Awareness, hazards and leopards

so, my first blog written on my new phone. as usual, i am writing from the seat of an aeroplane, high up over the channel. i can't say i like the keys very much but it still is much preferable to the discomfort of pen and paper which to this day seems like a trial to burden my poor fingers and hinder the flow of ideas from my head to the page.

My sterile sandwich is eaten, its wrapper all that remains of the neatest and least appealing package of nourishment I could imagine (except perhaps a fly proffered in spider silk). A perfectly groomed orange-faced man pours me ghastly coffee which i attempt to make palatable with copious amounts of sugar and "cream" that could never have seen the inside of an udder. I have a sudden overwhelming urge for a home-made baguette filled with turkey, stuffing and mayonnaise and briefly wonder where these cravings originate before turning my gaze out of the window.

I see now a landscape of fields cities and roads. Some roads are big and though i cannot see them, i know there are cars tearing along them at speeds which make our reaction times seem ponderously slow and which can suddenly become very aparent when the illusion of control is shattered by an unexpected motoring hazard.

It is a tamed landscape where one could wander thoughtful, distracted and absorbed completely in one's inner world without the slightest need for any kind of vigilance.

Recently, I was cycling to work along some very small, remote and winding roads when I noticed that on every bend there were skidmarks. This implies to me the kind of indifference to hazard I previously mentioned above. Obviously, a significant number of drivers are often surprised to discover another vehicle coming the other way and are forced to brake from what appears to have been an inappropriate speed to avoid an unexpected collision. This, along with such foolishness as texting whilst negotiating a busy intersection (and going straight through red lights as I have seen often), offers us examples of life-threatening stupidity which are remarkably common and only go unpunished because fate is mostly kind to us despite ourselves. It strikes me again and again just how poor the standard-issue imagination is regarding potential dangers.

Throughout most of human history, far greater vigilance was required if one's safety was valued. A walk in the woods would have been a very bad idea indeed and to be avoided at all costs. Bears, wolves, leopards and unfriendly fellow humans might be encountered at any turn of whatever rudimentary paths one followed.

Daydreaming or not paying attention to the environment could see you become lunch or merely dead. Wandering down the road in a complete daze of ignorance was not an option for the wary who wished to survive the attentions of predators both animal and human. For almost all of our species' existence, such forces of predation have pruned humanity mercilessly, punishing stupidity and complacency by removing the stupid and complacent from the population. Until now.

And so this leads me to wonder if people were by necessity more vigilant, even perhaps more intelligent, when life was more risky.

There is no doubt that careering round a blind bend at a speed where you could not stop were you to meet someone similarly reckless coming the other way, is pretty stupid and one can only get away with such stupidity in a world made artificially safe by our own human regulation and invention. In the past, surely equivalent stupidity must have been rewarded by an early death, or at least injury sufficient to remove one from the gene pool?

When not paying attention and stumbling about haphazardly could mean an untimely end on the horns of an angry buffalo, were people more aware in general?

It just seems to me that it is very easy to live, in the West in the 21st century. It can be achieved safely and effortlessly by even the most gormless of individuals. If one so wishes, they can lie on the sofa and eat ice cream all day, ordered from the internet and delivered to the door by the perky little man from Sainsbury's. No hunting, gathering or personal risk is involved apart from getting a job of some kind. The wages of the lowest paid worker would here cover the needs of mere existence, at an extreme. Fecklessness abounds and nobody gets eaten or stomped as a result.

But throughout history life was hard and hazardous, and usually quite short. If the leopards didnt fall on your puny and defenceless frame as you struggled back to your cave bearing the odd antelope, or more likely, handful of berries, then cholera, parasites or bands of marauding warriors from the other tribes possibly awaited with malice in mind. Best keep your eyes peeled if you want to survive!

But now, we don't have to fear any of those in general. Life is grindingly safe and people are largely docile.....

i suppose, once, humans were as jumpy and cautious as deer in the woods, and probably with good reason. Most animals in the wild are seemingly permanently hungry, permanently scared and often, ready to mate at a moment's notice lest opportunity be curtailed violently. It paid to start at every rustle or to avoid walking under trees that looked as if they had something large, spotty and cat shaped , even if it was actually nothing.

Was life sharper though? Did it provide a more authentic set of experiences, born of the acceptance of the possibility of sudden, imminent death?

It seems perhaps a strange question. If you live on the edge of existence, constantly aware it may end at any moment, does it have a more vivid texture, as opposed the insulated, sometimes bovine, existence of today?

Possibly this is a quaint romantic notion born of the ignorance of how wretched living in constant fear and vigilance can be. But could there be an acceptance that just being alive is inherently a Good Thing without the intrusions of seemingly daft existential questions about 'why are we here?'

Well. I will enjoy the security that 21st century civilised living supplies but i will attempt to remain vigilant. There aren’t any bears in Gloucestershire but one never knows when vigilance might pay off and perhaps I will stop living in my head so much and see a bit more of what is around me

the waxing and waning of passions

Humans always seem to need to do stuff. Most people have activities they would prefer to be doing above all others, Throughout my life, I have had many such passtimes.
From 7 to 12, I just wanted to collect fossils, rocks, minerals. I found the idea of stumbling across specimens to be exciting beyond anything else I could conceive of.
At 12 I got into electronics. The principles of circuits I found unbelievably alluring and wanted to do nothing else for a couple of years but sit in my room making gadgets that did various cool things.
Puberty kicked in and there was a girl who similarly held my focus for a few years. The another. And eventually a long term one.
At 17 I had been practising karate for about 4 years and it really took hold of me. I loved the feeling of control over my limbs (at last!) and the nimbleness that the movements brought me. But then I discovered music when I was 18 and a student.
The next 8 years or so, I went busking, I played in some rubbish bands and I wanted to do nothing else but (oddly) play the banjo. It was all consuming and its presence in the corner of the room was irresistable. I could not help but pick it up and play it whenever I saw it.
Then there were the children and I was rather too tired for the next ten years to do anything much.
The banjo sits there unnoticed and I cannot remember now the attraction. It has no appeal whatsoever. From being an all consuming drive, music has faded to a complete indifference.
As with all my former passions, I remember that I was consumed with fervour that help my attention for much of my waking hours, but now, it has gone.

About ten years ago, it became words. The clamour in my head found voice through textual expression. No longer hampered by my inability to use a pen, I as free to clear out the noise and commit it to a page. It helped immensely. It became a passion.
And now, it appears as with all the other passions, it has passed. I no longer feel the need for expression. My words are useful certainly, for when I need to write a letter to school or an email explaining a particularly awkward situation to a customer. But I no longer need or even want to write anything. It has, like all the other passion, seemingly just gone away.
I can still bash out a tune on a guitar, throw a fearsome kick, build a circuit if I need to. I can still identify a brachiopod. But I don't feel the urge to indulge any of these things. The way, i no longer want to sit at a a keyboard or notebook to feel the flow of the words.
And neither has another passion displaced it. I can't say I really feel enamoured of any particular activity currently on offer to me. I like to dance, I like to get out in the sea on my kayak, but they are not passions per se. they don't move me the way the others did. They are just punctuation in an otherwise straightforward life.

capricious, isnt it, the human spirit?

A Craving

I remember the wave, like so many waves, real or metaphorical.
The sea is calm and the surface serene, like clean sheets on a bed. I take myself to the point where it feels that I should be, where the water is deep enough to be dangerous but currents are only hinted at below the surface.

Small ripples apear from out at sea but as yet, they are just echoes of something to come. I play with the wave, dipping my paddle in to turn me and spin the boat to an exact position. I am in perfect control as i stroke the water and in return, the water rocks me and lets me know i could, if i so chose, go with this wave, but with a deft flick of my wrist, i hold back and tease the wave that I can resist its force.

Each new wave, part of a set, comes in from the sea and each is bigger until at last I feel the time is right. This wave is the one: It is lifting me and i feel its power moving me towards the shore and I have reached a point where I have to go with it. It compels me to move in unison with its energy and I give in and feel the power of it lifting me and throwing me forward irresistably. My skin tingles and my scalp is electric as I am joined to this massive thing. The movement becomes unstoppable and my whole soul sings. i am immersed in absolute pleasure with every nerve ending singing and light in my head, like I am falling through space and time with the Universe standing still for a moment that seems to last a lifetime. Inside my mind and body, I am on fire and all attempts to control it are now abandoned as I just give in to the experience, just me on a kayak, and the wave that I am now caught up intimately with. It goes on and on and I fly fast with the sounds issuing forth from me unbidden. I feel it will never end!
But the wave abates, as is its nature, losing its power suddenly but still with enough energy to move me onwards, now slowly and calmly.

Breathless, I drift on to the sand and roll off the boat. I lie, spent, with the small ripples, remnants of waves, lapping at my tingling feet. My hands flat on the sand feel it as if it has never been felt before. The hills are startlingly green to the eye and the sky a blue of such crystal clear intensity that I really cannot understand why I have never seen it this way before.
And all is good with the world in that place, at that moment.

Moments of clarity

I live my life in a haze of confusion. Should I do this, is that a better option? Rarely is there a clear decision to be made on unequivocal facts requiring no interpretation. I dither, i prevaricate, I agonise, and I make choices. Most of the time the choice is abdication; The Status Quo.
Occasionally, I determine to make a change and act upon the result of some evaluation, rational (rarely) or intuitive (usually). Sometimes I am right, often I am wrong. It seems arbitrary given the iteratively revelatory nature of knowledge and information. I make my choice, new data appears. It confirms or disproves the correctness of my course of action.

Sometimes, due to my mental standpoint, a sense of absolute clarity appears. All uncertainly falls away and I KNOW deeply and profoundly the Right Way to go. At that singular moment, doubt becomes irrelevant or absent and certainty suddenly fills my consciousness. It is as if a tunnel has opened up between me and my goal through all the thrashing, distracting contradictions and I can SEE exactly what I need to do.

What a shame then it is to discover the illusory nature of such revelations. How disappointing to find that when I have had one of these moments, it has usually subsequently turned out to be an ill-advised course of action. Clarity was a misleading illusion produced somehow by a limited perspective and created by a combination of THAT moment and my particular, specific internal circumstances.
Intuition has its value, but we need to know exactly when to trust it and when to ignore its persuasive urging.

Most decisions which we make seem mostly at the mercy of luck. The cold, unfeeling Universe has no plan for us and no clear Way we should follow for enlightenment and happiness.

You pays your money and you takes your choice.

Give us this day, our daily bread

Once, work was necessary or starvation was the result. People lived in small family groups in natural surroundings where all that they required to survive had to be obtained from their environment. To subsist, they went out and gathered food from the wild and men (most likely) huddled behind trees with sharp sticks for days awaiting antelope or deer. If you didn’t make the effort, there was no food. The incentive to get up and not lie around in a pile of leaves all day, was the imperative to eat and the desire to stay alive and not to starve.

Then came civilization and organized labour. Still peasants had to work in order to eat and feed their families. But overlords and aristocrats demanded a share of the results of their toil. Obligation, whips and force backed up their claims to whatever portion they deemed their right. These were not good times for humanity and such systems still exist.

For a while, there was an age, in which I am proud to have worked, where toil involved more intellectual and cerebral tasks. In this, force would have been counterproductive. One cannot do a job that involves thinking constructively or creatively under duress; Customers cannot be infected with enthusiasm for products and services by those who are resentful and angry. Some management styles were enlightened enough to realise this and to therefore make the working environment and attitude towards those performing these jobs as pleasant and benevolent as could realistically be provided. It worked well. Happy people do better work and are more productive than unhappy people. The effectiveness of this approach was apparent in the extra effort that people put in and the results that therefore ensued.

Then came the focus on shareholder value and “bottom line”. Whereas some have to work where pain, discomfort and fear break their spirit and hard, physical work breaks their bodies, now there are different whips. Shoulders may wear out due to heavy lifting for decades and arthritis riddle overburdened knees. But now, other pressures degrade our physical wellbeing.

Bullying, oppressive regimes squeeze out “cost”. Cost usually means colleagues who provided necessary functions that were essential. Resourceful people initially find solutions for the gaps, at some cost to their own performance and well-being. And all continues to more-or-less function.

Seeing that it “all still works”, more cost is removed and it starts to creak. The indifference and disconnectedness of the theorists at the top adds to the feelings of oppression and exploitation and instead of joints and muscles being degraded by toil, a different cost is exacted.

Cortisol and adrenalin, once intended as a quick boost to enable leopards to be escaped from or rivals to be vanquished, is now ever present in systems designed to endure them for a few minutes. Blood pressures rise and cellular and systemic damage begins to occur. Arterial walls become less elastic, heart muscles degrade and brain tissues are subtly changed by the presence of hormones and neurotransmitters which keep the body in a permanent state of danger-arousal, the fear now not being starvation, but still, removal of the means of livelihood: No less profound in its way.

People are no longer worn down by weight and repetition of physical efforts, but more subtle though equally serious organic damage begins to occur.

On arriving home, the residue of the day haunts and echoes in the inside of heads. Sleep or even relaxation is inconceivable in a bodily system primed for conflict or exertion but for which no outlet is available. Wine becomes the only viable remedy. So, another night, another bottle, we head up the stairs to mildly alcoholic oblivion until the alarm clock demands we face another day of inconsequential and abstract but still arduous tasks.

Elegant forms and complexity

I am sitting in my van in glorious Autumnal sunshine at Kemble airfield where young Sir comes to race his RC car. Apparently this track is world class and champions come here to practice and race their high spec model cars. I watch them briefly zipping round the smooth tarmac loop, with its chicanes and curves and it strikes me just how fast they go and how beautifully they seem to grip the surface as they traverse the hairpins. They appear to be subject to an additional gravitational force, keeping them held down low and preventing skidding or spinning out of control. Considering the light but powerful batteries these 45cm vehicles carry and the incredible power generated by their relatively tiny motors, they really are rather impressive. The smoothness and speed of them in their straight sprints and negotiatiation of sudden direction changes is quite fascinating to watch, though the level of fascination exhibited by No1 son and his very “focused” peers is something that I will never and don’ t really wish to attain.

Sitting here comfortably at my table in the van, I can hear little but the assertive whine of small electric motors propelling the cars on the track, and the hum of the fan on my inverter which is powering my laptop here.

Being a working airfield, there is the periodic drone of an aeroplane taking off and even the occasional roar of a jet engine, muted by the trees which screen the runway. Once here, I saw a mustang P51 take off and perform some aerial manoeuvers , its Rolls Royce merlin, also used in the later spitfires, making that distinctive throaty sound, causing me to instantly turn my head to look. I felt a rather unexpected ostalgia for a time I have never known which puzzles me to this day.

Along the runway are also a line of Hawker Hunters, some of which are used for some flight school, I believe and others which enthusiasts are renovating, just for the sheer fun of it. They are very sleek, cold-war designs which appear a little dated when compared to the more recent and somewhat more angular Typhoon and F-16 designs. Nevertheless, their beautiful lines are incredibly pleasing to look at and something about their shape resonates with the eye, causing an appreciation of something well-designed yet visually appealing. Indeed, the nature of aerodynamics and fluid mechanics is such that this slippery shape is necessary for correct and efficient function of these machines. Similarly, across the way here, not 50 feet from me is an old Brittania.

Its four propeller driven engines all aligned at 3, 6, 9 and 12 o’clock. Its shape says more “aeroplane” to me than the jets, being more reminiscent of the forms I was familiar with as a child, from war films and adventure movies so prevalent on BBC2 Sunday afternoon schedules. It has a stately grace which is almost colonial in grandeur and, leaving aside the inherent design flaws that saw several tragedies as a result, I do admire the elegance of it. And this causes me to reflect on the nature of beauty versus form: The two most beautiful machines I have ever seen up close are the Spitfire and Concorde.

I was lucky enough to work near the hanger where the latter was stored in the 1980s and often went to look at it is during lunchtimes in the hangar in FIlton. Also, a spitfire came in regularly for its engine to be services so we had a close up view of it and were often treated to a small and ostentatious display after it had had its routine maintence. Few machines ever devised by humanity will match these for sheer aesthetic appeal. Ok, a few cars are quite pleasing to behold too, but cars don’t really do it for me and I have to take the word of others when they tell me a car is gorgeous. But given that we are not specifically developed to find such advanced workings of man to be visually attractive, I wonder why it is it should be so. There is no survival benefit for a primate to gain pleasure from looking at such an object. And yet we do.

Streamlining it seems, just appeals to the eye – Just not when it’s on a fish. It is at this point that even my huge supply of nouns becomes a little depleted: “grace”, “beauty” and “aesthetic appeal” can only be used so many times and yet, they are so relevant. But this is only one part of the allure for me. Within these machines is hidden huge complexity. For a plane to get airborne, it requires the conversion of fuel into enormous amounts of thrust, if gravity is to be temporarily overruled. In order to do this, people have devised ever more complicated engines from simple ones like in early cars, through rotary and the rather humourously named Wankel engines, to jets and rockets. Though the principles of how these operate are in effect simple, relying as they do in the conversion of a small volume of fuel to a larger volume of exhaust, the implementation of the principles in a controlled manner that doesn’t blow the whole thing to bits, is actually rather complicated. Add to that, huge amounts of instrumentation, safety apparatus, control mechanisms and life-support systems and you have one hell of a complicated beastie.

In fact, these are some of the most sophisticated and intricate machines ever devised. All enclosed in a sleek, streamlined, deceptively simple shape. So, we see these shapes and the bewildering array of systems within are hidden from us. We see merely an aeroplane, miraculously, sometimes hundreds of tons of metal taking off, and even more miraculously in my view, landing on tiny wheels at hundreds of miles an hour. This is, to me, almost magic, or would be if I didn’t understand the physics involved. Nevertheless, travelling, as I do regularly, on large passenger jets, I cannot help but feel a small sense of panic on occasion when we come hurtling out of the clouds to see the ground a mere thousand feet or so below and at 300mph, we have to rejoin that unyielding surface with our extreme momentum. In this case, a knowledge of the physics involved actually does not help and the nerd in me begins to calculate the amount of kinetic energy that is turned to heat in the brakes of the tiny wheels, such as one might see on a bus (only better engineered and more prolific, obviously) So, simplicity of form can hide complexity of function.

And this I find fascinating. I try to picture all the functionality inside as I watch an A340, a 757 or an embraer taking off. But I can only see the form and it movement. And this is probably a good thing. It is easier with a plane with propellers as I can see something moving to push the air backwards, but even here, it is still remarkable and slightly unfeasible that a lump of metal, obviously heavy, manages to get airborne.

Similarly, the human body holds a similar fascination for me.
It is a collection of systems that together make a person. Leaving aside the mind for now, the interconnections of muscles, tendons, bones and ligaments, all fed by tubes supplying that which nourishes and moves it, is all encased in a form which is, on the face of it, rather elegant in its simplicity. Skin stretched over it all makes it hard to see the gooey, squelchy wet contents that makes it all work, and for this, I am actually quite grateful. I am content to look at human bodies and see at most the movement of muscles below the surface, retaining ignorance of the circulation of blood and secretion of bile and all manner of other substances that are needed to sustain our animation. And it has always been my belief that all human bodies are marvels of engineering and development. Even the most obese, corpulent carcasses and whippet-like ectomomorphic waifs do what one expects a body to do functionally, to some greater and occasionally lesser degree. The reliability of this machine is incredible with it mostly working in trouble free operation for decades, sometimes over a century. Ok, whilst some bodies are nicer to look at than others and indeed, I occasionally have to avert my horrified gaze in the sauna or gym changing rooms (and elsewhere avert my eyes for different reasons that are not to do with repulsion!) all of them are incredible machines which are due admiration and wonder. Despite their squishy composition of more than 60% water, most bodies are appreciated by someone, and this is how it should be. So, I do hope I have not caused subsequent undue discomfort or reflection at how these complex systems are regarded. It would pain me to think that after reading this, you now regard human bodies as skins full of rather unpleasant fluids, levers and pulleys, or that you now regard aeroplanes as somehow less mechanically trustworthy as a result of contemplating the mind-boggling intricacy of what comprises the contents of that sleek aluminium skin. Where there is beauty, I believe it is an inexpensive pleasure to gaze upon it and appreciate it without unnecessary or troublesome internal dialogue. But I implore you to take a moment next time, to observe the aerodynamic beauty of that plane or appraise that shapely bottom and make no comment to yourself but “Gosh! Isnt that lovely!”

Entropy, Chaos and getting things done

This week, I have been most vexed . On the surface of my frustration is the simple fact that, as the saying goes, I could not organise a piss-up in a brewery. This itself is a sufficiently demoralising self-admission, but underlying it, and based upon the same chaotic principle that makes this true, is a deeper question: Why are some people organised and others messy in their thinking and doing?


I include a picture of the workbench in my garage, partly because it is a significant example of the spaces in which I live my life, but mostly because that most significant of indicators, my desk, is probably covered in items which should not, for commercial reasons, be displayed in a public place. This may or may not be so, and I assure you my desk is every bit as slovenly as my workbench (though I have some help in messing up the latter). Of course, like the Ministry of Defence or many other public bodies charged with the safe keeping of information, I am certain at some point to leave my scribbled notebook on a train or an aeroplane. (Luckily, my writing is so bad that this poses no risk of the escape of embarrassing or sensitive information).

But I digress, as so often, and perhaps this is the nub of the problem. It goes a bit like this:

“Hmm.. I must pay the credit card bill. I wonder where it is? Oh yes, pinned to the fridge with a magnet. Right! Go get it! I wonder what’s in the fridge? Oh! we are out of milk, I must go and get some. Yes. Ok, where is my wallet? Oh, I haven’t lost it again, have I maybe its in the car. I will look. Gosh! The boot is full of all those clothes from the weekend. I was after that shirt. I must take that in and..”

And so it goes. I am sure this chain of unfinished events is not uncommon to many of you.

So how does this lead to a cluttered desk? Well, its about information. Each new piece of information coming to light in the environment is its own “branching off point”. This could be a phone call distracting from a task, or just a fly buzzing in the window. For instance: I started writing this and had a wonderful idea for a beautifully articulated point, even down to the vocabulary and the rhythm of the words. But at that point I chose to upload the photo. And that took ages. And in the meantime, the words and in fact the whole idea had evaporated. It is doubtful it will reappear.

Consequently, this type of “way of being” means that once set on a task at work, for instance, there is no guarantee that the task, regardless of how well defined and clear the steps are, will get finished accurately or even at all. Often, something else, not necessarily more interesting, will distract attention and the original thread is lost. Upon resuming it, the details of where and what are lost and this is where the wrong file gets added to a document, my phone gets put in the fridge or the milk gets put back in the microwave.

At school, I remember my writing, a mess of scribbles, crossings out, smudges. I would look upon those beautifully written pieces of work by the rest of the class: neat tidy writing, legible, well-formed and feel that whatever the expectation of the teacher, I would always disappoint with my presentation. But I just kept getting things wrong!! No matter how hard i tried, my mind would wander and the spider-scrawl would diverge from the lines and the wrong words would have interjected themselves in otherwise sensible sentences. I just couldn’t get it right! And it remains thus.

In some ways, this small collection of words is an apology to all those people who suffer frustration, delays and inconvenience as a result of my inability to concentrate. I am not doing it on purpose: I really cant help it. The spreadsheets with the mixed up product numbers, the emails with the wrong attachments, over and over again despite my best attempts at accuracy and coherence, these are symptoms of the chaos within.

And I thank those of you who help me. With pinpoint accuracy, your poke your attention right at where the problem is and untangle the whole sorry mess into order. How do you do that? How are you so structured that you can take a series of events and arrange them into the right way for things to happen efficiently? To me, in my poor sorry head, there is just a cloud of happenings that, like a loony tunes brawl, exists as a cloud of dust, disorder and confusion with the odd limb appearing simultaneously at random intervals.

I spend my life in confusion. It is a relatively happy confusion and much is thrown spuriously into my consciousness which interests me and cascades into other trains of thought, many that you will find written in various places, the locations of which, of course, i have mostly forgotten.

But please bear with me. I do try. I know that I will never be organised, that my work will be messy and my life a cheerful mash of eclectic items and activities. But, I hope there is some consolation in this for those who deal with such pathologically disordered thinkers as myself, who, no matter how hard they try just cannot be organised. I hope we offer some kind of unpredictability that whilst being infuriating, also has some endearingly bonkers quality.

And if not. Sorry for all the mess.