School Days

I’m going to throw up a strong language warning here. 

The reason for that is that these posts take two basic forms.  The first is when I have an actual point about something I wish to articulate; the karma one for instance.  With those I’ll sit down and work out what I want to say, and then throw a bunch of big words into the mix so it looks like I know what I’m talking about.  The other form is when I have some sort of life story to tell, like I tried to sell a guitar to a religious door knocker.  Those ones are internal monologue kinda stuff which I just sit down and blurt out in one go.  This is one of those.  The warning is there because I have a filthy mouth, and what’s going on in my mind most likely isn’t any cleaner.

So school days.  I fucking hated my time at school.  Hated it.  I don’t mean scholastically; I enjoyed the academic side of things in the main, and at least until A Levels I found it pretty easy to the point where I could coast through most of it.  My gripe was with the social conventions which get forced on you and the cliques you have to deal with.  The social side of school is a closed environment; it has rules and conventions which you have to learn and kowtow to, and I was never very good at playing the game.

Part of that is what I brought to the table, there is no question of that.  I was a bookish precocious child.  I mean I was reading Stephen King novels at like eight years old for Christ’ sake.  As a part of that I wasn’t the most socially gregarious child, and that gets preyed on pretty quick.

The point is really that kids have to go through an awful lot of shit on an average school day.  Not just what people stereotypically think of as bullying, but just generally having your weaknesses and insecurities exposed and mocked.  It’s the closed environment of the school system which exasperates this.  If you’ve got someone giving you shit every day, there’s not a lot you can do about that.  You’re in the same classes, you still have to turn up every day and you’re powerless to change that.  I think that’s the cruel part, that if you really are having a hard time going through school you get to feel totally impotent about your ability to change it on top.  If some meathead keeps pounding on you for your lunch money the chances are that you’re not going to talk him round with a bunch of logic and reasoned debate.  He’s just going to rail on you more because you saw fit to open your mouth.  The same goes for if a teacher decides to latch onto you and generally make you feel small and insignificant.  Let’s not kid ourselves here, it happened back in my day and it happens today. 

So what do you do?  You play the game.  You find someone weaker and less secure than you and you mock them in order to increase your own social standing among your peers.  It sucks you into this social order and it is utterly self perpetuating.  I was as much a part of this as anyone else in that regard.  I was a funny fuck in school and I for sure used that to mock people at times and increase my own personal gravitas.  I’m in no way proud of it, but it certainly happened.

There’s a danger that this is going to come across as a personal whine, and it’s really not about that.  If anything, I got off pretty light going through school.  It didn’t make me like the experience any more, but plenty of kids caught way more shit than I ever did.  I caught enough though to have my confidence knocked and to second guess myself a fair bit, so I can only imagine what it was like for the kids who really were catching abuse, or getting beaten up, and just generally being fucked with in a relentless manner.  Kids can be unbelievably cruel and I think as adults we maybe forget how permanent and unyielding the school experience can feel.  You go in every day and you can do next to nothing to change your situation, and that brings a sense of permanence.  You start to think “this is my life, and it’s never changing”.

Well, it’s not, and I wish that message was put through schools more.  It’s not forever and you will affect your life in positive ways.  You’ll find when you hit the real world there’s basically a whole bunch of more rules and conventions to follow, but you don’t have to play the game anything like you did going through school.  You find you’re in some job and you’re working with some arse who’s giving you a hard time?  Fucking quit, it’s not that important.  Fucking quit and move on with your life on your own terms.

People should go into schools with the message that people in the main grow the fuck up and start to treat each other a little decently, and for those that don’t you don’t have to be subjected to their petty actions if you choose not to.  Kids need to hear that more.

Francis Maude and the Big Society

I speak of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2Wue8IN_xQ

I’m a couple of days late to the party here I realise, but I’ve thought about this over that time and only gotten more frustrated and angry.  To ask someone who is extolling the necessity of volunteering in modern society what voluntary work they personally undertake seems an entirely reasonable question to ask, personally.  That Francis Maude failed to provide anything more meaningful than to gripe at being put on the spot is at best lazy and at worst utterly condemning of him as an individual.

Possibly this hits a bit close to home for me.  I work for a range of clients, but I am ostensibly a charity accountant.  I know how charities operate, I know how hard pressed they are for funding now, let alone what it will be like with what’s to come.  I also know how reliant the third sector is on its volunteer base.  I’ve seen literally hundreds of people put in time, effort, expertise and care in order to support and continue absolutely fantastic community based projects.  The volunteer movement in this country is truly inspirational and doesn’t get nearly enough credit regionally or nationally.

Without any real thought I can come up with half a dozen things I do which could be construed as volunteer work.  I say this not to paint myself as some paradigm of virtue; I’m well aware of my failings and character flaws built up from decades of questionable decision making.  The point is that I’m willing to bet that every single person reading this can think of something they do which could be deemed as charitable or voluntary with remarkable ease.  Francis Maude demonstrably could not offer a single example.  What does that say about him as a man?

It seems that either Francis Maude was so ill prepared that he failed to see a very obvious question coming, or he is so breathtakingly arrogant that he thinks he can try to assuage the nation of the need to take on work of which he has no intention of sharing any personal burden.  If it’s the former he is clearly not fit for purpose as an effective cabinet minister.  If it’s the latter then he’s the kind of self motivated, petty, little man who is not fit for purpose as a human being.

Art for Art’s Sake

“Should the better universities be accessible to the poorer members of society?”

That was a question posed on BBC Breakfast this morning.  The question was framed around the story that the Oxbridge Universities have indicated they will charge the maximum £9,000 a year in tuition fees.  The story itself is certainly no shock.  That the BBC editorial team deemed that an acceptable question to kick off the debate, however, I found absolutely repugnant.

This, it seems, is what we have come to as a society.  It is acceptable now to question the need for the poorer members of society to access the elite academic institutions this country has to offer.  Not just to question the level of financial resources required for anyone to attend an Oxford, a Cambridge or any red brick University for that matter, but to question the need at all for those facing greatest hardship.  You may say that the question was intended to be purely about finance, but that is not how it is posed and it is the current political climate which allows it to pass.  That question, phrased as it was, would never have passed editorial scrutiny before the last election.

The government’s rebuttal on this issue is the one they tend to wheel out whenever found to be on the defensive over their ideological attack on the state.  Namely, one of fairness.  Universities are expensive, it’s only fair that those who benefit from it should pay their way.  You don’t have to pay anything until you’re earning a decent salary and graduates statistically earn greater remuneration, it’s therefore fair.  It’s a rationale which effectively pulls at the heartstrings of tax payers up and down the country but fundamentally misses the point of what education is all about.  Where is the value seen here in education for purely academic reasons?  The kind of thirst for knowledge which sees one wish to gain an education for motivations beyond financial profit.  Where do our artists, our philosophers our experts in a myriad of subjects outside the city fit into this government’s plans?  Unless they can front up the cash it would seem they don’t figure much at all.  If there is to be any elitism within education it should be purely academic.  If you demonstrate the ability and willingness to learn, you’re through the door.  Anything further is a barrier to social mobility and personal enlightenment.  Two basic tenets of any liberal society.

This is a commerce motivated government obsessed with the bottom line.  A cabinet of millionaires which seeks to placate billionaires.  It views the educational system only in terms of the cash its pupils can generate down the line.  It sees no worth in the library system; another vital source of education and inspiration for the under privileged.  It seeks to sell off our cultural richness and diversity to the highest bidder.  These attitudes are becoming pervasive, as evidenced in the media, and it must be fought against.

Karma

‘Karma is real’.
Anon

That was said to me by someone a little while ago.  I thought they were talking ideologically – that as a concept if everyone ascribed to the notion of karma the world would be a better place.  I can see that.  It’s idealistic and grossly naive, but well intentioned none the less.  However this person meant that karma is a force which is happening for real in the past, present and future.

I decided that I might be misunderstanding what people mean by karma.  Beyond that annoying ‘karma will bite you in the arse’ expression people come up with, my appreciation of karma has basically been tree hugger types muttering under their breath when a guy in a suit takes the last pack of organic muesli.  So I looked up a definition.  According to the ever trustworthy Wikipedia, the western understanding of karma is:

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According to karma, performing positive actions results in a good condition in one's experience, whereas a negative action results in a bad effect. The effects may be seen immediately or delayed. Delay can be until later in the present life or in the next. Thus, meritorious acts may mean rebirth into a higher station, such as a superior human or a godlike being, while evil acts result in rebirth as a human living in less desirable circumstances, or as a lower animal.
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So on a basic scale, you do good and good things happen to you and vice versa.  You do really good or really bad and you get promoted or relegated on the grand cycle of life.  Does this not imply that the world is inherently fair?  If you want to improve your lot in life, you simply ‘do good’ and the cosmic forces take care of the rest.  I don’t think so.

Let’s see if we can find some examples of ethical behaviour and relative success not being in exactly perfect alignment.  What’s deemed to be ‘success’ is obviously subjective, so in this instance I’m considering wealth, health and power/influence:

-          AIDS sufferers.  Presumably everyone who has been unfortunate enough to contract this disease is getting their just deserts for past actions.  Well done karma, you just tacitly endorsed a bunch of multi religious bigotry and homophobia.
-          Karma loves the royal family, the landed gentry and all round good eggs like Rupert Murdoch.  They possess more money, power and influence than 99% of the world and they sure want to keep it that way.  They must be better people than 99% of the world too I guess, and that’s borne out by their actions.  Karma sure likes the status quo the way it is.
-          Children’s hospices up and down the country must be riddled with kids being punished for shitty past lives.  Check your empathy at the door and chalk it up to karma.
-          The gap between rich and poor is as wide as it has ever been, and it’s only getting wider.  Heads up poor people, karma judges you inferior to the rich and no amount of good actions seem to be changing that.

To consider this world fair is patently absurd.  That’s like going to the casino and calling the roulette table fair.  You keep paying your money over to the guy who inherited the casino, makes the rules of the house and can kick you out at any point if you look like beating the odds.  That’s not because the game’s rigged in his favour, he’s led a better life than you.  It’s fair!

The Seasons and Mood

I love this time of year.

I was out walking earlier listening to some music, just feeling generally positive with a smile on my face, and I got to thinking about how much the time of year affects my disposition.

Now it was recently pointed out to me that I think too much.  This is undeniably true – a large part of these postings are an attempt to un-clutter my mind to some degree – but I’m not sure it’s necessarily a bad thing.  It’s both a blessing and a curse at times, I guess you could say.

What I like about this time of year is how it’s so optimistic.  I’m very much a summer person, and in February you get the first hint of what’s round the corner.  With every passing day the evenings are longer, the mornings brighter.  The sun seems to shine brighter and I am automatically happy as a result.  It’s a very hopeful time of year I think.  A mini precursor to spring when flowers bloom and new life is born all around us.

Conversely, during December and January I withdraw into a bit of a funk.  Being encased in darkness going into and out of work holds no joy for me at all.  We live something of a hermit existence in those months due to the climate of this country, and it can really bum me out at times.  That’s not to say that I become some ultra depressive or anything; I like to think I’m a pretty happy chap when you get down to it, but the point remains that the seasons do fundamentally affect my mood.  I hadn’t really made that connection before today.

The point that I’m really meandering towards is that I am a firm believer in the worth found in chasing optimism over submitting to cynicism.  This is an increasingly cynical world, and it can be so easy to get bogged down in that.  Fight against it always.

Whatever place your life’s currently in, chase optimism.  Brighter days are just around the corner.