Just walk through or get out of the way! What’s so difficult about that?!
Grrr… 
Swine Flu pt2
Today’s paper reports that, in a worst case scenario, 65000 people might die in the UK of Swine Flu. This is bad. Undeniably. I would, however, like to see some comparative statistics…
How many people die in the UK each year from “normal” (if there is such a thing) Flu?
How many people die in the UK each year on the roads?
And so on.
Swine Flu pt1
It may be a storm in a teacup. It may be the media exploiting our fears to sell their newspapers etc… but…
What angers me about this sort of thing is that the spreading of infectious diseases could be reduced (probably significantly) with a change of attitude. Let’s not beat around the bush… if “we” in the West were less concerned about working hard and making money, then fewer people would die. Who can deny it? Even without considering the serious health detriments of stress, and the exploitation of the weak by large corporations, we simply don’t have our priorities right as far as the so-called “work-life balance” is concerned. I am personally seeing, and it seems to be an emerging pattern on a wider scale, tougher sickness policies in companies, along the lines of “Three Strike and You’re Out” and suchlike – where “Out” is thankfully not as harsh as “Fired,” but rather “On Statutory Sick Pay” (and if one has a look at what SSP is in the UK, “paltry” is a word which comes to mind). Even aside from official policy, however, how often do we see these stories, in our manipulative media, about how many people are “pulling sickies,” the damage this does to “our economy,” and so on? Presuming there is a core of truth in these tales (and I suppose there must be some truth), does anyone stop to ask why so many people are (allegedly) “pulling sickies”? And what about the cost to the population’s health (and by extension, inevitably, to “the economy”) of stress and overwork and so on? All this leads to a pervading unhealthy attitude towards ill health and what to do about it…
“One must struggle on!”
“I’ll battle through!”
…and so on.
…with the nation’s workforce feeling (or being made to feel) guilty for having any time off for any reason. Endless justification and forms to fill in and “back to work interviews” and the like. An utter lack of trust for people to tell the truth and have as much time off as is needed to recover from whatever ails them… which, by the way, may not be physical, but may be equally or more debilitating than a bout of Swine Flu or whatever (how pathetic is 3 days off for “compassionate leave”?). Particularly in the case of infectious diseases (such as Swine Flu), doesn’t it make more economic sense to actively encourage (through policy and through a more general change in attitude) people to go home and stay home if they have an illness that they may spread around a company, thus causing more people to have to take time off, and so on? I’m speaking in economic terms here, because this is the kind of language Western Capitalist Corporations and the servants thereof understand, but I personally happen to believe “we” have our priorities utterly arse-over-tit, and that economic factors shouldn’t override all else… far from it… but still… change the world one step at a time and all that.
One last point I want to mention is that, being as I am now a dad (and have been for one year and one day, as of today, the 17th of July 2009), although I was concerned about such things as the above previous to my dadhood, my concern for such has increased several fold, and this kind of issue is much more personal and emotional to me now. I want to protect my child and my family. I want to protect our present and our future. Reconciling my “responsibilities” and my beliefs/principles was always a tricky tightrope to walk… that tightrope has now got a whole lot thinner and more wobbly! I am working on improving my tightrope-walking skills day-by-day…
Sciencification
Shape yoghurts now have a “Hunger Control Formula” – which means you “stay full for longer.” And of course, since they have used the word “formula,” this gives their claim the respectability of science, so it must be true.
Are we really to be taken in by such transparent means of getting us to buy their products?!
Apparently, yes…
The Technological Eclipse of the Individual
In the so-called “Xeelee Sequence” of the science fiction author, Stephen Baxter, we meet alien races who are known less by their physical forms than by their technological artefacts. Bearing in mind that I personally still have a few books to go before I have completed the reading of the Xeelee Sequence, so far I have personally had the pleasure of being introduced to…
The Qax: an alien race who subjugate humanity, who are known by their ships (being the adapted physical bodies of the whale-like Spline, who swim through the oceans of intergalactic space) and their actions (the aforementioned subjugation, etc). Very few humans come into contact with or even know the form that individuals of the Qax race take (which happens to be a consciousness distributed through cells of turbulence in the liquid water oceans (or separated portions thereof) in which they dwell).
The Xeelee themselves: the god-like super-race who “own the universe”… whose individual forms (I suspect) never become known to Baxter’s fictional humanity or indeed to the readers of his works… over whose discarded technological artefacts genocidal wars are fought.
And this has made me wonder whether us humans (in the real, factual world) will, at some point (inevitably?), be superseded by our technology? I am speaking not (necessarily) about some Terminator- or Matrix-like scenario, where humans are (virtually) wiped out by the machines we created, but rather… It could probably already be said that, if we are being observed from afar by an alien race of a roughly equivalent level of technology to ours, they are probably “getting to know us” not by our individual forms, but by our far more significant and indeed relevant cultural, social, artistic and technological artefacts. What does it matter what shape our physical form takes? Also, how much more difficult would such a thing be to discern or calculate, at a distance of (probably) tens or hundreds of light years, than the aforementioned artefacts, particularly the technological, which leave a far more measurable impact upon our environment?
Of course, get closer to planet Earth, and you see that we are not our buildings, our vehicles, our satellites, our radio waves, our Information Superhighway, etc, etc, etc (or are we?)… upon physically landing upon our world, an alien race may actually be surprised to discover who we are…
But that aside… what about the future? What will we (“we”) become? Will our physical forms (like those of the Qax or the Xeelee) become (relatively) insignificant? When we have downloaded our souls into computers, when we exist not in a physical space but at a URL of a future version of the Internet, what becomes of the individual? Will the physical walls of the “I” collapse into incoherence, as our consciousness spreads further and wider amongst the nodes of an Information Universe?
A chilling thought… or…
Liberating???
One Minute
…is all it takes…
…for the crowds to clear…
…for the hoards of commuters to vacate the platform…
…to be left standing, to breathe…
…to turn and look back down the track from whence I came…
…and then to turn back, to resume my journey…
…to stroll, to amble, to mooch…
…back up the platform…
…up the escalator…
…through the ticket barrier…
…and onwards, forwards and beyond…
Imperfection & Self-Reliance
I think these are the keys to happiness. Well, two of the keys. By which I mean to say that there may be millions of “keys to happiness” (or perhaps just a handful), of all different shapes and sizes, of which “Imperfection” and “Self-Reliance” are two of the most… erm… substantial ones. Or the biggest. Or the ones most likely to open “The Door of Happiness.” Or something. Well anyway, you get the gist (hopefully). So…
Imperfection… specifically the acceptance of. The saying on my desktop calendar t’other day was something like, Seek perfection in everything you do. To which I say, Nay! Nay! And thrice nay! Too much pressure! What’s the point? Surely life should be about prioritising those things which are worth “putting your all” into and those which aren’t? Which is, of course, different for each individual human being on the planet. If I, for example, “seek perfection” in the arrangement of my paperclips, if I take the time to make my paperclip collection the greatest, tidiest, most well-organised paperclip collection in the world, what have I gained? And furthermore, what more worthy parts of my life have suffered from my spending so much time on paperclips? So no! Do not seek perfection! Seek imperfection! Accept imperfection! Accept that to be a happy, well-rounded individual, imperfection is inevitable and indeed necessary!
Self-reliance… I wrote the first part of this blog entry on my mobile phone, which I then copied onto a computer, upon completion of which I will post onto my blog on the Internet. I take pics of my little one (and other things) on my mobile phone, which I upload to Facebook. I communicate with my bro, my gf and others via email, text and things. I watch TV and DVDs and play on my PlayStation (not much these days, but still occasionally). I catch a train to and from work five days a week. I work 35 hours a week at an office. Etc. Etc. And etc. So you see, a pretty big proportion of my life involves the reliance on external agents. Agents external to myself. Technology which I have little or no knowledge of the internal workings of, vast and complex social and economic systems, my employer, and so on. This does, on occasion, trouble me. How much real and direct control do I have over my life? What would I do if these agents broke down or their structures changed to an unacceptable degree? To what extent would I be able to “get by” in life, to be happy, to “provide for my family” and so on, if I had to rely on my own inner resources and skills and so on, outside the context of these agents? And furthermore, even without the breakdown or significant changes of these agents, how easy would it be for me, if I so choose, to live a more self-reliant lifestyle? I feel that increased self-reliance would lead to increased happiness. On this I shall therefore “think on”…
Uniform
Sometimes, whilst walking through town, someone – man, woman, young, old – wearing a smart, tailored, expensive suit, will give you an imperious look. Or at least what looks like one. On a normal workday, I don’t wear a smart, tailored, expensive suit. I wear a shirt, “smart” trousers and shoes which, on account of my fighting my way through a jungle-like path on the way to the train station, are generally somewhat dirty. And since I shave only once or twice a week, there is a good chance, at a given time of a given day, I will be cultivating something of a stubble. Oh, and I rarely get my hair cut, so, you know, there’s also that.
So the (alleged) imperious look, directed as it is towards myself (allegedly), is a perception of status and a comparative judgement thereof on the part of the imperious looker.
Oh look at you, you mere lowly office worker, you, who has achieved nothing more than banality and averageness, as opposed to me, in my smart, tailored, expensive suit, who probably has a snazzy, shiny car (or three), eats at fancy-pants restaurants and wears inhumanly shiny shoes…
And such.
But oh how it grates on me when I see these groups of Shiny Shoe Folk, with their laptop bags, their Blackberries and their take-out coffees (because they haven’t got time to sit and drink one), walking quickly or standing around, speaking in loud voices, laughing loudly at unfunny “jokes,” with their air of corporate importance, and their apparent total unawareness of the fact that they, like everyone else (teenagers, office workers, gym freaks, etc), are so lacking in uniqueness and individuality, wearing their expensive tailored uniforms, their ties and pin-striped jackets and overstyled hair of sameness, that I, looking up (metaphorically) at them looking down at me, see not something superior and to be aspired to, but rather something to be avoided and ran away from at great speed, only stopping, dripping with sweat and relief, to thank the Lord above that, although my life is less than perfect, I haven’t fallen into the trap of empty corporate promises and regrets and unfulfilled desires, only ever sought after, never truly achieved, but all glossed over with the atomically thin sheen of shiny-shoe-imperiousness.
And I don’t conduct business meetings on the train!
(or in public toilets, on pavements or in lifts)
Idling – an Update
Since a little before starting this blog, I have read Tom Hodgkinson’s How to be Idle and How to be Free… and I am presently consuming the equally wonderful The Idle Parent (which, rather poignantly and synchronously, appeared before me on the “Recently Returned Books” shelf of the library, nearly exactly one year since the birth of my child!)… and so, three books, a few related websites & forums, many blog posts and many, many thoughts later, I feel it is time to provide an overall “update” (as it were) on my thoughts on Idling. To whit…
Hodgkinson’s books are highly entertaining. They are, to a degree, practical, although, if I’m honest, much of their content is philosophical and a big, witty, wise and highly sensible “rant” (if that’s not too strong a word) against The System – i.e. the modern, capitalist, work-and-technology-obsessed, western socio-political “system.” Which is all well and good, but, for myself at least (and I can’t really speak for anyone else), it is pretty difficult (okay, not impossible) to lead the sort of “Ideal Idle” lifestyle which Tom advocates. Attractive and admirable though it, in my opinion, is. I am coming to the realisation, however, at approaching halfway through The Idle Parent, that Mr H himself (a) was not always the idler he now professes to be (far from it, in fact); and (b) inasmuch as he suggests and advises on all Matters Idle, he makes a strong point (in The Idle Parent and possibly in his other works, although I would have to re-consult such to be sure) of not advocating aspiring towards any kind of “ideal” or “following of rules” – in fact, in The Idle Parent, with respect of parenting and “childcare,” his underlying assertion is that, as well as “leaving the kids alone,” one should find one’s own way, aside from whatever guidelines are being thrust upon us from government, books, the education system and so-called “experts,” and follow that.
So… idling… generally…
What’s it all about?
I suppose, in a nutshell, it’s about minimalism. Although perhaps that’s too simplistic. Although idling is also about simplicity! It’s about slowing down, doing as little “work” as possible (or at least making what work one does do enjoyable, and truly useful and satisfying), and finding one’s own path through life. It’s about questioning everything – accepting nothing as given and necessary. It’s about prioritising fun, relaxation and the joy of just being. It’s about living a more natural life – appreciating The Great Outdoors and the plentiful bounty of Nature. It’s about not being isolated, being “connected” in the old-fashioned sense, having friends and sharing the burden and the joy of existence. It’s about questioning everything we are told about society, how we are supposed to be, not letting the bastards grind you down. It’s about being FREE… in mind, in body, in spirit.
It’s about living in the now.
It’s about LIVING… 
==========
Since writing the above, I have finished reading The Idle Parent, and it strikes me that the term, “Idling,” is actually something of a misnomer. An idler’s life may be perceived, to the uninitiated, to be a slothful life, a lazy life, where one just sits around not doing much. Whereas in truth (according to the “philosophy” of Tom Hodgkinson), an idler’s life is a very busy life. Perhaps not “busy”… it is a full life. Particularly that of an idle parent. An idler does sit around pondering, try and get plenty of sleep and such things, but also he spends a lot of time playing, reading, eating, drinking, gardening, cooking, making things, conversing, laughing, singing, dancing and so on and so forth. An idler – a true Hodgkinsonian idler – is never bored!
