It's nearly Christmas, and you know what that means! It's time for my most saccharine blog post ever! Ho ho ho etc.
As I've mentioned before, I don't believe in God, at least not at the moment. Although like any good scientist I'm prepared to have my mind changed, I believe in a godless universe like I believe in gravity, and none of this stuff in here is floating away. There's no mystical energy field controlling my destiny. Jesus, though, him I gots time for. For one thing, there's some evidence that he actually existed, which makes him a lot more inspiring. The man's got a great message, a good story and an excellent look. I'm also a big fan of myths in general: big scope, a lesson to be learned, cool gimmicks that you can't get otherwise.
So Christmas? Christmas is ace. I'm perfectly happy to co-opt the celebration of a quasi-mythical historical figure to my own festive ends. It's hard to argue with its message, and it's impossible to avoid its reach, both socially and commercially. One good thing about being an atheist is that you can celebrate any religious festival you like. You may have to be discreet - as the other practitioners might take a dim view of your joining in the fun - but at least you don't have to worry about pissing off the wrong god. I love Christmas the best, but I'm also partial to Yom Kippur and Diwali.
It's not like it matters. Christmas in this country can be a religion-free festival if one so chooses. I don't get thrown out of midnight mass for clearly being an unrepentant sinner. I don't communicate with God at all, although I do watch and celebrate the story of the Nativity. I give thanks, but for elements of the tangible world: my friends and family, my health, my huge and almost obscene luck to be born where I was and when I am, compared to the many, many people who are born into suffering. I give thanks to the intangible world too: for my mind, for words, and (and this sounds nauseating, because it is) for love. I know it and miss it and am grateful for its existence and shall seek it out again. So Christmas is a time of personal, spiritual importance, not just an opportunity to over-eat.
Christmas has come to mean other things to, things far outside of its religious beginnings but, in my opinion, no less important. Christmas is a time for sadness, too.
It has often been identified that during a time in which we are expected to concentrate on joy, it is difficult to ignore the problems in our lives. Christmas is a time during which we have the loftiest aims: peace and love and goodwill to all men. These aims are noble, but difficult, and they remind us of the imperfections that we all face. For many people, Christmas can be miserable simply because we are supposed to be having fun, and we are unable.
Sometimes (not always, but often enough), just the societal conventions of Christmas can cause people problems. Christmas is, TV tells us, a time for family, a time for giving, a time for togetherness. Unfortunately Christmas can also be a time for arguing with your family, struggling to find stuff to give, together but bored to tupping tears.
That Christmas is a highly emotional time, perhaps even traumatically so, is so often identified as to become cliché. The Eastenders Christmas special is rarely all smiles and kittens. While on screen a perfect family Christmas is often the reward, normally the protagonists must profess their love, help out Santa, or take out a building full of terrorists before they get it. Christmas either sucks, or it sucks hard for a little bit and then you get the pay-off.
It happens so often that it's become accepted. Christmas is never perfect, rarely close. We celebrate it through a strange mixture of compulsions: compelled by our own personal wants or by those of others to faithfully emulate the traditions, even if we don't believe in the myth, or even the message. Sometimes we do it just because it's... well, it's Christmas. It's unavoidable.
I personally believe Christmas can be a time of growth, and growth rarely comes from complete stability. The fact that it is sometimes difficult makes it more important to me. I don't enjoy the drama (and with my family there can be drama), but I appreciate that it's a part of what happens when you get disparate persons together and try to make them love each other. If it's going to happen, then I'll try and salvage something from it, and if anything, it makes the whole festival more credible to me.
That's not true in every case. Some people have perfectly cogent reasons for despising the festive season. Victims of past trauma should not be forced to relive it year on year, and it is unfair and unfortunate that they must. But if you can't embrace Christmas, seeing as it is unavoidable, perhaps facing it head on is the way forward.
I'm looking forward to Christmas, because of the gifts and the family and all that bullshit but also, masochistically, for the crummy bits that I know are coming. It makes it feel like a real event, y'know? Something you could learn from, something worth going through, something worth more that the plastic, advertising led giftfest that we're taught to be so cynical about. There's one part of Christmas that the corporations can't take away: the arguments.
So I'm gift wrapping and carol singing and turkey eating but when the family squares up and the alcohol is flowing I'll scream obscenities and bare my feelings and put people in their place and be firmly put in mine. Christmas will be an ordeal as much as a holiday, but sometimes you come through an ordeal stronger. Just ask Father Christmas, he has a lot on his plate over the holidays (not really, if I don't believe in God Santa Clause certainly doesn't get a free pass).
Updated only when you aren't looking.
Thursday, 16 December 2010
Thursday, 18 November 2010
Lightbulb Moment
Here is a very clever and rather sexy guy named Stephen Johnson talking about ideas, or to be more specific, the climates and situations in which good ideas come about. He starts his presentation talking about the lightbulb moment: that sudden flash of cognitive energy when inspiration strikes.
Of all the theories about ideas, this is the most prevalent. The concept of inspiration being a fleeting, momentary sensation is rather well established, going back at least to Archimedes, who had his trope codifying 'Eureka' moment while chillin' in the bath.
The generally understood notion is that inspiration strikes as an outside force: the solution to a problem bursts fully formed from somewhere else, some other situation, another piece of understanding, or perhaps simply from the ether. My favourite depiction of ideas comes from Terry Pratchett, who in one of his novels describes them as an actual universal force: actual particles of inspiration sleet through the fabric of the universe, occasionally striking a receptive neuron and leading to the birth of another idea. One of 'Leonard Of Quirm's' (Pratchett's counterpart to Leonardo Da Vinci) first inventions is a metal hat designed to keep these inspiration particles out, as he is embarrassed to keep waking up to find new designs for siege engines scrawled all over his bedsheets.
In his presentation, Stephen Johnson points out that most truly good ideas do not come from nowhere, but are actually the product of a climate of intellectual discussion, industrial drive and general investigative discourse. My favourite moment in the talk is when he links the sudden scientific rush of the Enlightenment to the introduction of coffee into early modern British society. Up until that point most of what people drank during the day would have been alcoholic, which hardly pertains to an atmosphere of frantic industry. Suddenly people were sitting around drinking coffee all day instead of beer and the scientific breakthroughs started to flow (this might also explain why those swotty, tea-drinkin' ancient Chinese were inventing fireworks and paper and stuff while we were still messing around with earth kilns).
So the coffee house and the scientific institute became the nexus of good ideas, and remain so to this day. But Archimedes didn't have his revelation in a coffee shop, he had it half-way into the bathtub.
I'm bringing this up because I recently had what I consider to be a good idea myself. I'm off to America in the spring of next year, partly for research for the novel but mostly because I have itchy feet. I've always felt the need to go to America: it's the seat of practically all my culture, and so a trip there is a pilgrimage of sorts, as well as an adventure.
I had idly explored various ways to write about the trip. The simplest one would probably be a blog, something I'm obviously no stranger to. In fact, the first blog I ever wrote was a travelogue of my journey through New Zealand, Australia and Borneo with my girlfriend. The girlfriend sadly decided to find someone else, but the blog still exists, and you can read it here if you like.
I decided, however, that I didn't feel like writing a blog about my time in America. Firstly it can be a little bit time consuming, which doesn't always work out if you are constantly on the road. Also the pressure to keep constantly updating can make it seem like a burden or a chore, something I definitely didn't want on this particular jaunt across the pond.
But, while I was on the Megabus back from Leeds the other day, I had a lightbulb moment. Suddenly a whole project unfurled in my mind like a time-lapsed flower, and by the time I got back to London I had ironed out most of the kinks. I'm VERY excited about it: I think it's just the sort of thing I've been looking for. Even if I follow though with it the project won't be up and running for a long time yet, so I won't say too much now. Anyway, the point of this post is not the project plug, but the moment behind it.
Eureka means, literally, "I have found." Archimedes was searching for the solution to a specific problem (having been tasked by the King of Syracuse to determine if a crown was solid gold or of cheaper construction) before he got in the water. He was so pleased that he went running in the nuddy-pants through the streets, although in my opinion, he was probably more chuffed with the invention of hydrostatics than solving the specific puzzle.
Some good ideas may come, seemingly, out of nowhere. Occasionally, looking at a natural phenomenon or situation might lead you to consider a problem, a question, that you might otherwise never have realised existed. The apocryphal 'Newton and Apple' story is a good example, at least conceptually (again, I'm pretty sure it didn't take an apple falling on his head to make possibly the greatest scientific mind ever consider why stuff falls down).
But my point is that in order to find a solution, you have first to find the problem. I'm pretty chuffed with my good idea, partly because I think it really does have legs, but mostly because I'm just glad to have had it in the first place. It gives me a sense of my own potential, something that had been a bit thin on the ground lately.
I know there are people out there who think themselves capable of at least one big idea, and I agree with them. I bang on all the time on this blog about the individual's ability to take charge of their own life. But here's the kicker: inspiration is not like the particles in a Pratchett novel. It will only come if you make the conditions right.
Maybe you should start hanging out in coffee houses more. Perhaps you should spend more time in scientific institutions. I know you oughta start drinking less booze. But whatever you do, you need to set yourself a problem, a set of parameters, first. Like Archimedes, you'll find only what you look for.
Inspiration is more like a forest fire than a single flash of lightning. The lightning is just the start: you have to ready to burn.
Of all the theories about ideas, this is the most prevalent. The concept of inspiration being a fleeting, momentary sensation is rather well established, going back at least to Archimedes, who had his trope codifying 'Eureka' moment while chillin' in the bath.
The generally understood notion is that inspiration strikes as an outside force: the solution to a problem bursts fully formed from somewhere else, some other situation, another piece of understanding, or perhaps simply from the ether. My favourite depiction of ideas comes from Terry Pratchett, who in one of his novels describes them as an actual universal force: actual particles of inspiration sleet through the fabric of the universe, occasionally striking a receptive neuron and leading to the birth of another idea. One of 'Leonard Of Quirm's' (Pratchett's counterpart to Leonardo Da Vinci) first inventions is a metal hat designed to keep these inspiration particles out, as he is embarrassed to keep waking up to find new designs for siege engines scrawled all over his bedsheets.
In his presentation, Stephen Johnson points out that most truly good ideas do not come from nowhere, but are actually the product of a climate of intellectual discussion, industrial drive and general investigative discourse. My favourite moment in the talk is when he links the sudden scientific rush of the Enlightenment to the introduction of coffee into early modern British society. Up until that point most of what people drank during the day would have been alcoholic, which hardly pertains to an atmosphere of frantic industry. Suddenly people were sitting around drinking coffee all day instead of beer and the scientific breakthroughs started to flow (this might also explain why those swotty, tea-drinkin' ancient Chinese were inventing fireworks and paper and stuff while we were still messing around with earth kilns).
So the coffee house and the scientific institute became the nexus of good ideas, and remain so to this day. But Archimedes didn't have his revelation in a coffee shop, he had it half-way into the bathtub.
I'm bringing this up because I recently had what I consider to be a good idea myself. I'm off to America in the spring of next year, partly for research for the novel but mostly because I have itchy feet. I've always felt the need to go to America: it's the seat of practically all my culture, and so a trip there is a pilgrimage of sorts, as well as an adventure.
I had idly explored various ways to write about the trip. The simplest one would probably be a blog, something I'm obviously no stranger to. In fact, the first blog I ever wrote was a travelogue of my journey through New Zealand, Australia and Borneo with my girlfriend. The girlfriend sadly decided to find someone else, but the blog still exists, and you can read it here if you like.
I decided, however, that I didn't feel like writing a blog about my time in America. Firstly it can be a little bit time consuming, which doesn't always work out if you are constantly on the road. Also the pressure to keep constantly updating can make it seem like a burden or a chore, something I definitely didn't want on this particular jaunt across the pond.
But, while I was on the Megabus back from Leeds the other day, I had a lightbulb moment. Suddenly a whole project unfurled in my mind like a time-lapsed flower, and by the time I got back to London I had ironed out most of the kinks. I'm VERY excited about it: I think it's just the sort of thing I've been looking for. Even if I follow though with it the project won't be up and running for a long time yet, so I won't say too much now. Anyway, the point of this post is not the project plug, but the moment behind it.
Eureka means, literally, "I have found." Archimedes was searching for the solution to a specific problem (having been tasked by the King of Syracuse to determine if a crown was solid gold or of cheaper construction) before he got in the water. He was so pleased that he went running in the nuddy-pants through the streets, although in my opinion, he was probably more chuffed with the invention of hydrostatics than solving the specific puzzle.
Some good ideas may come, seemingly, out of nowhere. Occasionally, looking at a natural phenomenon or situation might lead you to consider a problem, a question, that you might otherwise never have realised existed. The apocryphal 'Newton and Apple' story is a good example, at least conceptually (again, I'm pretty sure it didn't take an apple falling on his head to make possibly the greatest scientific mind ever consider why stuff falls down).
But my point is that in order to find a solution, you have first to find the problem. I'm pretty chuffed with my good idea, partly because I think it really does have legs, but mostly because I'm just glad to have had it in the first place. It gives me a sense of my own potential, something that had been a bit thin on the ground lately.
I know there are people out there who think themselves capable of at least one big idea, and I agree with them. I bang on all the time on this blog about the individual's ability to take charge of their own life. But here's the kicker: inspiration is not like the particles in a Pratchett novel. It will only come if you make the conditions right.
Maybe you should start hanging out in coffee houses more. Perhaps you should spend more time in scientific institutions. I know you oughta start drinking less booze. But whatever you do, you need to set yourself a problem, a set of parameters, first. Like Archimedes, you'll find only what you look for.
Inspiration is more like a forest fire than a single flash of lightning. The lightning is just the start: you have to ready to burn.
Friday, 5 November 2010
An Ancient Chinese Recipe (for Self-Indulgence).
I've had a rough week, for reasons that are somewhat obtuse and, in retrospect, kinda stupid. I've been getting pissy over events that are long since passed, and to quote my man Bill, "what's gone and what's past help should be past grief." So there's a pleasing irony in the fact I'm dealing with said grief by remembering past times. Today is Guy Fawke's Day, and nothing, but NOTHING, helps deal with heartache like celebrating the brutal execution of a political dissident.
Bonfire Night is my second favourite annual festival (so I like Christmas, big whoop, wanna fight about it?). I like it because I like fireworks: lights and colours and big noises (which makes me sound like a toddler, but I'm not ashamed). And I like it because it gets you together with people, and it's an excuse to be outside once the clocks have gone back, and for the look on happy children's faces and all that other holiday special crap. More than that, I like lighting fireworks.
I mean, come one. They're big explosives that you get to set off in your own back garden! I'm not even slightly military minded, I think any obsession with guns and playing soldiers past pre-pubescence is lame (unless you're actually a soldier, in which case it's OK, I guess). But even a whiny beatnik pacifist like myself can appreciate the atavistic joy of making really loud noises once in a while. Bonfire night is my one chance to muck about with what is essentially brightly coloured gunpowder, and I plan to make the most of it.
Lighting fireworks is also another of those enjoyable tasks that menfolk have selfishly adopted for themselves by labelling them somehow arduous or dangerous. I've mentioned this once before in regards to my own love for flat-pack furniture. Lighting fireworks is a job for men, big manly men, possibly with full beards and a woodsman's axe balanced on their shoulder.
Fireworks can be dangerous, of course. Children should not be allowed to play with them, but as previously stated on this very blog, kids are idiots. Every year the fire service roll out the same adverts to be shown after Blue Peter (or its modern, ultra-violent equivalent, I don't keep up with what the little urchins watch). Don't hold lit fireworks in your hand. Don't keep fireworks in your pocket. Don't make dens inside bonfires. Don't throw fireworks. It's possible that you might have to explain this sort of thing on one occasion, to someone who had never encountered fireworks before, but it appears necessary to remind some folks each time. Every year hundreds of people are injured, sometimes seriously, by fireworks, but in almost every case it is less of a genuine accident and more of the 'which-one-of-you-was-playing-silly-buggers' sort of accident. If you understand what an explosive actually is, but still need to be reminded not to make it explode about your person, then you are not mentally cogent enough to handle lighting fireworks.I would boldly state that for most of us, it's not a hugely dangerous or difficult task.
But I play along with the fallacy (or should that be phallacy, am I right?) because I like setting off fireworks and I don't want anybody else to get to do it. I know that if, say, my little sister were given the task of setting off a rocket, she wouldn't just ignite the fuse with the firework still in her hand, and then wave it in my direction with a vague 'what-can-you-do' expression. Instead she would read the instructions on the packet carefully and follow them to the best of her ability, always paying due attention and respect to the brightly coloured bomb she'd been entrusted with detonating.
I'll pretend to her, and myself, and anyone else in the room, that fireworks require some modicum of skill. And in truth, I do have some area of expertise in the field. I spent all this morning out in the rain building launch stations for tonight's display, but this was largely to ward off my own blue mood, and probably not entirely necessary. I could probably have knocked it all together while everyone else was putting their wellies on.
So every year I put on a fireworks display because I like fireworks, and other people come round and tell me what a clever chap I am and pat me on the back. Sometimes they bring food and get this: occasionally they bring money. Actual cashpounds! For something I'd have done anyway! (To be fair, there's no more obvious waste of money than fireworks. If notes burnt in different colours you might as well just chuck them on the bonfire.)
This year it's even better, because I'm staying with my father till the spring, and the idiot bought the fireworks for me! I've barely had to spend a penny. And at the end of it I will stand, fresh glass of wine in hand, and accept the thanks of my adoring public with a bashful smile, telling them that it was nothing really, and that I was just happy to help. And they'll tell each other what a smashing young man I am, even though it really wasn't anything, and I was just happy to help, and in fact I'd have been a bit pissed off at their presumptuousness if they'd come wandering down the garden to give me a hand.
There will be a few people in the crowd who are in on it. A few, mostly men, who will be secretly wishing that it was they, rather than I, running boldly amid the smoke with a slow burning wick in one gloved hand. They won't be able to complain, though, because everyone else is having fun. I know their grief well, and sympathise. But if they think they're helping with my fireworks they can naff right off. Have a sparkler, mate, and shut your cake-hole.
Bonfire Night is my second favourite annual festival (so I like Christmas, big whoop, wanna fight about it?). I like it because I like fireworks: lights and colours and big noises (which makes me sound like a toddler, but I'm not ashamed). And I like it because it gets you together with people, and it's an excuse to be outside once the clocks have gone back, and for the look on happy children's faces and all that other holiday special crap. More than that, I like lighting fireworks.
I mean, come one. They're big explosives that you get to set off in your own back garden! I'm not even slightly military minded, I think any obsession with guns and playing soldiers past pre-pubescence is lame (unless you're actually a soldier, in which case it's OK, I guess). But even a whiny beatnik pacifist like myself can appreciate the atavistic joy of making really loud noises once in a while. Bonfire night is my one chance to muck about with what is essentially brightly coloured gunpowder, and I plan to make the most of it.
Lighting fireworks is also another of those enjoyable tasks that menfolk have selfishly adopted for themselves by labelling them somehow arduous or dangerous. I've mentioned this once before in regards to my own love for flat-pack furniture. Lighting fireworks is a job for men, big manly men, possibly with full beards and a woodsman's axe balanced on their shoulder.
Fireworks can be dangerous, of course. Children should not be allowed to play with them, but as previously stated on this very blog, kids are idiots. Every year the fire service roll out the same adverts to be shown after Blue Peter (or its modern, ultra-violent equivalent, I don't keep up with what the little urchins watch). Don't hold lit fireworks in your hand. Don't keep fireworks in your pocket. Don't make dens inside bonfires. Don't throw fireworks. It's possible that you might have to explain this sort of thing on one occasion, to someone who had never encountered fireworks before, but it appears necessary to remind some folks each time. Every year hundreds of people are injured, sometimes seriously, by fireworks, but in almost every case it is less of a genuine accident and more of the 'which-one-of-you-was-playing-silly-buggers' sort of accident. If you understand what an explosive actually is, but still need to be reminded not to make it explode about your person, then you are not mentally cogent enough to handle lighting fireworks.I would boldly state that for most of us, it's not a hugely dangerous or difficult task.
But I play along with the fallacy (or should that be phallacy, am I right?) because I like setting off fireworks and I don't want anybody else to get to do it. I know that if, say, my little sister were given the task of setting off a rocket, she wouldn't just ignite the fuse with the firework still in her hand, and then wave it in my direction with a vague 'what-can-you-do' expression. Instead she would read the instructions on the packet carefully and follow them to the best of her ability, always paying due attention and respect to the brightly coloured bomb she'd been entrusted with detonating.
I'll pretend to her, and myself, and anyone else in the room, that fireworks require some modicum of skill. And in truth, I do have some area of expertise in the field. I spent all this morning out in the rain building launch stations for tonight's display, but this was largely to ward off my own blue mood, and probably not entirely necessary. I could probably have knocked it all together while everyone else was putting their wellies on.
So every year I put on a fireworks display because I like fireworks, and other people come round and tell me what a clever chap I am and pat me on the back. Sometimes they bring food and get this: occasionally they bring money. Actual cashpounds! For something I'd have done anyway! (To be fair, there's no more obvious waste of money than fireworks. If notes burnt in different colours you might as well just chuck them on the bonfire.)
This year it's even better, because I'm staying with my father till the spring, and the idiot bought the fireworks for me! I've barely had to spend a penny. And at the end of it I will stand, fresh glass of wine in hand, and accept the thanks of my adoring public with a bashful smile, telling them that it was nothing really, and that I was just happy to help. And they'll tell each other what a smashing young man I am, even though it really wasn't anything, and I was just happy to help, and in fact I'd have been a bit pissed off at their presumptuousness if they'd come wandering down the garden to give me a hand.
There will be a few people in the crowd who are in on it. A few, mostly men, who will be secretly wishing that it was they, rather than I, running boldly amid the smoke with a slow burning wick in one gloved hand. They won't be able to complain, though, because everyone else is having fun. I know their grief well, and sympathise. But if they think they're helping with my fireworks they can naff right off. Have a sparkler, mate, and shut your cake-hole.
 |
| "Yeah, all right mate, no-one likes a show-off." (Image copyright Ed O'Keeffe.) |
Thursday, 14 October 2010
Thousand Faces
 |
| Secret Identity: sometimes more 'off' than 'on.' |
Less immediately recognisable is his civilian (and on-again-off-again secret) identity, Peter Parker. Peter Parker looks like this guy on the left.
 |
| Pink shirt/blue tie combo? Costume mystery solved: the guy is clearly colour-blind. |
Except he also looks like this (if you like your Marvel Comics in 'Ultimate' flavour, anyway):
 |
| Peter Parker: humble enough to allow medical progress. |
Or perhaps he even looks like this. While this guy is a lot more stylized and cartoon-y, he's certainly the coolest looking and the one I much prefer. My point is: all of these are Peter Parker. As long as we, the reader, understand who we are looking at, then that's who it is. This idea is particularly acute in comic books, where different writers and, crucially, artists, take the reigns over a particular character all the time. This can be a problem if you have a vested interest in the particular depiction. The guy on the left is drawn by Humberto Ramos, an artist whose very personal and exaggerated style tends to divide fans.
I'm a comic book guy so I'm used to dealing with this all the time. I've therefore become used to the fact that, for most people, Peter Parker looks like this:
 |
| "Are these my hands? Man, I am high as balls." |
Sometimes it hardly matters. Sometimes a writer leaves the physical description so sparse that you could envision pretty much anything you like. James Patterson's most famous creation is Alex Cross, a black detective working in Washington DC. Now, Patterson normally runs pretty light on the physical description anyway, but he says remarkably little about what Cross looks like in any of the books, save that he is black. Patterson should justly be applauded for not making a huge deal out of the race of his protagonist, but even by his standards Alex Cross is thinly drawn at best. So for most people with an interest, Cross looks like this:
 | ||
| Morgan Freeman: left the gas on. |
Soon, to most people, Alex Cross will look like this:
 |
| "Peace." |
That's Idris Elba from The Wire, by the way. He will be playing the part of Alex Cross soon but I'm pretty sure that if I ever read another Patterson novel (unlikely) he won't be filling in the silhouette left by the flaws in Patterson's writing.
Does any of this really matter? Possibly not: everyone is entitled to their own imaginings, and so fictional characters can look like whatever you decide. Just because they have been depicted in a certain way in a certain medium, doesn't mean you have to adopt that depiction yourself. You can just ignore it. If anything, this is the major positive about verbal descriptions: they can mean a thousand different things to a thousand different people. A strongly written character can have a generally recognised personality but a thousand different faces, and it's part of the fun.
But one thing I have noticed is that visual depictions tend to stick faster when they accompany an artistically credible piece of work. Therefore: the more you like something, the more that version of a character is destined to stick with you. James Bond is a good example: when people imagine him, they tend to envision their favourite actor as the model for his appearance, ignoring the Bond films that show him otherwise.
Disliking a piece of work can have the opposite effect. In my case, I was pretty sold on Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker after Spider-Man 2, a film I enjoyed immensely. However I thought the sequel painfully, embarrassingly bad, and was very disappointed in Maguire's performance. Now when I see him, I don't see Peter Parker at all; in fact I'm somewhat aggrieved that he occupies that space for so many people.
The best example I can think of is the Lord of the Rings trilogy of films. Those movies were incredibly well researched, a labour of love in some respects, and it shows in the effect it has had on the fans of the books. Gandalf the Grey now looks like Ian Mckellen, at least to me (and my dad). The films were a) so close to the vague imaginings in my head and b) so engrossing and inspiring and all the rest that it essentially taped over all the visuals I had and replaced them, and it matters to me not a jot. I can totally accept this because I enjoyed the films so much.
It is because of a particular piece of writing and art that I know what Peter Parker looks like. When I see him drawn otherwise I can accept it, but I find that how much I like a particular version of him depends on how closely it sticks to the idea I have in my head. That idea was put there by one of the best Spider-Man comics I ever read, a one-shot by Paul Jenkins that was mostly about a young man with cerebral palsy. Spider-Man unmasks at the end for a single moment, but such was the quality of the writing and art that it has stuck with me ever since. It's not enough to show people a picture. You have to paint it for them if you want it to stay.
 |
| Peter Parker: The Amazing Spider-Man |
Saturday, 9 October 2010
Friday, 8 October 2010
Stall for Saturday
I realise I haven't put any fiction on here in a while. So you can have a short story tomorrow (try to still your thumping hearts) once I've finished proof-reading it.
Thursday, 30 September 2010
The power was mine.
I saw an advert recently reminding me not to use a 100 watt bulb when a 60 watt would do. It seems like a pretty simple thing to remember (how flippin' bright do you need your house to be, anyway?), but it sparked off a few neural connections in me that the advert's creators might not have intended. The sentiment, and the wording, was almost exactly the same as an after-credits short that was featured in the show Captain Planet and the Planeteers, that I must have watched at least 15 years ago.
If you aren't acquainted with Captain Planet then you might have missed the Saturday morning cartoon renaissance that occurred during the early to mid 1990s. The titular Captain Planet was an elemental warrior created from the powers of five magical rings, each belonging to a teenager from one of the five continents and each containing the force of one of the... four elements. I can imagine the brainstorming meeting at the show's inception:
Head Executive: So he's a superhero, like Superman, but environmental. So we rope the kids in and the merchandising does itself but we get the moms and schools and all that other crap on board.
Junior Exec: Does he have different costumes, sir?
Head Exec: No, this is the brilliant part. To even GET the superhero on screen, you need to combine a bunch of other powers. And the powers belong to teenagers. Use... I don't know, the four elements. And then you give one each to a kid from each continent. Put 'em together, presto chango: Captain Planet!
*Applause*
Junior Exec: Um... sir?
Head Exec: What?
Junior Exec: There are... um, there are five continents, sir.
Head Exec: Really?
Junior Exec: America actually counts as two, sir.
Head Exec: Well, just make up another element then. Something inoffensive, that doesn't change the format of the show. Like 'heart' but not as gay.
Junior Exec: Well sir, the Chinese actually believe that metal is the fifth element and...
Head Exec: What are you, a communist? You're fired. Power of heart it is. Aaaand done. *Does 'gun' gesture with hands.*
So the spirit of the earth gives five magic rings to five special young people, calls them Planeteers and sends them off to fight eco-crime or somesuch without clearing it with health and safety or anything. Ma-ti gets stuck with the power of heart but it doesn't really matter because the five Planeteers are, frankly, rubbish. In retrospect it's obvious that they would have to combine their powers to summon Captain Planet in every episode (he does come ahead of them on the billing), but at the time I remember thinking, even as a small child, that the Planeteers were strikingly inept, and that if I had magic jewellery that shot fire out of it I'd do a much better job of combating eco-terrorism.
On screen it looked like the Planateers were held back by their own creative shortcomings (if the girl who controlled water didn't have a fire to put out or sea-creatures to bathe, she just stood around looking sheepish), but in reality they were battling both against the demands of the plot and against an amazingly jarring contradiction in the show's own ethos. Captain Planet's motto was: the power is yours, but the tagline extolled every time he was summoned forth was: by your powers combined. The idea was to point out that people are much more effective when they work as a team: a worthy sentiment but one that left the Planeteers relegated to multi-cultural cheerleaders while Captain Planet did the required eco-asskicking.
The program was dead and buried by the mid 90s and although it is fondly remembered, most people recall it for its catchy theme tune and for the beguiling mix of sentimentality, violence and high camp that typified western children's animation during the period (Captain Planet, while a rugged looking dude, should have either fired his costume designer or is naturally one of the gayest looking beings in the universe).
The show had an effect on me, but perhaps not the right one. I mean, I remember the theme tune word for word, but I still need to be reminded to use a lower wattage in my light-bulbs.
When people talk about the effects of climate change, or indeed, any continued trend that may affect world development, the point is often made that it will be the next generation, or possibly the one after that, to suffer the full effects. We can fuck up the planet with impunity because we'll be dead and buried by then, but our grandkids sure are going to be pissed about it.
In my case, and in the case of people my age, the sad fact is that we've been listening to this argument for most of our lives. I was only 5 when Captain Planet first aired in the UK. It was pointed out at the time, possibly even on the show itself, that it would be the next generation that would need to act. And the next generation... well, I've had a lot of stuff on recently, so I've been a bit busy. What have YOU done to save the environment?
I don't want to sound like a defeatist, but maybe we're naive to think that we can convince each other to stop messing about with the planet, seeing as we're having so much fun doing it. Perhaps we can convince the next generation to do a better job. At least part of Captain Planet and the Planeteers point was demonstrating to children how they might make a difference in the world: that the power might be theirs. Seeing that I am that next generation, maybe the show wasn't as effective as its creators had hoped.
I know it sounds like I'm passing on the responsibility and that's because I quite blatantly am. I just think that it's unlikely that everyone my age is going to have a sudden change of heart about looking after the environment. I'm one of the more ecologically minded people I know and I'm still frankly crap at being green.Maybe we should turn our creative efforts onto a new project: how to get those that follow us to do better than we. Considering the example we currently set, I think we're going to have to make a better show than Captain Planet if we're to convince the next generation to stop passing the buck.
If you aren't acquainted with Captain Planet then you might have missed the Saturday morning cartoon renaissance that occurred during the early to mid 1990s. The titular Captain Planet was an elemental warrior created from the powers of five magical rings, each belonging to a teenager from one of the five continents and each containing the force of one of the... four elements. I can imagine the brainstorming meeting at the show's inception:
Head Executive: So he's a superhero, like Superman, but environmental. So we rope the kids in and the merchandising does itself but we get the moms and schools and all that other crap on board.
Junior Exec: Does he have different costumes, sir?
Head Exec: No, this is the brilliant part. To even GET the superhero on screen, you need to combine a bunch of other powers. And the powers belong to teenagers. Use... I don't know, the four elements. And then you give one each to a kid from each continent. Put 'em together, presto chango: Captain Planet!
*Applause*
Junior Exec: Um... sir?
Head Exec: What?
Junior Exec: There are... um, there are five continents, sir.
Head Exec: Really?
Junior Exec: America actually counts as two, sir.
Head Exec: Well, just make up another element then. Something inoffensive, that doesn't change the format of the show. Like 'heart' but not as gay.
Junior Exec: Well sir, the Chinese actually believe that metal is the fifth element and...
Head Exec: What are you, a communist? You're fired. Power of heart it is. Aaaand done. *Does 'gun' gesture with hands.*
So the spirit of the earth gives five magic rings to five special young people, calls them Planeteers and sends them off to fight eco-crime or somesuch without clearing it with health and safety or anything. Ma-ti gets stuck with the power of heart but it doesn't really matter because the five Planeteers are, frankly, rubbish. In retrospect it's obvious that they would have to combine their powers to summon Captain Planet in every episode (he does come ahead of them on the billing), but at the time I remember thinking, even as a small child, that the Planeteers were strikingly inept, and that if I had magic jewellery that shot fire out of it I'd do a much better job of combating eco-terrorism.
On screen it looked like the Planateers were held back by their own creative shortcomings (if the girl who controlled water didn't have a fire to put out or sea-creatures to bathe, she just stood around looking sheepish), but in reality they were battling both against the demands of the plot and against an amazingly jarring contradiction in the show's own ethos. Captain Planet's motto was: the power is yours, but the tagline extolled every time he was summoned forth was: by your powers combined. The idea was to point out that people are much more effective when they work as a team: a worthy sentiment but one that left the Planeteers relegated to multi-cultural cheerleaders while Captain Planet did the required eco-asskicking.
 |
| I'd actually forgotten his awesome, grass-green mullet. Go Planet! |
The show had an effect on me, but perhaps not the right one. I mean, I remember the theme tune word for word, but I still need to be reminded to use a lower wattage in my light-bulbs.
When people talk about the effects of climate change, or indeed, any continued trend that may affect world development, the point is often made that it will be the next generation, or possibly the one after that, to suffer the full effects. We can fuck up the planet with impunity because we'll be dead and buried by then, but our grandkids sure are going to be pissed about it.
In my case, and in the case of people my age, the sad fact is that we've been listening to this argument for most of our lives. I was only 5 when Captain Planet first aired in the UK. It was pointed out at the time, possibly even on the show itself, that it would be the next generation that would need to act. And the next generation... well, I've had a lot of stuff on recently, so I've been a bit busy. What have YOU done to save the environment?
I don't want to sound like a defeatist, but maybe we're naive to think that we can convince each other to stop messing about with the planet, seeing as we're having so much fun doing it. Perhaps we can convince the next generation to do a better job. At least part of Captain Planet and the Planeteers point was demonstrating to children how they might make a difference in the world: that the power might be theirs. Seeing that I am that next generation, maybe the show wasn't as effective as its creators had hoped.
I know it sounds like I'm passing on the responsibility and that's because I quite blatantly am. I just think that it's unlikely that everyone my age is going to have a sudden change of heart about looking after the environment. I'm one of the more ecologically minded people I know and I'm still frankly crap at being green.Maybe we should turn our creative efforts onto a new project: how to get those that follow us to do better than we. Considering the example we currently set, I think we're going to have to make a better show than Captain Planet if we're to convince the next generation to stop passing the buck.
Friday, 24 September 2010
Ahead of the curve /or/ Put the wind up the oil baron
I spent some time recently thinking about renewable energy, partly because it’s research for my novel (which is set on a windfarm) and partly because of this post from Nash. It is of his usual stellar quality, and ruminates on the eventual need of humanity to spread beyond this pleasant orb and seek new places to pillage and despoil beyond Earth’s orbit. It looks quite a long way into the future but it made me think hard about some of the issues that address us as a species right now. Chief among them was the possible energy crisis that awaits when we run out of fossil fuels, and the more I thought about it the more I thought: well, that’s bollocks, innit?
Don’t get me wrong, it seems pretty likely we’re going to run out of fossil fuels sooner rather than later. It’s unlikely we’ll even be able to accurately predict when they will reach critical levels, because so much of their future usage will go into the developing economies of India, China and Russia. No one knows for certain how the economic needs of the world will evolve so we don’t know how much energy we will need, past the broad estimate of a flippin’ shitload.
The obvious alternative, therefore, is renewable energy. In fact, it is the only alternative: we can’t just let everything run dry and grind to a halt.
Before the switchover is complete it seems some people expect an era of crisis: we won’t have enough fossil fuel left to sustain the world’s current energy needs and we won’t have enough renewable energy to cope. My question is this: what about current business practice makes this seem likely?
Some good examples are the American railway companies, many of whom collapsed as America’s primary travel method switched from rail to road. The railway companies were selling a product: travel by rail, and when the need for that product disappeared the company was doomed to follow. Business in general learnt a harsh lesson: that no matter how solid and essential a particular product might seem, it can always, always be replaced, and that it is impossible to foresee what form its replacement might take.
The answer? Sell not a product, but an idea. Don’t sell train tickets, sell travel. A good current example is British Telecom, who have to occasionally put out advertisement reminding you that you even have a landline: the product on which their company is based. That they are still a success, despite the fact that a significant fraction of households don’t even bother to use their landline anymore, is down to idea vs product mechanic. BT don’t sell phones, they sell communication.
It seems unlikely to me, therefore, that when the oil starts to really run out, executives at the major fuel companies are just going to stop bothering to show up for work and start seeking employment at the nearest bio-mass depot. It seems rather more likely that the major fuel companies will already own the renewable energy sources, and will have for some time.It also occurs that the fuel companies are in the best position to estimate how much oil is left in the ground, and plan accordingly.
There is plenty of power in the sky and the sea. Enough, in fact, to supply the world’s energy needs several times over. Getting at it will require quite a lot of money, but here’s the thing: the fuel companies actually have quite a lot of money, and they’re willing to spend a bit to make a lot more.
So basically, energy crisis, schmenergy crisis. At first glance this looks like quite a good thing. We switch environmentally damaging energy sources for nice clean renewable ones, everyone feels a bit better and breathes a bit easier and can still keep their iPod charged. Win win.
Except. Except I’m not a massive fan of most fuel companies. I don’t really like the way they operate, or the product they currently endorse. I’d much rather they started making serious investment in renewable sources now, and left the fossil fuels in the ground. But of course they won’t, because that’s not currently how the money is made.
The problem with necessity being the mother of invention is that you have to stick with the person that does the inventing. If you invent things well in advance you can shop about a bit, and choose someone who’s not a colossal twat for your future inventing needs.
The question I’m posing to you, then, is how can we get ahead of the capitalist curve in this? Is there a way of making companies, and I’m talking the big boys here, not Flancrest Enterprises and Jim and Sally’s Family Wind Turbine Store, stop following the shortest route to profit? They’re going to have to change eventually, but only when there’s no money left in doing things the old way. Can we persuade them to do it a bit sooner?
As far as I can see this is the most important aspect of consumer choice. Getting things cheap is a fair goal, especially for those for whom money is in short supply. It’s perfectly within your rights to seek out the cheapest option for a particular product or service. I can’t help thinking, however, that companies will do much of the work in that regard for you. Companies want your money, and they will do anything they can to get it, and if that means lowering their prices then they will. Unfortunately the chief way they manage this is by lowering their overheads and passing on the savings, and in the standard business model the main way to lower your overheads is to start fucking someone else over even harder than you were before.
The only way to encourage large firms to act in a more ethical manner is through mass movement. This is a sentiment more easily made than acted upon and everybody knows it, but my point is this: eventually some firms are going to have to start acting in a certain manner. The problem is that in the meantime the world may have changed into a less hospitable place. It is in all our interest to encourage them to jump the gun.
Don’t get me wrong, it seems pretty likely we’re going to run out of fossil fuels sooner rather than later. It’s unlikely we’ll even be able to accurately predict when they will reach critical levels, because so much of their future usage will go into the developing economies of India, China and Russia. No one knows for certain how the economic needs of the world will evolve so we don’t know how much energy we will need, past the broad estimate of a flippin’ shitload.
The obvious alternative, therefore, is renewable energy. In fact, it is the only alternative: we can’t just let everything run dry and grind to a halt.
Before the switchover is complete it seems some people expect an era of crisis: we won’t have enough fossil fuel left to sustain the world’s current energy needs and we won’t have enough renewable energy to cope. My question is this: what about current business practice makes this seem likely?
Some good examples are the American railway companies, many of whom collapsed as America’s primary travel method switched from rail to road. The railway companies were selling a product: travel by rail, and when the need for that product disappeared the company was doomed to follow. Business in general learnt a harsh lesson: that no matter how solid and essential a particular product might seem, it can always, always be replaced, and that it is impossible to foresee what form its replacement might take.
The answer? Sell not a product, but an idea. Don’t sell train tickets, sell travel. A good current example is British Telecom, who have to occasionally put out advertisement reminding you that you even have a landline: the product on which their company is based. That they are still a success, despite the fact that a significant fraction of households don’t even bother to use their landline anymore, is down to idea vs product mechanic. BT don’t sell phones, they sell communication.
It seems unlikely to me, therefore, that when the oil starts to really run out, executives at the major fuel companies are just going to stop bothering to show up for work and start seeking employment at the nearest bio-mass depot. It seems rather more likely that the major fuel companies will already own the renewable energy sources, and will have for some time.It also occurs that the fuel companies are in the best position to estimate how much oil is left in the ground, and plan accordingly.
There is plenty of power in the sky and the sea. Enough, in fact, to supply the world’s energy needs several times over. Getting at it will require quite a lot of money, but here’s the thing: the fuel companies actually have quite a lot of money, and they’re willing to spend a bit to make a lot more.
So basically, energy crisis, schmenergy crisis. At first glance this looks like quite a good thing. We switch environmentally damaging energy sources for nice clean renewable ones, everyone feels a bit better and breathes a bit easier and can still keep their iPod charged. Win win.
Except. Except I’m not a massive fan of most fuel companies. I don’t really like the way they operate, or the product they currently endorse. I’d much rather they started making serious investment in renewable sources now, and left the fossil fuels in the ground. But of course they won’t, because that’s not currently how the money is made.
The problem with necessity being the mother of invention is that you have to stick with the person that does the inventing. If you invent things well in advance you can shop about a bit, and choose someone who’s not a colossal twat for your future inventing needs.
The question I’m posing to you, then, is how can we get ahead of the capitalist curve in this? Is there a way of making companies, and I’m talking the big boys here, not Flancrest Enterprises and Jim and Sally’s Family Wind Turbine Store, stop following the shortest route to profit? They’re going to have to change eventually, but only when there’s no money left in doing things the old way. Can we persuade them to do it a bit sooner?
As far as I can see this is the most important aspect of consumer choice. Getting things cheap is a fair goal, especially for those for whom money is in short supply. It’s perfectly within your rights to seek out the cheapest option for a particular product or service. I can’t help thinking, however, that companies will do much of the work in that regard for you. Companies want your money, and they will do anything they can to get it, and if that means lowering their prices then they will. Unfortunately the chief way they manage this is by lowering their overheads and passing on the savings, and in the standard business model the main way to lower your overheads is to start fucking someone else over even harder than you were before.
The only way to encourage large firms to act in a more ethical manner is through mass movement. This is a sentiment more easily made than acted upon and everybody knows it, but my point is this: eventually some firms are going to have to start acting in a certain manner. The problem is that in the meantime the world may have changed into a less hospitable place. It is in all our interest to encourage them to jump the gun.
Wednesday, 15 September 2010
Obstacles, scmobstacles
I have a new place to live, I found myself a job, work on the novel is goin' pretty vegan kosher, and I feel a little less frightened of life in general. So: I'm back, and there is a post below. Love and rockets.
The Goldfish
I talk to myself a lot. Obviously I only do it when I am by myself, as I already attract enough disparaging looks when I venture out in public thanks to my general air of untrustworthyness. I debate with myself in the car on long journeys, I voice lists of task aloud, and I sometimes read out loud in the bath or in bed, because I’m a solipsist and like to hear the sound of my own voice. In all these things I am not alone. But mostly, when I talk to myself, I insult, berate and criticise my own actions and outlook, and with good reason: when I am by myself, I metamorphose into an idiot. Seriously. An utter dim-wit.
Clearly I am no Einstein when I’m in a crowd (at work today I spent thirty seconds trying to open the safe door against its hinges) but when I am alone it becomes ludicrous. It would be unnecessarily long and tedious to list every faintly idiotic thing that I’ve done recently, but I shall give you a few examples so you can see what I’m driving at.
Firstly, I am capable of some truly incredible acts of clumsiness. I occasionally have accidents that require a perfect storm of physical ineptness, lack of forethought and sheer ignorance. I once almost succeeded, no word of a lie, in choking to death on an ice-cream while sat at the back of a rave. My panicked, potential final thoughts, were consumed by the knowledge that the ice-cream would melt before my corpse was discovered, leaving the authorities baffled as to the manner of my demise. I haven’t touched a Calippo since: they are as treacherous as frozen confectionary can get.
I am also guilty of some spectacular negligence. Given a kitchen to myself and enough time to wander off distractedly, and I will happily set fire to a pan of water.
Finally I occasionally find myself engaged in acts of monumental hubris. You know how sometimes on Casualty some idiot gets rushed into A&E because they were trying to replace a light bulb in a pitch black bathroom above a bath full of water up a rickety ladder while listening to thrash metal on a personal stereo and having a distracted conversation with someone three rooms away? Yeah, that sort of thing is right up my crippled, scarred-for-life alley.
I am not unintelligent. I used to get answers right in school. I have held down various jobs, some for several years, without ever getting into trouble or being disciplined. So why, when I am by myself, am I such a flippin’ retard?
The answer is my attention span, or rather the manner in which I focus it. I cannot keep my mind focused on a single task for more than about four seconds, unless that task requires my complete attention. Things that require extended concentration (driving, video games, cunnilingus, that sort of thing) are all fine, as long as they last. You cannot get away with letting your mind completely wander during these activities, and so it obligingly stays put. This allows me, incredibly, to split my attention in the manner so readily available to other people, and perhaps even do something else at the same time. This is why I can drive my car and talk to myself at the same time, without constantly heading down one-way streets or into canals when I reach a particularly difficult sentence.
Things that require little attention, things that should be easy: that is where I generally come a cropper. Cooking is, normally, not a difficult task. Unless you are making soufflé or ice swans or something equally complex, cooking is really just a collection of small, simple actions: you do the things in sequence and at the end, food happens. But it is because the actions are normally so small, so simple, that I regularly fuck the whole thing up. It’s easy, and so you have plenty of time for your mind to wander, and mine wanders a pretty long way, coming back with its boots muddy and its cheeks red to find the kitchen on fire and the stomach pretty hacked off.
If I have one simple task to do, I will either get distracted and forget about it, or I will become bored and try to multitask unsuccessfully. When I play video games I get bored at loading screens and try to read, an impossibly task that merely result in my reading the same sentence four hundred times and invariably missing the start of the game. Whenever I try to tidy a room I attempt to accomplish every piece of cleaning simultaneously, which means each task advances infinitesimally slowly and I spend the entire time in a state of high irritation. I regularly come back from the post box with the letter I went there to post. Once I put the slice of toast I’d brought with me in there instead.
I don’t do this, crucially, when there are other people around. This is because I am a) more aware of my actions when there are other people watching me, and b) because when there is someone nearby I am less likely to let my mind wander. God knows what I was thinking about when I started choking on my Calippo, but I sure as shit wasn’t focussed on the task at hand, and that wouldn’t have been the case if there was someone talking to me at the time. I can carry on a conversation with someone else while I’m doing practically anything (cunnilingus is a hard one, I’ll admit).
The solution, then, is to either start paying more attention when I’m on my own, or start pretending that I’m not, if you follow me. They say you should always dance like no-one is watching. I’m going to start thinking like someone is watching, and see if that ends up with fewer burnt stir-frys, fewer home decorating accidents, and fewer ice-cream related near-death experiences. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Clearly I am no Einstein when I’m in a crowd (at work today I spent thirty seconds trying to open the safe door against its hinges) but when I am alone it becomes ludicrous. It would be unnecessarily long and tedious to list every faintly idiotic thing that I’ve done recently, but I shall give you a few examples so you can see what I’m driving at.
Firstly, I am capable of some truly incredible acts of clumsiness. I occasionally have accidents that require a perfect storm of physical ineptness, lack of forethought and sheer ignorance. I once almost succeeded, no word of a lie, in choking to death on an ice-cream while sat at the back of a rave. My panicked, potential final thoughts, were consumed by the knowledge that the ice-cream would melt before my corpse was discovered, leaving the authorities baffled as to the manner of my demise. I haven’t touched a Calippo since: they are as treacherous as frozen confectionary can get.
I am also guilty of some spectacular negligence. Given a kitchen to myself and enough time to wander off distractedly, and I will happily set fire to a pan of water.
Finally I occasionally find myself engaged in acts of monumental hubris. You know how sometimes on Casualty some idiot gets rushed into A&E because they were trying to replace a light bulb in a pitch black bathroom above a bath full of water up a rickety ladder while listening to thrash metal on a personal stereo and having a distracted conversation with someone three rooms away? Yeah, that sort of thing is right up my crippled, scarred-for-life alley.
I am not unintelligent. I used to get answers right in school. I have held down various jobs, some for several years, without ever getting into trouble or being disciplined. So why, when I am by myself, am I such a flippin’ retard?
The answer is my attention span, or rather the manner in which I focus it. I cannot keep my mind focused on a single task for more than about four seconds, unless that task requires my complete attention. Things that require extended concentration (driving, video games, cunnilingus, that sort of thing) are all fine, as long as they last. You cannot get away with letting your mind completely wander during these activities, and so it obligingly stays put. This allows me, incredibly, to split my attention in the manner so readily available to other people, and perhaps even do something else at the same time. This is why I can drive my car and talk to myself at the same time, without constantly heading down one-way streets or into canals when I reach a particularly difficult sentence.
Things that require little attention, things that should be easy: that is where I generally come a cropper. Cooking is, normally, not a difficult task. Unless you are making soufflé or ice swans or something equally complex, cooking is really just a collection of small, simple actions: you do the things in sequence and at the end, food happens. But it is because the actions are normally so small, so simple, that I regularly fuck the whole thing up. It’s easy, and so you have plenty of time for your mind to wander, and mine wanders a pretty long way, coming back with its boots muddy and its cheeks red to find the kitchen on fire and the stomach pretty hacked off.
If I have one simple task to do, I will either get distracted and forget about it, or I will become bored and try to multitask unsuccessfully. When I play video games I get bored at loading screens and try to read, an impossibly task that merely result in my reading the same sentence four hundred times and invariably missing the start of the game. Whenever I try to tidy a room I attempt to accomplish every piece of cleaning simultaneously, which means each task advances infinitesimally slowly and I spend the entire time in a state of high irritation. I regularly come back from the post box with the letter I went there to post. Once I put the slice of toast I’d brought with me in there instead.
I don’t do this, crucially, when there are other people around. This is because I am a) more aware of my actions when there are other people watching me, and b) because when there is someone nearby I am less likely to let my mind wander. God knows what I was thinking about when I started choking on my Calippo, but I sure as shit wasn’t focussed on the task at hand, and that wouldn’t have been the case if there was someone talking to me at the time. I can carry on a conversation with someone else while I’m doing practically anything (cunnilingus is a hard one, I’ll admit).
The solution, then, is to either start paying more attention when I’m on my own, or start pretending that I’m not, if you follow me. They say you should always dance like no-one is watching. I’m going to start thinking like someone is watching, and see if that ends up with fewer burnt stir-frys, fewer home decorating accidents, and fewer ice-cream related near-death experiences. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)