Have you ever farted in public? Now that I have sufficiently lowered the tone and set your expectations for this post I would like to ask the question again, but with all seriousness intended and humour aside. Have you ever done something that everyone does at some point but in a public setting where it caused you deep embarrassment? I had something of a baptism of fire with this concept when I was a child in school and pissed myself, I must have been 5 or 6 years old at the time. Whilst the experience was humiliating, I survived and within a few days everyone moved on to something else to talk about and forgot about the experience which taught me quite early in life that collective consciousness is fluid and rarely stays in the same place fixated on the same thing for very long.
There are of course exceptions to that rule, notably within politics which seems to love stagnation but there at least I think the prevailing attitudes can be explained by a desire to stymie progress because preserving the current state of affairs is usually beneficial to politicians. This in many ways reflects society in general and our tendency to fixate on particular moments. Embarrassment in and of itself does not determine how long we dwell on a particular incident but rather what is gained by prolonging attention paid to it. When you experience particularly embarrassing moments and one or more people try and make sure you never forget it or never move on from it, the reason they do this is because it gives them power over you, it gives them strings that they can pull to manipulate your emotional state. The easiest way to cut those strings is to embrace whatever it was that caused you embarrassment and take ownership of it. If you fart in public and feel embarrassment therefore, the best approach is to laugh it off, not to try and deny it ever happened or hide in your shell just embrace the fact it happened and laugh at how embarrassed you were.
I have said many times there are very few things I regret in life due to the fact that I believe you only ever do in the moment what you think is right, in many ways my relationship to shame and embarrassment reflect this mentality in that most things that cause me embarrassment in the moment are things that I either could not prevent or I did not have the forethought or foresight to know not to do - and even in hindsight as with regret it is often the case that even if I possessed both of these I probably would have done it anyway so I can't fault myself in that regard.
In both of these scenarios there is an underlying truth that is mere inches from your grasp if you can just brush away the surface and really examine what is going on, that truth here is that shame, embarrassment, and regret, are all sentiments that we feel out of expectation, they are based on other peoples perceptions of us and our actions not our own. You never regret things until you are given context, you never feel shame until you are given context, and you never feel embarrassed until you are given context. That context can come from others reactions to your behaviour and their surprise at your deviation from societal norms. That context can also come from figures of authority that attempt to correct that behaviour in an attempt to control how you will behave in future. That context could also come through your own realisation of that deviation or the development of beliefs that plant the idea in your head that this was somehow wrong.
Once you realise this relationship exists between other people's perceptions of you and your actions as determining shame, embarrassment, and regret, you can pick those concepts apart further and ask what those three feelings are in reality. By my estimation all three are in reality manifestations of fear. Both shame and embarrassment are the fear of judgement from others, whilst regret is the fear of missing out on what would have happened if you had acted differently. Regret however is about more than missing out, it incorporates the judgement of others as to whether that alternative outcome would have been better. Missing an opportunity in and of itself won't necessarily cause regret, curiosity will always make you contemplate what might have happened had you acted differently, there has to be a desire for the alternate outcome which in most cases is rooted in the belief that people would judge the actual outcome of your actions against the alternate outcome and deem the alternative to be preferable.
Being able to identify the origin of our emotions helps us to understand exactly who and what have influence over our lives. Just as the ideal method of overcoming embarrassment is to take away the control that it gives others over you, the same is true for regaining emotional stability in life in general. If you can recognise the origin of your emotions and underline why you feel the way you do then it can be easier to develop strategies to alter the thought processes that amplify those emotions as I discussed a while ago when I wrote about Cognitive Behavioural Therapy techniques. Understanding the root of your emotions is an extension of understanding the root of your thoughts.
Content Length
How long should your content be? This is an interesting question for me as it holds relevance in quite a few of the creative endeavours I pursue. This blog is a good example, you can ask how long a post should be which you can measure in terms of word counts. I've varied this quite a bit over the years preferring longer form posts now as opposed to the shorter posts I used to write.
The obvious answer however that most people give is that you should keep it short and sweet and to the point, stating that anything longer will not be read and that people won't engage with your content if it is perceived to be elaborate. GIFs, memes, and viral videos from Vine in days past and now Tik Tok as its spiritual successor are often cited as justification for this belief that shorter is better. However this answer doesn't stand up when you use it as a backdrop to some of the decisions made by major content distributors online. Google for instance altered the Youtube Partner agreement to place greater emphasis on Watch Time which is the duration of time a viewer spends watching a video, with longer videos therefore not only encouraged but in practical terms made a necessity if creators want to make money through the platform.
Likewise you can look to the likes of Twitter a social network whose Unique Selling Point in the beginning was its brevity and the necessity of shortening your content to fit in 140 characters, here too this was extended to 280 characters in order to increase the amount of content that a user can fit into a single tweet. Twitter did not stop there, they went on to include the ability to tweet threads of tweets which effectively made it possible to post entire blog posts on twitter provided each paragraph was limited to 280 characters or tweeters added 1/x notations to the end of their tweets signalling their intent to the reader to add further content.
Beyond the internet this lengthening of content has occurred in other media forms over the years. Sometimes that change has been because of evolving technology, for example Vinyl and Cassette based albums were quite short compared to CD recordings and later still digital releases went on to push this boundary. Likewise there was a time when 1 hour and 30 minutes was a respectable duration for a feature film but this again has been pushed to greater extremes with movies - although movies longer than 3 hours were not unheard of, they were much rarer in decades passed. At the time of writing, 7 of the top 10 longest cinematic releases were within the last 20 years, 4 of those were within the last 5 years as examples of this boundary being pushed.
Even in the literary world the emphasis placed on word counts grows over time, taking Harry Potter as an example the first book in the series was approximately 77,000 words in length with the series peaking at book five which was approximately 260,000 words in length. The entire series combined is approximately 1.1 million words in length. These numbers are not unprecedented, the likes of War And Peace was 560,000 words for a single book that was first published in 1869 so again it's not entirely fair to say that there is or ever was a consensus as to how long something should be.
The question of attention spans I think is not as relevant as we might think at first. My reasoning for drawing this conclusion is the realisation that the impetus or the compulsion to continue to consume content is more pressing than the length of that content. When you look at the likes of Netflix, whilst one could argue they push for longer content, this isn't the case when you look at the length of episodes of a series, they are not uniform, and with no need to factor in time for advertisements and a network schedule to adhere to Netflix gives creators a lot more flexibility to vary the length of their content. I find it interesting that no overall consensus emerges and that there still exists diversity in the run times of content.
The fact that no universal answer seems to exist, even within specific industries and fields you can often find guidelines but these are not absolute. Beyond content that is specifically created to fill a gap there seems to be no uniformity at all. Perhaps it's fair to say then that the adage of quality over quantity still reigns supreme, that the length is irrelevant and that the appeal of the content is what matters, those who find it appealing will consume it no matter how long you make it.
The obvious answer however that most people give is that you should keep it short and sweet and to the point, stating that anything longer will not be read and that people won't engage with your content if it is perceived to be elaborate. GIFs, memes, and viral videos from Vine in days past and now Tik Tok as its spiritual successor are often cited as justification for this belief that shorter is better. However this answer doesn't stand up when you use it as a backdrop to some of the decisions made by major content distributors online. Google for instance altered the Youtube Partner agreement to place greater emphasis on Watch Time which is the duration of time a viewer spends watching a video, with longer videos therefore not only encouraged but in practical terms made a necessity if creators want to make money through the platform.
Likewise you can look to the likes of Twitter a social network whose Unique Selling Point in the beginning was its brevity and the necessity of shortening your content to fit in 140 characters, here too this was extended to 280 characters in order to increase the amount of content that a user can fit into a single tweet. Twitter did not stop there, they went on to include the ability to tweet threads of tweets which effectively made it possible to post entire blog posts on twitter provided each paragraph was limited to 280 characters or tweeters added 1/x notations to the end of their tweets signalling their intent to the reader to add further content.
Beyond the internet this lengthening of content has occurred in other media forms over the years. Sometimes that change has been because of evolving technology, for example Vinyl and Cassette based albums were quite short compared to CD recordings and later still digital releases went on to push this boundary. Likewise there was a time when 1 hour and 30 minutes was a respectable duration for a feature film but this again has been pushed to greater extremes with movies - although movies longer than 3 hours were not unheard of, they were much rarer in decades passed. At the time of writing, 7 of the top 10 longest cinematic releases were within the last 20 years, 4 of those were within the last 5 years as examples of this boundary being pushed.
Even in the literary world the emphasis placed on word counts grows over time, taking Harry Potter as an example the first book in the series was approximately 77,000 words in length with the series peaking at book five which was approximately 260,000 words in length. The entire series combined is approximately 1.1 million words in length. These numbers are not unprecedented, the likes of War And Peace was 560,000 words for a single book that was first published in 1869 so again it's not entirely fair to say that there is or ever was a consensus as to how long something should be.
The question of attention spans I think is not as relevant as we might think at first. My reasoning for drawing this conclusion is the realisation that the impetus or the compulsion to continue to consume content is more pressing than the length of that content. When you look at the likes of Netflix, whilst one could argue they push for longer content, this isn't the case when you look at the length of episodes of a series, they are not uniform, and with no need to factor in time for advertisements and a network schedule to adhere to Netflix gives creators a lot more flexibility to vary the length of their content. I find it interesting that no overall consensus emerges and that there still exists diversity in the run times of content.
The fact that no universal answer seems to exist, even within specific industries and fields you can often find guidelines but these are not absolute. Beyond content that is specifically created to fill a gap there seems to be no uniformity at all. Perhaps it's fair to say then that the adage of quality over quantity still reigns supreme, that the length is irrelevant and that the appeal of the content is what matters, those who find it appealing will consume it no matter how long you make it.
Language and Culture
I love languages, with a particular emphasis on learning them, but throughout my adventures on many occasions I have become acutely aware of the fact that despite the possibility of becoming proficient in a language, you can never achieve native status in that language if you were not born into it and raised within it. I say this because there are experiences which children have as they grow that you can not experience as an adult and any attempts to recreate them fall flat. It is inescapable that our mindset shifts with age as does our perception and with it the possibility of experiencing things for the first time again becomes impossible.
Take for instance your favourite novel that you read as a child. When you set out to learn a new language, one of the common approaches to developing an understanding of that language in written form is to take novels that you have read in your own language and look for translations of it to read in the language you are learning. Despite the fact that this is the first time you read that novel in that language it can never recapture the experience you had as a child reading it for the first time - no more than you can by reading it in your own language again could.
One thing I find interesting about the language learning process is the exploration of the culture attached to that language and that invariably leads to exploration of the type of content you would have experienced as a child had you grown up with it. In the previous post I mentioned a TV show I watched as a child called 'Bernard's Watch' anyone who grew up in the UK and is of a certain age will know of that TV show and the premise, whether they watched it or not just by virtue of the fact so few channels existed and so few shows were created for children that we were at least aware of everything that was produced, it wasn't a lot of content to keep track of really.
Trying to watch a show like this as an adult does not get very far, the content is clearly aimed at children and there's almost no appeal for adults. This isn't true of all kids TV shows, there are quite a few with jokes aimed at adults included within them that as children the go over your head completely but when watched again as adults there is a completely different experience to be had. Shows like SpongeBob SquarePants and The Magic Roundabout for instance both have adult humour throughout that is often missed entirely or acknowledged but not completely understood by children. That's not a statement made in an effort to be condescending or patronising, it simply reflects the decisions made by the writers to include content that would appeal to parents who watched them with their children or to people who revisited the shows later in life as was the case in the latter.
Pop culture is fluid and constantly moving forward. It is not something that it is easy to rewind and recapture. You only ever experience glimpses of it in retrospect which makes it difficult as an adult to experience much of what another adult of a different culture experienced in their childhood. Indeed there are questions of cultural appropriation that rear their head when it comes to how deep you dive into those cultures and how immersed you become. Nevertheless if you were to engage with English speakers for any extended period of time you will hear references to pop culture past and present, the dating of which will reflect the age of the person making them.
This isn't something unique to separate cultures it can also be apparent within the same culture where shifts have occurred through time that make the experiences of different generations so divergent that they can be considered separate. This is where the concept of a frame of reference comes into play which also features when learning languages as you need to define what time period you want to be able to reference, as it is unrealistic to want to be able to reference the culture of a country dating back hundreds of years. Even within those cultures native language speakers won't possess a deep understanding of their own cultural heritage, even the language itself will have limited understanding. Most British people will at least be able to reference Shakespeare for instance as his work still features in the national curriculum but ask them to name a single piece of work from that time period not created by Shakespeare and the vast majority will not be able to answer - myself included, it's just not a period we pay that much attention to.
One identifier for instance of native level speaking is the use of "correct mistakes" in other words the use of words or phrases that are used in the wrong context when defined syntactically or from an academic perspective but from an everyday perspective are treated as right and understood without anyone noticing the mistake that occurred. These can best be described as syntax errors or semantic errors, for example "I have written a book" vs "I wrote a book" mean two different things and have different purposes from a grammatical context but from an everyday perspective they mean the same thing and a native speaker for the most part won't notice a mistake. This is where you have to draw a perimeter around the concept of native understanding and demarcate it from the concept of proficiency, the latter is about fluency and understanding of the language in an academic context.
Trying to acquire frames of reference in another language is difficult not only because of the fluidity mentioned previously but also because it is often difficult to gain access to the content that was produced at the time. Streaming services have made this much easier but there is still a wealth of content that is not available through any platform - something which I have mentioned in past posts in that it is ultimately driven by demand and the existence of markets neither of which tend to be high for content that was created decades ago unless it rose to the surface of their time periods. Whilst you can argue that the most popular content will be available and should suffice in building a frame of reference, it does not lend itself to a native or near native understanding as that will inevitably reference experiences that you can no longer acquire.
For me personally having grown up in Northern Ireland there is a culture shock of sorts that would await anyone who had never been there during that time period if they were to try and recreate it. Although the TV series 'Derry Girls' does quite a good job of giving you a glimpse into what it was like.
What I take away from this whole observation is the realisation that learning a language should be something that gives you a framework and the tools needed to explore another culture but that the depth of that culture is something that should instead be shared and exchanged with someone who actually lived through it in order to learn more about one another - it's also not a bad place to start a conversation, if there's one thing people are confident talking about it's their own experience because they can't be wrong about what they experienced as it is entirely their perception.
Take for instance your favourite novel that you read as a child. When you set out to learn a new language, one of the common approaches to developing an understanding of that language in written form is to take novels that you have read in your own language and look for translations of it to read in the language you are learning. Despite the fact that this is the first time you read that novel in that language it can never recapture the experience you had as a child reading it for the first time - no more than you can by reading it in your own language again could.
One thing I find interesting about the language learning process is the exploration of the culture attached to that language and that invariably leads to exploration of the type of content you would have experienced as a child had you grown up with it. In the previous post I mentioned a TV show I watched as a child called 'Bernard's Watch' anyone who grew up in the UK and is of a certain age will know of that TV show and the premise, whether they watched it or not just by virtue of the fact so few channels existed and so few shows were created for children that we were at least aware of everything that was produced, it wasn't a lot of content to keep track of really.
Trying to watch a show like this as an adult does not get very far, the content is clearly aimed at children and there's almost no appeal for adults. This isn't true of all kids TV shows, there are quite a few with jokes aimed at adults included within them that as children the go over your head completely but when watched again as adults there is a completely different experience to be had. Shows like SpongeBob SquarePants and The Magic Roundabout for instance both have adult humour throughout that is often missed entirely or acknowledged but not completely understood by children. That's not a statement made in an effort to be condescending or patronising, it simply reflects the decisions made by the writers to include content that would appeal to parents who watched them with their children or to people who revisited the shows later in life as was the case in the latter.
Pop culture is fluid and constantly moving forward. It is not something that it is easy to rewind and recapture. You only ever experience glimpses of it in retrospect which makes it difficult as an adult to experience much of what another adult of a different culture experienced in their childhood. Indeed there are questions of cultural appropriation that rear their head when it comes to how deep you dive into those cultures and how immersed you become. Nevertheless if you were to engage with English speakers for any extended period of time you will hear references to pop culture past and present, the dating of which will reflect the age of the person making them.
This isn't something unique to separate cultures it can also be apparent within the same culture where shifts have occurred through time that make the experiences of different generations so divergent that they can be considered separate. This is where the concept of a frame of reference comes into play which also features when learning languages as you need to define what time period you want to be able to reference, as it is unrealistic to want to be able to reference the culture of a country dating back hundreds of years. Even within those cultures native language speakers won't possess a deep understanding of their own cultural heritage, even the language itself will have limited understanding. Most British people will at least be able to reference Shakespeare for instance as his work still features in the national curriculum but ask them to name a single piece of work from that time period not created by Shakespeare and the vast majority will not be able to answer - myself included, it's just not a period we pay that much attention to.
One identifier for instance of native level speaking is the use of "correct mistakes" in other words the use of words or phrases that are used in the wrong context when defined syntactically or from an academic perspective but from an everyday perspective are treated as right and understood without anyone noticing the mistake that occurred. These can best be described as syntax errors or semantic errors, for example "I have written a book" vs "I wrote a book" mean two different things and have different purposes from a grammatical context but from an everyday perspective they mean the same thing and a native speaker for the most part won't notice a mistake. This is where you have to draw a perimeter around the concept of native understanding and demarcate it from the concept of proficiency, the latter is about fluency and understanding of the language in an academic context.
Trying to acquire frames of reference in another language is difficult not only because of the fluidity mentioned previously but also because it is often difficult to gain access to the content that was produced at the time. Streaming services have made this much easier but there is still a wealth of content that is not available through any platform - something which I have mentioned in past posts in that it is ultimately driven by demand and the existence of markets neither of which tend to be high for content that was created decades ago unless it rose to the surface of their time periods. Whilst you can argue that the most popular content will be available and should suffice in building a frame of reference, it does not lend itself to a native or near native understanding as that will inevitably reference experiences that you can no longer acquire.
For me personally having grown up in Northern Ireland there is a culture shock of sorts that would await anyone who had never been there during that time period if they were to try and recreate it. Although the TV series 'Derry Girls' does quite a good job of giving you a glimpse into what it was like.
What I take away from this whole observation is the realisation that learning a language should be something that gives you a framework and the tools needed to explore another culture but that the depth of that culture is something that should instead be shared and exchanged with someone who actually lived through it in order to learn more about one another - it's also not a bad place to start a conversation, if there's one thing people are confident talking about it's their own experience because they can't be wrong about what they experienced as it is entirely their perception.
Music Monday #21: Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs! by Hellogoodbye
"I like where we are, When we drive in your car, I like where we are, Here"
- 'Here (In Your Arms)' - Hellogoodbye
'Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs!' was released in 2006 little over a month before I started University and it was the first album I was introduced to by the same friend that introduced me to The All-American Rejects. Hellogoodbye was a band fronted by Forrest Kline who defined her musical taste at that moment in time. I fell in love with their music right from the start, the song that had the most emotion for me was 'Here (In Your Arms)' - a song I have seen covered a few times since and still smile even the alternative versions remind me of that time in my life. My favourite track on the album however was 'Touchdown Turnaround (Don't Give Up on Me)' a track that was fun, upbeat, and had EDM influences although the genres most used to identify Hellogoodbye are pop punk and emo pop.
Emo culture was something that I was completely oblivious to until my time at University, I owe explanation of this to the fact that we didn't have an internet connection at home for the years prior. 'Emo', short for 'emotional' or 'emotionally unstable' more colloquially is a genre of music with many sub-genres and forms part of the wider emo culture that primarily centres around emotional expression which can be upbeat, or downbeat although the latter is what most people associate with it. Often conflated with Goth culture, the two share some similarities but not many, their styles are distinct and their origins worlds apart although a few bands bridge the two taking influence from both cultures notably My Chemical Romance.
Emo culture passed me by in my ignorance of a wider world, but in hindsight if I had discovered it at the time in my life when I would have needed it most I could easily see myself falling into it pretty deep. My artistic and creative endeavours, the poetry, the fiction, the drawings, and even to an extent the music I was exposed to would have bled into the culture quite easily and had I been able to connect with others who felt the same I might not have felt so alone in the world.
I do look at technology and the apparent effect of shrinking the world that it seems to have and I wonder how different my life would have been had I grown up with access to it on the same scale that I do now. On the one hand I argue that having this technology now doesn't make it any easier despite the feeling that it does, I still haven't connected on a larger scale with people who share my mindset and that often leads to contemplation of the possibility that people who do share it might be in a very small minority. On the other hand I look at the state of the internet today and argue that in its nascence it was much easier to connect with other people. I used to moderate an LGBT forum which I spent 3 years doing almost every single day and I met a lot of people through it one or two I am still in contact with today even though the forum closed several years ago now. The dominance of social media has ironically made it harder to make social connections online, instead reinforcing the connections you already have, or destroying them when you see some of the things posted by people you thought you knew.
Hellogoodbye is a reminder for me of fleeting connections, despite the depth of the friendships that I developed at that time, in particular the one with the girl who shared her music with me, much of that connection was formed through circumstance, we were people that otherwise probably would never have met, never crossed paths, and if it wasn't for the fact life put us together we probably would never have even spoken to each other in University. That's not a judgement passed on either of us, it's just a reflection of the diversity experienced when you are put in a melting pot and mix with people outside of your bubble. The trouble is, once you're tipped out of that pot at the end of the process those connections are tested and the commonalities or lack thereof are brought to light. In this case beyond University itself we had very little in common when it came to our lives beyond it so we drifted apart and eventually lost contact. Things ended amicably, there was no ill feeling, and we still have a means to contact one another, but like the lives we lived before we ever met there's nothing to bring us together.
This disconnection is something that is true of quite a few friendships I have had over the years, I'm quite easy to talk to, easy to get along with, I'm not contentious, and I'm inoffensive in person, all of that means that I get along with 99% of the people I meet. If you judge your perception of me purely by what I write however you'll have a warped view of what I am actually like in person. I don't speak the way I write, I don't share as much of the thoughts I document on here in everyday conversation for the simple reason that the bulk of the posts on this blog are things that don't come up in everyday conversation and most people never broach the subjects. In essence this is hidden depth that only the people who get to know me well and get close enough to me actually get to see, and complete strangers like you who read it online on this blog with no actual connection to the person behind the keyboard.
This is something I have struggled with in life though, and given the emo nature of Hellogoodbye it seems fitting to mention it here. Their music like most of the emo genres touch on emotions that we feel but don't express openly or that few people take any interest in trying to understand when we do. What I struggled with wasn't the expression of those emotions, I have always been able to find creative outlets to let those out when I need to, no the struggle came from the isolation and the inability to find people who were going through the same thing. I don't know how different my life would have been if the first 12 years of my education had been in mixed sex schools, but from an all male school environment the definition of toxic masculinity is plain to see, the view of any expression of any emotion other than anger as a sign of weakness is something that you learn very quickly, you learn not to express your emotions in that environment and for me personally that led to 12 years where I formed only a few connections to the people around me. The fear of falling is amplified when you feel there is no-one there to catch you, and the ease of making a mistake that trips you up is amplified by the lack of support and the few things that exist that keep you upright.
- 'Here (In Your Arms)' - Hellogoodbye
'Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs!' was released in 2006 little over a month before I started University and it was the first album I was introduced to by the same friend that introduced me to The All-American Rejects. Hellogoodbye was a band fronted by Forrest Kline who defined her musical taste at that moment in time. I fell in love with their music right from the start, the song that had the most emotion for me was 'Here (In Your Arms)' - a song I have seen covered a few times since and still smile even the alternative versions remind me of that time in my life. My favourite track on the album however was 'Touchdown Turnaround (Don't Give Up on Me)' a track that was fun, upbeat, and had EDM influences although the genres most used to identify Hellogoodbye are pop punk and emo pop.
Emo culture was something that I was completely oblivious to until my time at University, I owe explanation of this to the fact that we didn't have an internet connection at home for the years prior. 'Emo', short for 'emotional' or 'emotionally unstable' more colloquially is a genre of music with many sub-genres and forms part of the wider emo culture that primarily centres around emotional expression which can be upbeat, or downbeat although the latter is what most people associate with it. Often conflated with Goth culture, the two share some similarities but not many, their styles are distinct and their origins worlds apart although a few bands bridge the two taking influence from both cultures notably My Chemical Romance.
Emo culture passed me by in my ignorance of a wider world, but in hindsight if I had discovered it at the time in my life when I would have needed it most I could easily see myself falling into it pretty deep. My artistic and creative endeavours, the poetry, the fiction, the drawings, and even to an extent the music I was exposed to would have bled into the culture quite easily and had I been able to connect with others who felt the same I might not have felt so alone in the world.
I do look at technology and the apparent effect of shrinking the world that it seems to have and I wonder how different my life would have been had I grown up with access to it on the same scale that I do now. On the one hand I argue that having this technology now doesn't make it any easier despite the feeling that it does, I still haven't connected on a larger scale with people who share my mindset and that often leads to contemplation of the possibility that people who do share it might be in a very small minority. On the other hand I look at the state of the internet today and argue that in its nascence it was much easier to connect with other people. I used to moderate an LGBT forum which I spent 3 years doing almost every single day and I met a lot of people through it one or two I am still in contact with today even though the forum closed several years ago now. The dominance of social media has ironically made it harder to make social connections online, instead reinforcing the connections you already have, or destroying them when you see some of the things posted by people you thought you knew.
Hellogoodbye is a reminder for me of fleeting connections, despite the depth of the friendships that I developed at that time, in particular the one with the girl who shared her music with me, much of that connection was formed through circumstance, we were people that otherwise probably would never have met, never crossed paths, and if it wasn't for the fact life put us together we probably would never have even spoken to each other in University. That's not a judgement passed on either of us, it's just a reflection of the diversity experienced when you are put in a melting pot and mix with people outside of your bubble. The trouble is, once you're tipped out of that pot at the end of the process those connections are tested and the commonalities or lack thereof are brought to light. In this case beyond University itself we had very little in common when it came to our lives beyond it so we drifted apart and eventually lost contact. Things ended amicably, there was no ill feeling, and we still have a means to contact one another, but like the lives we lived before we ever met there's nothing to bring us together.
This disconnection is something that is true of quite a few friendships I have had over the years, I'm quite easy to talk to, easy to get along with, I'm not contentious, and I'm inoffensive in person, all of that means that I get along with 99% of the people I meet. If you judge your perception of me purely by what I write however you'll have a warped view of what I am actually like in person. I don't speak the way I write, I don't share as much of the thoughts I document on here in everyday conversation for the simple reason that the bulk of the posts on this blog are things that don't come up in everyday conversation and most people never broach the subjects. In essence this is hidden depth that only the people who get to know me well and get close enough to me actually get to see, and complete strangers like you who read it online on this blog with no actual connection to the person behind the keyboard.
This is something I have struggled with in life though, and given the emo nature of Hellogoodbye it seems fitting to mention it here. Their music like most of the emo genres touch on emotions that we feel but don't express openly or that few people take any interest in trying to understand when we do. What I struggled with wasn't the expression of those emotions, I have always been able to find creative outlets to let those out when I need to, no the struggle came from the isolation and the inability to find people who were going through the same thing. I don't know how different my life would have been if the first 12 years of my education had been in mixed sex schools, but from an all male school environment the definition of toxic masculinity is plain to see, the view of any expression of any emotion other than anger as a sign of weakness is something that you learn very quickly, you learn not to express your emotions in that environment and for me personally that led to 12 years where I formed only a few connections to the people around me. The fear of falling is amplified when you feel there is no-one there to catch you, and the ease of making a mistake that trips you up is amplified by the lack of support and the few things that exist that keep you upright.
Fast or Slow
The say time speeds up as you get older, that your perception shifts so that time passes by more quickly not that time itself actually changes. Personally my explanation for this was always to define time frames as a percentage of the life you have lived, for example for a child of 5 years old, a year feels like an eternity because a year is 20% of the life they have lived. At age 10 a year represents 10% of their life, and by age 20 that year is reduced to just 5% of their life lived. The higher you age gets the smaller the percentage of your lifespan that period of time represents which to me was always the reason why time appeared to accelerate because in context those time periods grew shorter relative to the rest of your life.
There is another theory I have come across that attempts to explain this shift in perception and that is centred around boredom or to be more precise, novelty versus routine. That is to say, the more novel and engrossing an experience is to us the more attention we pay to it and thus the elongation of our experience of time occurs, and that conversely the more mundane and repetitious an experience is to us the less attention we pay to it and thus the acceleration of our experience of time occurs. This is not meant in terms of how mentally draining something becomes like a lecturer droning on about some subject which we have no interest in but instead it is meant in reference to expectations, or to be more precise, how much our brains expect the outcome to be predictable as an indicator of how much attention it should dedicate. There was an article on Digital Trends which takes this idea and applies it to people and their perception of time during lockdown.
Taking this theory and attempting to put it into practice, if you desire time to speed up then you would choose to do something repetitive that requires little conscious effort - most cookie clicker type games and casual games in general fit this bill quite aptly. If your desire however is to make time slow down so that you can live more in the moment then you would need to choose to do something that you have not done before or that will be mentally taxing, anything that will require you to pay attention to detail, ultimately this can summed up as the search for new experiences.
In recent months we have all had to spend a lot of time waiting for things and in an effort to put this theory to the test I have been listening to a familiar series of podcasts, played youtube playlists, and played mindless games - not all concurrently but in different combinations. The results have been hard to gauge namely because I have no idea how quickly time would have passed for me had I not done any of these so I can't accurately measure success, moreover since this entirely defined by perception there is little tangible data that can be compiled as a result.
What I can say conclusively is that although I am still waiting for life to move forward, the amount of thought I have given to that fact is minimal and a lot less taxing. If ever there existed a remote control that we could use to control our lives like those depicted in various cartoons, I fear the two buttons I would use most would be the fast forward and the pause buttons. The former in an effort to skip most of the repetition, and the latter in an effort to escape commitments when they caused me stress. When I was a kid there was a children's drama series called 'Bernard's Watch' that revolved around this premise, the main character Bernard possessed a pocket watch that could be used to stop time. As a kid I can't tell you how much I wanted that watch, but even now as an adult the desire is still strong although the potential uses for it have become a lot more mundane like sleeping at a normal time as opposed to the erratic sleep pattern I struggle with.
Our relationship with time does seem to be quite bizarre as a concept. Whilst other animals exhibit behaviours that show an inclination towards an awareness of time passing, most of these seem to be related more closely to day night cycles and indeed when lighting levels are unnaturally altered, the behaviours of those animals responds to the change demonstrating a lack of ability to discriminate between these and the actual passage of time. To our knowledge in this regard human beings are the only animal on this planet that is not only aware of time passing but actively measures that passage of time. That's not to say animals can't predict routine and identify patterns, having raised dogs all my life they are certainly aware of when they should be fed and when people usually come and go but there are other cues that can be used in those instances to explain those behaviours.
The question remains if you could control how fast time progresses, but not the ability to go backward, would you actually use it to speed things up or would you use it to slow things down, or even bring them to a halt?
There is another theory I have come across that attempts to explain this shift in perception and that is centred around boredom or to be more precise, novelty versus routine. That is to say, the more novel and engrossing an experience is to us the more attention we pay to it and thus the elongation of our experience of time occurs, and that conversely the more mundane and repetitious an experience is to us the less attention we pay to it and thus the acceleration of our experience of time occurs. This is not meant in terms of how mentally draining something becomes like a lecturer droning on about some subject which we have no interest in but instead it is meant in reference to expectations, or to be more precise, how much our brains expect the outcome to be predictable as an indicator of how much attention it should dedicate. There was an article on Digital Trends which takes this idea and applies it to people and their perception of time during lockdown.
Taking this theory and attempting to put it into practice, if you desire time to speed up then you would choose to do something repetitive that requires little conscious effort - most cookie clicker type games and casual games in general fit this bill quite aptly. If your desire however is to make time slow down so that you can live more in the moment then you would need to choose to do something that you have not done before or that will be mentally taxing, anything that will require you to pay attention to detail, ultimately this can summed up as the search for new experiences.
In recent months we have all had to spend a lot of time waiting for things and in an effort to put this theory to the test I have been listening to a familiar series of podcasts, played youtube playlists, and played mindless games - not all concurrently but in different combinations. The results have been hard to gauge namely because I have no idea how quickly time would have passed for me had I not done any of these so I can't accurately measure success, moreover since this entirely defined by perception there is little tangible data that can be compiled as a result.
What I can say conclusively is that although I am still waiting for life to move forward, the amount of thought I have given to that fact is minimal and a lot less taxing. If ever there existed a remote control that we could use to control our lives like those depicted in various cartoons, I fear the two buttons I would use most would be the fast forward and the pause buttons. The former in an effort to skip most of the repetition, and the latter in an effort to escape commitments when they caused me stress. When I was a kid there was a children's drama series called 'Bernard's Watch' that revolved around this premise, the main character Bernard possessed a pocket watch that could be used to stop time. As a kid I can't tell you how much I wanted that watch, but even now as an adult the desire is still strong although the potential uses for it have become a lot more mundane like sleeping at a normal time as opposed to the erratic sleep pattern I struggle with.
Our relationship with time does seem to be quite bizarre as a concept. Whilst other animals exhibit behaviours that show an inclination towards an awareness of time passing, most of these seem to be related more closely to day night cycles and indeed when lighting levels are unnaturally altered, the behaviours of those animals responds to the change demonstrating a lack of ability to discriminate between these and the actual passage of time. To our knowledge in this regard human beings are the only animal on this planet that is not only aware of time passing but actively measures that passage of time. That's not to say animals can't predict routine and identify patterns, having raised dogs all my life they are certainly aware of when they should be fed and when people usually come and go but there are other cues that can be used in those instances to explain those behaviours.
The question remains if you could control how fast time progresses, but not the ability to go backward, would you actually use it to speed things up or would you use it to slow things down, or even bring them to a halt?
Judgement
There is a concept in Christianity known as Judgement Day, the basic idea is that there will come a day when God will pass judgement on humanity and that its achievements and its sins would be weighed against one another to determine its fate. The idea is one that is also present in different forms in many other religions, that ultimately there will be judgement and retribution or reward for what you have done. For society as a whole beyond religion this concept is mirrored in the concepts of justice and the outcomes of the judicial process.
Both of these however require a certain amount of faith, the former in a more literal sense as the date of judgement day in Christianity is unknown and might not even happen in your lifetime if it ever happened at all. The latter requires faith in the people who are tasked with upholding the laws they pass judgement in deference to, again you might not live to see justice upheld if it is upheld at all. A judge interprets the law, those interpretations can vary widely, that is, if the case ever makes it to a court to begin with.
Reducing both to their most fundamental tenets you can say that they both incorporate one simple core belief, that if you are good you will be rewarded and if you are bad you will be punished. The trouble with this core belief is that it is objectively false. Regardless of your definition of good and evil, there are countless examples of people who were evil to the core who were never punished for their actions by all definitions, in fact in many cases they were rewarded. There are countless examples of people who were good to their core who were never rewarded for being so and many more who were actively punished for being so.
You can go further with platitudes like "a good deed is its own reward" and realise that these exist to placate those who have been good but have not been rewarded for doing so. These concepts when they are broken down are nothing more than systems of control, control of the spirit in the case of religion for those who are inclined to those beliefs and control of the mind in the case of the judicial system for those who are inclined to the belief that it actually fulfils the purpose it is intended to fulfil.
The fact that you can see so many examples in your own life and the lives of the people around you that contradict this belief raises the question of why you should actually adhere to it at all. More over it raises the question of what the outcome would be if that day of judgement ever came. In the religious sense whilst it can often be the case that people ask who is going to Hell the real question to ask is who would actually get into Heaven if it existed. There is a series on Netflix called The Good Place which explores this concept and brings into focus the weight of the decisions we make in life and their unforeseen ramifications ultimately leading to the question of accountability in ignorance. The series is well worth a watch if you're interested in the concept, it also applies a recurring theme of a bureaucratic afterlife which is something I love to see in narrative fiction, TV Shows, and Movies like Beetlejuice.
In the judicial sense with a complete lack of trust in the existing system the only authority you can defer to is a hypothetical authority. The only hypothetical authority that could exist in the confines of reality beyond a deity is any potential alien race that might discover our planet. Whilst this is unlikely to ever happen it is an interesting thought experiment to ask, what conclusion would that race would draw if they were to stand in judgement of humanity as a whole, and if that judgement is not what we would prefer then what can you do to change it?
There's an episode of South Park called 'Pinewood Derby' [S13 E06] which revolves around this concept, I won't spoil the plot if you haven't seen it. However the idea of having an objective third party that can stand in judgement is something that runs throughout society but like most things it is a theory that is arguably never achieved in practice because it is near impossible to implement.
If you were asked to stand in judgement of humanity, where would you place the sum total of our entire history up until this point, with all we have achieved and all that we have done collectively, to the planet, to the animals and plants we share it with, and to one another.
Both of these however require a certain amount of faith, the former in a more literal sense as the date of judgement day in Christianity is unknown and might not even happen in your lifetime if it ever happened at all. The latter requires faith in the people who are tasked with upholding the laws they pass judgement in deference to, again you might not live to see justice upheld if it is upheld at all. A judge interprets the law, those interpretations can vary widely, that is, if the case ever makes it to a court to begin with.
Reducing both to their most fundamental tenets you can say that they both incorporate one simple core belief, that if you are good you will be rewarded and if you are bad you will be punished. The trouble with this core belief is that it is objectively false. Regardless of your definition of good and evil, there are countless examples of people who were evil to the core who were never punished for their actions by all definitions, in fact in many cases they were rewarded. There are countless examples of people who were good to their core who were never rewarded for being so and many more who were actively punished for being so.
You can go further with platitudes like "a good deed is its own reward" and realise that these exist to placate those who have been good but have not been rewarded for doing so. These concepts when they are broken down are nothing more than systems of control, control of the spirit in the case of religion for those who are inclined to those beliefs and control of the mind in the case of the judicial system for those who are inclined to the belief that it actually fulfils the purpose it is intended to fulfil.
The fact that you can see so many examples in your own life and the lives of the people around you that contradict this belief raises the question of why you should actually adhere to it at all. More over it raises the question of what the outcome would be if that day of judgement ever came. In the religious sense whilst it can often be the case that people ask who is going to Hell the real question to ask is who would actually get into Heaven if it existed. There is a series on Netflix called The Good Place which explores this concept and brings into focus the weight of the decisions we make in life and their unforeseen ramifications ultimately leading to the question of accountability in ignorance. The series is well worth a watch if you're interested in the concept, it also applies a recurring theme of a bureaucratic afterlife which is something I love to see in narrative fiction, TV Shows, and Movies like Beetlejuice.
In the judicial sense with a complete lack of trust in the existing system the only authority you can defer to is a hypothetical authority. The only hypothetical authority that could exist in the confines of reality beyond a deity is any potential alien race that might discover our planet. Whilst this is unlikely to ever happen it is an interesting thought experiment to ask, what conclusion would that race would draw if they were to stand in judgement of humanity as a whole, and if that judgement is not what we would prefer then what can you do to change it?
There's an episode of South Park called 'Pinewood Derby' [S13 E06] which revolves around this concept, I won't spoil the plot if you haven't seen it. However the idea of having an objective third party that can stand in judgement is something that runs throughout society but like most things it is a theory that is arguably never achieved in practice because it is near impossible to implement.
If you were asked to stand in judgement of humanity, where would you place the sum total of our entire history up until this point, with all we have achieved and all that we have done collectively, to the planet, to the animals and plants we share it with, and to one another.
Introverted By Design
'Introverted By Design' was the second work that I created that was specifically targeted at a mature audience. This work once again is in part erotic fiction, and in part a greater narrative.
This story follows the life of Jason, a young gay History graduate who has been unemployed since graduation and at the point of desperation when he finally applies for every job he sees including one in a small family-run furniture store not at all expecting to succeed.
Taste
The ability to 3D-Print objects is a technology that has been evolving rapidly over the past decade, whilst the concept is not novel and has been around for decades prior, the technology has only really come into its prime in the last 10 years or so. This is in many respects a lot like the internet in that the ARPANET was first created at the end of the 1960s and existed for decades before the world wide web was created by Sir Tim Berners-Lee which eventually led to the explosion of content and services that now dominate almost every industry.
When you think of 3D-Printing and what it might one day achieve, the obvious answer to give is that it will one day be able to print objects on an atomic level, able to reconstruct anything atom by atom and therefore possess the ability to essentially take any matter as an input and produce any desired output with minimal waste. This potential ability to recreate things on an atom by atom basis however poses an interesting question, would your experience be the same each time? If we take food as an example, if the exact same burger could be produced on demand that was completely identical to the original each and every time, how different would your experience be each time you eat that burger? Would it be different at all?
The idea that our environment and our current state influences our experience as much if not more than the stimulus in itself is something that has been tested indeed the influence of our senses beyond taste on our enjoyment of a meal has been well documented, this article at Quartz is a good place to start as far as the concept of 'sonic seasoning' is concerned - the use of our sense of hearing to influence our experience.
The question is, if you wanted to have the same experience each time, in order to recreate that experience, how much effort would be needed and how many conditions would need to be met? More than this, if all of those things need to be accounted for, how much does the food itself actually influence our experience? We're often told with varying figures that our body language accounts more for the way people receive what we say than the words themselves, with the typical ratio being that what you say accounts for 10% and how you say it accounts for the remaining 90% so what if our experience of food were to follow the same ratio? If the food itself only accounted for 10% of our experience and the remaining 90% of the experience was determined by other factors, how would that change our relationship with food?
Food replacement products exist like Soylent, a powder that you combined with water to make a drink that supposedly has everything you need to survive, with the idea being that you drink it instead of eating. Soylent was named after Soylent Green from Harry Harrison's novel 'Make Room! Make Room!' which depicted a dystopian world. Part of the opposition to the real life product which fortunately isn't made the same way as the fictional product [I won't spoil it if you haven't read it] is the idea that eating food is generally an experience that has a lot of emotion and sentimentality attached to it. What we choose to eat is often a reflection of our personality or our socio-economic status. Foods like caviar are a status symbol, in objective terms they aren't particularly appetising, but their price tag and their rarity is what attaches the status element to these foods, indeed if chicken were as rare as caviar then the price would reflect this and it too would be considered a luxury or a status symbol, this we know from history as food products like sugar which are abundant today and some might say overused were once a luxury and came with a high price tag.
The point I was making is that it is already technically possible and even arguably affordable to live without food and to consume these products instead of eating, most people would not be quick to embrace the idea though, most people that I have seen try these products do so for the novelty out of curiosity more than anything but I have yet to meet someone who actually chose to continue consuming them and give up on food entirely. Aside from the fact that the long term health implications cannot be known until enough time has passed to accurately gauge their impact, the novelty in and of itself demonstrates that this is at least a concept that people are curious about.
I would have considered myself someone who was opposed to the idea of giving up food but that is primarily due to the fact that food has played such a major part of my life, beyond the complicated relationship I have with it in regards to my weight, there was even a time when I considered it as a potential career path. I always had a love of cooking ever since I was a child when I would help Mum whenever she baked and would watch how she made certain foods. My collection of cookbooks over the years grew with one in particular serving as more of a bible to me than an actual bible. For a time when considering career paths in high school I considered applying to catering college as a progression path - this was abandoned however when as part of careers education I got to spend time in catering college on placement as well as placement in other industries. The placement which I have previously mentioned working for a sign writing company piqued more of an interest in computing and technology in industry, food became a hobby something to do in my spare time but not a career choice. In hindsight I don't know if that was the right choice to make or what the other path might have led to but life is about choices.
When it came to considering careers however one piece of advice we were given was that people will always need to eat, and people will always die, if you pursue either industry and can't make a profit then something is very wrong. The latter I don't think is in dispute I think immortality is decidedly out of reach for humanity even with technology as advanced as it now is; as for the former however, I am not so sure whether the assertion that people will always eat will hold true - at least not in terms of the conventional definitions of what it means to eat.
When you think of 3D-Printing and what it might one day achieve, the obvious answer to give is that it will one day be able to print objects on an atomic level, able to reconstruct anything atom by atom and therefore possess the ability to essentially take any matter as an input and produce any desired output with minimal waste. This potential ability to recreate things on an atom by atom basis however poses an interesting question, would your experience be the same each time? If we take food as an example, if the exact same burger could be produced on demand that was completely identical to the original each and every time, how different would your experience be each time you eat that burger? Would it be different at all?
The idea that our environment and our current state influences our experience as much if not more than the stimulus in itself is something that has been tested indeed the influence of our senses beyond taste on our enjoyment of a meal has been well documented, this article at Quartz is a good place to start as far as the concept of 'sonic seasoning' is concerned - the use of our sense of hearing to influence our experience.
The question is, if you wanted to have the same experience each time, in order to recreate that experience, how much effort would be needed and how many conditions would need to be met? More than this, if all of those things need to be accounted for, how much does the food itself actually influence our experience? We're often told with varying figures that our body language accounts more for the way people receive what we say than the words themselves, with the typical ratio being that what you say accounts for 10% and how you say it accounts for the remaining 90% so what if our experience of food were to follow the same ratio? If the food itself only accounted for 10% of our experience and the remaining 90% of the experience was determined by other factors, how would that change our relationship with food?
Food replacement products exist like Soylent, a powder that you combined with water to make a drink that supposedly has everything you need to survive, with the idea being that you drink it instead of eating. Soylent was named after Soylent Green from Harry Harrison's novel 'Make Room! Make Room!' which depicted a dystopian world. Part of the opposition to the real life product which fortunately isn't made the same way as the fictional product [I won't spoil it if you haven't read it] is the idea that eating food is generally an experience that has a lot of emotion and sentimentality attached to it. What we choose to eat is often a reflection of our personality or our socio-economic status. Foods like caviar are a status symbol, in objective terms they aren't particularly appetising, but their price tag and their rarity is what attaches the status element to these foods, indeed if chicken were as rare as caviar then the price would reflect this and it too would be considered a luxury or a status symbol, this we know from history as food products like sugar which are abundant today and some might say overused were once a luxury and came with a high price tag.
The point I was making is that it is already technically possible and even arguably affordable to live without food and to consume these products instead of eating, most people would not be quick to embrace the idea though, most people that I have seen try these products do so for the novelty out of curiosity more than anything but I have yet to meet someone who actually chose to continue consuming them and give up on food entirely. Aside from the fact that the long term health implications cannot be known until enough time has passed to accurately gauge their impact, the novelty in and of itself demonstrates that this is at least a concept that people are curious about.
I would have considered myself someone who was opposed to the idea of giving up food but that is primarily due to the fact that food has played such a major part of my life, beyond the complicated relationship I have with it in regards to my weight, there was even a time when I considered it as a potential career path. I always had a love of cooking ever since I was a child when I would help Mum whenever she baked and would watch how she made certain foods. My collection of cookbooks over the years grew with one in particular serving as more of a bible to me than an actual bible. For a time when considering career paths in high school I considered applying to catering college as a progression path - this was abandoned however when as part of careers education I got to spend time in catering college on placement as well as placement in other industries. The placement which I have previously mentioned working for a sign writing company piqued more of an interest in computing and technology in industry, food became a hobby something to do in my spare time but not a career choice. In hindsight I don't know if that was the right choice to make or what the other path might have led to but life is about choices.
When it came to considering careers however one piece of advice we were given was that people will always need to eat, and people will always die, if you pursue either industry and can't make a profit then something is very wrong. The latter I don't think is in dispute I think immortality is decidedly out of reach for humanity even with technology as advanced as it now is; as for the former however, I am not so sure whether the assertion that people will always eat will hold true - at least not in terms of the conventional definitions of what it means to eat.
Music Monday #20 The Greatest Hits My Prerogative by Britney Spears
I mentioned Britney Spears in the previous post in this series so it seems like a fitting moment to include the only Britney album that will appear on this list because once more if I included every album of hers that I would like then this list would have to be much longer than 52 entries. I've gone for yet another greatest hits album, this time 'The Greatest Hits: My Prerogative' because it covers pretty much everything I want to include from her career up until that point.
My Prerogative was released in 2004, a year I have already covered in depth to this point so I'll focus more on the music as you already have the context. For those of you lucky enough to know my personal email address it might not come as much surprise that one of my favourite tracks on the album is 'Toxic' a song I love if not for anything more than the lyrics, in particular "The taste of your lips, I'm on a ride, You're toxic I'm slippin' under, With a taste of a poison paradise" - this should make sense to you by now if you've been reading these posts in series, it refers to the toxic relationships and the fact that we know certain people and situations are bad for us and still we indulge because the rush of the ride and the promise is enough even though we know the promise is never kept.
'Me Against The Music' saw Britney collaborate with Madonna which brought two idols for me together and produced a track that exemplifies my relationship with Music and the desire to get lost in it and forget the rest of the world. By now I've probably exhausted the assertion that I turn to Music in life so much, my taste can seem sporadic and lacking structure but when you understand the underlying narrative and begin to make the connections that exist between artists you start to see where the sense lies and things don't look that sporadic upon closer inspection; that theme of organised chaos is something that has remained almost constant in my life for as long as I can remember, to me perfect order is perfect chaos, and conversely perfect chaos is perfect order. Life is the balancing act between the two, some people try to organise the world and stabilise it, whilst others try to disorganise it and destabilise it.
I own a limited edition of the album which includes a bonus disc that was initially only released in Japan, this edition includes the Valentin remix of 'Everytime' which was released in the US on the 'B In The Mix' remixes album, this track in particular is the most EDM heavy remix of Everytime that I have found and I love it. The original track in itself is also a favourite but this remix in particular holds a special place because it brings together so much of what I like in one track. I still listen to it at full volume when I want to drowned out the world.
What might be sacrilege to some people to say, I regard Britney Spears as a recording artist and a dance, in that she does one or the other, I don't expect a live vocal performance from her. I know the criticism people have of her and her performances where she has lip-synced, I honestly don't care. When I listen to her music I am listening to a recording, as is the case with every artist on this list. There are only a handful of artists in my music library that I would expect to perform in person just as good if not better than they did when they recorded the albums but that's just opinion I know people have different motivations and will disagree with it. Britney remains one of the most successful pop artists of my generation and no amount of criticism is going to change that fact.
This touches on another side of the music industry though which I have somewhat of an aversion to, and that is the idea of musical politics. There are fans of some artists that are so devoted to them it could be construed as a cult. Britney is one of those artists, in fact there are those who refer to her tongue in cheek as "Godney" or "The Holy Spearit" - that's devotion. Personally there's never been an artist I was that devoted to and I hope there never will be. Each to their own, but this tribalism does lead to some pretty vicious fighting between fandoms which I've written about in the past in one of the regular posts on this blog, my view remains the same, any belief that cannot be questioned isn't a belief it's dogma, and any individual who is held as someone who can do no wrong no matter what they do is inspiring a cult of personality. I know for commercial success this is something most artists turn a blind eye to and others encourage because it drives consumption and leads to free advertising and promotion in the end, none of which I agree with.
I avoid politics in the music industry largely by choosing not to follow individual artists or groups too closely, there are only a handful of creators whose creations I genuinely enjoy who I actually follow on social media and take an active interest in their lives, for the rest for the most part I am quite happy to live in ignorance, I'd rather separate the art from the artist because I have been burned a few too many times when I have enjoyed and artist and their work only to find out they're actually quite a cunt in person which completely ruins the connection and the enjoyment that I got from what they created. There are few exceptions to this rule, cases where I don't want to indirectly fund certain organisations - which is why for instance I will never buy a Movie with Tom Cruise in it, but if I tried to maintain a list of every person who ever espoused a view that pissed me off and boycotted them and everything associated with them I wouldn't have much left in this life to find enjoyment from. The reality is through the idea that you can connect yourself to any other living human through 6 degrees of separation or less, if you were to remove certain people from your world and those associated with them, you'd knock out quite a sizeable chunk of the population in the process and depending on how deep you go you might knock out the whole world.
This post took a turn.
My Prerogative was released in 2004, a year I have already covered in depth to this point so I'll focus more on the music as you already have the context. For those of you lucky enough to know my personal email address it might not come as much surprise that one of my favourite tracks on the album is 'Toxic' a song I love if not for anything more than the lyrics, in particular "The taste of your lips, I'm on a ride, You're toxic I'm slippin' under, With a taste of a poison paradise" - this should make sense to you by now if you've been reading these posts in series, it refers to the toxic relationships and the fact that we know certain people and situations are bad for us and still we indulge because the rush of the ride and the promise is enough even though we know the promise is never kept.
'Me Against The Music' saw Britney collaborate with Madonna which brought two idols for me together and produced a track that exemplifies my relationship with Music and the desire to get lost in it and forget the rest of the world. By now I've probably exhausted the assertion that I turn to Music in life so much, my taste can seem sporadic and lacking structure but when you understand the underlying narrative and begin to make the connections that exist between artists you start to see where the sense lies and things don't look that sporadic upon closer inspection; that theme of organised chaos is something that has remained almost constant in my life for as long as I can remember, to me perfect order is perfect chaos, and conversely perfect chaos is perfect order. Life is the balancing act between the two, some people try to organise the world and stabilise it, whilst others try to disorganise it and destabilise it.
I own a limited edition of the album which includes a bonus disc that was initially only released in Japan, this edition includes the Valentin remix of 'Everytime' which was released in the US on the 'B In The Mix' remixes album, this track in particular is the most EDM heavy remix of Everytime that I have found and I love it. The original track in itself is also a favourite but this remix in particular holds a special place because it brings together so much of what I like in one track. I still listen to it at full volume when I want to drowned out the world.
What might be sacrilege to some people to say, I regard Britney Spears as a recording artist and a dance, in that she does one or the other, I don't expect a live vocal performance from her. I know the criticism people have of her and her performances where she has lip-synced, I honestly don't care. When I listen to her music I am listening to a recording, as is the case with every artist on this list. There are only a handful of artists in my music library that I would expect to perform in person just as good if not better than they did when they recorded the albums but that's just opinion I know people have different motivations and will disagree with it. Britney remains one of the most successful pop artists of my generation and no amount of criticism is going to change that fact.
This touches on another side of the music industry though which I have somewhat of an aversion to, and that is the idea of musical politics. There are fans of some artists that are so devoted to them it could be construed as a cult. Britney is one of those artists, in fact there are those who refer to her tongue in cheek as "Godney" or "The Holy Spearit" - that's devotion. Personally there's never been an artist I was that devoted to and I hope there never will be. Each to their own, but this tribalism does lead to some pretty vicious fighting between fandoms which I've written about in the past in one of the regular posts on this blog, my view remains the same, any belief that cannot be questioned isn't a belief it's dogma, and any individual who is held as someone who can do no wrong no matter what they do is inspiring a cult of personality. I know for commercial success this is something most artists turn a blind eye to and others encourage because it drives consumption and leads to free advertising and promotion in the end, none of which I agree with.
I avoid politics in the music industry largely by choosing not to follow individual artists or groups too closely, there are only a handful of creators whose creations I genuinely enjoy who I actually follow on social media and take an active interest in their lives, for the rest for the most part I am quite happy to live in ignorance, I'd rather separate the art from the artist because I have been burned a few too many times when I have enjoyed and artist and their work only to find out they're actually quite a cunt in person which completely ruins the connection and the enjoyment that I got from what they created. There are few exceptions to this rule, cases where I don't want to indirectly fund certain organisations - which is why for instance I will never buy a Movie with Tom Cruise in it, but if I tried to maintain a list of every person who ever espoused a view that pissed me off and boycotted them and everything associated with them I wouldn't have much left in this life to find enjoyment from. The reality is through the idea that you can connect yourself to any other living human through 6 degrees of separation or less, if you were to remove certain people from your world and those associated with them, you'd knock out quite a sizeable chunk of the population in the process and depending on how deep you go you might knock out the whole world.
This post took a turn.
Recruitment
I have been writing another novel and there is a scene within it where the main character has a job interview and it made me reflect on my experience of the recruitment processes of many companies and just how bizarre they can be. The weirdest interview I ever had was for a supermarket several years ago now, back when I worked in retail. The interview began as a one on one process but progressed to a group stage where we were split into groups of 5 and given several sheets of paper, elastic bands, paper-clips, and a ping pong ball and told to construct a track that the ball would freely travel one metre along. I understand the supposed aim of this exercise is to test team building, coordination, leadership, and all the rest of the justifications the company gave but the precocious nature of the task as part of a recruitment process for a job that did not ostensibly require these skills and abilities was what ultimately led me to the conclusion that they did what they did because they could, not because they needed to, which is something I have since seen repeated by many companies.
The supermarket in question is now in trouble financially like many businesses in the UK it is being forced to reflect on its structure and is facing many problems in this regard, as well as efficiency problems; there's a very real chance by the end of this year they will disappear from the UK high street none of which surprises me in the least because of how precious the company had become in their self image. This bullshit, and make no mistake that is exactly what this is, stands as testament to the ludicrous nature of employment. When people ask why the likes of Amazon succeed and their high street competitors stumble, the real reason I would argue is because Amazon competes in much more hostile terms. Whilst their business practices can be questioned, and justifiably so, their recruitment process is a lot less discriminatory, their recruitment process is efficient in that it actually centres around the nature of the role you apply for. If you apply for a technical role, expect a technical recruitment process that will examine your ability, if you apply for a non-technical role in a warehouse you can expect an interview process that is a lot less intensive and focuses on the practical side of the job you will do.
This precision is something high street retailers did not do, indeed during the recruitment process I referred to above for said supermarket I was asked questions about managing staff, the role applied for had no managerial functions at all not even remotely so, which made the whole series of questions completely irrelevant and again you can argue about potential and progression all you want but when the recruitment process was being attended by a large group of applicants the amount of wasted time becomes apparent when you consider the vast majority will never progress to such roles and even if they were to apply for them in future they would go through another process at that time, the company won't look back at an interview they gave years ago.
Indeed if you visit Glassdoor - a website devoted to transparency in recruitment processes, where candidates past and present can share details of the recruitment process, those who have applied for warehouse roles working with Amazon are quite clear that the interview process is largely centred around availability for work, if you get an interview you've pretty much got a job waiting for you already. This 'interview as an offer' type of employment is something I have also witnessed first hand with a number of employers notably call centres which take pretty much anyone who applies and puts them through their basic training to find out if they can do the job itself.
Whilst I concede there are problems that arise from offering a job to everyone who applies, there has to be some balance and a degree of seriousness incorporated into recruitment processes. If you actually want a company to succeed it needs to be willing to take on staff who don't necessarily tick every box but have the potential to do so, and there needs to be an acceptance that many existing employees aren't necessarily in the right job. Mistakes can be made in all scenarios and it is often the case that people end up in positions they aren't suited for, it seems most companies in this situation either fail to recognise this or are reluctant to do anything to rectify the situation.
I admit there are regulations that can make it difficult or restrictive for the employer to tackle these situations, particularly if they become apparent long after probation periods or temporary contracts turn to permanent contracts, but it is not impossible to redeploy staff, to change their job duties, or to give them additional training so that they can actually become competent in their roles. All of these things however cost money and most employers it seems use the excuse of not wanting to pay for such processes, I do wonder how much those employers actually lose through inefficiency and how many potential employees they miss out on because of their practices. If there's one thing monopolization actually achieves it is that it forces competitors to actually compete, those that fail to put the effort into competing ultimately fail as a business and go under, that is the precipice upon which the supermarket in question now stands and if it falls I will have zero sympathy for them for the simple fact that I believe they brought it on themselves.
The supermarket in question is now in trouble financially like many businesses in the UK it is being forced to reflect on its structure and is facing many problems in this regard, as well as efficiency problems; there's a very real chance by the end of this year they will disappear from the UK high street none of which surprises me in the least because of how precious the company had become in their self image. This bullshit, and make no mistake that is exactly what this is, stands as testament to the ludicrous nature of employment. When people ask why the likes of Amazon succeed and their high street competitors stumble, the real reason I would argue is because Amazon competes in much more hostile terms. Whilst their business practices can be questioned, and justifiably so, their recruitment process is a lot less discriminatory, their recruitment process is efficient in that it actually centres around the nature of the role you apply for. If you apply for a technical role, expect a technical recruitment process that will examine your ability, if you apply for a non-technical role in a warehouse you can expect an interview process that is a lot less intensive and focuses on the practical side of the job you will do.
This precision is something high street retailers did not do, indeed during the recruitment process I referred to above for said supermarket I was asked questions about managing staff, the role applied for had no managerial functions at all not even remotely so, which made the whole series of questions completely irrelevant and again you can argue about potential and progression all you want but when the recruitment process was being attended by a large group of applicants the amount of wasted time becomes apparent when you consider the vast majority will never progress to such roles and even if they were to apply for them in future they would go through another process at that time, the company won't look back at an interview they gave years ago.
Indeed if you visit Glassdoor - a website devoted to transparency in recruitment processes, where candidates past and present can share details of the recruitment process, those who have applied for warehouse roles working with Amazon are quite clear that the interview process is largely centred around availability for work, if you get an interview you've pretty much got a job waiting for you already. This 'interview as an offer' type of employment is something I have also witnessed first hand with a number of employers notably call centres which take pretty much anyone who applies and puts them through their basic training to find out if they can do the job itself.
Whilst I concede there are problems that arise from offering a job to everyone who applies, there has to be some balance and a degree of seriousness incorporated into recruitment processes. If you actually want a company to succeed it needs to be willing to take on staff who don't necessarily tick every box but have the potential to do so, and there needs to be an acceptance that many existing employees aren't necessarily in the right job. Mistakes can be made in all scenarios and it is often the case that people end up in positions they aren't suited for, it seems most companies in this situation either fail to recognise this or are reluctant to do anything to rectify the situation.
I admit there are regulations that can make it difficult or restrictive for the employer to tackle these situations, particularly if they become apparent long after probation periods or temporary contracts turn to permanent contracts, but it is not impossible to redeploy staff, to change their job duties, or to give them additional training so that they can actually become competent in their roles. All of these things however cost money and most employers it seems use the excuse of not wanting to pay for such processes, I do wonder how much those employers actually lose through inefficiency and how many potential employees they miss out on because of their practices. If there's one thing monopolization actually achieves it is that it forces competitors to actually compete, those that fail to put the effort into competing ultimately fail as a business and go under, that is the precipice upon which the supermarket in question now stands and if it falls I will have zero sympathy for them for the simple fact that I believe they brought it on themselves.
Growing Old - Part 1
There are things that are part of growing older that everyone will experience at some point, things that despite the fact that everyone goes through them they are rarely talked about. This post is therefore dedicated to four things that I have experienced as I have grown older that I don't feel anyone adequately warned me about when I was young.
Extended Sickness
When you are young you tend to bounce back from illness and injury quite quickly. This is something I think we all take for granted. The worst you ever feel in youth is when you get a bad flu or a cold that leaves you feeling exhausted or perhaps you'll be unlucky enough to break a bone or sprain something and require a stay in hospital. In any case these things often serve more as an inconvenience than a long term problem. That's not to say that no-one ever experiences severe sickness or injury in their youth, beyond the immediate risks posed by Covid-19 there aren't as many prevalent diseases that exist that threaten young people - unless of course you boycott vaccines then there's quite a few.
As you get older there will come a point where you will experience extended sickness for the first time, hopefully not Covid-19 but it's still a possibility; this sickness will be marked as a period where whatever the infliction you are unlucky enough to acquire will end up taking more than a few days to recover from. For some of us that extended period can be years as it was in my case with Sarcoidosis, and I still have to deal with the repercussions even now, whilst for others it may be months or as little as a few weeks. In any case, the recovery period is more than just a few days where you are out of commission but rather a period where any strenuous physical or mental tasks become insurmountable and as a result you have to strive to recover not only physically but mentally as well.
Your first period of extended sickness is marked by the realisation that in those times of vulnerability you depend entirely on other people at your lowest point. For some of us we are lucky to have friends and family as a support system to help get us through, for others it falls on partners or on professional help to alleviate the pressures, and for the most unfortunate with no support at all they are left to climb the highest mountain, a feat that unfortunately some do not manage, a feat which thanks to Covid-19 many more people are now aware of, we can at least hope that the enhanced support those who were most vulnerable were offered by their communities doesn't disappear when any sense of normality returns.
Your first experience of extended sickness is really the first time you are forced to confront your own mortality and realise just how close you are to death at any given moment. That sounds grim but this can be a very positive experience if you focus on the endurance and the survival instinct that takes hold, it can be quite dark for some of us when we realise that instinct isn't there. This is something that is echoed by the threat of sickness without actual infection but this experience however is less intimate as it is driven by anxiety and anticipation as opposed to the experience itself.
Aches and Pains
On a related note, sticking with the theme of health and well-being, at some point you will begin to experience the true definition of aches and pains. In our youth for most of us the worst experience of pain we will endure is a migraine, either random or part of a hangover, or a physical pain caused by a sprain or a breakage. There will come a day when you wake up and feel every muscle and bone in your body ache. This is entirely normal, this is wear and tear and part of the body's ageing process.
When you experience these aches and pains for the first time this is usually the moment when most people accept that the carefree and reckless lifestyle choices they have made up until that point need to be re-evaluated. We become more aware of how much or how little physical activity we engage in, we focus more on our diet and what we choose to put into our body. For some this leads to lifestyle changes in an attempt to alleviate the strain we place on our bodies but for others this focus is short lived and old habits return and we learn to live with those aches and pains. You begin to realise that the wide array of tablets you can purchase over the counter aren't simply sold for people treating headaches and hangovers or the symptoms of colds and flu. You begin to realise just how dependent society as a whole is on painkillers - which eventually lose their potency which leads many to stronger variants which contributes to problems present in wider society such as the opioid crisis - and yes the political ramifications of all these issues are also something you become aware of with age, politics is inescapable.
Tiredness
There is a bell-curve of sorts that exists when you chart levels of energy and alertness against age. Babies sleep the most at one end, with the centre of the curve rising so that the hours spent awake and alert rise with age to a point where they peak then start to decline once more. The curve flattens out again as the older you get the more sleep you need to remain conscious and cognizant. There will come a point where your natural stores of energy won't be enough to sustain you.
It's important to acknowledge here that most people erroneously think they sleep in excess regardless of age, what most people don't realise is that sleep patterns are often offset with the time you go to sleep being much later in the night or early hours of the morning and the time you wake sliding further into the daytime it can appear that you sleep in excess if you're waking at 2pm in the afternoon but if you didn't fall asleep until 6 in the morning then you're only sleeping 8 hours which is actually a normal amount of sleep. When I write here about the amount of sleep you need I am referring to the absolute values not the time and place where they are racked up.
The first moment of realisation that occurs is when you develop a dependency on a stimulant, usually caffeine [if we go down the legal route] or amphetamine [if we go down the (usually) illegal route] as part of our daily routine. Most people when they realise they have this dependency attempt some form of detox for a time but as with the lifestyle changes mentioned above this usually results in either a wholesale change or defeated acceptance that this dependency is their new reality.
In any case there will also be a moment where you will attempt to sleep in excess or sleep more often taking naps in an attempt to counter this tiredness which again usually has limited success, the former can actually make you feel worse, and the latter minimises your potential productive periods as the wake cycle takes several hours after waking before peak performance occurs and periodic napping can actually prevent you from ever reaching that state. Once again you realise that the abundance of energy drinks, and over the counter stimulants that you can purchase exist out of necessity not simply sporadic use but a dependency that society as a whole possesses.
Hair - too much and too little
In your youth at some point the discussion of baldness and balding is raised, the common trope of asking whether the grandfather on your mother's side was bald arises as a predictor of whether or not you will go bald with age - which is unreliable for what it's worth baldness is determined by a variety of factors and this indicator might align and might not. Whilst everyone obsesses over the idea of going bald, little focus is given to hair growth in other places beyond our adolescent obsession with public hair.
At some point you realise that hairs begin to grow in annoying places, nose hairs and ear hairs in particular are the most annoying. This is something I never experienced until my 30s when I noticed a single stray hair in my ear which caused increasing irritation until I plucked it. Grooming becomes more of an effort with age, the amount of time you have to devote to maintaining your body increases.
These four things are just the tip of the iceberg really, there's a lot more to growing older than these annoyances, but they serve as examples of things no-one warned me about when I was younger which I now find myself discussing with others only to find everyone I speak to has gone through them. One of the most frustrating things about growing older is that question of normality and finding out what is and what is not, or at least what do the majority of people experience. Turning to Google et al is not usually an option because most of these questions lead you to medical sites like NHS Choices or WebMD which although they can be symptoms of diseases or underlying health conditions, in most cases they are just part of growing older and not something you can actually do anything about. Yes you can make your life a lot easier by making certain changes but a lot of these problems will never completely go away once you start to experience them.
Extended Sickness
When you are young you tend to bounce back from illness and injury quite quickly. This is something I think we all take for granted. The worst you ever feel in youth is when you get a bad flu or a cold that leaves you feeling exhausted or perhaps you'll be unlucky enough to break a bone or sprain something and require a stay in hospital. In any case these things often serve more as an inconvenience than a long term problem. That's not to say that no-one ever experiences severe sickness or injury in their youth, beyond the immediate risks posed by Covid-19 there aren't as many prevalent diseases that exist that threaten young people - unless of course you boycott vaccines then there's quite a few.
As you get older there will come a point where you will experience extended sickness for the first time, hopefully not Covid-19 but it's still a possibility; this sickness will be marked as a period where whatever the infliction you are unlucky enough to acquire will end up taking more than a few days to recover from. For some of us that extended period can be years as it was in my case with Sarcoidosis, and I still have to deal with the repercussions even now, whilst for others it may be months or as little as a few weeks. In any case, the recovery period is more than just a few days where you are out of commission but rather a period where any strenuous physical or mental tasks become insurmountable and as a result you have to strive to recover not only physically but mentally as well.
Your first period of extended sickness is marked by the realisation that in those times of vulnerability you depend entirely on other people at your lowest point. For some of us we are lucky to have friends and family as a support system to help get us through, for others it falls on partners or on professional help to alleviate the pressures, and for the most unfortunate with no support at all they are left to climb the highest mountain, a feat that unfortunately some do not manage, a feat which thanks to Covid-19 many more people are now aware of, we can at least hope that the enhanced support those who were most vulnerable were offered by their communities doesn't disappear when any sense of normality returns.
Your first experience of extended sickness is really the first time you are forced to confront your own mortality and realise just how close you are to death at any given moment. That sounds grim but this can be a very positive experience if you focus on the endurance and the survival instinct that takes hold, it can be quite dark for some of us when we realise that instinct isn't there. This is something that is echoed by the threat of sickness without actual infection but this experience however is less intimate as it is driven by anxiety and anticipation as opposed to the experience itself.
Aches and Pains
On a related note, sticking with the theme of health and well-being, at some point you will begin to experience the true definition of aches and pains. In our youth for most of us the worst experience of pain we will endure is a migraine, either random or part of a hangover, or a physical pain caused by a sprain or a breakage. There will come a day when you wake up and feel every muscle and bone in your body ache. This is entirely normal, this is wear and tear and part of the body's ageing process.
When you experience these aches and pains for the first time this is usually the moment when most people accept that the carefree and reckless lifestyle choices they have made up until that point need to be re-evaluated. We become more aware of how much or how little physical activity we engage in, we focus more on our diet and what we choose to put into our body. For some this leads to lifestyle changes in an attempt to alleviate the strain we place on our bodies but for others this focus is short lived and old habits return and we learn to live with those aches and pains. You begin to realise that the wide array of tablets you can purchase over the counter aren't simply sold for people treating headaches and hangovers or the symptoms of colds and flu. You begin to realise just how dependent society as a whole is on painkillers - which eventually lose their potency which leads many to stronger variants which contributes to problems present in wider society such as the opioid crisis - and yes the political ramifications of all these issues are also something you become aware of with age, politics is inescapable.
Tiredness
There is a bell-curve of sorts that exists when you chart levels of energy and alertness against age. Babies sleep the most at one end, with the centre of the curve rising so that the hours spent awake and alert rise with age to a point where they peak then start to decline once more. The curve flattens out again as the older you get the more sleep you need to remain conscious and cognizant. There will come a point where your natural stores of energy won't be enough to sustain you.
It's important to acknowledge here that most people erroneously think they sleep in excess regardless of age, what most people don't realise is that sleep patterns are often offset with the time you go to sleep being much later in the night or early hours of the morning and the time you wake sliding further into the daytime it can appear that you sleep in excess if you're waking at 2pm in the afternoon but if you didn't fall asleep until 6 in the morning then you're only sleeping 8 hours which is actually a normal amount of sleep. When I write here about the amount of sleep you need I am referring to the absolute values not the time and place where they are racked up.
The first moment of realisation that occurs is when you develop a dependency on a stimulant, usually caffeine [if we go down the legal route] or amphetamine [if we go down the (usually) illegal route] as part of our daily routine. Most people when they realise they have this dependency attempt some form of detox for a time but as with the lifestyle changes mentioned above this usually results in either a wholesale change or defeated acceptance that this dependency is their new reality.
In any case there will also be a moment where you will attempt to sleep in excess or sleep more often taking naps in an attempt to counter this tiredness which again usually has limited success, the former can actually make you feel worse, and the latter minimises your potential productive periods as the wake cycle takes several hours after waking before peak performance occurs and periodic napping can actually prevent you from ever reaching that state. Once again you realise that the abundance of energy drinks, and over the counter stimulants that you can purchase exist out of necessity not simply sporadic use but a dependency that society as a whole possesses.
Hair - too much and too little
In your youth at some point the discussion of baldness and balding is raised, the common trope of asking whether the grandfather on your mother's side was bald arises as a predictor of whether or not you will go bald with age - which is unreliable for what it's worth baldness is determined by a variety of factors and this indicator might align and might not. Whilst everyone obsesses over the idea of going bald, little focus is given to hair growth in other places beyond our adolescent obsession with public hair.
At some point you realise that hairs begin to grow in annoying places, nose hairs and ear hairs in particular are the most annoying. This is something I never experienced until my 30s when I noticed a single stray hair in my ear which caused increasing irritation until I plucked it. Grooming becomes more of an effort with age, the amount of time you have to devote to maintaining your body increases.
These four things are just the tip of the iceberg really, there's a lot more to growing older than these annoyances, but they serve as examples of things no-one warned me about when I was younger which I now find myself discussing with others only to find everyone I speak to has gone through them. One of the most frustrating things about growing older is that question of normality and finding out what is and what is not, or at least what do the majority of people experience. Turning to Google et al is not usually an option because most of these questions lead you to medical sites like NHS Choices or WebMD which although they can be symptoms of diseases or underlying health conditions, in most cases they are just part of growing older and not something you can actually do anything about. Yes you can make your life a lot easier by making certain changes but a lot of these problems will never completely go away once you start to experience them.
Influence
There was an off-hand joke once made in The Simpsons where Lisa complained that she was too young that nobody listened to her, a sentiment echoed by Grandpa who said he was too old nobody listened to him either, with Homer chiming in at the end, saying he was a white middle aged man that everyone listened to him no matter how dumb his suggestions were.
Over the years I have returned to that scene in my mind several times and considered how accurate it actually is in reflecting reality. This isn't the first time The Simpsons have been prescient although as rival animator Seth MacFarlane once quipped in regards to the accuracy of some of the predictions made in Family Guy, when you keep throwing shit at the wall eventually some of it sticks. The Simpsons created such a volume of content it was inevitable that it would be identifiable with people and their lives in the widest possible terms as a consequence of the magnitude.
To return to Homer's words however, the exact quote reads:
"I’m a white male, age 18-49, everyone listens to me, no matter how dumb my suggestions are” – Homer Simpson (The Simpsons S05 E14 'Lisa vs Malibu Stacy')
After which he holds up a can of 'Nuts And Gum' which to be honest just sounds like nougat and isn't that strange of a concept to me but that's beside the point here. The point is that assertion he made at first seems quite apt but I'd like to narrow it down further because I'm not convinced it's as wide reaching as it first appears.
The first bit, white male, that I think is pretty much indisputable. If you're male and white then by consequence you already have an advantage in society whether or not you have made any attempt or even succeeded in capitalising upon that advantage it still exists. This is like being born into the UK or USA, by consequence of your birth you are within the top 1% of the entire world in terms of wealth that's before you earn a penny, even if you are at the very bottom in either of those countries you are still within the top 1% globally. On a more provincial level within those countries themselves the top 1% of those populations are so far removed from the bottom it's unreal to imagine but that divergence is as extreme in magnitude from the rest of the world in comparison.
People forget their place because they always look upward, they always see the magnitude of the wealth of those above them that they never realise just how much they themselves possess in comparison to those they would see if they looked downward instead. If you have running water, electricity, food, and a roof above your head, then you are ahead of many people. Taking water alone, if you can turn on a tap and use the water without the risk getting waterborne diseases like cholera then you are more advantaged than 25% of the world's population which is approximately 2 billion people. Taking electricity approximately 13% of the world's population which is approximately 1 billion people do not have access to it. Food and Housing are a lot more difficult to define as those come with the question of whether or not what exists is suitable.
The point we return to here is that wealth is not determined solely by money in the bank or assets owned, it is also determined by the intangible and I am not referring to the cloying sentimental definition of wealth here in terms of love and family and all that jazz, I'm referring to resources, whether you use them or not is irrelevant, if you have access to them then they are part of the wealth you have accumulated.
The episode of The Simpsons referenced above was broadcast in 1994 and at the time I think the age range of 18 to 49 was probably quite accurate but I am not convinced this is still the case. Taking entertainment as an example and the media industry, the age range of 12 to 24 now seems to be what is considered prime. If you're outside that age range then nobody in the industry cares what you think. The idea of a universal age range however seems to have been largely abandoned. Whilst 12 to 24 is optimal for the entertainment industry no-one is trying to sell diamond rings to a 14 year old.
As I have grown older and I have paid more attention to who and what tries to target me as a potential consumer I find what crops up in time to be intriguing, amusing, and in some cases bizarre. Twitter for instance have a feature in account settings that lets you see which advertisers are targeting you, similarly Google offers you the ability to see the profile that AdSense has created if ad personalisation is enabled. I have disabled this and used AdChoices to disable it for most advertising partners too in addition to using AdBlock Plus to block ads on most sites so the data they hold for me is minimal and inaccurate.
I still find the idea of whether or not your opinion is given any weight to be something that intrigues me but frustrates me at the same time. I've contributed to consultations, participated in studies, sat on polling panels, taken surveys, attended advanced screenings, and reviewed products, among many other activities over the years some of which I was paid to do and some of which I did for free. The question I now find myself asking is how much of that was a waste of time and how much of it actually had an impact? I'll never know the answer to this question because most of these activities are unidirectional, feedback in general is submitted by the participant after which they are not involved in the process any further.
How then do you determine your impact on the world? With a population approaching 8 billion people how many of those people actually have any influence over the world at all? We like to think that those of us who live in democratic countries at least get a chance to influence the direction the world heads in but how true is that in practice, do elections actually influence the decisions politicians make or like those activities above is the act of voting simply providing feedback to be used in a process that we do not actually participate in.
Is there any point in having a vested interest in the planet as a whole then if you can't actually do anything of significance to solve the problems that you and others face? The world is falling sick right now, we're being ravaged by Covid-19, the Coronavirus is spreading and the only things we can do as individuals now are to maintain hygiene, self-isolate, and use social distancing in an effort to stop the spread, but as for those that already have the virus there's nothing we as individuals can do now, their lives are in the hands of our healthcare systems and the governments that manage them and frankly I don't trust my government with my life or the lives of others. I'm finding it very hard right now to remain optimistic and have any semblance of hope. When you find yourself sitting watching things unfold at a computer screen with a news feed and about as much isolation as you can get, the feeling of powerlessness and a complete lack of influence over the world takes hold.
Over the years I have returned to that scene in my mind several times and considered how accurate it actually is in reflecting reality. This isn't the first time The Simpsons have been prescient although as rival animator Seth MacFarlane once quipped in regards to the accuracy of some of the predictions made in Family Guy, when you keep throwing shit at the wall eventually some of it sticks. The Simpsons created such a volume of content it was inevitable that it would be identifiable with people and their lives in the widest possible terms as a consequence of the magnitude.
To return to Homer's words however, the exact quote reads:
"I’m a white male, age 18-49, everyone listens to me, no matter how dumb my suggestions are” – Homer Simpson (The Simpsons S05 E14 'Lisa vs Malibu Stacy')
After which he holds up a can of 'Nuts And Gum' which to be honest just sounds like nougat and isn't that strange of a concept to me but that's beside the point here. The point is that assertion he made at first seems quite apt but I'd like to narrow it down further because I'm not convinced it's as wide reaching as it first appears.
The first bit, white male, that I think is pretty much indisputable. If you're male and white then by consequence you already have an advantage in society whether or not you have made any attempt or even succeeded in capitalising upon that advantage it still exists. This is like being born into the UK or USA, by consequence of your birth you are within the top 1% of the entire world in terms of wealth that's before you earn a penny, even if you are at the very bottom in either of those countries you are still within the top 1% globally. On a more provincial level within those countries themselves the top 1% of those populations are so far removed from the bottom it's unreal to imagine but that divergence is as extreme in magnitude from the rest of the world in comparison.
People forget their place because they always look upward, they always see the magnitude of the wealth of those above them that they never realise just how much they themselves possess in comparison to those they would see if they looked downward instead. If you have running water, electricity, food, and a roof above your head, then you are ahead of many people. Taking water alone, if you can turn on a tap and use the water without the risk getting waterborne diseases like cholera then you are more advantaged than 25% of the world's population which is approximately 2 billion people. Taking electricity approximately 13% of the world's population which is approximately 1 billion people do not have access to it. Food and Housing are a lot more difficult to define as those come with the question of whether or not what exists is suitable.
The point we return to here is that wealth is not determined solely by money in the bank or assets owned, it is also determined by the intangible and I am not referring to the cloying sentimental definition of wealth here in terms of love and family and all that jazz, I'm referring to resources, whether you use them or not is irrelevant, if you have access to them then they are part of the wealth you have accumulated.
The episode of The Simpsons referenced above was broadcast in 1994 and at the time I think the age range of 18 to 49 was probably quite accurate but I am not convinced this is still the case. Taking entertainment as an example and the media industry, the age range of 12 to 24 now seems to be what is considered prime. If you're outside that age range then nobody in the industry cares what you think. The idea of a universal age range however seems to have been largely abandoned. Whilst 12 to 24 is optimal for the entertainment industry no-one is trying to sell diamond rings to a 14 year old.
As I have grown older and I have paid more attention to who and what tries to target me as a potential consumer I find what crops up in time to be intriguing, amusing, and in some cases bizarre. Twitter for instance have a feature in account settings that lets you see which advertisers are targeting you, similarly Google offers you the ability to see the profile that AdSense has created if ad personalisation is enabled. I have disabled this and used AdChoices to disable it for most advertising partners too in addition to using AdBlock Plus to block ads on most sites so the data they hold for me is minimal and inaccurate.
I still find the idea of whether or not your opinion is given any weight to be something that intrigues me but frustrates me at the same time. I've contributed to consultations, participated in studies, sat on polling panels, taken surveys, attended advanced screenings, and reviewed products, among many other activities over the years some of which I was paid to do and some of which I did for free. The question I now find myself asking is how much of that was a waste of time and how much of it actually had an impact? I'll never know the answer to this question because most of these activities are unidirectional, feedback in general is submitted by the participant after which they are not involved in the process any further.
How then do you determine your impact on the world? With a population approaching 8 billion people how many of those people actually have any influence over the world at all? We like to think that those of us who live in democratic countries at least get a chance to influence the direction the world heads in but how true is that in practice, do elections actually influence the decisions politicians make or like those activities above is the act of voting simply providing feedback to be used in a process that we do not actually participate in.
Is there any point in having a vested interest in the planet as a whole then if you can't actually do anything of significance to solve the problems that you and others face? The world is falling sick right now, we're being ravaged by Covid-19, the Coronavirus is spreading and the only things we can do as individuals now are to maintain hygiene, self-isolate, and use social distancing in an effort to stop the spread, but as for those that already have the virus there's nothing we as individuals can do now, their lives are in the hands of our healthcare systems and the governments that manage them and frankly I don't trust my government with my life or the lives of others. I'm finding it very hard right now to remain optimistic and have any semblance of hope. When you find yourself sitting watching things unfold at a computer screen with a news feed and about as much isolation as you can get, the feeling of powerlessness and a complete lack of influence over the world takes hold.
Music Monday #19: Let Go by Avril Lavigne
Continuing on from my previous post, 2002 also saw the release of 'Let Go' by Avril Lavigne, another album that I was introduced to by the same friend who introduced me to Good Charlotte. There was punk and punk pop theme that ran through her music collection something that I fell in love with right off the bat. The only song on the album that I had heard of prior to receiving it as a gift was 'Sk8er Boi' which I loved at the time of its release but never piqued my interest enough to actually follow Avril's career - it was something I listened to when it came on but not something I sought out.
The album itself went further the opening track 'Losing Grip' struck a chord for much of the same reasons that Good Charlotte had resonated with me, the feeling of internal struggle and slipping away from certainty into a maelstrom of emotions. 'I'm With You', 'Tomorrow', and 'My World' only reinforced this narrative, with 'Complicated' also striking a chord with me in respect of the minefield of emotions involved in hooking up with closeted gay guys and the quasi-relationships that evolved from them, again themes that would be revisited with Kelly Osbourne another artist who is sometimes referred to as punk although the definition of punk is in itself contentious something I learned pretty quickly that lots of people had very different opinions of what it is, what it was, and what it should be. Personally I preferred to focus on the music itself and whether it had any affect on me rather than the label attached to it, the latter was only really useful when searching for new music, something which at the time was still limited to record shops and music curated by friends and family.
I love conspiracy theories and whilst music is the focus of these posts I can't mention this album without mentioning the conspiracy theories attached to it. If you've never followed Avril's career or if you have never come across discussions about her work online you might be oblivious to these theories. Avril is an artist like many who has experimented in her music journey exploring different vocal styling and themes, this however has led to contention from some fans who can't accept that artists are dynamic and their works are static. That's not to completely discount the theory however I don't give it much weight.
The theory goes that 'Let Go' as an album had such a distinctive sound that Avril would depart from with a high degree of divergence later in her career because she died after recording the album. This theory goes further to say that 'Melissa' took her place. The exact identity of Melissa is argued by different people who advocate this theory but a recurring theory posits that Melissa was a backing vocalist for Avril who looked a bit like her, and was specifically chosen to provide backing vocals because their voices were similar. This in itself is not that far fetched, Britney Spears for example has employed backing vocalists, most notably Myah Marie who sounds very similar to her, this in itself has also led to conspiracy theories that some of Britney's singles are in fact Myah's vocals not Britney but that's a controversy for another post. The relevant point to make here is that backing vocalists are often chosen for their similar vocal sound and style so it's not impossible that Avril did have a backing vocalist who sounded a lot like her - that's the problem with most conspiracy theories there is always some element of truth to them that grounds them in reality and makes them hard to conclusively dismiss.
Nevertheless, the themes of the 'Let Go' album do reflect a darker mentality that Avril later emerged from when she pursued more pop oriented musical styles, these themes however led to speculation about how far into darkness Avril went during that time in her life. Some speculate that she retreated from public appearances and that pressure from her record company etc led to her backing vocalist allegedly taking her place in future recordings, some go further and speculate that Avril committed suicide and this was never made public knowledge - there are varying accounts from people who claim to have personally known Avril at this time and some interviews with family members that imply at the very least that there was a disparity between what the public knew at the time and what was going on in private - this could all be a red herring however and could allude to health struggles that Avril didn't want to make public and still hasn't if that is the case.
Regardless, there was a time when Avril largely disappeared from the public eye with only a few select appearance made before her eventual return with new music having experienced what most people would refer to as a "glow up" whether that was just coming of age, change in lifestyle, change in mentality, a new stylist, or even surgery, all serving as possible explanations but the one that festered was the assertion that this Avril wasn't "Avril" and in fact Melissa had taken her place. This fire has only been fed with fuel with her portrayal in the media, specifically in regards to uniquely identifiable marks. Avril has a number of tattoos and physical characteristics which appear to move and change on her body and remain inconsistent throughout her media presence, but again this can be attributed to airbrushing, photoshopping, and general distortion of reality that happens in the media with anyone famous, it doesn't necessarily mean the theory is true.
Ultimately the only people who would know if this theory is actually true would be Avril's family, Avril herself, and 'Melissa' if she exists. Either way I like her music before and after her transition between states whatever the transformation was that happened between the two predominant styles I still relate to her and her music.
In a metaphorical sense, I am not the same person I was 10 years ago and I hope 10 years from now I am not the person I am in this moment, I hope that I can achieve growth and personal development in that time. I know that versions of me from 10 year intervals age 10, 20, and 30, likely wouldn't see eye to eye, would disagree on a lot, and wouldn't want to listen to each other's point of view because who you are in that moment is the sum total of all experience you have lived up until that point and wisdom and virtues imparted from one to the other will be rejected because wisdom is knowledge plus experience and without the experience necessary to accept that knowledge the wisdom cannot be imparted. That is the reality of the lives we lead, I can espouse my entire life story here for you to read and tell you what I have learned but you're not going to accept a word of it unless it can be combined with the experience you have in your life up until this point. Or to put it another way you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink.
The album itself went further the opening track 'Losing Grip' struck a chord for much of the same reasons that Good Charlotte had resonated with me, the feeling of internal struggle and slipping away from certainty into a maelstrom of emotions. 'I'm With You', 'Tomorrow', and 'My World' only reinforced this narrative, with 'Complicated' also striking a chord with me in respect of the minefield of emotions involved in hooking up with closeted gay guys and the quasi-relationships that evolved from them, again themes that would be revisited with Kelly Osbourne another artist who is sometimes referred to as punk although the definition of punk is in itself contentious something I learned pretty quickly that lots of people had very different opinions of what it is, what it was, and what it should be. Personally I preferred to focus on the music itself and whether it had any affect on me rather than the label attached to it, the latter was only really useful when searching for new music, something which at the time was still limited to record shops and music curated by friends and family.
I love conspiracy theories and whilst music is the focus of these posts I can't mention this album without mentioning the conspiracy theories attached to it. If you've never followed Avril's career or if you have never come across discussions about her work online you might be oblivious to these theories. Avril is an artist like many who has experimented in her music journey exploring different vocal styling and themes, this however has led to contention from some fans who can't accept that artists are dynamic and their works are static. That's not to completely discount the theory however I don't give it much weight.
The theory goes that 'Let Go' as an album had such a distinctive sound that Avril would depart from with a high degree of divergence later in her career because she died after recording the album. This theory goes further to say that 'Melissa' took her place. The exact identity of Melissa is argued by different people who advocate this theory but a recurring theory posits that Melissa was a backing vocalist for Avril who looked a bit like her, and was specifically chosen to provide backing vocals because their voices were similar. This in itself is not that far fetched, Britney Spears for example has employed backing vocalists, most notably Myah Marie who sounds very similar to her, this in itself has also led to conspiracy theories that some of Britney's singles are in fact Myah's vocals not Britney but that's a controversy for another post. The relevant point to make here is that backing vocalists are often chosen for their similar vocal sound and style so it's not impossible that Avril did have a backing vocalist who sounded a lot like her - that's the problem with most conspiracy theories there is always some element of truth to them that grounds them in reality and makes them hard to conclusively dismiss.
Nevertheless, the themes of the 'Let Go' album do reflect a darker mentality that Avril later emerged from when she pursued more pop oriented musical styles, these themes however led to speculation about how far into darkness Avril went during that time in her life. Some speculate that she retreated from public appearances and that pressure from her record company etc led to her backing vocalist allegedly taking her place in future recordings, some go further and speculate that Avril committed suicide and this was never made public knowledge - there are varying accounts from people who claim to have personally known Avril at this time and some interviews with family members that imply at the very least that there was a disparity between what the public knew at the time and what was going on in private - this could all be a red herring however and could allude to health struggles that Avril didn't want to make public and still hasn't if that is the case.
Regardless, there was a time when Avril largely disappeared from the public eye with only a few select appearance made before her eventual return with new music having experienced what most people would refer to as a "glow up" whether that was just coming of age, change in lifestyle, change in mentality, a new stylist, or even surgery, all serving as possible explanations but the one that festered was the assertion that this Avril wasn't "Avril" and in fact Melissa had taken her place. This fire has only been fed with fuel with her portrayal in the media, specifically in regards to uniquely identifiable marks. Avril has a number of tattoos and physical characteristics which appear to move and change on her body and remain inconsistent throughout her media presence, but again this can be attributed to airbrushing, photoshopping, and general distortion of reality that happens in the media with anyone famous, it doesn't necessarily mean the theory is true.
Ultimately the only people who would know if this theory is actually true would be Avril's family, Avril herself, and 'Melissa' if she exists. Either way I like her music before and after her transition between states whatever the transformation was that happened between the two predominant styles I still relate to her and her music.
In a metaphorical sense, I am not the same person I was 10 years ago and I hope 10 years from now I am not the person I am in this moment, I hope that I can achieve growth and personal development in that time. I know that versions of me from 10 year intervals age 10, 20, and 30, likely wouldn't see eye to eye, would disagree on a lot, and wouldn't want to listen to each other's point of view because who you are in that moment is the sum total of all experience you have lived up until that point and wisdom and virtues imparted from one to the other will be rejected because wisdom is knowledge plus experience and without the experience necessary to accept that knowledge the wisdom cannot be imparted. That is the reality of the lives we lead, I can espouse my entire life story here for you to read and tell you what I have learned but you're not going to accept a word of it unless it can be combined with the experience you have in your life up until this point. Or to put it another way you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink.
Focus
I've found it hard to focus on anything for prolonged periods of time over the last few months. I've written about anxiety and to an extent the depression it can lead to, both of which have played a part in contributing to this inability to focus but beyond these two things I think the major contributor is a lack of direction. I know I am not alone in this regard; quarantine, or lockdown, whatever term you wish to use to describe it, has put life on hold for over 2 billion people worldwide at one point which is insane to think about.
Most people have hopes and dreams, things they wish to achieve, things they aspire to, things that they devote their lives to work towards or at least that is the impression I get from most people I talk to, there's always something they want or something they need in their mind at that moment. Being in lockdown only amplified these feelings for those people but this is an alien concept to me, it always was, even as a child I didn't really have any aspirations other than an aspiration for knowledge which I have mentioned before which manifested itself in the desire to know everything there was to know about everything and the eventual realisation that wasn't possible and the concession that knowing as much as I could about the things that I was most interested in would suffice.
Beyond this however, the idea of aspirations in general were alien to me because all I ever wanted in life was to be happy and I was able to find happiness in the moment. There were times when my environment or the things I had to do made me feel sad or feel frustrated or a myriad of emotions and to that end in those moments the thing I wanted most was to make it through to the other side, that has been my prevailing mindset throughout recent months, to reach another place in time where I didn't have to deal with everything that was happening.
With everything I have been through however and the world in the state that it is, I have found it harder to find happiness in the moment but the reason for that is not as easy to define. There are so many little things that mount up to the point where that frustration and that sadness become ambient with no specific thing to attribute them to there's nothing to focus on overcoming in order to achieve that future happier state, if this pandemic were to vanish in an instant my life wouldn't change all that much beyond being able to leave the house. This leads to the realisation that with a lack of direction thrown into this mix I'm left staring into a void scrying for hope.
My life for the first 21 years or so was structured with each next logical step already mapped out and expected of me. Once I graduated from University the next logical step became employment with a path that led on from there filled with milestones of achievement relating to wealth and climbing up that metaphorical ladder. When I fell off that ladder there was no motivation to get back onto it and start climbing again. Instead my focus turned to making my life as it was as comfortable as I could make it, and for a time I managed to achieve that. I gained employment, I found some security for a time and managed to give my life stability. Then came my health problems relating to my Sarcoidosis diagnosis and my recovery from it. When I emerged at the other side however I was faced again with that ladder as the default path to take and having seen where it leads I can honestly say that doesn't appeal to me anymore, I don't think it ever did if I am honest it was just something to do for the sake of doing it.
That last statement I think is the problem, doing things for the sake of doing them provides no sense of fulfilment all they do is waste your time and energy. The entire concept of a structured career when you step back and examine it seems aimed at occupying as much of your time as possible and draining you of energy to the point where you don't have the time to question it and ask yourself why you do it. This was something my father questioned at a young age which led him to start his own business and seeing the freedom that gave him and the fact that there was a tangible reward for all the work he did and a direct benefit from working harder this served as a marker for me personally in my life as something to try and mirror. I am reluctant here to use the words "aspire to" because although the idea of running my own business is appealing, I have no idea what that business would actually do, what product or service I could sell that I actually have the skill and the confidence to provide. That and the lingering social anxiety I experience doesn't make client oriented business something that I would be comfortable doing.
My freelance work has sustained me and offers a mediation for me in that I control which projects I take on, there's less pressure in that regard as opposed to the ongoing commitments you have to make as a business. Even the writing that I do for my own pleasure that is self published through Amazon isn't something that I adhere to a strict routine with regards to, I don't produce X works every X weeks or months, what I write I do so when the mood strikes me. Even this blog is comprised of posts that are scheduled in advance to be published at regular intervals with multiple posts written when I experience bursts of creativity, I would not be able to maintain this blog if I had to sit down each day and write a post to be published on that day, my creative process does not work on demand. That kind of structure and rigidity kills any state of flow before it is ever reached.
What I find interesting about this inability to focus however is the fact that it isn't something that I suffer from alone, I am not the exception to the rule, in fact I think I might actually be the rule in this scenario, I think most people are just like me and that only a minority are actually capable of invoking focus and creativity on demand. This does lead to the question however of why there isn't a simple solution to this problem. If you feel tired there are a plethora of products you can buy that make you feel more awake, or you can sleep. If you have pains you can buy painkillers etc, but if you can't focus there is no over the counter product that you can purchase that actually helps you to focus - there are various herbal remedies and supplements that purport to improve this ability but none that I have tried have ever worked. As for meditation and other rituals, those have never been fruitful when I have explored them in depth. I think most of these herbal remedies if they manage to work for people are entirely placebo based, all they really achieve is to up the frequency of your trips to the bathroom.
Most people have hopes and dreams, things they wish to achieve, things they aspire to, things that they devote their lives to work towards or at least that is the impression I get from most people I talk to, there's always something they want or something they need in their mind at that moment. Being in lockdown only amplified these feelings for those people but this is an alien concept to me, it always was, even as a child I didn't really have any aspirations other than an aspiration for knowledge which I have mentioned before which manifested itself in the desire to know everything there was to know about everything and the eventual realisation that wasn't possible and the concession that knowing as much as I could about the things that I was most interested in would suffice.
Beyond this however, the idea of aspirations in general were alien to me because all I ever wanted in life was to be happy and I was able to find happiness in the moment. There were times when my environment or the things I had to do made me feel sad or feel frustrated or a myriad of emotions and to that end in those moments the thing I wanted most was to make it through to the other side, that has been my prevailing mindset throughout recent months, to reach another place in time where I didn't have to deal with everything that was happening.
With everything I have been through however and the world in the state that it is, I have found it harder to find happiness in the moment but the reason for that is not as easy to define. There are so many little things that mount up to the point where that frustration and that sadness become ambient with no specific thing to attribute them to there's nothing to focus on overcoming in order to achieve that future happier state, if this pandemic were to vanish in an instant my life wouldn't change all that much beyond being able to leave the house. This leads to the realisation that with a lack of direction thrown into this mix I'm left staring into a void scrying for hope.
My life for the first 21 years or so was structured with each next logical step already mapped out and expected of me. Once I graduated from University the next logical step became employment with a path that led on from there filled with milestones of achievement relating to wealth and climbing up that metaphorical ladder. When I fell off that ladder there was no motivation to get back onto it and start climbing again. Instead my focus turned to making my life as it was as comfortable as I could make it, and for a time I managed to achieve that. I gained employment, I found some security for a time and managed to give my life stability. Then came my health problems relating to my Sarcoidosis diagnosis and my recovery from it. When I emerged at the other side however I was faced again with that ladder as the default path to take and having seen where it leads I can honestly say that doesn't appeal to me anymore, I don't think it ever did if I am honest it was just something to do for the sake of doing it.
That last statement I think is the problem, doing things for the sake of doing them provides no sense of fulfilment all they do is waste your time and energy. The entire concept of a structured career when you step back and examine it seems aimed at occupying as much of your time as possible and draining you of energy to the point where you don't have the time to question it and ask yourself why you do it. This was something my father questioned at a young age which led him to start his own business and seeing the freedom that gave him and the fact that there was a tangible reward for all the work he did and a direct benefit from working harder this served as a marker for me personally in my life as something to try and mirror. I am reluctant here to use the words "aspire to" because although the idea of running my own business is appealing, I have no idea what that business would actually do, what product or service I could sell that I actually have the skill and the confidence to provide. That and the lingering social anxiety I experience doesn't make client oriented business something that I would be comfortable doing.
My freelance work has sustained me and offers a mediation for me in that I control which projects I take on, there's less pressure in that regard as opposed to the ongoing commitments you have to make as a business. Even the writing that I do for my own pleasure that is self published through Amazon isn't something that I adhere to a strict routine with regards to, I don't produce X works every X weeks or months, what I write I do so when the mood strikes me. Even this blog is comprised of posts that are scheduled in advance to be published at regular intervals with multiple posts written when I experience bursts of creativity, I would not be able to maintain this blog if I had to sit down each day and write a post to be published on that day, my creative process does not work on demand. That kind of structure and rigidity kills any state of flow before it is ever reached.
What I find interesting about this inability to focus however is the fact that it isn't something that I suffer from alone, I am not the exception to the rule, in fact I think I might actually be the rule in this scenario, I think most people are just like me and that only a minority are actually capable of invoking focus and creativity on demand. This does lead to the question however of why there isn't a simple solution to this problem. If you feel tired there are a plethora of products you can buy that make you feel more awake, or you can sleep. If you have pains you can buy painkillers etc, but if you can't focus there is no over the counter product that you can purchase that actually helps you to focus - there are various herbal remedies and supplements that purport to improve this ability but none that I have tried have ever worked. As for meditation and other rituals, those have never been fruitful when I have explored them in depth. I think most of these herbal remedies if they manage to work for people are entirely placebo based, all they really achieve is to up the frequency of your trips to the bathroom.
Music Monday #18: The Young and The Hopeless by Good Charlotte
'The Young and The Hopeless' by Good Charlotte was released in 2002, but this was yet another album that I didn't become aware of until a few years later. It was 2005 during my second year of college when new friendships were cultivated and yet again the exchange of music tastes exposed me to new music and Good Charlotte was part of that exposure. As I have mentioned in previous posts 2005 was a year of ups and downs which I've already gone into at length so I'll save the repetition.
The Young and The Hopeless holds many tracks that spoke direct to me, right from the open the first track after the introduction is 'The Anthem' which has the lyrics "Go to college, a university, Get a real job, that's what they said to me, But I could never live the way they want" which spoke the internal conflict I had with the recognition that I was living inside a system that I didn't want to be a part of, but that my environment was one that if I wanted to escape it, I needed to go with the system for a while yet, indeed the verse continues "I'm gonna get by and just do my time, Out of step while they all get in line, I'm just a minor threat so pay no mind" epitomised this mentality, if I could hold on, get through college I could find a way out through University to a new horizon, a new place to live, hope, independence, and freedom. The verse goes further "Do you really want to be like them, Do you really want to be another trend, Do you want to be part of that crowd" spoke that conflict and the desire to pursue my own desires and my own dreams rather than conforming to a life that other people had mapped out for me.
As a closeted gay man the default path in life that everyone else promoted was the idea of going through education, getting a job, getting married, having kids, and then supporting them as they went down the same path - this was a path that I never saw myself walking down specifically because I was gay, getting married was still illegal for gay people in Northern Ireland and even though it had partially been legalised in the rest of the UK initially through civil partnerships in 2004, it wasn't until 2014 that equal marriage passed and it wasn't until 2019 that equal marriage was predicated in Northern Ireland not by passage of the law but by a clause making it the default outcome if an executive failed for form and propose alternative legislation, this still holds a point of contention for me that even though public opinion shifted and is in favour of equal marriage and even though a majority in the former executive ruled in favour of it, opposition still blocked the measure through use of a mechanism within the legislature called a petition of concern. The intricacies of the delicate balance of power in Northern Ireland aren't relevant here but suffice to say that we have in essence a dual mandate that has to be met and if both are not met despite an overall majority measures can still be blocked as was the case with equal marriage.
Growing up, the path that every other guy around me had seemingly accepted and actively pursued was a path that I didn't want to walk, I felt disconnected and this doesn't just hold true for marriage and kids it also holds true for religion. I attended private schools for the first 12 years of my education that were heavily influenced by the Catholic Church and every single day every morning, and every afternoon before and after lunch, and at the end of the day prayer was incorporated into our daily routine for the first 7 years - my High School was much more secular and didn't include prayer despite still being influenced by the church. I can't remember how old I was when I first made the observation but there were times where I would remain silent as the class recited prayers out loud and the obviousness of the indoctrination that was employed was deafening to me. Those repetitive chants were more demonic to me than depictions of demons set against landscapes of Hellfire. That awareness of how controlled everyone around me was, and how much influence that system had over them only nurtured a state of disconnection and separation, I knew that wasn't something I wanted to be part of and as discussed previously that mentality grew stronger and encompassed more than just religion in time.
This album in particular holds much more significance not just in its articulation of the anger I felt but that despite its title it actually promotes hope and optimism about the future, nowhere is this better represented than in the track 'Hold On' which is about suicide the lyrics "We all bleed the same way as you do, And we all have the same things to go through, Hold on if you feel like letting go, Hold on, it gets better than you know" speaks of the hope and the promise that if you can just make it through then there is more to come, what you feel in the moment can be overwhelming, and void of something positive to focus on, void of something to reach for, it can be hard to find the strength to hold on, you don't always know what you are living for, sometimes you can feel like there's absolutely nothing that you're living for but the mentality that I adapt that has helped me survive this long is that if you act upon it, then everything ends and that's it, but if you strive to survive then everything that you achieve no matter how big or small those achievements are, they become the reasons you lived.
This mentality, that if you want to give up because you feel like you have nothing to live for is powerful, if you stop and take a moment to think of how empowering that thought can be and put it in a different context, that if you feel like you have nothing to live for then you have nothing to lose, and if you have nothing to lose then you have everything to gain by living - if you're ready to give up on life, then take greater risks, and do everything you can to get what you want because you literally have nothing to lose if you were ready to give it all up. I know that's probably not going to be perceived as healthy by some people but that judgement is held in the context of their mental state, not yours. You have to do what works for you, what it takes for you to get through, it's your life not theirs, nobody has the right to tell you how to live it, even me, everything I share I do so out of transparency and the want to convey a different narrative that probably differs quite a bit from conventional wisdom at times.
The Young And The Hopeless is an album I wasn't aware of when it came out, but I became aware of it at the right time in my life, it found its way to me through incidents and circumstance and is part of the reason why I try not to fight against the Universe. I've spoken about that concept before but never explicitly spelled out what that means but for now suffice is to say that life has a way of getting better when you stop fighting it, things have a habit of coming to you when you stop looking for them which I know sounds asinine to most people but those clichés persist for so long in our culture because there's a ring of truth to them.
The Young and The Hopeless holds many tracks that spoke direct to me, right from the open the first track after the introduction is 'The Anthem' which has the lyrics "Go to college, a university, Get a real job, that's what they said to me, But I could never live the way they want" which spoke the internal conflict I had with the recognition that I was living inside a system that I didn't want to be a part of, but that my environment was one that if I wanted to escape it, I needed to go with the system for a while yet, indeed the verse continues "I'm gonna get by and just do my time, Out of step while they all get in line, I'm just a minor threat so pay no mind" epitomised this mentality, if I could hold on, get through college I could find a way out through University to a new horizon, a new place to live, hope, independence, and freedom. The verse goes further "Do you really want to be like them, Do you really want to be another trend, Do you want to be part of that crowd" spoke that conflict and the desire to pursue my own desires and my own dreams rather than conforming to a life that other people had mapped out for me.
As a closeted gay man the default path in life that everyone else promoted was the idea of going through education, getting a job, getting married, having kids, and then supporting them as they went down the same path - this was a path that I never saw myself walking down specifically because I was gay, getting married was still illegal for gay people in Northern Ireland and even though it had partially been legalised in the rest of the UK initially through civil partnerships in 2004, it wasn't until 2014 that equal marriage passed and it wasn't until 2019 that equal marriage was predicated in Northern Ireland not by passage of the law but by a clause making it the default outcome if an executive failed for form and propose alternative legislation, this still holds a point of contention for me that even though public opinion shifted and is in favour of equal marriage and even though a majority in the former executive ruled in favour of it, opposition still blocked the measure through use of a mechanism within the legislature called a petition of concern. The intricacies of the delicate balance of power in Northern Ireland aren't relevant here but suffice to say that we have in essence a dual mandate that has to be met and if both are not met despite an overall majority measures can still be blocked as was the case with equal marriage.
Growing up, the path that every other guy around me had seemingly accepted and actively pursued was a path that I didn't want to walk, I felt disconnected and this doesn't just hold true for marriage and kids it also holds true for religion. I attended private schools for the first 12 years of my education that were heavily influenced by the Catholic Church and every single day every morning, and every afternoon before and after lunch, and at the end of the day prayer was incorporated into our daily routine for the first 7 years - my High School was much more secular and didn't include prayer despite still being influenced by the church. I can't remember how old I was when I first made the observation but there were times where I would remain silent as the class recited prayers out loud and the obviousness of the indoctrination that was employed was deafening to me. Those repetitive chants were more demonic to me than depictions of demons set against landscapes of Hellfire. That awareness of how controlled everyone around me was, and how much influence that system had over them only nurtured a state of disconnection and separation, I knew that wasn't something I wanted to be part of and as discussed previously that mentality grew stronger and encompassed more than just religion in time.
This album in particular holds much more significance not just in its articulation of the anger I felt but that despite its title it actually promotes hope and optimism about the future, nowhere is this better represented than in the track 'Hold On' which is about suicide the lyrics "We all bleed the same way as you do, And we all have the same things to go through, Hold on if you feel like letting go, Hold on, it gets better than you know" speaks of the hope and the promise that if you can just make it through then there is more to come, what you feel in the moment can be overwhelming, and void of something positive to focus on, void of something to reach for, it can be hard to find the strength to hold on, you don't always know what you are living for, sometimes you can feel like there's absolutely nothing that you're living for but the mentality that I adapt that has helped me survive this long is that if you act upon it, then everything ends and that's it, but if you strive to survive then everything that you achieve no matter how big or small those achievements are, they become the reasons you lived.
This mentality, that if you want to give up because you feel like you have nothing to live for is powerful, if you stop and take a moment to think of how empowering that thought can be and put it in a different context, that if you feel like you have nothing to live for then you have nothing to lose, and if you have nothing to lose then you have everything to gain by living - if you're ready to give up on life, then take greater risks, and do everything you can to get what you want because you literally have nothing to lose if you were ready to give it all up. I know that's probably not going to be perceived as healthy by some people but that judgement is held in the context of their mental state, not yours. You have to do what works for you, what it takes for you to get through, it's your life not theirs, nobody has the right to tell you how to live it, even me, everything I share I do so out of transparency and the want to convey a different narrative that probably differs quite a bit from conventional wisdom at times.
The Young And The Hopeless is an album I wasn't aware of when it came out, but I became aware of it at the right time in my life, it found its way to me through incidents and circumstance and is part of the reason why I try not to fight against the Universe. I've spoken about that concept before but never explicitly spelled out what that means but for now suffice is to say that life has a way of getting better when you stop fighting it, things have a habit of coming to you when you stop looking for them which I know sounds asinine to most people but those clichés persist for so long in our culture because there's a ring of truth to them.
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