These are the pieces
of a figurative jigsaw, which I intend to assemble to make a coherent
‘vista’ of some of our perceptions, and interpretations of the
world around us; our own tiny spheres of existence.
Do you prefer a
package holiday or to just arrive in a country and ‘wing it’?
The young,
school-age, uneducated tyro of holiday-taking might start by camping
with friends in a local farmer’s field. Ooooh! It’s thrilling,
because it breaks out of a long existence of rigid schooling and
parenting – sit still, be quiet, and LEARN! Then, at home, do your
homework, eat your evening meal, go to bed, above all, DON’T ARGUE!
As a whole, this is searing into us a template of finite planning.
There is a time for sleeping; a time for schooling; a time for
homework; a time for play; a time for work/chores; and a time to be
bored. Bored? Yes, this is an unplanned time with nothing in it that
would serve to either improve our lives or entertain us
(entertainment is one of our needs). Yes, you are right to use
Sigmund Freud’s phrase; I am talking about training to be ‘Anal
Retentive’ – Everything in order, ‘ship-shape and
Bristol-fashion’ as they used to say. By Jove! Splendid!
What do you think
would happen if we, God-like, lifted this person, as a young adult
with no money, and placed them into a community abroad in which this
person could not speak the local language, and the food eaten there
was not the same as the culinary fare of this person’s home
country?
I can tell you what
happened to me as someone who, quite the opposite to being ‘anal
retentive’, is ‘anal compulsive’. As, such, I take risks; I
have a low uncertainty avoidance personality. If you are not
understanding this, you might consider how a rhinoceros defecates by
spinning its tail to scatter its faeces in all directions; it is not
waiting for a nice bush to appear to hide behind, to secretly ‘do
it’s business’. I don’t need order, and 'disorder' is neatly wrapped and placed in my
toy-box. It is my most familiar and cherished toy, from which, as a hobby, I create skeletal edifices of achievement by surviving in harsh environments –
tides and inclement weather included). On this neon scaffolding, I build features and proud architecture with imagined feats of accomplishment. I am not good at surviving, just lucky and imaginative.
My upbringing was
not rigid, except for my schooling.
In attempting to
hitch-hike from England to Athens, Greece, during winter, I found
myself sitting by a motorway sliproad one mile south of the Austria /
Slovenia border, during a four-day national holiday. There were no
cars moving anywhere. Previously, I had noticed that the temperature
in France was minus 100C. It was the same in Maribor, the
nearest city to where I was. I had nothing to lie on and only the
clothes I was in, a sleeping-bag and no shelter. I tried to make a
fire by plucking twigs out of the snow and drying them next to my
skin to set light to, later. The twigs were too green. For two days I
looked up and down the motorway – no cars. I watched airliners fly
south across a perfect blue sky, and thought how warm the passengers
were, and how surprised and delighted they will be when they feel the
heat of the southern climes in the lower latitudes. Still sitting on
the snow, I put my head between my knees and wept. For the rest of
the day, I looked for cars, put my head between my knees and wept. It
had taken me eight days to get there, and I had only about four
English pounds (GBP) of local currency, and no food. I looked
at the airliners overhead and the vapour trails, and I keened, I
sobbed, and I wept.
Eventually, I spoke
aloud to myself (soliloquy) and told myself that I would die there unless I
did something to save myself. ‘This is the end, except for my
capability to survive in harsh conditions’. Bravery, confidence,
and a desire for adventure had gotten me there; foolishness, a building feeling of learned helplessness,
and the tendrils of conformity had viciously seized me, and stopped
me there.
With no-one to give
me advice, I used my own judgement. At the time, I spoke Bayerisch, a
dialect of Bavaria, in the south of Germany; but not Slovenian, and I
was midway between England and Greece. I also did not speak Greek, so
arriving there in an exhausted state with culture shock and drained
emotions was probably not a good idea. In any case, we all want to
run home when we fear death and suffering. Empiricism, or experience
of the local conditions, and the pace of travelling long distances by
hitch-hiking, was the only advice I had. By using self-elicitation, I
spoke aloud of the plan I would use. There wasn’t anyone around to
hear me! The practice of abiding by rules as an heuristic for safe
conduct would simply not save me; with no food or shelter, I was
about to slip into hypothermia. Years later, I had hypothermia in
Amiens, in France. Total confusion; I lightened my rucksack by
throwing away pens and pencils and kept books and wet boots. I was trying to hitch-hike the wrong way. I had to be told by a Frenchman that stopped and told me so. If I had
gotten hypothermia in Slovenia, during their lengthy national holiday,
I would have died. No-one would have found me in time.
Austria was known
for having the worst prisons in Europe. I crossed back into Austria
and boarded a train with no ticket. To me, Austrians seemed to have a
High Uncertainty Avoidance approach
to life – certainly the passengers were shocked when, in Bayerisch,
I told the ticket-collector I had no ticket. They audibly gasped. And
again, when I said I had no money; this time louder. Their 'gemutlichkeit' or comfortableness was shattered. Obviously, my
Bayerisch was not local to the region, and I was thrown off the train, rather than arrested.
I was shown some mercy. A rigid thinker might attempt to board the next train. I knew,
however, that the trains have radios and telephones, and because I was thrown off at
a very remote station I would be instantly identified as the bearded
man with a rucksack. I back-tracked down the track away from England
to the next station and deliberately missed the next train. I
fare-dodged the following train all the way across Austria to Salzburg. The train
waiting there was a German train heading
for Munich; and here is the
difference between low
uncertainty avoidance and high uncertainty avoidance as it manifests
in people. Many of us believe the Germans are rigid in applying rules
and policies. This is not so true in the south, (Bavaria).
Obviously, now my Bayerisch language, being THE local language, would endear me a little to the
natives, more so than to the Austrians. The ticket-collecter came. ‘I
have no ticket.’ He gave me a price for Munchen (Munich). ‘I have
no money. I lost it in Greece.’ Interestingly, the other passengers
were not offended; no gasps. The ticket-collector took me to first
class and told me to get off at Munchen. At Munich, I got off and tried to sneak away, and
then I felt a hand on my shoulder. In Germany, the railway police are
armed. Oh no! It's was OK, it was the
ticket-collector. He said to
me, in English, ‘Englishman, I wish I had your bravery and could
lie as well as you!’
Back
(home) in Germany, I was fairly safe; I knew the attitudes, the lives
and schedules from having worked there when I was seventeen. I rested by sleeping above the railway police office (builders had made a hole in an upper wall in the entrance hall and had left a tower scaffold there, which I climbed) while my new 'friends' travelling in different directions were thrown off the platforms every night, by the railway police. We traded our clothes with each other - hot weather clothes for cold weather clothes for those of us going north and vice-versa.
Easy
hitch-hiking and speaking German got me money and long rides. Only at
Calais were there problems. I was a few Euros short for a
foot-passenger ticket for the ferry to England. I asked in French for
Euros from groups of people arriving. Every one of the English people
shunned me. They didn’t speak French. Eventually, I saw a young
French woman and asked her, in French, for a couple of Euros. She told me, in
English, that she was taking a car to England, and gave me a lift onto
the ferry, and then to Bedford, where she was going. She took a far
greater risk than the English people did, who had only contempt for
me, because they didn’t speak French.
My
school education did not include using teamwork to solve problems. I
was taught to be responsible for my own actions and there was never a
shared culpability for failure. I struggled to understand why teams
are important; we were trained to be independent achievers. Yet, the businessman in Stuttgart, who gave me all the
money that he had in his pocket (€120); and the young
French woman who gave me a
lift across the English Channel were in my team.
Eventually,
with persistent attempts,
there would have been alternative routes to returning to my home in England, but three days from Slovenia to
England by hitch-hiking is a good ride.
An aside: This
doesn’t beat a single ride from Athens to Peterborough three months
later; when I had to take my turn driving an articulated
lorry, in Germany,
at night, carrying
thirty tons of wool. I didn’t even have a driving licence and
had very poor uncorrected vision. The
tachograph (record of the vehicles movement) later revealed eighty
miles an hour when going down the hills and fifteen miles an hour
going up the hills.
Lows and Highs
Low Uncertainty Avoidance
People act first and then get information
Comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty
They work hard to miminise rules and laws that infringe on people's diverse perspectives
High Uncertainty Avoidance
Require rigid codes of behaviour and beliefs
Intolerant of unorthodox behaviour and ideas
Appreciate explicit instructions
Rely on procedures and policies to reduce the chance of things getting out of control
But, what does this mean?
Fear; nervousness; panic; soliloquy; tendrils; capability; judgement; questions; advice; teamwork; needs and wants; consistency; disorder; self-elicitation; experiment; empiricism; heuristics; practice; bravery; adventure; holiday; confidence; environment; teams; externalise; conformity
These are the pieces of a figurative jigsaw, which I intend to assemble to make a coherent ‘vista’ of some of our perceptions, and interpretations of the world around us; our own tiny spheres of existence.
Do you prefer a package holiday or to just arrive in a country and ‘wing it’?
The young, school-age, uneducated tyro of holiday-taking might start by camping with friends in a local farmer’s field. Ooooh! It’s thrilling, because it breaks out of a long existence of rigid schooling and parenting – sit still, be quiet, and LEARN! Then, at home, do your homework, eat your evening meal, go to bed, above all, DON’T ARGUE! As a whole, this is searing into us a template of finite planning. There is a time for sleeping; a time for schooling; a time for homework; a time for play; a time for work/chores; and a time to be bored. Bored? Yes, this is an unplanned time with nothing in it that would serve to either improve our lives or entertain us (entertainment is one of our needs). Yes, you are right to use Sigmund Freud’s phrase; I am talking about training to be ‘Anal Retentive’ – Everything in order, ‘ship-shape and Bristol-fashion’ as they used to say. By Jove! Splendid!
What do you think would happen if we, God-like, lifted this person, as a young adult with no money, and placed them into a community abroad in which this person could not speak the local language, and the food eaten there was not the same as the culinary fare of this person’s home country?
I can tell you what happened to me as someone who, quite the opposite to being ‘anal retentive’, is ‘anal compulsive’. As, such, I take risks; I have a low uncertainty avoidance personality. If you are not understanding this, you might consider how a rhinoceros defecates by spinning its tail to scatter its faeces in all directions; it is not waiting for a nice bush to appear to hide behind, to secretly ‘do it’s business’. I don’t need order, and 'disorder' is neatly wrapped and placed in my toy-box. It is my most familiar and cherished toy, from which, as a hobby, I create skeletal edifices of achievement by surviving in harsh environments – tides and inclement weather included). On this neon scaffolding, I build features and proud architecture with imagined feats of accomplishment. I am not good at surviving, just lucky and imaginative.
My upbringing was not rigid, except for my schooling.
In attempting to hitch-hike from England to Athens, Greece, during winter, I found myself sitting by a motorway sliproad one mile south of the Austria / Slovenia border, during a four-day national holiday. There were no cars moving anywhere. Previously, I had noticed that the temperature in France was minus 100C. It was the same in Maribor, the nearest city to where I was. I had nothing to lie on and only the clothes I was in, a sleeping-bag and no shelter. I tried to make a fire by plucking twigs out of the snow and drying them next to my skin to set light to, later. The twigs were too green. For two days I looked up and down the motorway – no cars. I watched airliners fly south across a perfect blue sky, and thought how warm the passengers were, and how surprised and delighted they will be when they feel the heat of the southern climes in the lower latitudes. Still sitting on the snow, I put my head between my knees and wept. For the rest of the day, I looked for cars, put my head between my knees and wept. It had taken me eight days to get there, and I had only about four English pounds (GBP) of local currency, and no food. I looked at the airliners overhead and the vapour trails, and I keened, I sobbed, and I wept.
Eventually, I spoke aloud to myself (soliloquy) and told myself that I would die there unless I did something to save myself. ‘This is the end, except for my capability to survive in harsh conditions’. Bravery, confidence, and a desire for adventure had gotten me there; foolishness, a building feeling of learned helplessness, and the tendrils of conformity had viciously seized me, and stopped me there.
With no-one to give me advice, I used my own judgement. At the time, I spoke Bayerisch, a dialect of Bavaria, in the south of Germany; but not Slovenian, and I was midway between England and Greece. I also did not speak Greek, so arriving there in an exhausted state with culture shock and drained emotions was probably not a good idea. In any case, we all want to run home when we fear death and suffering. Empiricism, or experience of the local conditions, and the pace of travelling long distances by hitch-hiking, was the only advice I had. By using self-elicitation, I spoke aloud of the plan I would use. There wasn’t anyone around to hear me! The practice of abiding by rules as an heuristic for safe conduct would simply not save me; with no food or shelter, I was about to slip into hypothermia. Years later, I had hypothermia in Amiens, in France. Total confusion; I lightened my rucksack by throwing away pens and pencils and kept books and wet boots. I was trying to hitch-hike the wrong way. I had to be told by a Frenchman that stopped and told me so. If I had gotten hypothermia in Slovenia, during their lengthy national holiday, I would have died. No-one would have found me in time.
Austria was known for having the worst prisons in Europe. I crossed back into Austria and boarded a train with no ticket. To me, Austrians seemed to have a High Uncertainty Avoidance approach to life – certainly the passengers were shocked when, in Bayerisch, I told the ticket-collector I had no ticket. They audibly gasped. And again, when I said I had no money; this time louder. Their 'gemutlichkeit' or comfortableness was shattered. Obviously, my Bayerisch was not local to the region, and I was thrown off the train, rather than arrested. I was shown some mercy. A rigid thinker might attempt to board the next train. I knew, however, that the trains have radios and telephones, and because I was thrown off at a very remote station I would be instantly identified as the bearded man with a rucksack. I back-tracked down the track away from England to the next station and deliberately missed the next train. I fare-dodged the following train all the way across Austria to Salzburg. The train waiting there was a German train heading for Munich; and here is the difference between low uncertainty avoidance and high uncertainty avoidance as it manifests in people. Many of us believe the Germans are rigid in applying rules and policies. This is not so true in the south, (Bavaria). Obviously, now my Bayerisch language, being THE local language, would endear me a little to the natives, more so than to the Austrians. The ticket-collecter came. ‘I have no ticket.’ He gave me a price for Munchen (Munich). ‘I have no money. I lost it in Greece.’ Interestingly, the other passengers were not offended; no gasps. The ticket-collector took me to first class and told me to get off at Munchen. At Munich, I got off and tried to sneak away, and then I felt a hand on my shoulder. In Germany, the railway police are armed. Oh no! It's was OK, it was the ticket-collector. He said to me, in English, ‘Englishman, I wish I had your bravery and could lie as well as you!’
Back (home) in Germany, I was fairly safe; I knew the attitudes, the lives and schedules from having worked there when I was seventeen. I rested by sleeping above the railway police office (builders had made a hole in an upper wall in the entrance hall and had left a tower scaffold there, which I climbed) while my new 'friends' travelling in different directions were thrown off the platforms every night, by the railway police. We traded our clothes with each other - hot weather clothes for cold weather clothes for those of us going north and vice-versa.
Easy hitch-hiking and speaking German got me money and long rides. Only at Calais were there problems. I was a few Euros short for a foot-passenger ticket for the ferry to England. I asked in French for Euros from groups of people arriving. Every one of the English people shunned me. They didn’t speak French. Eventually, I saw a young French woman and asked her, in French, for a couple of Euros. She told me, in English, that she was taking a car to England, and gave me a lift onto the ferry, and then to Bedford, where she was going. She took a far greater risk than the English people did, who had only contempt for me, because they didn’t speak French.
My school education did not include using teamwork to solve problems. I was taught to be responsible for my own actions and there was never a shared culpability for failure. I struggled to understand why teams are important; we were trained to be independent achievers. Yet, the businessman in Stuttgart, who gave me all the money that he had in his pocket (€120); and the young French woman who gave me a lift across the English Channel were in my team.
Eventually, with persistent attempts, there would have been alternative routes to returning to my home in England, but three days from Slovenia to England by hitch-hiking is a good ride.
An aside: This doesn’t beat a single ride from Athens to Peterborough three months later; when I had to take my turn driving an articulated lorry, in Germany, at night, carrying thirty tons of wool. I didn’t even have a driving licence and had very poor uncorrected vision. The tachograph (record of the vehicles movement) later revealed eighty miles an hour when going down the hills and fifteen miles an hour going up the hills.