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  Interview with myself

[ 10 minute read ]   2100 words

Interview and sonder

Could do better

'Today we have in the studio Martin Cadwell. Hello Martin'

'Hello'

'Martin is becoming a regular guest on our show. This is the third time now. You will be able to phone in and ask Martin some questions. The phone lines will open shortly. Martin, how has your year been? You have had some ups and downs from a not very good start this year.'

'Straight to the point. I like that. I suppose, generally the year has been disappointing. I mean it was a year; it had all the right number of days in it and night followed day; but I think I could have made more of it. You are right. I was not in a good position at the start.'

'I realise it is a sensitive issue so take your time.'

'Thank you. I had a huge falling out with my family in January which set about a series of bad behaviour episodes. I drank too much during the ironing out of the disagreements and the upshot is that I said more than I should have. I meant it too. As you know, I am uncomfortable with lies and deceit. Basically, I said to my family I had, had enough and I did not want to be part of the back-stabbing loop.'

'This is your wider family.'

'All of them. There is not a single family member I have any contact with now. As I was going through my late teens and early twenties I wondered how my mother could hold, what seemed to me, to be such concrete grudges against family members. It just seemed to me to be really quite mean, and fickle with it. She seemed capricious; one year against my brother, the next against me. I realised that she was being coached on how to think by my siblings according to how they felt about us. I said I was 'out'; not doing this anymore. Later in years I had good cause to make sure I am honest and honourable. As the Americans say, It bit me in the ass.'

'When you say 'out', what do you mean.'

'It is not right to speak ill of people who cannot defend themselves. It is a basic principle in many interviews that are intended for the public to be party to...'

'It is.'

'In my family, I simply refused to countenance gossip about other family members. I came up with the maxim 'Don't talk about me, talk to me'. In trying to stick to my code of honour, things came to a head in January and I effectively ran out of conversation with my family. It was just too hard to keep them from wandering off into the trees and start moaning. I had bound myself to being honourable and only by disavowing myself to honour could I release the binds.'

'How did that manifest in your more public life?'

'I am an undergraduate and although not forced to actively interact with other students, it is useful on some levels. I vented; I attacked; I laid scorn at their doorsteps. I failed in many ways to recognise them as humans with feelings that I am not party to.'

'So, correct me if I am wrong, but it seems that you missed your own family and the back-stabbing, and projected those feeling onto a group that had similar goals to your own.'

'Absolutely. I forget that I have PTSD from familial failings. When you hear the saying, 'Familiarity breeds contempt' you may, like many, many others think that this relates to repetition and banality; experience gained in doing something mundane soon turns to contempt for the task, right? When I hear it, I think that intimacy between humans is an area for contempt, effectively, family members or close friends. We soon recognise each others faults.'

'Jumping forward; you wrote a post on 'Sonder' this Summer. Was this what was missing in you in January?'

'Oh yeah, I did. Yes. I am fairly certain that most of us are so busy with our lives that we fail to recognise that other people are busy with their own lives. Everybody, well, nearly everybody, thinks they are the centre of the universe and everything revolves around them. It doesn't. Of course it doesn't. Everyone is more like a solar system with orbiting friends and family; each of those with their own gravitational pull on each other so they form a cohesion of some kind. Recognising that other people think they are the centre of the universe was a moment of sonder. Everyone has their own ideas and feelings, It seems obvious, but actually holding it to be true was a revelation to me. That is not enough though. It has to be stitched into the very fabric of our individual being.'

'Had you have known this earlier, do you think things would be different now?'

'Indubitably, without question and totally. Had I have realised this earlier this year I would have been a lot happier in the rest of the year. If I had known this when I was in my twenties I would now be complete with a wonderful wife and children and I would recognise that letting off steam by talking about family members is completely normal.'

'We have our first caller, Steve from Kent. Good morning Steve.'

'Good Morning and Happy Christmas. Hello Martin'

'Hello Steve. Happy Christmas.'

'Martin, I think that your message about sonder makes a good but overlong Christmas Card greeting in a much convoluted way, but don't you think you are just trying to create a religion out of respect?'

'Hmm...interesting question. I think that people can respect other people's spaces; I don't sit on your lap on the bus and I don't ask you to give up your seat for me either. That is respect for an individual. If we have a disagreement about an empty seat that both of us are aiming to sit on I might in a moment of sonder listen more closely to what you are saying or listen more keenly to your voice. In that moment of sonder I might do neither; I might only understand that you think you are at the centre of the universe and all things revolve around you. I would understand why you think you should have the seat and not I. I am only a peripheral body to you.'

'Neatly put, Martin but the caller is not asking if you would give up your seat. You would have to, the moment you intellectually withdraw from your involvement in the crisis, right?'

'Yes, I would have to. I rather feel that respect is a blanket attitude that we give to people's inalienable rights and their thoughts and feelings require something else. While we all have a right to think what we like, I do not need to respect any thoughts you may have that I feel are evil. In a moment of sonder we can wrap up those thoughts in toxic-proof wrapping and interact with a person in a polite and conscious way.'

'I still think you are over-egging the pudding, but I respect your thoughts and bid you also a happy new year. Goodbye.'

'Ha ha. That was Steve from Kent with good cheer and amicability. Happy new year Steve!'

'Martin, Tell me about your Summer.'

'Happy new year Steve. As you know, I like gardening. It is the growing and the not so much the nurturing I like. I like the sprouting of the new shoots and the right result, be it flowers or fruit. I discovered that Muntjac deer like to eat anything I grow. My garden is where I relax and the frustration of having all my efforts destroyed affected my Summer quite badly. It is easy for me to become quite jaded if I can't find a way to overcome a problem...'

'Isn't a fence a good idea?'

'Tuh! Yes. I have been exceedingly lazy this year. I cycle less; I have tended the garden less; I shopped closer to home in the local villages instead of going into the city. I have not made good use of my time. This Summer, instead of seeking new connections and maintaining the shreds of old relationships I have spent a great deal of time at home focusing on myself; but not in a good way such as one might hear about from a practitioner of Yoga or Pilates or mindfullness. This Summer I watched the world pass with an indifference that I have never experienced before. This Summer, I complained that it was too hot. I complained that my nearest neighbour is a nincompoop nuisance. I berated both myself and my shadow and lost interest in keeping a working set of three bicycles.'

'You like cycling.'

'I did. I like to feel my legs tired but resilient; like tight elastic. I like getting home tired but able to recover with only a cup of coffee. This Summer, my legs were weak and I overheated too easily. Getting home, a cup of coffee was not enough and I needed to sit for a couple of hours to recover. Things didn't get done. I did no art or crafts. I even gave away a lot of new art material by leaving it outside on the pavement. I am not at all satisfied with how I operated even within my own sphere of influence. In giving away the art material I was obliquely tryig to compensate for my interactive inadequacies'

'You sound quite sad and introrse, whereas last time I sensed insightful.'

'Ever sharp and to the point. Yes. I suppose I am feeling sorry for myself. I know I am better than I have shown myself to be. I am disappointed.'

'We have another call; Aesia in Oxfordshire. Good Morning and Happy Christmas Aesia. What do you have to say?'

'Good morning. Happy Christmas. Happy Christmas Martin. I should just like to ask why you are so ruthless with yourself. It sounds to me that you have an urge to psychologically wound yourself.'

'Good morning Aesia. Happy Christmas. That is a great question. I suppose I don't really see myself trying to attack myself on any level. I suppose I see it as self-imposed moral rectitude. Unfortunately, I often don't feel that I don't measure up to being myself at anywhere close to my potential. I was about to say capacity, but of course, capacity ebbs and flows as the seasons pass and the impact that both the environment and ourselves have on us. From January, I probably set myself up for a dwindling relationship with my immediate environment and needed to boost myself a bit, but I didn't. Instead of dealing with things effectively, I just pushed them into the long-standing heap of unfinished business. It has affected me. I know that.'

'Well, I think you are okay. I mean, I think you mean well. I am going to go now. Happy new year.'

'Happy new year.'

'Happy new year Aesia. Martin, finally, do you have any plans for the future? We are a bit short of time.'

'Yes, I do. I need to focus of getting a good sleep pattern and get back into cycling. The only bike I have working is one that is too small for me. I have four others in different states of repair, and when I ride the the little one I am frustrated. I blame it on having a poor memory. I know that poor sleep habits have a significant affect on memory, energy, ambition and motivation, so I shall focus on looking into causality in January 2026. I shall go home and write a new message to myself to pin on my wall; a quote from when I was more connected with the Christian Church, 'In order to be where God wants you to be in five years time, you have to be where God wants you to be now'. For me, it will have a duality about it, in that I shall extrapolate from it a concept of human achievement such as, A long journey starts with a single step.'

'Martin Cadwell, it has been a pleasure. Happy new Year.'

'Thank you. Happy new year.'

 If you would like music to match this post you might try Talking Heads, 'Once in a Lifetime' available on YouTube. Go for the Official Audio not the video; it plays without interruption. Link below (opens in new window):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR0jgT9UX0Q&list=RDfR0jgT9UX0Q&start_radio=1

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

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[ 6 minute read ]

Vicarious Mistakes

I have so much more to learn

I am fairly certain I made a mistake in the previous post I wrote yesterday morning; on the subject of third person narrative, most commonly found in self-help books and such; though successfully used in fiction: 'Bright Lights, Big City' by Jay McInerney in 1984, which was adapted into a film starring Michael J Fox in 1988. All that is true and can be found at:

https://reedsy.com/blog/guide/point-of-view/second-person-pov/ 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bright_Lights%2C_Big_City_(film)

and if you want to waste a lot of your data download allowance:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094799/

The mistake I made was through what I call a 'vicarious mistake'. A vicarious mistake, in my mind, is the repetition of someone else's mistake while believing that there is no mistake. It comes down to 'Who do you really trust?' A weak example of a vicarious mistake is to use a double space after every full stop when you write. That used to be the norm in Britain. I had a girlfriend who taught MBA's at Exeter University and most of her classes had foreign students. My girlfriend insisted upon her students to always use a double space after every full-stop, so they did. I told my girlfriend double spaces are archaic. It is an archaic practice. It is true. She stopped telling her students to use a double-space after full-stops. However, if any person was told by one of her students to always use double spaces after every full stop because they themselves were told by my girlfriend to do so, they, the person advised by her student, would be repeating her error and making a vicarious mistake.

Vicarious mistakes happen all day every day across the world and our attention is drawn to them when someone realises they have been doing things wrong and says, 'Oh! I have always done it this way!' because they were shown to do it  that way. (There is actually a double space after the italicised 'it' - for letter spacing purposes; learnt in calligraphy lessons)

I made a vicarious mistake by omission in yesterday's post. The source I had for learning about 2nd (second) person narrative was a person who failed to explain that, as with first person narrative:

'I went to the shops. It started to rain. I got wet' 

and third (3rd) person narrative:

'He/She/They went to the shops. It started to rain. He/She/They got wet'

2rd (second) person narrative can also include the centre sentence 'It started to rain'.

I failed to include any sentence in my earlier example in yesterday's post that was merely descriptive. Not every sentence needs to have a character in it, such as, 'It started to rain'.

If you want to read about POV and narratives you might go to:

https://reedsy.com/blog/guide/point-of-view/

Some of the following uses a fourth (4th) person point of view 'we' and 'us'.

Lying and Paltering

Suppose someone is asked, 'Did you eat the last piece of pizza in the fridge?' There are a range of answers that we might consider to be not honest.

Let's assume a single person answering did eat the last piece of pizza in the fridge. 'Not me' is an intentional lie by commission; 'I ate some' is an intentional lie by omission because it does not include the information that the 'some' is the last piece. 'I ate the cake' is an intentional lie by obfuscation because if it is true directs the questioner away from their question. This means it is paltering. The last, 'What pizza?' is not lying at all but is using obfuscation, diversionary tactics and delay to avoid confessing anything.

In economics, 'needs and wants', amorphous as they are, are regarded to have more value for different people and at different times. In order to be able to keep track of the value of these needs and wants they are given values known as 'utils'. See the Diminishing Margin of Utility in economics for an accurate explanation. The American (no cookie opt out) Investopedia (https://www.investopedia.com should be able to give a succinct definition. Use the drop down menu at the top left of their page to be able to search, otherwise: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/lawofdiminishingutility.asp

Diminishing Margin of Utility If I am hungry, I place more value on the first pork pie in a pack of four than on the second; more on the second than the third; and so on. By the time I have eaten the third, I may have had enough or I am just bored with pork pies. This means that I could give significantly more 'utils' to the first pork pie then the fourth pork pie. The utility of filling me up has been accomplished by eating the first three pies.

In my local shop I discovered mince pies in multiples of three. There were packets of 18 and 27. Odd number, twenty seven isn't it? I suggest, most people might stop at eating three mince pies one after the other, so packaging four mince pies together is a waste of a unit from the manufacturers point of view. Is it a vicarious mistake to put four mince pies in a box, after commodification of products was universalised? I think so. Yet, is a triangular box more expensive to produce than a rectangular box? (a square is a special kind of a rectangle because it has four right angles and two opposite sides of equal length twice). I am slightly digressing in that I am drifting away from how much value we place on eating and what preferences we have. However, the number of mince pies in a box links two things: utility; and a suggested move away from making the same marketing mistake (vicarious mistake or inherited mistake).

If the owner of both the pizza and the cake places more value (utils) on the pizza than on the cake, it may be preferable to confess to eating their cake and withstand their wrath in the hope they will go away after venting their anger and forget about their much more precious pizza. In fact, what might actually happen is that the person who ate the cake may get vicariously blamed for also eating the pizza, if someone else ate it. Yet, with no confession for eating the pizza from any party the heightened anger felt by the owner of these foods for the loss of the cake is less than the sum of the loss of the cake and the pizza directed at two separate individuals, or even a single individual if it occurs as a single event.

So, if someone eats someone else's pizza and cake, it may pay to 'palter' by confessing to eating the cake in response to 'Did you eat my pizza?' or the last piece of pizza. A manipulator, despite never be asked about the cake, may reason that it is best to take the hit for eating the cake so everyone can move on, even if someone else ate the pizza.

The American Psychological Association says in an article 'True Lies: People Who Lie Via Telling Truth Viewed Harshly, Study Finds' (2016) that when people are asked an uncomfortable question they often will continue to tell the truth but without answering the question itself to create a mistaken impression.

References

The American Psychological Association (2016)

https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2016/12/true-lies

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[ 6 minute read ]

My heating and I fight

Around this time of year, my heating and I usually wrestle in the mornings. It used to be good-natured; ‘You are too hot!’, ‘No, you are!’ This might go on for a while, bickering, until one of us, most often me, gets a bit physical. You have heard of ‘a wall of heat’ haven’t you? I have ultimate control; of course, I control how much food the heating gets with a little switch, but I am loathe to use it because I know the heating wants me to use it just to make me look stupid when I point a finger at it and moan. Eventually, I remember, or discover a day or so later, that ‘someone’ has switched the heating off.

       ‘You wasted your time scolding me, you know? I couldn’t hear you.’

       ‘How do you know I was scolding you?’

       ‘You did. You probably raised you voice a bit as well. “What is wrong with you?” Isn’t that what you say?’’

I don’t like denying food to all the heating but sometimes it all gets a bit much for me. You see, I am outnumbered. I have A LOT of radiators; more than five! Some of them are really quite benevolent and just quietly welcome me when I come in. The one by the front door is like a cat weaving between my legs. It is the leader, the big one, in the living room, that tries to dominate me. 

It is monstrously expensive to try to heat rooms and store heat simultaneously, with storage heating; imagine trying to heat water in your immersion heater while you have all the hot taps on and you will get the picture. The big radiator, in the living room is a seven kiloWatt device; the same as an immersion heater. 

First thing in the morning, in my living-room, the temperature is 25^oC / 77 ^oF and only 19^oC / 66^oF in the bedroom and hall. I open the living room door from the hall and, Wall of Heat! Don’t ask, it is just more efficient to not let the airs mingle too much. (I keep a spreadsheet of power consumption). So, when I started writing this I had to be wearing only trousers. In five minutes, I shall need to start getting fully dressed again. The reason for this is that each of the radiators has a fan on a timer. It is just so annoying. I am not very organised and even have to go outside for a minute or two in the mornings ( 1^oC / 33 ^oF today). I put clothes on, and then take them off, and then put some back on, and then more, and then strip back to only trousers.

I used to own a logistics business, concentrating on transport. I started out as a home and business relocation service provider; but because I don’t eat bacon sandwiches I was not a man with a van. I went into road haulage and heavy haulage, and expanded the business across Europe. Once we were established; on occasion, I would personally need to assess the requirements of some clients from within their home; a personal business meeting, if you will. It was that sort of business wherein we needed to understand the client’s ‘needs and wants’ across multi-layered platforms of operation in multiple countries, concurrently. Of course, we were always professional; so why did I sit down uninvited in a client’s home? Worse, I seemed to want to take my shoes off and just chat. Smell. Old wood smoke. It was autumn and they had an open fireplace. The ashes in the fireplace confirmed they had recently had a fire. This isn’t ‘fifty shades’ so there was no rug in front of the fireplace and no pair of wineglasses left on the coffee table, just five well-groomed adults standing before me in a sparse but expensively decorated room, giving each other puzzled glances. Fortunately, my shoes were still on my feet when I shook off my intoxication and threw off being a hostage to sensuality.

I grew up in a bungalow with an outside toilet. There were two fireplaces, one in the living room (lit) and one in my bedroom (never lit); and a wood-burning range, maybe an Aga, in the kitchen. Mostly, we burned coal in those days, but often, in the earliest days, wood. The wood-burning kitchen range / stove only ever burned wood and was only lit to heat the kitchen before we went to school; we had electric. At home, there were draughts in every room and in the coldest months, we would burn one side of ourselves by the living room fire while our other side was cold, so we would swap places to ‘burn’ the other side for a while. Outside, I learned to ‘go’ really quickly. One day I timed it, from the back door and back in thirty seconds. Run, trousers down, ‘go’, wipe, trousers up, flush, run. I even had to pass the Belgian Hare and the guinea-pig cages, there and back. It is not hardship if you know no different. Visitors to my home sometimes ask, ‘No shower?’

       ‘Did you see the bucket in the bath, and the jug?’

       ‘Yes’

       ‘I boil a kettle and use that.’

They have nothing to say to that.

No-one ever mentions that my bathroom is not heated. There was no fireplace in the bathroom of the bungalow I grew up in. It is also no wonder, to me, that I have never got into the habit of reading newspapers or magazines.

In Winter, the warmth from the kitchen range used to be the first thing I was conscious of while my mum was gently forcing my arms into my school clothes. Somehow, I went to sleep in my bedroom before she had finished reading Enid Blyton aloud, and ‘woke up’ in the kitchen, being manipulated into shapes to fit into the arm and leg holes of my clothes. I was never conscious of a burning wood smell but it was there. I love Winter.

       'Mr Kawazuki, my apologies! Mr Ango! Small nods and bows to the others. In return, I got relieved smiles.

While there is a wall of defiant heat when I go from one room to another in my modern home first thing in the morning; and a damp dish-cloth of cold outside these days. The smell of wood-smoke combined with the scent of cold on my clothes is a trigger for me to become limp for a while in a snug and stupefying nest of peace. I want to burn myself on one side while the other side is cold; and smell wood-smoke. My heating has automatically gone off and I am now fully dressed. The temperature is 21^oC / 69.8 ^oF.

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[ 4 minute read ]

Unruly Toaster

Is it just me or does everyone's toaster act like an unruly teenager?  That stereotypical teenager caricatured again? My toaster burns bread when I am not looking, but if I am watching it, it spits the bread out half-toasted. I can't help thinking it wants to join a union such is its obvious defiance towards adaptation.

       ‘What is wrong with you? Go to your space in the cupboard under the sink!’

I used to be a fire-breather and one of my friends who seemed to get in a lot of fights, asked me if a spirit drink served over the counter in pubs would work instead of paraffin. I think that it would, and that thought is not an original one either. There seems to be evidence of the thought when I was six. Brandy on Christmas Pudding burns, right? It could be warmed in the mouth though it would be a little diluted by saliva; so order a double and hold it all in your mouth after warming it in your cupped hands when it is still in the glass. If you see someone vigorously rubbing their hands together and ordering a large brandy you might want to keep at least nine feet away. 'nuff said. Of course, who has a lighter or matches these days? Anyway, it is said that the pen is mightier than the sword, so I fear only someone with a quill or empty fountain pen who orders a brandy and a piece of paper. An intention to write with invisible ink surely suggests subterfuge, doesn't it? What? you say, How did you get here? Heat the paper, with brandy ink on it, in a toaster, to see the words. Well, it works with lemon juice, anyway. 

Yesterday, 13th December, there were half a dozen eggs on my doorstep again. The 13th of December is Saint Lucy's Day, and is a Christian feast day dedicated to Lucy of Syracuse. She was an early fourth century virgin martyr under the Diocletianic Persecution, who, according to legend brought food and aid to persecuted Christians hiding in the Roman catacombs, and wearing a candle-lit wreath on her head to light her way, so she could carry as much food as possible with both hands.  - Wikipedia

Well, the egg-box angels I am making might end up being a Lucy and some angels. I now realise that I cannot compress the egg-box slurry and expect it to just stick together; probably because I didn't use a blender on it. Flour and water is what we used to use for Papier-mâché dolls when I was an infant. I am however, loathe to waste food to make a token gift as thanks for providing food; which leaves me with finding a protein to bind the egg-box slurry together (like eggs), or buying a blender, which I might find another use for in the kitchen. Otherwise, I shall sculpt DAS Pronto, which is not at all what I had in mind. I am hoping I can use the clay as more of a 'slip' than a shape-holding medium and, as such, it might work as a binder for the egg-box slurry.

You know what? I don't even know if egg boxes are vegetarian. They might use gelatine as a binder. Sally, the intended recipient of the angels, and now possibly a Lucy, is a vegetarian, just as I am, except for when I ate lamb about three years ago. 

I think a gift, token or otherwise, should take into consideration the recipient's values. If someone hates fossil fuels, I wouldn't drive to town to fetch a gift for them; I would cycle or walk. Likewise, Sally won't get a gift, token or otherwise, from me, that includes real animals in it; unless it is an animal. I think Christmas donkeys are quite expensive right now though.

The Diocletianic or Great Persecution was the last and most severe persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. In 303, the emperors Diocletian, Maximian, Galerius, and Constantius issued a series of edicts rescinding Christians' legal rights and demanding that they comply with traditional religious practices. Later edicts targeted the clergy and demanded universal sacrifice, ordering all inhabitants to sacrifice to the Roman gods.

Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diocletianic_Persecution

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[ 4 minute read ]

Third Party Spies

Research Your Researching

Imagining the future

You know, I can't help thinking that there are bars to improvement in the real world simply because approaches to research are not researched beforehand. What do I mean by this? I get offers to join research teams from various bodies but they want me to register using a MicroSoft form. I think it was Groucho Marx who said he would never want to be a member of a club that would allow someone like him to be a member. 

I would never give my details to a research body by way of a data harvester like MicroSoft. Who would? Surely, the best people to have on a research team are those that are able to understand that their details should not be shared. Certainly, I know that my every comment can be, and is, traced and followed and analysed. Any answer to a question like, 'How would you improve this....?' is tagged and details added to a profile of me stored by a third party. That profile might be useful to the person it pertains to today, in terms of subscribing businesses offering tailor-made deals to individuals, but tomorrow, it will bar you from being offered opportunities from elsewhere. 

It is highly unlikely that individuals will be swamped with a constant stream of offers bombarding their phone with messages all day. The average recipient would ignore most of them and as a target audience the cost of contacting them rises as a ratio of return on investment (ROI). Hence, only a few opportunities will be sent to the individual. This means that other offers are never offered to the individual. In marketing, businesses want to build brand loyalty to stop people shopping around and instead make them pay more for their product. Many people might put this down to convenience. 'It is just easier.' I suggest that this expectation of a convenient way of life reduces jobs and negatively diminishes social interaction. It was the commodification of meat products by supermarkets that destroyed the high street butcher, not the butcher's prices on their own.

When businesses ask us to send electricity readings online, it is not for your convenience; it is to save them money because they don't need to pay wages to someone to visit your home. If you think that there should be more available jobs, make the meter readers come to your home, even if you leave a note outside your door with the meter reading on it. You do not need to spoil your day by being at home, just use analogue solutions.

Any entity that sends me an email that links to a data harvester such as MicroSoft or Amazon, without warning me that the link goes there, is placed on a 'brownlist' that urges 'CAUTION - UNSCRUPULOUS ENTITY!' The reality is that the entity has not researched how to research properly. Do market researchers want sheep who follow the crowd. Ultimately, that would be a dream come true because it wouldn't take a lot of time or money to figure out trends. However, market researchers should be keeping an eye out for innovation and viral ideas and concepts. You can't reach mavericks the usual ways, like with data harvesters; many people are too savvy to go near them.

Of course, modern businesses use other businesses to conduct activities that are not their own core activities, because they don't fully understand how to do much these days. This is a desperate move away from vertical integration, which is hugely expensive to maintain (economies of scale - that sort of thing). I however, have no intention of ever giving any entity permission to share my details with third parties. 

The trend away from vertical integration is over a hundred years old though. Henry Ford's Detroit assembly line in the early 1900s is an example of vertical integration. They forged their own steel and had leather workshops and so on. I think Rolex (watchmakers) are still vertically integrated because they even forge their own particular type of steel, which I believe is used only by them. They don't make the diamonds though, they get them from nature (de Beers?)

All Open University students can have an email address that ends .ac.uk. However, they all have to tell MicroSoft who they are beforehand. I think that is why I almost never see a student email address that ends .ac.uk. I am certainly not going to allow MicroSoft to know where and how to listen in to my email conversation. 

I suspect it takes a little while for businesses to send emails for customers to verify they are who they say they are, because the password to an email account can be harvested once the cookie is on the users device and many people log into their online accounts before they log into their email account. I always log into my email account before I log into my bank account for example, and especially before I log into 'Indeed', the recruitment business. Note that you get a verification link on your phone while you are talking to the phone network customer service person, and not some minutes later. One minute for an email to be sent is bordering on excessive, I suggest.

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[ 9 minute read ]

Whiling and wiling away time

Imagining the future

On occasion, I come across a person who will stand me a conversation. Most people will do that funny hand movement that signifies they have exhausted all their methods for allowing time to make decisions for them on how to end something they have just come to recognise as laborious for them. 

One of my favourite things to do is to examine a subject from as many perspectives as I can, including the person I am having the conversation with. Generally though, they haven't really thought things through before I button-hole them and bend their ear. I think you might look upon this as; I intimidate people with word-wizardry. Except this kind of wizardry is not Mickey Mouse in 'Fantasia' incompetently fighting a broom, or Harry Potter waving a wand and conjuring solutions to problems that only he can fathom. Most of the time I know what someone is going to say. That may sound supercilious and self-promoting, but it is not meant to be. And, here we have a problem I identified long ago. If I make statements like that the listener will immediately second-guess me. They actually believe that I believe that I can read minds or something. No, I mean that I expect to hear a common standpoint that conforms with the zeitgeist of a society. 

This is how my conversations usually work. I want to understand why something is so. Yesterday, my attention was piqued by a newspaper article I read in my local Post Office shop. 

As I approached my local Post Office shop I noticed a woman leave the shop and open the boot (Am. trunk) of her car. Mindful not to just throw my bicycle against the plate glass window of the shop, I had time to view her activity. She moved some bags around. Rather than practice my superb rendition of a gawking three-year-old with a 'why?' question on my lips, I 'thickened the air'. I do that sometimes when I sense something amiss or portentious. Anything that happened from that point on would leave a trace that lasts a few seconds; a trace that will allow me to identify commonalities to other traces and tracks within the same soup of 'now'. In plain English that means I paid more attention than I normally would and carefully stored my perceptions.

It is highly unusual for me to need to actively consider events that immediately precede the present I find myself in. Normally, I ignore pretty much everything because most of the time, stuff goes on around me and it is just thin, flavourless and clear dishwater; not worth keeping, because being the past as soon as it has occurred, it has no value; no freshness and no energy. We don't derive any nutrition from the past. It is consideration of the past, in the present, as much as it can be, that sustains us. And there it is, the present has value; which is why I like the present so much and the past not much at all. Even the future is preferable to the past because the future is bendy. (I prefer to hope that the future is bendy; 'malleable' means can be shaped and for me usually means with intent - I prefer the weather to uncontrolled manipulation by hopeful tyros). 

The future is bendy. It has curves in it that make the journey interesting. It has, within it, scenery and events seemingly scattered by the hand of a Supreme Being. Of course, there is no Supreme Being who idly chucks fantasy Lego bricks across a carpet for us to assemble or tread on bare-foot in the dark, as might suit our wit. It is the past and the manipulation of the present that shapes the future. I know this is as it is, so my playful protestations that I am prescient fall upon my own deaf ears. If other people hear me state that I am a seer they should recognise it for an umbrella position that encompasses 'I looked at the past and some futures and there is a high probability that one future could manifest as this or that'. And here is where most people I talk to get lost; they have no idea that I want to tell them about a future. They, invariably think I want to 'while away' the time, when I actually want to 'wile away' a future. 

I can't remember where I heard or read this parable. (It should be known that I did not come up with this and I have reproduced it verbatim to the source in order that in a future it may be used in a search term to establish its provenance):

A Parable

It was a chilly, overcast day when the horseman spied the little sparrow on its back in the middle of the road. Reining in his mount he looked down and inquired of the fragile creature,
"Why are lying upside down like that?"
"I heard, the heavens are going to fall today." replied the bird.
The horseman laughed, "And I suppose your spindly little legs can hold up the heavens?"
"One does what one can." said the sparrow.

We know that 'to wile' is to use guile and manipulation. In one kind of reality anyone can plant a seed of doubt and expect a change. We can't control the trickle of change when other people become involved in the making of a torrent though.

Once I had selected my items I noticed the woman was conducting a transaction at the Post Office counter and the man was close by, not really doing anything except mumbling to himself. When I do that it is soliloquy; when other people do it is incoherent mumbling. 'Scary Monsters', I thought. (It is just an expression; not an impression). Reading the marks where a wooden spoon of activity was stirring the pot of slowly coagulating sauce that was developing into the past, I predicted that he and the young woman would leave together. You know, you have to recognise the past to see a future. I had time to 'while away' so I read the front page of a newspaper. The Government will mandate businesses to tell all employees that being in a union is a good thing. Good Crikeyness! Really? Have they thought this through? Young people, whom some businesses supposedly find unemployable due to their attitude of entitlement, should be told that it is a good idea to discuss the bosses behind their backs, and form a limping team that resembles the one they have had all their school lives and is resistent to external influence. This is a good thing? Of course, I already know that these young people feel alienated when they find themselves in their first job after leaving school or training. Suddenly, they find themselves bereft of a supporting team. No matter how pathetic that team was, it was a position of belonging and a comfortable bubble of confirmation bias. In order for these young newbies to be part of a new team at work, they are going to need to impress their work colleagues of their worth. That, today, is quite difficult when no-one talks in the canteen anymore. Teams are found on SmartPhones these days. 

       'I hate it here. It is dull and boring and stupid and I don't know what to do!'

       'I know, it is the same here. I hate it too. See you later. the boss is looking at me. She wants me to work, Here she comes. Bye'.

It is plainly a good idea to cause young people to think their opinion is valued when they present an attitude of 'Why should I?' towards their work environment. Any union will leap at having someone like this on their team. 'Work to rule' is definitely on the cards and statements such as, 'That is not what it says in the job description!' will be rife. 'All out!'. I predict that the adaptive UK will be crippled. Happy empowered teenagers. That is what we want, don't we?

I don't speak young people 'Lingua-do-do' as Lady Gaga put it, or not. (She did in one YouTube video but 'Genius' doesn't think so). I might as well be Shakespeare to teenagers. Fantastic range of multisyllabic words but it takes deliberate and focused thinking to decipher their meaning, and without a team, I suggest, they shan't attempt it. So, the extremely knowledgeable chap, who lives over the road from me, had to be the only poor opening for wiling. He, though, standing in the cold, close to the Post Office shop, expected to mildly discuss unions with a handful of anecdotes brightening the environment. By this time, the coagulated past in the shop had proven to be no more than a bagatelle that was essential in snapping me into the grid of fate. Now, however, fate's train was drawing into a remote station on a heritage line.

Shaping my argument by using a second party is of course reprehensible but I can be blind to individual sentiment sometimes when the world needs to be saved. It turns out that he is not the conduit that I hoped he might be. To be honest, I didn't even have that hope with any degree of confidence that my words might stick like strands of spaghetti casually flung against the hard wall of his conscience and his concern about the demise of the horse-drawn hansom carriage. I usually cook words on the fly and without having ever read a cookbook. My 'wiling' would inevitably fizzle out in a cul-de-sac of indifference. This chap has been fired in the furnace of experience so many times there can be no expectation that any solvent will release the rigid bonds of his thinking. And, he doesn't speak teenager  'Lingua-do-do' either. But he is not the carrier; I never thought he was.

That conversation with him was stimulating, even if it was a little irritating when he kept trying to drift off into nostalgia and stereotypical views on whippersnappers voting in elections, coal, and gypsies. But I am not one to dismiss a colourful tart of delicious tidbits. Everything he said has some relevance, but like me, he doesn't join all the dots. Lecturing helps but thinking things through and trying to make sense of information or opinion bears far more fruit for a vintner of knowledge. Connoisseur, I may not be, but I do enjoy a good brandy, or distillation of loquaciousness, if you will.

Only I seem to make the connection between teams at schools, voting in elections and union meetings. I can paint futures run by teenagers both good and bad. I feel that in order to understand what we really want, we might have to use a technique that I invented after a whole bunch of people invented it long before I was born.

Imagine painting a scene of what you would like your future to be like. Now imagine painting a picture of what you would not like. What is missing from the first painting?

[ 1909 words - over 2 hours to write and edit - I hate editing so much that I had to leave it and finish with a final re-edit 8 hours later]

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[ 5 minute read ]

Doorstep Deliveries

Those were the Days

Yesterday was the 6th December, Saint Nicklaus Day. ' It is the feast day of Saint Nicholas of Myra; it falls within the season of Advent. It is celebrated as a Christian festival with particular regard to Saint Nicholas' reputation as a bringer of gifts, as well as through the attendance of church services.' 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas_Day

I first heard of it when I was seventeen and working in Bayern (Bavaria, Southern Germany). My girlfriend told me that in her town, children would put their shoes outside and St. Nicholas would put nuts and fruit in them for the children to delightedly find the next morning. I was in Muhldorf am Inn in Winter, where my girlfriend of the time lived and I can understand that anything that cannot stand getting wet from snowfall would not be in the shoes.

Muhldorf am Inn is, on the Inn river; the same one that InnsBruck is on and is one of those German towns that has a traditional Christmas market, with hot mulled wine (Gluhwein) and Lebkuchen for sale. On course, my girlfriend knew everybody and got us free Gluhwein, but not too much.

I am lucky because as a child, with two siblings, we had traditional German-type Christmas with real candles on the tree and fruit and nuts on our own Christmas plates. I have fond memories of those days, and yesterday remembered about St. Nicolas Day with some nostalgia. When I stepped out of my house yesterday, 'Lo and Behold!' My neighbour, Sally, had left another half a dozen eggs on my doorstep. This time though, she had half hidden them behind the planter that I have planted garlic in, on the other side of the path. Hmm! Does she think porch pirates might steal the gift? 

Sally knows I think things through, try to work out what is what and why. She is as sharp as you like and knows that I like puzzles. As I have said before, she might merely be trying to stimulate me, much as animals in a zoo are stimulated by zoo-keepers when they hide food for the animals up trees and things. In any case, I appreciate the gifts very much and the sentiment behind them. It is so fine that there is always a special date on which she makes her deliveries.

Despite being English, born and bred, and able to trace my family history back to the 13th century and Diss in Norfolk, I have a kind of melancholy for the romantic folk songs of Eastern Europe. Though it is not the first time I have come across Romanian folk music, I am a little bit hooked on Storm Large's rendition of 'Până când nu te iubeam' performed with Pink Martini (available on YouTube) and previously recorded by Maria Tănase, I think in the 1940s, though you will find the date as 2000 or 2001, even 2015 online with Spotify, but she died in June 1963.

I can sing a bit and have been trying to learn 'Those were the days' sung by Mary Hopkin, her number 1 hit in 1968, in the 1970 Eurovision song contest. It is a Russian folk tune and I think Mary Hopkin does not really do it justice with her clear English accented voice. But it was 1970, and the height of the Cold War, and Europe might not have appreciated a bear of a man similar to Tevye, the main character in 'Fiddler on the Roof', a 1964 musical, who sang, 'If I was a Rich Man' singing a Russian inspired song at the 1970 Eurovision song contest. Nonetheless, I am inspired by Mary Hopkin's rendition, and it suddenly came into my head a few days ago. Unfortunately, I am really rubbish at remembering song lyrics so it is a considerable effort for me to remember the words. So far, I have half the chorus in my head after a week.

I also like and make marionettes which have a strong following in places like Prague, still in the Czech Republic I hope. I can't help thinking that I have a strong European link from having worked near Munich at a young age. I must have picked up something. It is easy to make these links though. All I have to do is recognise a number of memories and collate them without giving them much thought and Voila! I am suddenly Europeanese. The songs I mentioned and many others like them are the roots to many modern songs, or perhaps more so for songs twenty or thirty years ago; and my love of marionettes is inspired by the ones I saw in the bedroom I shared with two boys in another family for six months when I was ten. Of course, having a German girlfriend at seventeen probably has a strong nostalgic effect on me too.

Sally, next door, is definitely on my Christmas card list but how do I personalise it? I ask myself. Perhaps something substantial might accompany a card. I have a lot of egg boxes that I might be able to dissolve and reform into little nativity characters and angels, I think. We'll see. I am, however, really mindful of inadvertently setting up a forced situation where reciprocal gifts are deemed to be necessary. It has been weird to just accept doorstep gifts from Sally, but I did start it by leaving Sally some tomatoes I grew, on her doorstep. It is a valuable lesson, I am sure, to be able to accept gifts because someone simply wants to give them.

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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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   Gambling

[ 8 minute read ]

I want to play too

This is about how constrained we are by our previous decisions and I use computer games, business and gambling (all highly addictive) as examples to explore opportunity cost, which can be seen as regret or a bar to something else.

When I started my business I did it because I wanted to play in the real world. My choice of computer games at the time had a business bent to them. Not for me, the single person shoot-up or online battles with a team. I was interested in how making decisions allowed greater freedom to make more decisions. In the real world this is a desire to accumulate as much money as possible. In my head that is greed. Greed when considered to be the only source for freedom is formulaic. As such, it might be considered to be a game with software written for it. In simple terms, IF this THEN this OR this. Logic decisions. I deliberately won't expand on that. You decide.

From playing business-type games and finding myself without a job (I quit) I decided to play a business game for real. And, that is exactly how I thought of it until things got serious, which is when I stopped playing and closed the business. The thing is, I was playing against 'players' who really had a vested interest in gathering wealth, and some who just needed to pay the bills. 

In shoot-em-ups, the player is initially given a weapon of some kind or perhaps, in modern games, some attributes or skills that would enable them to make weapons. These are plusses or positives. In business-related games the player initially also starts with an asset, money or a means to make money. The crucial difference between the two types of games (in both there is deadly competition) is that in money-biased games you can have debts. This is an incentive to 'speculate to accumulate'. In other words, you can guess or forecast a better future that will be so great that it pays for past debt. That is how most people go into business in the real world. They borrow money.

In order to borrow money from a bank you need a Business Plan which includes a revenue and profit forecast. I think there is always something missing from these Business Plans though, but the question can never be framed adequately: Is it a game to you? The upshot of this is in an underlying question: How constrained are you to sticking to a formula or can you afford to experiment and innovate? In a game, which should not affect real life (We will come to gambling), the player can pause and consider, quit, or make wild choices. After I have played a computer game many times I try wild choices to see what happens and it is then that I discover the constraints of the software. In real life, if a business owner has borrowed money, they cannot pause or quit without significant penalties that affect the rest of their lives in the real world (Opportunity Cost).

It seems then that someone who started playing a business 'game' for real has a significant advantage over someone who relies on their business to survive and is not playing 'the game'. I started my business from having experience in logistics (you can buy that but the cost is measured as opportunity cost). I used my own money which meant there were no stakeholders other than me. In business, the customers are stakeholders too but my customers were all ephemeral; the chances of them returning were practically nil, though it did happen. I could do as I liked including pause or quit. Against someone with debt I was the one who could afford to innovate. The key here is in understanding the constraints that someone in debt places on themselves. To me, making a mistake meant I learnt something; to someone in debt it means incurring a financial penalty that could cost them their home. 

I think this is why my marketing attitude to giving advice to my local shop-keepers is not taken seriously. They are way too far invested in their business activities to consider deviating from a stasis of do-nothingness or 'I have an idea how a shop works because I have been in shops so I will continue to run my shop as I have seen other shops being run' syndrome. To me, that is running a business using only peripheral knowledge. People too often do this with their lives.

'Game designer Will Wright was inspired to create a "virtual doll house" after losing his home during the Oakland firestorm of 1991 and subsequently rebuilding his life. Replacing his home and his other possessions made him think about adapting that life experience into a game.' 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sims

I seem to remember The Sims game with only six motives for the little dolls but it looks like there were also eight: Hunger, Hygiene, Energy, Social, Comfort, Bladder, Fun, Room.

I never cared to find out about the creator or how the game was derived. I did however, go through a tough time and thought if I stick to fulfilling the same motives 'The Sims' dolls have then I should be okay. I still consider today whether I would be happier with a more comfortable chair or more friends.

In real life, if I have financial debt or am close to, or in, poverty I cannot speculate to accumulate. If my motivation to work is low it might be because I need better furniture or more friends or a better diet. However, if I skimp  on food this month in order to pay for dance lessons will the extra sociability and exercise pay dividends that exhibit in greater freedom by creating a larger financial revenue? Not directly from being able to dance, but again we are looking at 'opportunity costs'. 

Someone who relies on their daily business revenue to pay them a wage MUST work tomorrow. The opportunity for them to do something else is not available to them. So, doing their business has an opportunity cost as well as financial costs.

If I go to dance lessons I cannot do something else instead but my motivation in the wider field of my life might be enhanced and ultimately I might be able to afford a new armchair after all. Greater sociability and fitness can result in greater resilience and, importantly, a wider scope of opportunities. 

Gambling

Essentially, I am talking about gambling. The types of games I mentioned, 'shoot-em-ups' and 'money-related', or any competitive computer game, have an element of risk associated with them. They have to; it is what gives us a dopamine hit - anticipation and reward. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter and hormone that triggers the 'pleasure' part of the brain. It reinforces behaviour, even if the behaviour is ultimately destructive. Simple gambling is deliberately incurring a loss that may result in a greater gain. Getting a loan for a business is direct gambling. Not eating as well as last week so I can go dancing is not gambling. Not eating at all for a week is gambling. So what is the difference? There is a presumption in the eating and dancing example because the premise has a time constraint of one week that more food is available or could be available after one week. If we don't eat for a whole week we are gambling that we will make correct decisions in a week's time based on a premise that food will be available and health will be restored. A gambler in a booking shop does the same with money. Perhaps the rent did not get paid for a week and the intent is to pay two weeks rent in one weeks time, which might turn out fine if food is still available in one weeks time. If not, the gambler needs to gamble again. The dancer on the other hand, has sacrificed a weeks good diet for a dopamine hit that may pay later dividends without incurring any more costs, or may not. However, exercise is guaranteed even if sociability is not when we dance.

Guarantees

We are looking for guarantees, right? Walk to the shops guarantees exercise and driving there guarantees incurring a financial cost. Many of us opt for the both the financial cost and a health cost. Why? Because we would rather do something else with our time. But what? In 'The Sims' we might need to empty our bladders, or relax, or continue to socialise at home, or sleep; but in the real world are we actually believing that we are Sims? Are we inadvertently playing a game but we are in someone else's game as Non-Playable Characters (NPC) in everyone else's game, but we are still afforded limited autonomy but not outside of the algorithms for health? 

Hunger

Hygiene

Energy

Social

Comfort

Bladder

Fun

Room

(The Sims)

This is why we must not be constrained by decisions we thought we had no choice to make. Crudely, in my mind, this comes down to whether we are playing or not.

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[ 5 minute read ]

Fey, Feeling and Funked

I have always been fey, though not especially knowing. Others have spoken of glimpsing something from the corner of their eye; a movement or a shadow. If I am tired and have not slept for days I see that too. I see shade that languidly spills from an armchair but never directly; the lights are far too bright for that. On occasion, I feel a cold fingertip on my neck or a 'spider' that runs across the stubble on the top of my head. These are the fringes of observance when you are close to the veil.

My Chilean girlfriend of long ago used to say, ‘Bettre’ instead of ‘Better', as in ‘That is bettre than that.’ I let her word slip through my lips sometimes, and sometimes wonder if she can hear me, feel me, know I am near; not in her space but in her void. Perhaps she has been somewhere and left a trace which I feel, like our hands have momentarily almost touched and a breeze, for a moment, melds the thinness of our essence together, though only near our hands. I try not to say ‘bettre’ too much in case I disturb her, just as I only look at photographs of my family with one eye. I am not a holder of the past and I have no intent to keep people from their present. With binocular vision we are hunters and our focus is seen in the animal and spirit world, However, I have seen many monsters with only a single eye remaining. I know they are monsters, but I am certain they do not.

Sometimes, I let creatures too near and I have to live my hour by the skin of my teeth. But it is never only an hour because the clock started ticking a long time ago. If I could draw I would draw a hill and a picnic table on top. That is where I would draw the people I know, because that is where the people I know think they are. They are not there. They are near a sea of torrent, of relentless waves trying to reach for them; greedy and cruel. It is not water and it is not wet. It is suffocating and it is cloying and sticky. Sometimes, I see people drenched in dry smoke that is neither the air or the sea. There is never a cleanness when I see them. I never smell flowers that shouldn’t be there, like I do when my hand almost touches the hand of my now gone Chilean girlfriend. 

The shade that was near the door has gone now and only shivers cross my body. They start on my back and ripple down to my legs, like throwing a stone into still waters. They are not cold and I know they are not to warn me of heavy danger. There is only something near-by and, though keenly watching, it is only trying to move its hands past my own. I wonder then, if I had a secret word that some woman I loved, and was loved in return, knows about and she is silently but loudly speaking. We are not practiced at love or how to show it, she and I.

It is late and the ogre who diurnally stumbles near me has slipped into sleep and his presence looms near, asking who I am in confused and never comprehending stupor. Hakim, my spirit avatar, nods invisibly to me to signify that I am correct; the troll is around. He moves from room to room, short-sightedly peering at my things and Hakim follows to make sure he leaves no spiritual trip-hazards. Hakim against this lumbering fool is no match; their aspects do not match. Hakim’s experience and sensibility is clearly defined and closely controlled, while the tendrils of despair and gloom that break from the miasma of complex endings of everything attempted, that is the ogre, dissipate, but not before they choke the tiny creatures that try to take a breath. The ogre never coalesces enough to be grasped in any world. Lost and fumbling, there is only a question of why, about itself; why is…?

The air heavy with its passing, still has within it inquisitiveness that squints past the acrid swipe of its passing across stinging eyes. We are all impatient but we know we are wasting our time. This is not anything that can reason; it has no background and no support; it is riven from anoesis that is, in fact, only dried and discarded slim succour. As such, it is separate and has no knowledge of from whence it came. It sees and then forgets, but it is disturbing. It is a reflection, a poor facsimile of a living entity who is disturbed. Hakim offered me a piece of paper with angry scribbling on it, such as someone might randomly cause a pen to make a mark on with no attempt to make a shape or a word, and I agree; it is so. 

Because I am mindful of its spiritual pollution I cannot feel anything else. I know that Harrari, the abandoned alien, would reprimand me now. It is I who is the cause of my imperception, I have a headache. She is right. I made the headache myself.

I can’t hear ‘bettre’ now and I cannot feel or smell a mellifluous breeze as our hands nearly touch. But she was never my love; it is someone else who makes my tears come now. I mostly hide her. I see her face and I call, but never her name. I quietly call but I don’t know her secret word. Sometimes, I fancy I hear her voice. Once, I think she waved. Hakim tells me not to form her image or her likes to surround her, because we, in life, were so close, but I couldn’t help it just then.

I am fey, feeling, and funked.

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[ 1 minute read ]

Tick

One of the people in my village is a woman who helps me tick. I think, because I know which road she lives in, she is comfortable. She always allows me to throw my thoughts and ideas at her; 'Blah'. 

I spent, though this is not the right word, over an hour verbally twisting her ear this morning. I don't think she minded because she is cool. She is cooler than I have ever imagined I might one day be. 

I have a collection of people in my head who make me feel safe. They are ordinary people who believe in themselves and their community.

I live in a village environment wherein we sometimes come across one another. We regard protesters across the world stopping traffic, disrupting sports events, and defacing Stonehenge, to be as dangerous as any sociopaths who force teamwork, and contrary to a steady and free life. Some institutes and other establishments also create forced-teams. I was lucky because I had an education with some of my teachers wearing black capes. Think Pink Floyd's 'The Wall' song, in which there is an overdub(?) 'Stand still laddie!' and 'How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?'

Since I wrote this, everybody in the village has phoned me and politely told me stop to speaking for them!