Often, I look at the figures for views on this blog and wonder who I am writing it for. On the face of it, being a public forum, anything written here could be read, reproduced and potentially used to subsequently beat me with. In the grand scheme of things, this little collection of hand-picked and carefully combined words has no purpose. I imagine it enlightens nobody. It is a self-indulgent outpouring of opinions and feelings which is just a tiny part of the great cacophony of what constitutes public discourse. So, why do it?
I have no idea if a parallel can be drawn between mental exercise and physical exercise. Constantly performing a physical action strengthens and ingrains the mechanisms involved. Repeating a mental action must then surely have a similar effect. Repeated practice of a language, for instance, improves one's proficiency in that language. And also, it has carry-over benefits into other areas of cognition.
Does writing work similarly to improve some aspects of mental acuity or fitness?
I don't feel on the face of it that not having regularly written for a long time has diminished my vocabulary or ability to articulately explain a concept. But would I be able to tell?
Regardless of this, there exists a body of evidence that says regular "creative" writing (as opposed to correspondence regarding one's gas bill or an inquiry about a mower seen for sale on gumtree) has a measurable effect on mental wellbeing. I suppose "wellbeing" in this sense probably needs some kind of qualification. I suppose I mean freedom from anxiety and constant dark thoughts. Possibly also general a high level of "zest for life" might be a part of it. A wider definition almost certainly exists but I shall assume that we tacitly understand between ourselves what well-being means.
Firstly, I suppose, it seems that to tease out those formless and menacing fears which beset us in unguarded moments might clarify their composition from their tangled interconnections. This may allow us to examine their individual assertions and effects upon our mood. The linear nature of this method of expression means only one thought at a time can come down the fingers to be typed on the keyboard, making the others stand aside and wait their turn, or once examined diminish to the extent they no longer need saying, and hence become less troublesome. When I lie awake at night, fears of financial disaster haunting my existence, the precarious nature of my cashflow or workloads dominating the dark perspective, taking them one at a time does seem to disempower some of the more vociferous worries. So, we potentially have this as a benefit.
Also, whether as a result of my neurological mishap, my advancing age or merely currently having a lot on my mind. I get a lot of aphasia. Last week for instance I flapped my hand impotently at the radiator trying in vain to remember the words "tea towel". This is increasingly a frequent occurrence. Given the heightened risk of dementia in survivors of brain injury, I cannot pretend this does not worry me. It causes me to practice vigilance towards all aspects of my mental behaviour in case any sign of decline becomes evident (though what I could do besides stockpiling opiates, I am not sure).
Maybe ranging far and wide over the full range of our vocabularies is a Generally Good Thing. It might be seen as a verbal "beating of the bounds" where we travel to the far extent of our lexicon to see what resides there. There may be words depicting concepts the expression of which might be useful to us in some current frustration. Like a tool found in the recesses of the shed which enables us to finally complete some household job which has been annoying us for a while, the discovery of exactly the right word might enable us to confront and clarify something which has been on our minds for a while seeking a voice.
In the spirit of discovery, I have enrolled as a research subject on a scientific study on the effects of writing about traumatic events on our mental states. I have no idea how well-conceived and constructed the study is but it seemed a fun thing to do in the furtherance of Human Knowledge.
So, with the assumption that using as many words as are available to me on a regular basis, in order to retain vocabulary, and that the principle that examining thoughts and committing them to writing must surely aid clarification, I think I may resume this blog. If nothing else, writing allows me to retain a pretension towards intellectualism that my new life and actual intellect may not really warrant. And for that alone, I shall keep tapping away!
Philosophical observations from wandering about noticing things.
Saturday, 15 June 2019
Saturday, 1 June 2019
Where do we go now?
Nothing is the same. Except me. I, as a general collection of cells, (mostly) endure but in all other aspects, everything is new. I read back to myself some of the posts from my Old Life and there is a strange ambiguity to them. As I sat on aeroplanes, pitching up in airports in Germany, Norway, China, the life that had seemingly constructed itself for me seemed like a kind of fortress: Its complete all-worked-outness seemed eternal, as constant as the continents. The house, the marriage, the kids, the job, all smoothly in place and there in the middle of it, me. We should never forget the shifting of tectonic plates however.
So now, just a few years later, everything that comprised that life has been replaced. Divorced, new partner, different (and eye-wateringly expensive though smaller) house in a different county, job gone, salary and professional status a mere memory, kids grown up and flown. Psychosomatic illnesses all disappeared.
And now I am a gardener. Whereas for over thirty years I made my living using my intellect, my technical knowledge and my affability, now I use my body. I mow lawns, I weed borders, I make raised beds. And all the mathematics and engineering I set about learning to ensure a prosperous future, back when I was young and not quite so cynical, all superfluous. And I almost never sit at a computer. Except to do my book-keeping - a necessary and tedious evil of being self-employed.
I confess, sometimes I shake my head in disbelief. I take my hand fork and jab the back of my arms as a surrogate for pinching myself (which would be difficult with gardening gloves on), just to make sure I am not dreaming. I am not, as far as I can tell. This is the reality. And I am happy.
Mostly. Oh, there are times I wake in the night and can't get back to sleep for the strangeness of it all. How such a complete life could, like the Roman Empire, be so all-encompassing, so perfectly administered, so well constructed and yet topple and disintegrate into a fact of history. But though life is incredibly financially precarious, I no longer have to deal with idiot Texan managers and their aggression, their self-important failure to grasp their own insignificance and mediocrity.
I grasp mine and am the better for it I think.
So, no longer will I write about being in a pressurised cabin 37000 above Russia, or hotels in Paderborn. I will write about my life as a relatively menial service-sector worker and the experiences of what I encounter as I go about maintaining order and careful disorder in the gardens of Gloucestershire. I may have left a profession behind, with all the trappings, but I take largely the same mind with me into this new venture. Observation is still just as possible. As Xavier Le Maistre catalogued his voyage round the confines of his room in autour de ma chambre so shall I remark upon the prosaic happenings in horticulture. I have no idea how interesting it will be, and I shall not do it here, because I feel a hiatus is required to mark the monumental transition. But I shall do it somewhere. Words need to flow if the mind is to be retained in a form I am comfortable inhabiting.
So now, just a few years later, everything that comprised that life has been replaced. Divorced, new partner, different (and eye-wateringly expensive though smaller) house in a different county, job gone, salary and professional status a mere memory, kids grown up and flown. Psychosomatic illnesses all disappeared.
And now I am a gardener. Whereas for over thirty years I made my living using my intellect, my technical knowledge and my affability, now I use my body. I mow lawns, I weed borders, I make raised beds. And all the mathematics and engineering I set about learning to ensure a prosperous future, back when I was young and not quite so cynical, all superfluous. And I almost never sit at a computer. Except to do my book-keeping - a necessary and tedious evil of being self-employed.
I confess, sometimes I shake my head in disbelief. I take my hand fork and jab the back of my arms as a surrogate for pinching myself (which would be difficult with gardening gloves on), just to make sure I am not dreaming. I am not, as far as I can tell. This is the reality. And I am happy.
Mostly. Oh, there are times I wake in the night and can't get back to sleep for the strangeness of it all. How such a complete life could, like the Roman Empire, be so all-encompassing, so perfectly administered, so well constructed and yet topple and disintegrate into a fact of history. But though life is incredibly financially precarious, I no longer have to deal with idiot Texan managers and their aggression, their self-important failure to grasp their own insignificance and mediocrity.
I grasp mine and am the better for it I think.
So, no longer will I write about being in a pressurised cabin 37000 above Russia, or hotels in Paderborn. I will write about my life as a relatively menial service-sector worker and the experiences of what I encounter as I go about maintaining order and careful disorder in the gardens of Gloucestershire. I may have left a profession behind, with all the trappings, but I take largely the same mind with me into this new venture. Observation is still just as possible. As Xavier Le Maistre catalogued his voyage round the confines of his room in autour de ma chambre so shall I remark upon the prosaic happenings in horticulture. I have no idea how interesting it will be, and I shall not do it here, because I feel a hiatus is required to mark the monumental transition. But I shall do it somewhere. Words need to flow if the mind is to be retained in a form I am comfortable inhabiting.
Thursday, 21 February 2019
This post is not Gluten free
But we discovered that pretty much all "manufactured" bread contained soya flour, or even stranger, lupin flour. And the bread in the in-store bakeries ran the risk of contamination with nuts, which could have been fatal. And so, we bought a breadmaker and this was a wonderful thing! Every morning, for a two minute preparation and a setting of the timer, we could come down to fresh bread at breakfast. We made white bread, wholemeal bread, bread with olives or sun-dried tomatoes. what a feast every loaf was.
But soon, I tired of the "breadmakery taste" which seemed to characterise every loaf. Oh, it was certainly better than most bread you could buy, but because of the construction of the pan in the machine, you always got a slightly caramel flavour, which was not unpleasant, just samey.
Then, after my brain haemorrhage when I was rather rudimentary for a while, tasks requiring procedural actions and no decision making were all I could manage. So, I made a lot of bread. And I started making it by hand. And this was something altogether different. I did, as it might be described, catch the bug.
 |
| I think this qualifies as a Cornucopia. |
During the course, a kind of conversion took place in me. The revered and eminently knowledgeable chap running the course, with some authority, explained to us how bread is made in industry. He told us of the Chorley Wood process and how a loaf can be made from flour and other ingredients in as little as half an hour, by high speed mixing, extra fast yeasts optimised for carbon dioxide production, and how this caused fast rising but led to collapse of the structure necessitating the need for extra gluten to be added. He explained how the bread went into steam ovens to be cooked at 90°C meaning that in some cases, along with all the unfermented starches and unmodified glutenins and gliadins (the proteins commonly referred to as "gluten"), the yeast might still be active right in the middle of the loaf. And all this using the cheapest ingredients possible to still be able to call it bread.
The purpose of the bread industry is not to make bread, but to make profit.
And so, enthused, I now had good reason to indulge my passion. When we left the course, he also gave us some of his sourdough culture. This is a mixture of wild yeasts such as lives in the air and on the husks of the grain and bacteria such as lactobacilli which like to hang out with yeasts. In short, it is a community of micro-organisms which all resides in a kind of pasty mixture. You feed it with flour and it adapts to the type of flour and the environment in your kitchen. Each place I have lived has caused my sourdough culture to produce different flavours in the bread. I assume this is because the population changes to include the residents of the new kitchen and worktops.
 |
| Latest bakings: Seeded Wholegrain sourdough |
The beauty of sourdough is that it is a gentle process which is in some ways the antithesis of the Chorley Wood process: It takes time. Of course, you can make bread using yeast. I often buy a block from the bakery at the supermarket. It is good and strong and will lift dough which is "enriched" (mixed with oil or butter) which sourdough sometimes struggles with. But for my daily bread, I use sourdough (which is not sour by the way. A healthy culture, well fed will not go "lactic". That only happens if it is not fed adequately.
A sourdough fermentation can last days. Personally, once it is kneaded for five minutes or so, I tend to favour an overnight dough, usually no longer than twenty four hours in a fridge or cool kitchen. This long process, usually done somewhere cool, allows the yeasts and bacteria to "do some of the digesting for you". It also produces the deliciousness lacking in too much commercial bread. fermentation by products are what give the deliciousness. And slower and cooler give more. Of course, it grows and you have to "knock it back" (knock the gas out) at periodic intervals lest it take over your kitchen.
As I said earlier, you can make bread simply. Or you can get into the more complicated factors like hydration levels and different protein levels in flours. Simply put: bread flour needs at least 12% protein. British flour struggles to reach this, but that makes it good for biscuits. french bread uses "stronger " flour i.e. flour with more gluten.
 |
| 54% hydration, yeast dough. Traditional cottage loaf and rolls |
A lighter crumb is a lower density, light bread with big bubbles. You don't knead this, but fold it at intervals, usually 45 minutes or an hour, four or so times. It makes bread that is perfect for soaking up a good olive oil.
 |
| ciabatta loaves. 75% hydration. Messy but worth it! |
I am an evangelist for good bread. I believe the stuff made in factories is bad for us. I am not a conspiracy theorist. I just understand the economics, the processes and the chemistry. People who tell me "I bloat when I have bread" say in puzzled tones that they can eat mine with no discomfort. I think my explanation above may hint at reasons why this might be. And I now bloat if I eat shop-bought bread (and I am by no means a "sensitive type" I can generally eat anything pretty much that falls within the category of "food").Now I no longer have a salary, I cant afford to turn up with an expensive bottle of wine to a dinner party. But I can turn up with bread that will stop the conversation in the room. And the bread is no longer just a vehicle for more exotic foods. It is a star in its own right.
I also run occasional courses of my own, and the look of delight when people open the oven door to behold their first loaf of bread, all crusty and perfect is a joy I never get tired of. The subsequent proud photos I receive always give me a deep sense of satisfaction that someone else is now finding their way in this wonderful craft and may bring me to new ways of baking by their discoveries.
If you don't already, I urge you to give it a try. There are some excellent videos on youtube I could point you to. I am still learning from them myself. It is better for you, even a loaf such as I described at the beginning of this piece. The making of it grounds you and leaves you feeling peaceful but accomplished. Of course, you get the occasional failure, but generally, it is a pastime that only brings deep gratification.
Wednesday, 12 September 2018
The Worth of A Diverse Portfolio
And so I finally find time to sit and write. Bit of a long one as a result. Sorry about that. It has all been building up in my head and so probably will lack a little structure as the stream-of-consciousness unfurls through my dancing fingers on the keyboard.
So, I have time to write today. This is mainly because today, I do not have any jobs on, though really I should be preparing for tomorrow's fairly major task; And also my dear lady is asleep upstairs after a long and productive night shift delivering babies. Hence I am unable to use my power tools, which is causing me no end of frustration as I have some beautiful timber I am just about to cut up to make a box for a friend. I have the fence all lined up on my circular saw and have calibrated it particularly accurately using the in-built laser line, a good metal rule and a magnifying glass (this latter because sadly even with my glasses now, resolving millimetres on a rule is a challenge). And so here am, sitting on my hands because I LOVE using my power tools and at the moment cannot.
And this brings me to a strange thought: These last weeks, my new-found means of (self) employment entails me doing for other people those jobs -pruning hedges, hanging trellis on walls, putting up gates, that kind of thing - which I happily do at home for leisure, only now people are paying me to do it. This has to be a Good Thing. And with the inclusion of the magnifying glass and a pencil sharpener to ensure my marking-out is accurate, I am extremely pleased with my handiwork. And so are others, it would seem.
So, when I think about how I made my living for over three decades, using my intellect and my extremely in-depth knowledge of, initially, electronic engineering, it makes me do a kind of internal double-take when I suddenly realise I am no longer using that for which I had trained for so many years.
Will I miss it? Yes, I think so. But I have a microcontroller and some other electronic bits and bobs here which I am getting together for a project so I will probably keep my knowledge up to date to some extent. But the challenges on a daily basis are not technical in the same way. That said, last week I bought the wrong size gate for a customer and found I had to build a suitable one from scratch using the wood and screws I just happened to have in the van. I was quite proud of it, and gratified this only took me twenty minutes or so (though frankly it wasn't difficult).
The challenges are therefore present, but different.
The other challenge I perceive is one of values. That sounds rather nebulous and a little existential perhaps. Actually it is not the former but may well encompass the latter. Allow me to elaborate:
when I was a corporate salary-slave, I had a particular role in a professional world. I traveled to far flung countries, I had meetings discussing the configuration and movement of literally millions of dollars' worth of product. I went out for dinner in expensive restaurants. My customers were in the region of tens of millions of dollars a year. People saw this as to some extent responsible and glamorous. I must be somebody to live that life.
Now, my customers are of the order of tens of pounds a day. I travel about in an old van. full of cement, wood and tools. People ask me what I do and I reply "Anything really. I maintain gardens, I put up fences, I hang doors". People on the whole seem rather less impressed with this response than my previous International Man of Mystery persona could provide. And I thought this would bother me. But it really doesn't. Were I inarticulate and felt intellectually inadequate, perhaps I would feel differently. But here I am writing this, able to divert, should I choose to the proteins comprising gluten, the best type of solar panel and charge controller, which philosopher I prefer for consolations in unhappy moments. Only some of this formed part of my education. The rest can be gleaned from books or online.
And this leads me, in my characteristic serpentine fashion, to the point that has been begging for examination in my funny-shaped head these last few weeks:
Where do we find our social value? Was I a somebody and am now a nobody?
Cars and houses seem a big thing in this particular game. I have a car and a house. Neither are remarkable. People wouldn't point to either and be impressed. Both are very ordinary. And yet, I am privileged to have either of them and feel so. My car gets me to see friends, to the shops, to dances. In that, it serves its purpose as well as something several times its cost. My house has more bedrooms than I need most of the time (three). Occasionally they are full of sleeping visitors, but usually, more likely, crates of beer bottles and boxes of books. It is comfortable, warm and dry and I love living here.
My job, similarly will hopefully, once I have built a customer base, finance my lifestyle adequately. Or maybe I will founder and have to get a job in a shop. We'll see. For now, it looks promising.
So, what seem to be the usual markers of "success" are present, but perhaps my own "humble" examples of that are not perceived as being particularly high up that scale. Does this therefore make someone less "worthy" of regard? Does it cause them to be less likely to be invited to parties or have their company eschewed as being less desirable than that of more obviously "successful" people?
My experience is, actually, in general no. By having good manners and attempting to be genuinely nice to people, and as interesting as I can aspire to be within the confines of my intellect and personality, I have found people are as happy to talk to me and associate with me as an odd-job-man and gardener than when I was jet-setting around the world. It is not always the case, but when I do encounter those who look down upon my car, or who see me as a "loser" for lacking ambition and hence "success", I find in general, they tend not to be very careful in how they form opinions, accepting values from unreliable sources such as advertising or celebrity TV. Or prone to making incorrect assumptions about the nature of happiness and worth.
And so, I conclude that happiness and one's self of self-worth can be easily maintained without the cost of an expensive car or the soul-eroding responsibility of a "high-powered" job. In fact, it seems easier and cheaper to live a well-thought-out but simple life. And that is exactly what I am doing.
So, I have time to write today. This is mainly because today, I do not have any jobs on, though really I should be preparing for tomorrow's fairly major task; And also my dear lady is asleep upstairs after a long and productive night shift delivering babies. Hence I am unable to use my power tools, which is causing me no end of frustration as I have some beautiful timber I am just about to cut up to make a box for a friend. I have the fence all lined up on my circular saw and have calibrated it particularly accurately using the in-built laser line, a good metal rule and a magnifying glass (this latter because sadly even with my glasses now, resolving millimetres on a rule is a challenge). And so here am, sitting on my hands because I LOVE using my power tools and at the moment cannot.
And this brings me to a strange thought: These last weeks, my new-found means of (self) employment entails me doing for other people those jobs -pruning hedges, hanging trellis on walls, putting up gates, that kind of thing - which I happily do at home for leisure, only now people are paying me to do it. This has to be a Good Thing. And with the inclusion of the magnifying glass and a pencil sharpener to ensure my marking-out is accurate, I am extremely pleased with my handiwork. And so are others, it would seem.
So, when I think about how I made my living for over three decades, using my intellect and my extremely in-depth knowledge of, initially, electronic engineering, it makes me do a kind of internal double-take when I suddenly realise I am no longer using that for which I had trained for so many years.
Will I miss it? Yes, I think so. But I have a microcontroller and some other electronic bits and bobs here which I am getting together for a project so I will probably keep my knowledge up to date to some extent. But the challenges on a daily basis are not technical in the same way. That said, last week I bought the wrong size gate for a customer and found I had to build a suitable one from scratch using the wood and screws I just happened to have in the van. I was quite proud of it, and gratified this only took me twenty minutes or so (though frankly it wasn't difficult).
The challenges are therefore present, but different.
 | ||
| A sturdy bespoke gate built from scratch by my own fair hands. And a rabbit. |
The other challenge I perceive is one of values. That sounds rather nebulous and a little existential perhaps. Actually it is not the former but may well encompass the latter. Allow me to elaborate:
when I was a corporate salary-slave, I had a particular role in a professional world. I traveled to far flung countries, I had meetings discussing the configuration and movement of literally millions of dollars' worth of product. I went out for dinner in expensive restaurants. My customers were in the region of tens of millions of dollars a year. People saw this as to some extent responsible and glamorous. I must be somebody to live that life.
Now, my customers are of the order of tens of pounds a day. I travel about in an old van. full of cement, wood and tools. People ask me what I do and I reply "Anything really. I maintain gardens, I put up fences, I hang doors". People on the whole seem rather less impressed with this response than my previous International Man of Mystery persona could provide. And I thought this would bother me. But it really doesn't. Were I inarticulate and felt intellectually inadequate, perhaps I would feel differently. But here I am writing this, able to divert, should I choose to the proteins comprising gluten, the best type of solar panel and charge controller, which philosopher I prefer for consolations in unhappy moments. Only some of this formed part of my education. The rest can be gleaned from books or online.
And this leads me, in my characteristic serpentine fashion, to the point that has been begging for examination in my funny-shaped head these last few weeks:
Where do we find our social value? Was I a somebody and am now a nobody?
Cars and houses seem a big thing in this particular game. I have a car and a house. Neither are remarkable. People wouldn't point to either and be impressed. Both are very ordinary. And yet, I am privileged to have either of them and feel so. My car gets me to see friends, to the shops, to dances. In that, it serves its purpose as well as something several times its cost. My house has more bedrooms than I need most of the time (three). Occasionally they are full of sleeping visitors, but usually, more likely, crates of beer bottles and boxes of books. It is comfortable, warm and dry and I love living here.
My job, similarly will hopefully, once I have built a customer base, finance my lifestyle adequately. Or maybe I will founder and have to get a job in a shop. We'll see. For now, it looks promising.
So, what seem to be the usual markers of "success" are present, but perhaps my own "humble" examples of that are not perceived as being particularly high up that scale. Does this therefore make someone less "worthy" of regard? Does it cause them to be less likely to be invited to parties or have their company eschewed as being less desirable than that of more obviously "successful" people?
My experience is, actually, in general no. By having good manners and attempting to be genuinely nice to people, and as interesting as I can aspire to be within the confines of my intellect and personality, I have found people are as happy to talk to me and associate with me as an odd-job-man and gardener than when I was jet-setting around the world. It is not always the case, but when I do encounter those who look down upon my car, or who see me as a "loser" for lacking ambition and hence "success", I find in general, they tend not to be very careful in how they form opinions, accepting values from unreliable sources such as advertising or celebrity TV. Or prone to making incorrect assumptions about the nature of happiness and worth.
And so, I conclude that happiness and one's self of self-worth can be easily maintained without the cost of an expensive car or the soul-eroding responsibility of a "high-powered" job. In fact, it seems easier and cheaper to live a well-thought-out but simple life. And that is exactly what I am doing.
Wednesday, 1 August 2018
My Gap year comes to an end
Three hundred and sixty five days have elapsed since I became unemployed. After thirty two years of gainful and eventually lucrative employment, I was let go via a phone call I mistakenly answered on the beach during my holiday. That was over a year ago now and I still recall the mixture of outrage, relief and fear the call brought with it; Outrage because how dare a manager call me from the other side of the world and launch straight into contract-speak about the end of my career whilst I was on holiday; relief because the final year had been a nerve-wracking roller coaster of managing perceptions of my performance in an impossible job; Fear because I have a huge mortgage and no means to pay it beyond my redundancy payout which is beginning to run out.
The world of employment has become a largely inhumane place. I was lucky that I had relatively good pay and conditions. Others have to scratch a living on zero-hours contracts. But even so, that was no way to divest yourself of an employee. It was cowardly and inconsiderate because no consideration is required, at least beyond that of being a decent human being. Even that was lacking here as it seems no longer to be required in a manager. disappointing.
Possibly by writing this in a publicly visible setting, I burn my bridges. Well, I can't say many bridges have appeared to employment so maybe I lose nothing by this. But somehow I find this helpful to write.
In the last year I have completed probably three hundred job applications. Of those, I heard back in the negative for about six, had three interviews and been ultimately unsuccessful in getting a job. I suspect my age might be a factor. In the interviews it was clear I had significantly more experience at a higher level than the hiring manager and nobody wants an employee like that, do they? After some interviews, I received no further response at all. How indifferent and arrogant is that? Well, another sucker will always come along, won't they!
And so here I am, an electronic engineer, chock-full of all kinds of knowledge, speaking passable French and German, 25 years experience in sales with a major tech company, articulate and healthy. And unemployed. One of a number of cast-aside people with skills to offer that nobody seems to want. And yet industry screams "We need engineers! technologists! Scientifically literate candidates!" as if there were none available. And there are. They are just "too old". Perhaps deemed too expensive to too close to retirement to be considered.
Reading the industry press, my situation is far from unique. Indeed, it seems an endemic problem; Skilled and experienced people in their forties and fifties finding themselves surplus to requirements. It seems a shame that this pool of talent is going to waste. But wasted it is.
And so, I resign myself to never getting another "proper" job again, at least not in the sector I trained for. What to do? Oh, I have a plan. I am not sure if it will come off, but what choice do I have? Too old for tech, too young to retire.
It has been a good year. I went round most of Europe in a van (I never told you about that, did I? 4500 miles in a little over a month, meeting lovely people, some of them from here! Perhaps I should write some of that down) toured Scotland and lived on a beach at the foot of a mountain by the sea for days on end. I spent weeks this summer in Cornwall bobbing about in a canoe. I landscaped the garden. I made hundreds of loaves of bread and ran a baking course. We built a new pizza oven and filled the greenhouse with incredibly productive plants.
I am really good at being unemployed. I am always busy! But now it's a year and I need to do some work. So, I sit down to my business plan, review what I have to offer and find myself... hopeful. Let's see where my new path leads.
The world of employment has become a largely inhumane place. I was lucky that I had relatively good pay and conditions. Others have to scratch a living on zero-hours contracts. But even so, that was no way to divest yourself of an employee. It was cowardly and inconsiderate because no consideration is required, at least beyond that of being a decent human being. Even that was lacking here as it seems no longer to be required in a manager. disappointing.
Possibly by writing this in a publicly visible setting, I burn my bridges. Well, I can't say many bridges have appeared to employment so maybe I lose nothing by this. But somehow I find this helpful to write.
In the last year I have completed probably three hundred job applications. Of those, I heard back in the negative for about six, had three interviews and been ultimately unsuccessful in getting a job. I suspect my age might be a factor. In the interviews it was clear I had significantly more experience at a higher level than the hiring manager and nobody wants an employee like that, do they? After some interviews, I received no further response at all. How indifferent and arrogant is that? Well, another sucker will always come along, won't they!
And so here I am, an electronic engineer, chock-full of all kinds of knowledge, speaking passable French and German, 25 years experience in sales with a major tech company, articulate and healthy. And unemployed. One of a number of cast-aside people with skills to offer that nobody seems to want. And yet industry screams "We need engineers! technologists! Scientifically literate candidates!" as if there were none available. And there are. They are just "too old". Perhaps deemed too expensive to too close to retirement to be considered.
Reading the industry press, my situation is far from unique. Indeed, it seems an endemic problem; Skilled and experienced people in their forties and fifties finding themselves surplus to requirements. It seems a shame that this pool of talent is going to waste. But wasted it is.
And so, I resign myself to never getting another "proper" job again, at least not in the sector I trained for. What to do? Oh, I have a plan. I am not sure if it will come off, but what choice do I have? Too old for tech, too young to retire.
It has been a good year. I went round most of Europe in a van (I never told you about that, did I? 4500 miles in a little over a month, meeting lovely people, some of them from here! Perhaps I should write some of that down) toured Scotland and lived on a beach at the foot of a mountain by the sea for days on end. I spent weeks this summer in Cornwall bobbing about in a canoe. I landscaped the garden. I made hundreds of loaves of bread and ran a baking course. We built a new pizza oven and filled the greenhouse with incredibly productive plants.
I am really good at being unemployed. I am always busy! But now it's a year and I need to do some work. So, I sit down to my business plan, review what I have to offer and find myself... hopeful. Let's see where my new path leads.
Monday, 30 July 2018
Just an atavism really
I almost never come here now. There was a time, oh, a very long time, when this was my lifeline to my eroding self. Now, the forces of distortion are long gone and with it, the need for some kind of assertion of my own will and character.
You hear people say:"I know people think I am a bitch/bastard, but on the inside, I am actually quite nice!"
This is to miss a central truth about identity: We are what we appear to be to others. As far as the world is concerned, what lies within is of no consequence if the external manifestation of a personality is a bitch or bastard. That is what we all experience.
And so, were we to be on a desert island, alone, could we be said to be an extrovert? A kindly soul? Mean-spirited? It doesn't seem so. Perhaps we could be determined or a defeatist. We could struggle valiantly against the odds, or lie down and die. Is that character, personality?
Perhaps our character is then to some extent our own experience of ourselves, at least in properties which are not social attributes.
So, maybe that is what this was: A reassurance that regardless of how external forces try to shape one, personal opinions can remain beyond the reach of others. Knuckling down day-to-day need not mean losing sight of what makes us who we are. We can "secretly" be who we actually are, only ironically of course in a public realm.
Well, I have no need of that now. There are no forces of correction to divert me to a path not of my choosing or contort me to fit the expectations of another. I have no employer (which is not without its own worries) to watch my every keystroke for dissent.
Perhaps then, i have no need of this, being able to "be myself" in the entirety of my "new" life.
But... Oh... this is so difficult! So out of practise have I become that my prose won't flow. It sticks and falters and the results are not as i would have wished. Short of the odd, admittedly verbose, paragraphs in my facbook statuses, I never write now. And that seems a shame.
So, that tells me I need to resume writing. If not here, then elsewhere. Probably not here actually: Too much painful history, though I do enjoy reading back the more whimsical entries. But somewhere. And since this isn't a desert island, personality may be retained.
Ahh, nobody reads this anyway so the pressure is not on. But they might, and so standards must be maintained. And that's the value - rigour.
Where to then? I am not sure. Somewhere because writing this was a real exertion and it shouldn't be. Somewhere else then. Yes. A new start. That feels good. Another one.
You hear people say:"I know people think I am a bitch/bastard, but on the inside, I am actually quite nice!"
This is to miss a central truth about identity: We are what we appear to be to others. As far as the world is concerned, what lies within is of no consequence if the external manifestation of a personality is a bitch or bastard. That is what we all experience.
And so, were we to be on a desert island, alone, could we be said to be an extrovert? A kindly soul? Mean-spirited? It doesn't seem so. Perhaps we could be determined or a defeatist. We could struggle valiantly against the odds, or lie down and die. Is that character, personality?
Perhaps our character is then to some extent our own experience of ourselves, at least in properties which are not social attributes.
So, maybe that is what this was: A reassurance that regardless of how external forces try to shape one, personal opinions can remain beyond the reach of others. Knuckling down day-to-day need not mean losing sight of what makes us who we are. We can "secretly" be who we actually are, only ironically of course in a public realm.
Well, I have no need of that now. There are no forces of correction to divert me to a path not of my choosing or contort me to fit the expectations of another. I have no employer (which is not without its own worries) to watch my every keystroke for dissent.
Perhaps then, i have no need of this, being able to "be myself" in the entirety of my "new" life.
But... Oh... this is so difficult! So out of practise have I become that my prose won't flow. It sticks and falters and the results are not as i would have wished. Short of the odd, admittedly verbose, paragraphs in my facbook statuses, I never write now. And that seems a shame.
So, that tells me I need to resume writing. If not here, then elsewhere. Probably not here actually: Too much painful history, though I do enjoy reading back the more whimsical entries. But somewhere. And since this isn't a desert island, personality may be retained.
Ahh, nobody reads this anyway so the pressure is not on. But they might, and so standards must be maintained. And that's the value - rigour.
Where to then? I am not sure. Somewhere because writing this was a real exertion and it shouldn't be. Somewhere else then. Yes. A new start. That feels good. Another one.
Wednesday, 2 August 2017
Who we are in the garden
Aha! Some writings! well, I have to keep my mind alive and my tools sharp. As will become apparent should you read this, circumstances dictate that some intellectual rigour must be maintained. And what better way than this: The examination of thoughts and the putting-into-words. And so, where to begin? With the situation I suppose. it's been a while, but here goes...
To look at a life and decide what it is about it that defines us is a difficult thing. I suppose this is why people ask at parties or when acquaintances are formed "What do you do for a living" or some variation thereof. It seems to provide a shortcut to an understanding of who it is we are talking to and their probable value system (or, if I am to be cynical, in some cases of a person's potential usefulness to the questioner).
Such pigeonholing seems ubiquitous and I think undermines the potential for friendships. To learn that someone is a consultant anaesthetist or works at a recycling plant sorting bottles from cans tells you something about their likely educational level and possible drive but nothing about whether they might be kind to animals or fun to spend an evening with by a fireside.
It is an unimaginative question and one I never ask unless it becomes pertinent to the immediate conversation. A better one, i have found is "So, what do you do for fun?" (Though sometimes this has startled the recipient by the sudden realisation that they actually don't do much beyond work and watching television).
And so, here I find myself at a loss now. I have no job. My questionable career trotting round the globe persuading people to buy what I genuinely believe to be very high quality and innovative technology has come to an end. After almost thirty years, inevitably and understandably, the market changes and my services are no longer required. That's ok. These things happen. We all need to adapt to new situations.
But of course, I now have to answer the tedious question on those occasions it appears. I could of course reply "I am a confidence trickster. I identify suitable people at parties to take part in my audacious and almost certain-to-succeed business ventures. Would you like to buy my miraculous tonic wine?"
Or I could just respond with a euphemism for "I am unemployed" such as "I am between jobs" or "I am currently a gentleman of indolence and leisure".
This latter is actually quite accurate. Though I am no longer being paid by a company for the hours of a week I attend to their endeavours, I am finding plenty to occupy my time. Imagination does that.
If someone were to ask how I spend my leisure hours, I could reply with any number of activities: I garden. I dance! I bake bread. I brew fine ales from the basic ingredients. I make furniture from suitable recycled timber. I kayak on seas and on inland waters. I work on my self-build camper van. I make pizza ovens out of clay from gardens. I ferment my produce. I read about science. I write (occasionally).
And any one of these can be a point of commonality. Myriad conversations might begin from any one of these topics. Or a long and enthusiastic dialogue might begin from the natural links between some of them.
So much better, it seems, than talking about the rather specialised and artificial nature of my (former) employment.
So, we never need fear the question. There is plenty that one does that can indicate or define the type of person we might be. Of course, I could do all of those and still be a psychopathic manipulator who enjoys pulling the legs off flies (I am not, btw. But I do resort to fly papers in my kitchen due to the rural populations of insects that otherwise tend to congregate where many of my aforementioned activities take place).
So, are we what we do? An opinion exists amongst learned thinkers that personality is an illusion and no more really than a set of individual cognitive processes. There appears to be some merit to this argument. But that aside, we cannot deny that we each possess a kind of set of characteristics and behaviours that define us and which others may like, tolerate or abhor.
"Doing loads of stuff" and the nature of that stuff may therefore tell us and others a lot about what that personality is. And by this I do not say "appears to be" because if that is how we appear to people, it must by definition be what we present to the world. Being "Not like that at all on the inside" is not really relevant with regards to how the world finds us. To all intents and purposes what we manifest is what we offer the world as our personality.
In the last year or so, I have divorced, moved house, lost my job, got another relationship. It is as if every single component of my life has been replaced by something new and different. And yet, I feel in all of this, pretty much the same person. Perhaps a little more carefree and dismissive of life's niggles. Maybe a little more outgoing. But essentially pretty much still me.
Is who we are immutable then? Is it not contingent on our situations? well, that is a complex question. But it is one I feel is a little bit clearer to answer in the light of my recent upheavals. My feeling is no. The essence of us is subject to modification in some minor ways (brain damage aside) but the essence of who we are remains essentially the same.
And asking what I do for a job isn't going to tell you what that is. So ask something else. It will almost certainly yield more fruitful results.
To look at a life and decide what it is about it that defines us is a difficult thing. I suppose this is why people ask at parties or when acquaintances are formed "What do you do for a living" or some variation thereof. It seems to provide a shortcut to an understanding of who it is we are talking to and their probable value system (or, if I am to be cynical, in some cases of a person's potential usefulness to the questioner).
Such pigeonholing seems ubiquitous and I think undermines the potential for friendships. To learn that someone is a consultant anaesthetist or works at a recycling plant sorting bottles from cans tells you something about their likely educational level and possible drive but nothing about whether they might be kind to animals or fun to spend an evening with by a fireside.
It is an unimaginative question and one I never ask unless it becomes pertinent to the immediate conversation. A better one, i have found is "So, what do you do for fun?" (Though sometimes this has startled the recipient by the sudden realisation that they actually don't do much beyond work and watching television).
And so, here I find myself at a loss now. I have no job. My questionable career trotting round the globe persuading people to buy what I genuinely believe to be very high quality and innovative technology has come to an end. After almost thirty years, inevitably and understandably, the market changes and my services are no longer required. That's ok. These things happen. We all need to adapt to new situations.
But of course, I now have to answer the tedious question on those occasions it appears. I could of course reply "I am a confidence trickster. I identify suitable people at parties to take part in my audacious and almost certain-to-succeed business ventures. Would you like to buy my miraculous tonic wine?"
Or I could just respond with a euphemism for "I am unemployed" such as "I am between jobs" or "I am currently a gentleman of indolence and leisure".
This latter is actually quite accurate. Though I am no longer being paid by a company for the hours of a week I attend to their endeavours, I am finding plenty to occupy my time. Imagination does that.
If someone were to ask how I spend my leisure hours, I could reply with any number of activities: I garden. I dance! I bake bread. I brew fine ales from the basic ingredients. I make furniture from suitable recycled timber. I kayak on seas and on inland waters. I work on my self-build camper van. I make pizza ovens out of clay from gardens. I ferment my produce. I read about science. I write (occasionally).
And any one of these can be a point of commonality. Myriad conversations might begin from any one of these topics. Or a long and enthusiastic dialogue might begin from the natural links between some of them.
So much better, it seems, than talking about the rather specialised and artificial nature of my (former) employment.
So, we never need fear the question. There is plenty that one does that can indicate or define the type of person we might be. Of course, I could do all of those and still be a psychopathic manipulator who enjoys pulling the legs off flies (I am not, btw. But I do resort to fly papers in my kitchen due to the rural populations of insects that otherwise tend to congregate where many of my aforementioned activities take place).
So, are we what we do? An opinion exists amongst learned thinkers that personality is an illusion and no more really than a set of individual cognitive processes. There appears to be some merit to this argument. But that aside, we cannot deny that we each possess a kind of set of characteristics and behaviours that define us and which others may like, tolerate or abhor.
"Doing loads of stuff" and the nature of that stuff may therefore tell us and others a lot about what that personality is. And by this I do not say "appears to be" because if that is how we appear to people, it must by definition be what we present to the world. Being "Not like that at all on the inside" is not really relevant with regards to how the world finds us. To all intents and purposes what we manifest is what we offer the world as our personality.
In the last year or so, I have divorced, moved house, lost my job, got another relationship. It is as if every single component of my life has been replaced by something new and different. And yet, I feel in all of this, pretty much the same person. Perhaps a little more carefree and dismissive of life's niggles. Maybe a little more outgoing. But essentially pretty much still me.
Is who we are immutable then? Is it not contingent on our situations? well, that is a complex question. But it is one I feel is a little bit clearer to answer in the light of my recent upheavals. My feeling is no. The essence of us is subject to modification in some minor ways (brain damage aside) but the essence of who we are remains essentially the same.
And asking what I do for a job isn't going to tell you what that is. So ask something else. It will almost certainly yield more fruitful results.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)