Noblesse Obligee

I've been meeting a lot of anger at 'the system' recently with some unbridled hatred of the conservative party on offer.  Considering they were elected by a democratic system, however imperfect, this anger got me thinking - always a dangerous thing.
Why the anger?  It seems directed at 'the system'.  I personally don't think the system is an entity.  There is just the cumulative effect of individuals making individual decisions.  The system has not compelled investment bankers to be given huge salaries and bonuses - it is those individual people demanding silly amounts of money, and other individuals deciding to say OK to their demands.
Example from personal experience - new system introduced where we worked, we didn't initially have the knowledge needed.  Management responded, way too late, by employing a contractor with this specialised knowledge at reputedly 2k per day.  By the time the guy came aboard I had already done the needed design work, which was promptly grabbed by the contractor.  Management had 'covered themselves' by employing the guy despite his extortionate demands and with no reference to us - he obviously must be an expert if he can demand this much money and pure greed on the contractors part to demand that much.  This goes on a lot in IT, contractors claim they can perform miracles in telling the time, then promptly demand to borrow your watch when they arrive.  It's down to the individuals involved to show a bit of moral courage.

Why the anger?  A lot of the angry people are on low wages or benefits.  There seems to be an implicit belief that they should be offered jobs with 'decent wages'.  There seems to be a belief that the 'right to work' implies a right to be employed at a rate not necessarily related to the value of that work.  There seems a total disconnection in their minds to the idea that their work is creating wealth; and that the rate of pay is related to that wealth creation, not to their desire for a good lifestyle.
Why the anger?  The anger directed at the government implies that it's all their fault that everyone hasn't got everything they desire.  The politicians seem to think they're the most important people around, but I think it's pretty obvious that governments don't create wealth efficiently if at all.  It's the people exercising their right to work that create wealth, especially the ones who do their own thing - not relying on others to provide a job for them.  The only thing government can do is redistribute the wealth that others create.  That's always going to annoy the wealth creators, seeing their hard work going to benefit others isn't going to be motivating.   In extremes it can deter individuals from bothering to create wealth at all.  In my own case I saw my standard of living eroded by tax increases, price increases in state controlled facilities, state sponsored inflation with low rates of interest.  My solution?  I stopped working and now rely on a small private pension.  I know of quite a few others who've done the same - highly skilled workers with many decades of experience removing themselves from contributing to society because it's just not worth it.

Something that often seems ignored is that companies are commercial operations.  They're not charities.  The current flooding has caused adverse comment about insurance companies, but it is blindingly obvious that if these companies take in less money than they give out they will very quickly go bust.
Comment on the banks going 'bust' a while ago.  They lent money to people who may not be able to repay the loans.  The end came when people lost confidence in the way the banks were lending/operating.  They weren't broke, they didn't run out of money, the sky didn't fall in - it was just a loss of confidence.  The people borrowing the money wanted to borrow it.  The banks wanted to lend it.  The regulators (i.e. governments) wanted more money in the system to generate growth.  Just that nobody stood up and said it wasn't a good idea because for each individual involved it WAS a good idea.

Ah you say, but what about the fat cats raking off the profits from these companies - the shareholders?  In the past there were just a few individual shareholders for each company.  Nowadays with share ownership schemes many more individuals have small holdings in companies - often the ones they work for.  Many more individuals hold shares via pension schemes, ISA share saving schemes and other investments type companies.  Personally speaking I would always go for a savings scheme that offers the higher returns.  I don't have the sort of money that allows me to make fine moral judgements about how these returns are generated.  I think this applies to most 'ordinary' people with investments.  Result is that instead of a few shareholders who are rich enough to forego a few quid in return for moral considerations, the small individuals, pensions companies and investment firms will all put in a chairman and board who promise to maximise the investors returns!  The irony of this is that a typical employee with his sharesave holdings and options wants good conditions and a considerate employer while wearing his employee hat, and is doubtless voting for employees terms and conditions to be slaughtered while wearing their shareholder hat.  I know I've done it!  Going back to wealth in the hands of the responsible rich (see blog title) may just be a better idea that it first appears.

I really don't know, but I do wonder how many people would still turn up for work if they could be just as financially well off without working.  Or even just financially comfortable when not working.  If people don't work, there's no wealth for the government to take and redistribute.

I have four kids, and with my hand on my heart I couldn't say to them that they should save up, put money into pensions and do all the right things.  I've done that, paid hundreds of thousands in to the government and now, because I have modest savings and a small private pension, I get no help.  I'm well below the poverty line in income terms.  I've worked for and feel I deserve a decent standard of living for my retirement, but there are so many people 'in need' who don't contribute (some for good reason as well as some bad reasons) that I ain't going to get it.

So; those who shout 'FUCK THE TORIES' the loudest, or other meaningless abuse at any form of government, please consider those who create the wealth that the government (of any colour) relies on.

Boot fair

Been a while since my last post.  Divorce is jogging along, having been slowed down by my wife changing her mind on financial agreements.  I'm going to have to get rid of most of my material goods as for a while I won't have a permanent home.  The idea of getting rid of most of my 'stuff' is actually quite liberating.  Just one car bootful of clothing and necessities will be all I'll have.

To this end I took a carload of goods down to the local 'lazybones' bootfair.  Arrived shortly before it was due to start to find it actually in full swing and thronging with a variety of folk.  Even before I'd unloaded the traders were peering into my car and asking what I had.  Bumped my prices up a bit - of they really wanted the stuff they could pay a decent price for it.  They were quite friendly and chatty, actually decent people rather than the the vultures I'd half expected.  Sold a few bits to them.  The process of setting out my goods was rather delayed by constant enquiries from the passing punters, ended up as a series of alternating negotiations and arranging more chattels for sale.

After the initial rush, it settled down to fairly regular enquiries for various bits.  Once everything was out I could relax more and take in the scene.  Most of the customers were ordinary people more interested in just nosing round than buying.  If anything took their eye they'd enquire the price and either buy at that price or leave it.  There were the 'trader' type people who would happily haggle and were quite content if you stuck to your price.  There was also a tiny minority of quite aggressive buyers who seemed to think you HAD to sell to them at whatever price they offered.  Luckily they were easy to spot and didn't seem too bright.  they invariably offered about half the asking price, so it was simple to double the price wanted to allow the knockdown.  Not possible with everything, but the 'junk' items I didn't want much for could be dealt with in that way.  It also surprised me how many foreign languages were being spoken.  In ordinary life I meet hardly any non-native people, I'd assumed there weren't many in our local area.  Just shows how wrong your preconceptions and prejudices can be.

Quite a successful morning all in.  Took about £150 after expenses.  I just need to stop thinking how much I'd actually paid for all the stuff I sold.  It had all been sitting doing nothing for years, and I'd had good usage out of much of it, but the 'as new' value still compares badly with the boot sale prices!

Previous boot fairs I've done had been pretty unsuccesful, this one worked well because I had a lot of decent stuff to get rid of.  There were surprises - books, cups and glasses were a complete waste of time.  Tools were good sellers at decent prices, but the biggest surprise was a box of junk 78rpm records which had regular visits by a variety of people (all men!) and quite a few sales.  I'll try my more modern vinyl if I do another fair.

Animal v Civilised

Recently posted about coming out of depression after many years.  I've done much thinking about what's happened to me.  Over the last 4-5 years I've been connecting with nature through bushcraft, and with my own inner self through many hours of meditation.  When I was first diagnosed with depression, I went through 14 months of psychotherapy, getting to know my self and motivations with professional guidance.  All this together has created a self awareness greater than most people would achieve (or want).

My basic belief is that people have two basic parts to their mind.  The ego, civilised mind or whatever you wish to call it is responsible for our conscious thought and is what we call our 'self'.  The id, animal, instinctive mind is the other part that we're generally not aware of.  Consideration of the relationship has shown to me that the id is by far the larger part of the mind, monitoring and handling a million and one functions we need to exist and survive.  It also feeds data to the ego, screening out the vast majority of 'unnecessary' input streams.  It also handles information retrieval from memory as requested by the ego.
What I believe caused my depression was a conflict between the ego and id.  'I' wanted to repress many natural instincts in order to be 'civilised'.  To please parents, partner, employer and authority as I'd been taught all my life.  The id, instinctive, primitive part of the mind is evil, wrong and uncivilised and must be held down, according to this teaching.
The final knockbacks I took which led to my recovery led, I believe, to my ego mind simply 'giving up' and yielding control to the powerful animal mind that has always been there.  I haven't become a murderer or rapist - the idea that the instinctive mind is evil must surely be wrong or the human race could never have flourished as it has.  I operate now on a much more instinctive plane - it can also be described as a more spiritual plane.
Gone is the awkwardness dealing with other people.  Activities like Yoga and Ballroom dancing are done without really thinking about them, just enjoying them.  There are still times when the ego mind has to think about new movements and learn them to programme the id, and at these times the physical awkwardness returns.
The ego mind can deal with 5 to 7 things at a time.  Just think of all the functions your brain is controlling, the chemical factories in your body being monitored, every single one of your nerve endings in every one of your senses being constantly monitored for danger.  The instinctive mind is far far more powerful than it's generally given credit for.
Think what animals can do, their awareness that seems magical to us.  Their grace and silent movement.  If we can use the animal parts of our mind, we can do these magical things too.  I believe many of the things our conscious mind has tried to ascribe to 'natural energies', 'auras' or even 'god' actually come from the promptings of our own internal instinctive mind.

I'm no guru, I'm just one bloke in one place and time thinking for myself.  I've walked my own path to reach this point for many years, taking pieces to fit into my picture from others as seemed suitable at the time.  I hope others can also work out their own route to their own version of sanity.  Good travelling.

I'm back

Haven't blogged for ages.  An awful lot has been going on in my life.  About a month ago, after a series of knockbacks I suddenly (in a matter of seconds) came out of the depression I've been suffering for the last 12+ years.  Worst bit is, I was told I'd been 'cured' 11 years ago, and thought the struggle I'd been having with daily life was just normal.
The cage of depression had been preventing me getting on with anything beyond introspective doom and gloom; anger with the world and everything and everyone round me.
The knockbacks I've had;  A hidden camera stunt commissioned by channel 4 really offended me and sent me back into alcohol abuse and then back onto anti depressants;  A weekend away I'd been (desperately) looking forward to was suddenly cancelled - after I'd started coming off the anti depressants in order to be conscious of it; The final straw was a very trivial short answer from my wife.
What happened next I still don't understand, but as I turned away from my wife something shifted in my mind, all the repressions and problems of my whole lifetime evaporated; my lifetimes value system seemed turned on it's head; many things became clear.

I was a new person.  I turned and said to my wife 'I can't do this anymore, I want a divorce'.

I signed the divorce papers a couple of days ago.  All the things I'd been told to do to 'cure' the depression have now become possible.  I've written a diary, putting events and thoughts down on paper; taken up yoga and Ballroom&Latin dancing; I'm volunteering with a local environmental group.

I've learnt the truth 'Smile and the world smiles with you'.  I strike up conversations with strangers.  I have no fear of crowds and human contact.  I'm unafraid of the truth.  The door of life is open for whatever I want to make of it.

I only wish the many other people struggling with depression, diagnosed or not, could catch what I've got, the world would be a happier place.

I cannot change the past and won't beat myself up with 'what ifs'.  For maybe the first time in my life I'm free and happy.

Malicious woman rant

Had a tiring day yesterday, all the way from SE Essex to Plymouth and back by train for a University admission interview for my son.
Sitting at Fenchurch on the way home waiting for the train to start a well dressed middle aged lady got on.  Coming down the train there were plenty of seats.  My sons art portfolio was blocking one seat as it was too large to comfortably store on the racks or anywhere else.  The women promptly kicked the portfolio;  we moved it out of her way and she sat in the seat that had been blocked.  I rather assumed she was a bit drunk so made no issue of it.She then produced her phone and proceeded to make a series of phone calls.  They seemed to consist of nothing but malicious gossip, telling one person what someone else had said against them.  Thankfully she went over to text, but her whole body language just screamed the hate she was putting into the messages.  Someone (husband?) rang who she assured she'd had her hair done which is why she was late.  (lousy hairdresser I'd say).  She also put her boots on the seat opposite while doing this.  A further series of phone calls, all of which I really didn't want to hear.  For the worst bits she turned away and faced the corridor floor as if that would stop the whole carriage hearing her bellowing other peoples secrets into her phone.
Finally we got up to leave the train - she was sitting talking into her phone about a death which she obviously didn't give a **** about.  As I went to pass her she abruptly stood and leapt in front of me to leave the train first.
Rant over.
I know this woman is ultimately the biggest loser of her own behaviour.  I just wish I could grow sufficiently to simply let nasty people like this dissolve in their own malice without allowing it to bring me down.  Play nice, late night trains aren't a nice place to be.

Freezer defrost

When you're watching, the thawed water obediently drips down the outlet into your tray.

Leave it unwatched for five minutes and the floor floods...

Murder living at such high densities

More murders over the xmas/new year.  Back in the seventies there was research into high density living using loads of rats crammed into small spaces.  The results were the sort of mental problems and aggression we're getting in cities now.
Unless people are prepared to make the effort to obey all the rules PLUS be nice to each other (i.e. be civilized) the minor stresses of high density living inevitably lead to this sort of behaviour.  I've personally been through a nervous breakdown - the work stress that allegedly caused it was only part of the problem.  The constant drip of minor irritations and rudenesses while commuting and moving about London meant that it was just too hard to deal with the major work stress that I'd coped with fine for many years while working locally with relatively polite neighbours.