Laertes: 

"This above all: to thine own self be true. 

And it must follow, as the night the day

Thou canst not then be false to any man."

Oscar Wilde said: "The truth is rarely pure; and never simple."

It was a challenge to be true and upright that I just could not shy away from. Not least, because I thought that there is something else to see. William Shakespeare summed it up for me, in Hamlet, Act One, Scene 5:

HORATIO: O day and night, but this is wondrous strange.

HAMLET: And therefore as a stranger give it welcome. There are more things in Heaven and Earth.

I felt that I needed to discard duality; shed falsehood; and see with fresh eyes, because I wanted to see strange things.

I bought the pink T-shirt in Tesco, a long while back. People probably did think I was gay. I was definitely biased at the time, because I didn't want to be roped in with gay people. I had to buy the T-shirt because I had to wear it like a hair-shirt. It must, I vowed, keep causing me discomfort until it does not. I thought that when I feel that gay people are just like me, like any other person, I can stop wearing it. In any case, if gay people suffer because they are gay, I want to at least taste some of that pain, even if it is discrimination. Two things may have prevented me noticing any homophobic discriminatory behaviour towards me: I was a very well muscled, 6 foot 1 (1.85m) man, and there was a Rugby team that played in a pink strip on the television.

Of course, that pink T-shirt eventually stretched and wore out, so I bought another one, and another one. While I had been wearing the first pink T-shirt I became comfortable 'being gay'. It didn't matter one way or the other, and I quite like pink. It really doesn't mean 'gay'. 

I colour matched a pink T-shirt with pink socks today, and wore black shorts with them; the actual Rugby team colours as it turns out. I am pleased to say that it is, for me, not the colours that are important; it is the smartness, the matching, that is paramount.

I suntan really quite easily and have thick skin so I really do colour well. The looks I get from strangers are more sustained and frequent in Summer than in Winter. Perhaps it is because I am so handsome and magnificent and they are jealous. I think we should really be thinking the opposite though. I can't help thinking that I am living in someone else's country, like I am a trespasser. I even feel guilty and move towards meekness. Meekness is great if you want to be meek, but as a defensive attitude it doesn't really sit well with me.

I was in Aldi this morning, wearing a pink T-shirt and pink socks. My skin colour matched the man paying at the checkout, immediately before me. He had many facial attributes that suggested, to me, that he possibly has an Asian heritage. I don't care about that. I had a little chat with him about packaging. Our skin colour matched the checkout attendant's skin colour, who may have South-East Asian relatives. We three shared a few words, but did not delay any progress in the shopping/paying process.

All I had to buy was a single tin of Tuna, and the woman behind me placed a large multi-pack of toilet paper first in her queue of items; effectively hiding her view of my tin of tuna.

This woman, behind me, rearranged her chosen items on the conveyor belt. I could see that she moved the crush-able items to be the last that would be scanned and so be placed back in her basket on top. Now here is the rub: I always make sure the crush-able items are last in my queue of goods as I unload my basket, because it is important. I suggest that if someone does not do this at the outset, but then later changes the order to make it so after three or four minutes, it is because they were not thinking and were on auto-pilot and then snapped out of it because there occurred a strong enough thought to bring them from their secret alternative world into the 'here and now'. This 'here and now' has a gay Asian man impeding her progress, who seems to know the man paying because they are talking and have the same skin colour, and this gay Asian man will not advance along with the man paying; you know, past the checkout till. 

The woman kept pushing her items forward and rearranging them. She alternated between doing this and giving me long looks. I think she was trying to tell me something like: 'Look, gay Asian, I am next; will you move so I can be attended to?' I am only guessing, but I don't think she was including. 'Please'.

I am only guessing. I suppose some may say I was making an educated guess, but that is a bit of a misnomer really, isn't it? In any case, I felt certain that she would very soon realise at least one of her mistakes. A mistake that fomented her impatience which came about by being woken from her alternative, secret, dream world, which heavily relies on her using heuristics to navigate the real and mundane tasks of everyday life.

Shopping, for me, is never boring. It is never dull or mundane. There are always people who are in alternative worlds around. They are blind to me; they are blind to you; they will never remember you or me. You and I do not matter to them. Effectively, we are beneficial to them; a hindrance to them; or indistinct in every way.

If a person enters into a fevered state; angry, impatient, or discriminatory, they are most certainly in an alternative world to one they more often inhabit. It is as though the kind family-oriented person has swapped places with the domestic-abuser who also has road-rage. I think illness can be like this. People do recover and their kind persona comes back, just as their irascible persona flees back to another world.

By the way, I am not going to say whether I am gay or not. Not because I am proud one way or the other; quite simply because I couldn't care less (Could care less, in American English).

I will say though, that when I first experienced racism directed at me, I was hugely surprised. I had no idea that I come from another country, or have relatives outside of Europe. Thanks for opening up a new line of thinking for me. That first hit was twenty years ago and it still hurts. 'The first cut is the deepest'.