Friday, 27 February 2015
WORK HISTORY
We've had the wheel, the machine, the computer and the robot. Management has become a science.
Yet hundreds of years of humanity on, people are still working all the hours God sent.
Doesn't say a lot for our productivity.
Yet hundreds of years of humanity on, people are still working all the hours God sent.
Doesn't say a lot for our productivity.
Tuesday, 3 February 2015
Thursday, 29 January 2015
ABOUT SUFFERING THEY WERE NEVER WRONG
There are days, and the last twenty four hours has encompassed one, when it is possible to believe that one is feeling the pain of the entire world. I suppose that is when people look at you and say "he looks as though he's got the sufferings of the world on his shoulders."
I do not wish to carry the suffering of all humanity on my shoulders. They are broad. But not that broad.
It's just that sometimes the volume of incoming narrative about the suffering of others bears in on one's psyche in a peculiar way - a special vulnerability to seeing that even minor things carry with them their pain, according to the perspective of the sufferer. One man's bereavement is calculable alongside another's relationship breakdown, alongside doubts about self worth in another, alongside money worries, health worries, love worries, you name it. For each, they are real, and palpable. And their presence is pain, none the less real.
When, as today, one finds oneself porous, what is happening?
Is it what they call compassion?
Is it what they call depression?
It is all very well making objective calculations of real impact. I am not sure these measure pain in any way accurately.
It is all very well doing spiritual work on oneself. This may bring a perspective of gratitude, against which to set present pain. But it doesn't change the pain.
Even the devout, with a knowledge that roses grow best in shit, that pain is the best growing medium for transcendence, cannot but admit that the pain has to be real to breed such growth.
Puzzled. Porous. Pensive.
A frozen day, of unfrozen sensibilities.
I do not wish to carry the suffering of all humanity on my shoulders. They are broad. But not that broad.
It's just that sometimes the volume of incoming narrative about the suffering of others bears in on one's psyche in a peculiar way - a special vulnerability to seeing that even minor things carry with them their pain, according to the perspective of the sufferer. One man's bereavement is calculable alongside another's relationship breakdown, alongside doubts about self worth in another, alongside money worries, health worries, love worries, you name it. For each, they are real, and palpable. And their presence is pain, none the less real.
When, as today, one finds oneself porous, what is happening?
Is it what they call compassion?
Is it what they call depression?
It is all very well making objective calculations of real impact. I am not sure these measure pain in any way accurately.
It is all very well doing spiritual work on oneself. This may bring a perspective of gratitude, against which to set present pain. But it doesn't change the pain.
Even the devout, with a knowledge that roses grow best in shit, that pain is the best growing medium for transcendence, cannot but admit that the pain has to be real to breed such growth.
Puzzled. Porous. Pensive.
A frozen day, of unfrozen sensibilities.
Tuesday, 27 January 2015
JOB TITLE
I have a form to fill in.
The first couple of questions are easy. Name. Address. Date of birth. They're simple. Then it comes to profession. Job.
What do I put?
That is more troubling.
The auto response would be management consultant. But the truth is nearer anti management consultant.
The closer I get to a management theory, model or vocabulary, the further away I wish to run.
Where I am deployed, it seems to me that the role I perform is to undermine the subtly dehumanising force of management as a science and breathe back into hierarchy a child like voice of humanity.
To say it is about stating the bleeding obvious is to state the bleeding obvious.
Yet it seems that it sometimes takes an innocent daring from outside a system to name the system's patent human erosions.
To say: that practice there - we wouldn't, couldn't do that with someone we love.
The first couple of questions are easy. Name. Address. Date of birth. They're simple. Then it comes to profession. Job.
What do I put?
That is more troubling.
The auto response would be management consultant. But the truth is nearer anti management consultant.
The closer I get to a management theory, model or vocabulary, the further away I wish to run.
Where I am deployed, it seems to me that the role I perform is to undermine the subtly dehumanising force of management as a science and breathe back into hierarchy a child like voice of humanity.
To say it is about stating the bleeding obvious is to state the bleeding obvious.
Yet it seems that it sometimes takes an innocent daring from outside a system to name the system's patent human erosions.
To say: that practice there - we wouldn't, couldn't do that with someone we love.
Sunday, 25 January 2015
HELP FOR THE DYING
I was struggling to help a friend, in some difficulty. Another wise friend advised "stop trying to help. Just enjoy them."
What golden advice this has been.
Advice which I passed on to someone else this last week. Their elderly parent is finally failing - physical and mental health on the severe decline. A brother visits the relative, but offers no help. Indeed, he is looked after by the ageing parent on his visits.
My view? The apparently dependant son is actually helping, without even meaning to do so. When parents age, it is a severe challenge to get them to break the habit of a lifetime - of looking after their brood. When they can no longer do this, I think it is common that they lose purpose, and thus the will to live. That certainly happened in the case of my own mother before she died. She could not and would not accept that her son could and would help her. It was her job to do that. Not mine. I struggled for a long time, even after her death, to understand this. I believe she died, not from the illnesses which invaded her body, but from having no credible (in her mind) reason to carry on living.
What golden advice this has been.
Advice which I passed on to someone else this last week. Their elderly parent is finally failing - physical and mental health on the severe decline. A brother visits the relative, but offers no help. Indeed, he is looked after by the ageing parent on his visits.
My view? The apparently dependant son is actually helping, without even meaning to do so. When parents age, it is a severe challenge to get them to break the habit of a lifetime - of looking after their brood. When they can no longer do this, I think it is common that they lose purpose, and thus the will to live. That certainly happened in the case of my own mother before she died. She could not and would not accept that her son could and would help her. It was her job to do that. Not mine. I struggled for a long time, even after her death, to understand this. I believe she died, not from the illnesses which invaded her body, but from having no credible (in her mind) reason to carry on living.
Friday, 23 January 2015
VON CLAUSEWITZ
If you can't win the peace, why fight the war?
If you can't win the war, why fight the battle?
If you can't win the battle, why fight the skirmish?
Monday, 5 January 2015
Sunday, 28 December 2014
TALL (RE)TAILS
One of Laytham's pleasures is its easy access to shopping.
Within a radius of five miles there must be half a dozen sheds selling fresh free range eggs. They're the only shops of course, thank God.
The eggs are of phenomenal freshness and eating them and eating supermarket bought eggs is like eating cheese and chalk, if you'd be stupid enough to eat chalk.
They are staffed by honesty boxes. You put your money in and pay for what you take. It works.
There is the odd exception. A shed shop, as we call them, must have had some problems with people bilking eggs - making off without leaving payment. Sadly, they reverted to rather snottily phrased signs asking people to leave the damned money for what they'd taken. It leant this particular shed shop an unpleasant, frustrated, peremptory tone. A shame. George and I addressed this by leaving an extravagant amount more than we could possibly have paid, by way of an experiment into human nature. It has had great results. The shed has been completely revamped. New, charming signs have been made. A new compartment for the eggs has been made. The shed has been painted a most tasteful shade. It now has a sense of real pleasure and gratitude about it. It is a pleasure to visit.
And is it my imagination? Is it their hens which lay the best eggs?
Within a radius of five miles there must be half a dozen sheds selling fresh free range eggs. They're the only shops of course, thank God.
The eggs are of phenomenal freshness and eating them and eating supermarket bought eggs is like eating cheese and chalk, if you'd be stupid enough to eat chalk.
They are staffed by honesty boxes. You put your money in and pay for what you take. It works.
There is the odd exception. A shed shop, as we call them, must have had some problems with people bilking eggs - making off without leaving payment. Sadly, they reverted to rather snottily phrased signs asking people to leave the damned money for what they'd taken. It leant this particular shed shop an unpleasant, frustrated, peremptory tone. A shame. George and I addressed this by leaving an extravagant amount more than we could possibly have paid, by way of an experiment into human nature. It has had great results. The shed has been completely revamped. New, charming signs have been made. A new compartment for the eggs has been made. The shed has been painted a most tasteful shade. It now has a sense of real pleasure and gratitude about it. It is a pleasure to visit.
And is it my imagination? Is it their hens which lay the best eggs?
Friday, 26 December 2014
TOPPING THAT
Not for us a Christmas Day of feasting and slumping.
One of the advantages of being an Anglo Germanic family is that we observe Weinachtsabend and thus get the odious falseness and materialistic platitudes of Christmas over and done with before Christmas Day itself, leaving 25th December free for more engaging activity. Moorland, beach, hill - living where we do you can take your choice. Yesterday we chose Roseberry Topping, which sounds like the sort of dessert you serve up to those who won't countenance figgy pudding, but is, in fact, a thousand feet of precipitous Cleveland hill.
About twenty years ago, on a New Year's day, following a late celebration the night before, and suffering from an almighty hangover, I ran in the Roseberry Topping fell race. I completed it with a couple of friends of mine. I had some difficulty as my earlier revelries caught up with me. Going up, I puked a couple of times, but made it to the top, and ran hard all the way down. It took me, I recall (but don't quote me) 18 minutes of hellish effort. Normally I stood a fair chance of beating my comrades but not on this occasion, and one of them, the Galloping Major, contrived to be languidly waiting for me at the finish drinking a cup of tea. In fact he beat me by a couple of minutes, though he obviously made out he'd been waiting hours. I got no more than I deserved.
Yesterday was a stark reminder of how far former glories have receded. I puffed my way to the top, and did in fact manage to run most of the way down. But not in eighteen minutes.
Today, on my constitutional, my legs feel like they've climbed Everest and I am having difficulty at home walking down stairs. Look on my works ye mighty and despair.
Friday, 19 December 2014
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