Duck and Cover

Duck and Cover was one of the winning stories performed by the wonderful Lin Sagovsky at the 'Women and Girls' Liars League event on August 11th.

Read it or listen to it here or watch 👇

Function and Tuning

Books do not need to be literary masterpieces to be insightful. Neither do they need to be an overall success. They can, like The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton have a relatively uninspiring but steady plotline and setting and flashes of perfection which set it apart from mediocrity. The following is one such flash of genius:

'She was the sort of person who needed to be kept happy, he realized. Not as a matter of selfish expectation, but as a simple fact of design; like a piano or a harp, she'd been made to function best at a certain tuning.'

Whether it spoke to me because I could associate with it or it spoke to me as the simple truth of the human condition, it spoke to me.

I am made to 'function best at a certain tuning' - aren't we all?

Pruning: Learning

'Genius will live and thrive without training, but it does not the less reward the watering pot and the pruning knife.'

 Margaret S Fuller (1839)  Life of Mackintosh, The American Montly Magazine, Vil 1: Vol 7, p.575

Natural talent will develop without formal training, but will none the less benefit from cultivation and focus. 

 

Francis Bacon (1597, 1625) discussed 'proyning, by study' in his essay  Of Studies :

'They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need proyning, by study; and studies themselves, do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.'

Francis Bacon, (1625) The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral, of Francis Ld. Verulam Viscount St. Albans

  

Miller (1995) discusses Bacon's 'pruning by study' as 'self-cultivation':

'Pruning a "natural plant" directs the plant's growth by blocking the wasteful or inefficient use of its resources in order that they may be expended, and the plant expanded, in a narrower yet more fruitful direction.'

John, J. Miller (1995) Pruning by Study: Self-cultivation in Bacon's Essays, Papers on Language & Literature, Aut 95, Vol. 31:4

Challenge & Celebrate: Do Not Tolerate

At the Rainbow Hamlets' Hustings for Tower Hamlets Mayor, I heard variations of the word 'tolerance' more times in an hour than I've heard at any other time. Mayoral candidates spoke of everything from 'tolerating' lifestyles to creating a culture of 'tolerance'. Derivations of the word  were used in political catchphrases aimed at engaging a group of  LGBTI potential voters, while creating a political context dominated by heterocentric discourse. Every time a candidate said they wanted to promote 'tolerance', it was another marker of the power structures of hierarchy that promote condescension in place of celebration.

The Oxford Dictionary tells us that to tolerate is to:

'Allow the existence, occurrence, or practice of (something that one dislikes or disagrees with) without interference'

Or to:

'Accept or endure (someone or something unpleasant or disliked) with forbearance'

So to teach tolerance is to teach people:

• To allow
• Not to interfere
• To accept or endure

It shows a superior position over the aspect of life which the person is tolerating. I can tolerate an irritating noise. I put up with it. I can stand it. It is tiresome. It can be hard to endure. I accept noises are a part of the world I live in. 

I never tolerate people. 

It only goes one of two ways. People have the right to behave as they do as long as it doesn't impinge on others (including my own) rights. There is nothing I expect to do or feel if this happens. However if their behaviour does affect others' rights, I challenge that behaviour. I do not tolerate.

We may  tolerate the bad behaviour of our children while they learn, while we are in positions of power with responsibility for their welfare,  but we also challenge their behaviour so they can learn.  Anyone, at an age of maturity who is able to make decisions for themselves are not to be tolerated. They are past the stage of their development where they should accept being patronised as if we know better. They should not tolerate anyone of us thinking it is up to us to allow them to behave in the manner in which they behave. They do not need our acceptance. And if their behaviour is such that we consider we must endure it, we must challenge it. 

Challenge and celebrate, do not tolerate.

Buttons & Doughnuts: Habits & Reflexes

Buttons are my nemeses and old habits die hard. After four days of having a broken arm, these are two insights into a world, I had, until now, had no experience of.

New experience, of course, is fuel for writers. That is if you can write. A broken arm limits the physical action of writing and the associated pain and exhaustion limits the brains ability to function or even think. So as new experiences go, it wouldn't be in my top ten. But I will give it this - you get a new perspective on life. 

Here are a few more of  my observations so far:

• Bagels cannot be cut with one hand without a massacre but apples can by a swift butchers chop motion
• Toothpaste and shower gel is not a one-handed squeeze unless you have no target but the bathroom mirror in mind
• Toilet paper needs a quick hard rip or you just unroll it all out
• Bags of popcorn or cheese or anything in a sealed bag may require teeth to open it
• Opening a bottle needs bracing between the knees (child-safe lids can be a challenge)
• A bra has to be fastened before putting on and then stepped into and pulled up
• Shoe laces are so far a no no
• Sleeping upright can sometimes require more pillows than can accommodate another human in the bed
• If you drop something while wearing an arm sling people run to pick it up for you
• Small children are at a perfect height to run into a broken arm
• On a bus people give you their seats
• Big open sandwiches in cafes, can be too big and open for the one-handed (even when the sandwich is cut in half) so you may have to request it to be cut in quarters
• An arm sling cuts into your neck, and the basic triangular cream-coloured variety will not hide the food stains from the inevitable spillages
• Getting knots out of hair is hard with one hand
• Forget going up on the top deck of a moving bus with a broken arm, even if you run the gauntlet you may never be able to get back down
• Crowded places are like stepping into a pinball machine waiting for a bowling ball to hit your pins
• Beware of people passing on escalators...from behind they can't see your broken arm,
• Showering is a challenge, best taken in the morning when you have energy or not at all if you are going to slip and get concussion
• Stairs can jolt, so escalators and lifts all the way.
• Using stick deodorant under one arm is fine...try putting it under the arm of the hand that's holding it
• Socks are awkward, rucksacks and jackets can only be on one shoulder and knives and forks will not work together
• One-handed drawing and typing on a laptop is possible - this post's pic and text for example, but it does take longer than when you can touch type with both hands (also pressing shift key and another key together is hard when they are apart and blocking text on a laptop with a combined left-click and mouse-pad needs practice)
• Finally, the novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, is not just a must-read, and the book-group book of the month but has a broken arm in its first line.

Tonight at our youth centre I learned the most important lesson:

'Repetition of the same thought or physical action develops into a habit which, repeated frequently enough, becomes an automatic reflex.'

(Vincent Norman Peale, 1967)

So if I practise tying laces with one hand or buttering bread or dressing, or any of all the things I am learning to do with one hand for long enough I will be able do those things more easily and they could even become a habit and then a reflex.

Unfortunately I also learned that reflexes and habits you want to shake off when you have a broken arm don't go away so easily. Picture this: Its National Doughnut Day (yes such a thing exists!). You are holding a plate of doughnuts in your good hand, offering them around and one rolls off the doughnut pile. Your natural reaction (even if you're not Homer Simpson) is to put your other hand out to catch it. Yes I tried to catch a doughnut with a broken arm. That's reflexes for you.

Peale, V.N. (1967) 'Enthusiasm Makes the Difference', Prentice-Hall, Incorporated

Each Step of the Journey

Walking in the Cotswolds this weekend was both pain and pleasure. And full of the ups and downs you would expect. Before the weekend I was anxious. I was to be assessed as an expedition leader, on everything from my navigation and map reading skills to my ability to lead and be part of a team. I was about to meet 30+ new people and spend the weekend walking and camping with them and be assessed doing so.

I found that with EACH STEP I was able to deal with issues, plan, carry out and evaluate, to be able to move forward and get closer to my goals and keep on the path of development. Much like Kolb's Learning Cycle I went through each step in an evolutionary way. Each step went as follows:

Expectations

Anxiety

Challenge

Help & Hope

Skills & Stuff

Technique & Trial and Error

Evaluation

Practice and Perseverance

Expectations: Seeing the Hills in the Distance

The last time I'd done the course was 12 years ago, when I was younger and fitter and expected this time that everyone would be younger and fitter and that I'd spend the weekend playing catchup. It was daunting but all I could do was prepare as well as I could. I read and practised and tried to do as much as I could to manage my expectations and not let the hills in the distance turn into mountains.

It is the same with everyday life. We have expectations of ourselves and what is ahead of us and because so many other people have expectations of us, we can lose sight of the true horizon. We lose focus and find ourselves prioritising badly and measuring ourselves against unrealistic targets and aiming for inappropriate goals. We lose the path before we even get sight of it and find ourselves on other routes we hadn't planned or prepared for and end up detouring or stuck in the mud of our failures and never truly getting back on track again. Even when the turning may be only a few steps away.

Anxiety: Seeing the Hills up Close

As it got closer to the assessment date I had some sleepless nights imagining the hard uphill struggle ahead. I imagined all sorts of ways things could go wrong and at the very least, the task ahead being at a higher level just out of my reach. I didn't really know what to expect and couldn't plan for all possible contingencies so found myself panicking at times and expressing my worries to anyone who would listen. All their reassurances fell on deaf ears because if I couldn't imagine what it was going to be like and I was the one with the most information, how could they know?

These kinds of anxieties are the ones we have to a lesser or greater extent about so many aspects of our lives, from worries about the welfare of our spouses and children to global warming. How do we keep them under control? Again it is through action, thinking alone never got anything done. Action must follow. Sometimes the action is purely to forget about the anxiety and other times its to alleviate it by removing the problem or dealing with the difficulty. Doing something is always the answer. It pulls you out of the paralysing inertia of fear. Even if its the wrong thing, at least you know that now and you can concentrate on fixing that.

Either way it is the elephant in the room, and the one that if you eat it one bite at a time, will finally be gone. Without anxiety you don't even spot the elephant and have no way to know that its something to be dealt with and to be prepared for. Anxiety makes us pay attention and tells us what is important to us. It creates the fight or flight instinct and as long as we control it and not let it control us we can use it to motivate us and spur us to action.

Challenge: Tackling the First Hill

I did it slowly. The first was the hardest and I was surprised that other people found it as hard as I did. I took a strange sort of comfort from that. We were all in it together. One person didn't make it. He stopped and couldn't go on. I was surprised it wasn't me. In fact I was the one at times who kept the others going. It made me realise that just like in the Duke of Edinburgh Award expedition, the group can have different people with different areas of expertise and abilities and when they work together, that's what makes a team.

We are not alone. We have families, friends and communities. We have our roles to play in society and in making the world a better place for us all. There are so many challenges and with any challenge, getting started can be the hardest part, but then you are on a roll and moving forward and the start is over and then the next part and eventually the challenge has been met. And so you face the next. With the first behind, you have conquered it and are ready for the next. Get over that first hill and it will not be in front of you again.

Help & Hope: How to Tackle the First Hill

The lesson to I learned from tackling that first hill was that to overcome the mental and physical barriers in my way, I had to stop thinking about myself. Just as, in any time I have been in difficult situations with youth groups (like when gorge walking in Scotland), because I've been more concerned with their safety and welfare, I haven't had time to worry about myself. This changes the dynamic and although more difficult in a peer group, can be easily applied by switching focus, from yourself to others. And the more you help others in the peer group the more they are likely to help you when you need it. This modelling of behaviour means you get more support when you give it.

Helping others helps you. But if you are not careful you can get in your own way, and hinder any progress you make by a lack of preparation. You are not helping yourself if you are carrying too much baggage physically and mentally. You have to leave behind the heavy tins and equipment you don't need (one of the reasons the person struggled with the hill) and leave behind the hang ups and anxieties that bring you down. Like the old saying goes, 'Hope for the best but prepare for the worst' and remember that it doesn't work without the hope.

Skills & Stuff : What You Need to Get You Over the Hill

There are navigational skills which will take you from A to B but so many more skills ensure the journey is a good one and you arrive in good time, safely, in good humour with a sense of well-being. This requires preparation to have the energy and ability to do it, both of which require the following:

• Working on fitness and strategies to overcome any injuries whether in the form of a pre-expedition fitness regime or carrying medication and a walking pole. In real life this means being fit for purpose. Darwin and Spencer's 'survival of the fittest' is not survival of the best but the most fit for purpose. So building up fitness makes sense if you are going to run a marathon and if you see life as the long marathon it makes sense as a coping strategy and way of life. Being fit is not only good for physical health but mental health. A great stress buster, ensuring less physical and mental energy is being used and creating a virtuous cycle of adaptation, survival, personal development and progress.
• Ensuring you have the right equipment for the job, whether in terms of weight or use, and balancing needs is a necessity when carrying your home on your back. A warm sleeping bag means a good nights sleep but may be heavier to carry, and both can cost energy. Boots that are broken-in to prevent blisters and keep you dry are a basic necessity when walking long distances, and then spare socks and blister plasters when that doesn't work. On the assessment weekend one person ended up with six plasters on one foot and another had such wet feet from being soaked in the first half hour, that she got a shock when she touched a gate by an electric fence. In the real world, having the right equipment for the job might be a computer or pen or phone (say for a writer), or whatever you need to get the job done, effectively, efficiently and safely.
• Getting nutrition right, again balancing the energy it costs to carry the food with the energy needed in calories to do it, is a must. This can mean turning to such foods as protein bars to get that extra protein, porridge for a sustained calorie burn or things like pistachio nuts which have a high calorie value of over 600cals per 100g. And then there's water which is non-negotiable. We need at least 2 litres of water a day to be adequately hydrated for out bodies to function and especially when put under the pressure of sustained exercise. So 2 litres of water means carrying at least an extra 2kg of weight and periodically having to find toilet facilitates. At least in the real world toilets are easier to find than in the countryside of the Cotswolds. But in the real world having the right nutrition and hydration means having enough to see you through from the short term to the long term...to see you through the day, month, year and lifetime. The nutrition needed to be able to not just have the energy to do what you need and want to do but the nutrition needed to have healthy organs, skin, joints and bones to physically negotiate with the rest of the world as well as have the mental faculties to be able to process those negotiations and relay communication. We need fuel (be it food or water) and without it we cannot be. The rule of 3s is that after 3 minutes we can die from lack of air, 3 days from lack of water, 3 weeks from lack of food. But long before that, if we don't have adequate fuel, our bodies and minds don't function as they should and we lose our way and find we end up in metaphorical minefields, not knowing how to get back.
• Shelter from the elements, is another must, whether in terms of waterproofs (and boots as I mentioned earlier) or a good tent to keep dry and warm. They are not just for protection but again to save energy, rather than wasting calories in loss of heat or getting sick or being too tired or not being able to give the body adequate rest time to recuperate - the idea is that protection mean prevention. Even sunscreen has its place in its ability to protect not just against sunburn and sunstroke but against longer-term skin cancer. Heatstroke, hypothermia and cancer, whether they kill you quickly or slowly, they bring your journey to an abrupt end.

These are some of Maslow's basic biological, physiological and safety needs for air, food, drink, sleep, warmth, protection and shelter. All of which have to be satisfied to go on to attain higher needs of self esteem and self actualisation – the ultimate hilltop.

Technique and Trial and error: What is Learned in the Valley

So you are carrying this big rucksack over hills, trying to remember everything you have learned. You adjust the straps so most of the weight is on the best weight bearing part of the body, the hips. You try to adopt the right posture, pulling in your stomach to create a solid core and keep your hands free to be able to keep good balance. You watch your step on 'ankle-twisting-territory' and the water bladder suction is near enough to remind you not only keep hydrated but make it easy to do so. You adjust your left sock which has a fold and when someone eats, you do too, because you realise that when you are anxious or under pressure, you forget to eat.

These things you begin to learn about yourself. You find your own personal style. The kind of snacks you like or the ones which make you drink more. You find the best ways to go through kissing gates or over stiles. You get the walking pole out when more balance is needed or to give a knee a rest and figure out the best height, not just from the book, that tells you to have it the height of your elbow, but by trial and error. Much like sometimes when a path you choose, looks right but after walking a short distance, turns out to be wrong...at least you know now. You can eliminate that path which makes it easier to find the right one. In the real world we do it all the time and its how we know what we like and don't like and what works for us and what doesn't. We learn from our mistakes as much as we learn from our successes and maybe even more.

Evaluation: What is to be Applied to the Next Ascent

That feeling of Deja Vu - I've been here before, can help and hinder. Every time I went over the hill and headed into the valley, I was relieved to feel my posture change and feel the pressure come off certain joints and parts of my body where the rucksack had been heaviest. Then I saw the next hill rise up from the valley floor. I knew there were more but if I thought of those, it would have been harder to continue. So I just concentrated on the 'now' with glimpses of the 'next', just to remind me if my back was hurting or my legs were getting stiff that at least the ascent and descent meant I changed my gait and this would alleviate some of the pain at different times. It was real optimism. Not fantasy, where reality is missed out. I motivated myself with the idea that the tiredness, pain and weight I felt would change because it did and would again.

I put everything I learned, every step I had already taken into taking the next and making it easier and every step I took I didn't have to take again.

Practice & Perseverance: The Journey and Sticking with it...Each Step.

Each step we take moves us forward in our learning. We practice that learning and learn more. We persevere. That was what I learned more than anything this weekend. It took every step I've mentioned, on the way, but without perseverance I wouldn't have got there. There were times I wanted to give up and I didn't. So even if I had done everything I said I should do, taken every step I've mentioned, if I gave up it wouldn't have mattered. Or was it because I had done each step before this that I was able to persevere? Or was it that it was more important that I did continue because I had invested so much already?

This I can relate directly to my writing. I've often discussed with others this idea I have called 'habit of thought' where you have a habit of thinking a certain way which can help or hinder. Good habits and bad habits. I'd read years ago that it takes about 3 weeks to create a daily habit. I have experimented with this on many occasions but my most recent experience has been with my writing. I have since September, when I started this blog got into a habit of writing and miss it when I don't do it. This habit of thought that I have, has me on the writing path all the time. I never have to make the decision, do I want to write? I want to all the time so now the decision is, when can I write or where can I write or can I write instead of this? It cuts out the 'middle-man' that can be the barrier to getting what we want done. And with practice it can leap forward to progress with more ease and one day you might find that you are now fitting life in around your writing rather than writing around your life. My habit of thought has got me this far, just one post off my hundredth, so I know I'm on the right path. Where it will go...who knows.

For now, all I know is that I put one foot in front of the other, again and again and keep doing it. I choose my path and with each step enjoy the journey, whatever hills are on the horizon.

Each step I take,

I learn and move forward and sometimes fall

but that's what we did when we first learned to walk,

as beings and as a species

...and look where that's got us!

The Wrong Church

Reading online updates from my daughter in Australian while visiting my Mum in Spain, I am reminded of another visit to Spain many years before and how small our global village has become since.

As a teen, I hitch-hiked to Empuriabrava, a town on the east coast of Spain. I had arranged to meet my parents on a certain date during their holiday. In a pre-mobile-internet world, unsure of the whereabouts of their hotel, we arranged to meet at the church.

I got to the church at the appointed hour. A small miracle considering I was hitching and had had to turn down a lift from a guy on a moped, but only after some discussion and trying to fit on the back with my big rucksack and with the rev of forward motion, ending up using it to cushion my fall, back onto the road in a cartoon fashion. We laughed and agreed it wasn't meant to be and waved our goodbyes. I walked the rest of the way and when I got to the church I sat relieved and looking forward to seeing my parents.

I don't know how long it took for me to realise they weren't coming or that some mistake had been made, but when I did, I took action. I found out that although I'd grown up in Ireland where most towns and villages had only one church, Empuriabrava did not, it had two. And while I was waiting at the old church in the old town, my parents were waiting by the new church in the new town. Of course by the time I knew any of this, it was too late for anyone to meet anywhere and I had little choice but to wander around the new town in the vain hope of finding my parents somewhere. You could only feel sorry for yourself so long and it wasn't life or death and it wasn't going to solve itself. So rather than just sit there or hitch out again, I started to walk. At least moving I could feel some forward momentum.

My Spanish was non-existent but my Italian passable, and many in the area were able to understand and tell me they'd not seen the large group of Irish people who had recently arrived in the area, which with travel not being the norm like today, they would have noticed. Then, I hit on the idea of looking for 'white' people, not 'Caucasian' as the Americans put it but white skinned because of lack of exposure to the sun. Most Irish of the time naturally had little pigmentation from melanin in their skin and I myself had grown up burning easily and covered in freckles as soon as the summer started. However, as I'd been living in Italy some time, I was tanned and as dark skinned as most of the towns people were, so any other Irish would stand out from the crowd with the pale skin of the newly arrived.

I scoured the area's bars, hotels and tour buses, anywhere I thought the Irish contingent might be found. I didn't expect to find but didn't give up, only because I didn't know what else to do. So I searched for white faces and bodies. Scanning pool-sides, balconies and cafes, I spotted a pair of milk-bottle white legs on a balcony and called out, 'Excuse me, are you from Ireland?' The man looked down on me saying, 'Yes, how did you know?' I asked him if he knew my parents. He did, to his surprise and showed me where to find them. This story of the girl that showed up out of nowhere, who'd been waiting at the wrong church, and found her parents by asking a seemingly random stranger on a balcony if he was Irish and knew her dad, when he was and did, circulated the group for the holiday and is one which couldn't happen today in quite the same way.

It doesn't mean it was better or worse, just different. There were times when, because it was difficult, you had to be resourceful and because of that you learned to trust and rely on the kindness of strangers and how to adapt to situations. There were also occasions when you wasted so much time on remedying situations or arrangements or feeling frustrated because you couldn't remedy them that some days just seemed a pointless exercise. Communication systems like the mobile phone and the internet solve so many problems quickly today. But more than that, they connect the world. When you are far away from home or people today, you can still be in touch, moment by moment, rather than having to put up with infrequent phone calls cut short by running out of coins.

When I left home to live in Italy, it was further away than it is today. Not as far away as in Roman times or before that but further than today. The global village expands and contracts according to our needs and whatever we use to negotiate the changes and bridge the gaps, from our know-how to our technology, the important thing is not how but that we do bridge the gaps. There are lessons to learned from ending up at the wrong church and mostly they are learned from the people we meet along the way.

To paraphrase Francis Bacon:

A stranger's kindness shows that person to be a 'citizen of the world' and that their 'heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins them.'

Bacon, F. (1601) Of Goodness and Goodness of Natures,  Essays, Online verson prepared by Oregon State University

Book Learning: Good & Bad Writing

'One learns most clearly what not to do by reading bad prose... Good writing, on the other hand, teaches the learner writer about style, graceful narration,  plot development, the creation of believable characters and truth telling.' (Stephen King, 2000, p.146)

In On Writing: Planning & Possibility, I discover what I must do to be a writer. Its pretty obvious, when Stephen King (2000) says - 'read a lot and write a lot' (p. 145). At the moment I am reading I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings written by Maya Angelou and Getting Rid of Matthew by Jane Fallon. King talks about learning from good writing and bad, and however much I like or dislike either book, I find I am learning from them both.

Handheld Tech & More Opportunities for Learning

Being able to read using handheld technology means that we don't have to rely solely on conventional books anymore. I have no excuses for not having time to read or not having something available to read. I can listen to a book on the bus or walking to work using my phone or read using my tablet, where a whole library is available in sometimes less than than the size of one single book. It also means that I can have a number of books on the go in different mediums and read them in a form appropriate to the situation. A paperback like The Guest Cat isn't going to strain your arm, but a kindle version is easier to read in dim light and an audio version is better when your eyes are tired from looking at print or a screen.

Of course all versions whether hardback, paperback, kindle or audio are all able to be learned from. On this occasion the two books I will examine are the handheld tech versions as follows:

• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: Audiobook Listened to on an Android Mobile Phone
• Getting Rid of Matthew: Kindle Edition read on Kindle fire

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

I have wanted to read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings for years and put it off as I had expected it to be too 'literary' or 'worthy' and finally was persuaded to engage with it when I discovered an audio version of the book read by the author Maya Angelou. It has, so far, been a joy to listen to Maya's clear voice and accent, telling her story. Although it is an autobiography it feels like fiction. It has that wonderful unpacking of characters and story which reveals plots and themes as we are taken on Angelou's childhood journey. She brings us with her exploring themes still relevant today, from conservatism to racism to child abuse to misogyny and does it in such a loving and 'graceful' way that does not bestow blame or judgement on the perpetrators but understanding and a calling to account.

If I had read it rather than listened to it I may have lost some of the subtleties of language and certainly found it slower going. Because of Angelou's clear speech and language I was able to listen to it at 3 times the speed. This meant keeping up a good pace and forward momentum. However there were times when I fell asleep with my earphones in or missed a line because of the noise on the train, where I had to rewind and find my place, finding a sense of deja vous in my return to the text. Other times, finding a great line, I would have liked to be able to turn over the page or bookmark the page without cutting off the flow, but instead had to pause and make a note on my phone. A small price to pay to hear Maya Angelou narrate her own story.

Getting Rid of Matthew

Getting Rid of Matthew by Jane Fallon was a book chosen by a book group I'm part of. I read the blurb and thought, great - something light and fun. The premise being - what would a woman do if her lover finally gives up his wife and kids for her just as she stops being interested in him - how would she get rid of him?

I though it sounded like, a bit of a Bridget Jones other-woman story. And because I remembered that book as being funny and becaue I had been assured in a review that this was a funny book, I was looking forward to some lighthearted entertainment.

So I downloaded Fallon's book onto my Kindle fire and started reading. Maybe I shouldn't have read it just after Timbuktu by Paul Auster or while I was reading I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. I tried to take this into account, that an autobiography of Angelou's standard is in a different league and Timbuktu had the advantage of being able to use magic-realism to hear the story of a dog. However, a book with magic realism and narrated by a a dog was more believable and an autobiography had more of the strengths of fiction and both were funnier than Getting Rid of Matthew.

Female Writers Presenting Female Characters

I have not finished Angelou's or Fallon's books but so far, their female perspectives are wildly different. Not just contextually or temporally but in their roundness and integrity of character. It may be said that Angelou has it easier, in that she is describing and recounting her own life. However, to be able to present the child version of herself is an act of interpretation which many fiction writers would struggle with especially in the when it comes to finding the truth in their stories. And the limitations of having to write what actually happened rather than what would be useful for the story to have happened meant there had to be a use of form and style and language which moulded the happenings into an entertaining coherence. Fallon's main female character Helen, with all her available fictional traits and actions, has so far been just a cardboard cutout from a TV sitcom and has the plot driven cliched changes to character necessary to move an episode in a serial forward for the next week. For all the misogyny that Angelou experiences and presents in her childhood account, Getting Rid of Matthew creates a more misogynistic world promoted by the main female character herself which is not balanced or challenged by other more rounded and believable or sympathetic female characters. 

Judgement and Learning

It may not seem fair to judge the books side by side. They are from different times and genres, post-modern Chick Lit from 2007 and Literary Autobiography from 1969. But both are the first books of female writers with females as central characters. Mainly I judge them side by side because I am reading them concurrently and both are books which I purchased when I could have avoided reading them or even avoided paying for them by borrowing them. But I invested in both books literally and figuratively so feel its fair to judge them side by side as such. And learn from this comparison.

When I finish both books, if I change my mind or find more to say on the subject I will write another related post. And if I don't I won't.

But whatever I do I will learn.

Perspective: Sharing Stories

Graffiti on 6th St, Williamsburg, New York

Working with some young people with complex needs this week on their speech and language skills I said we'd be talking that day about ourselves, saying something we liked and something about what we were like as people.

I thought about what I was going to say that told them something about me, as an example.

I started with the first thing that came to my mind. 'I like stories. I like stories in books and movies and stories people tell me and I like making videos of stories and writing stories.'

It was only then I put together my love of reading and going to the movies and writing and talking to people and making videos and saw the link with them all.

In an interview with Philip Pullman when he was asked why he believed stories were so important, he said it was because:

'they entertain and they teach; 

they help us both enjoy life and endure it.'

He went on to say:

'After nourishment, shelter and companionship, 

stories are the thing we need most in the world.'

Change: Theory and Practice

“Education is the most powerful weapon 
which you can use to change the world.”

Nelson Mandela

Anderson in The Community Builder's  Approach to Theory of Change (2005, p. 2-6) prescribes the following path to elicit change:

1. Identify the social change wanted or long term goal
2. Map a pathway backwards to preconditions to achieve that goal
3. Map further back to what preconditions are needed for those outcomes
4. Map further back to the preconditions primarily needed to begin the process of change

This will include the identification of interventions required to achieve each outcome and indicators at each level of outcome to measure success.

Anderson provides a practical guide to facilitating a group through this process, including a case study, PowerPoint presentation and training materials.

Anderson, A. (2005). The Community Builder's Approach to Theory of Change: A Practical Guide to Theory and Development. New York: The Aspen Institute Roundtable on Community Change. 

Learning to Learn, with the Open University

My experience of the Open University includes talking to an older colleague about a course he used for stimulus, my daughter's part time degree study while working full time and my own CPD study at present for an MA. And of course the late night range of odd and wondrous programming which I grew up with.

The Open University outline what they consider the benefits of doing one of their courses, all of which I agree with.

•  OU courses fit around your lifestyle and commitments because you choose when to study and it can be spread out over a longer period if necessary. This is useful when in employment already.
• OU study is affordable, especially when financing is arranged to be paid back monthly & modules can be paid for separately. My daughter paid monthly for her education so is left with no debts.
• OU courses of study are offered which do not require qualifying qualifications. This means greater accessibility.
• OU courses are especially appropriate for people who get frustrated by classroom or formally academic learning, who to be in charge of their own learning.

And the Open University provide a range of free learning opportunities on Open Learn such as Learning to Learn, and 8 week course on change through learning for personal development.

Tony Benn was a great advocate of the Open University. His son received an honorary doctorate on his behalf at my daughter's OU graduation, where he told us of his fathers passion for life long learning and how he believed the age of compulsory education should not be raised to 18 but to 95! We were all inspired and my daughter went on to further study of a professional course in Learning and Development.

Such inspiration to learn reminds me again of the quote:

'Education is Not the Filling of a Pail but the Lighting of a Fire'

How to Use Your Brain: Life Long Learning

Learning and Memory

Graffiti by Paula Delfin

'Learning is how you acquire new information about the world, and memory is how you store that information over time,' according to Eric Kandel, of the Dana Institute in Staying Sharp: Learning as We Age, 'There is no memory without learning, but there is learning without memory, you can learn things and forget them immediately' (p.5). The same way you can remember a phone number just long enough to key it in.

Our thoughts, senses and actions are 'patterns of electrical and chemical signals travelling between nerve cells' in our brains (p.6). To make learning and memories stick we rehearse and reinforce the use of certain patterns. The more we repeatedly use certain pathways the more automatic the retrieval of the data at the end.

Short term memory only hold 7 (plus or minus 2) items according to Miller (1956) so if we want learning to transfer to the long term memory we have to do something about it.

 

How to Keep  Sharp* 

Stimulating Mental Exercise (p.8)
Continued Learning (p.8)
Self Efficacy (p.8)
Social Interaction (p.8)
Aerobic Exercise (p. 10-11)
Stay Positive (p. 19-20)
Manage Stress (*p.20) 

 

Learning Changes the Brain*

The brain is moulded by learning. It evolves physically creating new and strengthening old connections and cells.

'About a fifth of 70-year-olds perform as well on cognitive tests as 20-year-olds do on average'

 (Dana Institute, p.12).

Minding Your Memory*

1. Pay Attention
2. Stay Focused
3. Repeat it
4. Write it down
5. Visualise it
6. Make associations
7. Stay organised
8. Plan and Prioritise (p. 14)

 

8 Healthy Habits that Boost Your Brain (according to Reader's Digest)

• Learn New Things (boosts memory)
• Play Games (brain teasers with planning and strategising to improve memory)
• Manage Stress (cortisol created can damage short term memory)
• Include Resveratrol in Diet (found in blueberries, red wine & dark chocolate)
• Cut Down on Sugar (lower sugar levels = better performance)
• Sleep (helps memory)
• Taking ibuprofen may help (for inflammation)
• Exercise (some helps verbal and some spatial skills)

 

Other Useful Articles/Links:

 How to Improve Your Memory by HelpGuide.org

10 Foods to Boost Your Brain Power by BBC Foods

Can I Increase My Brain Power? by The Guardian

Tips & Techniques to Improve Your Memory by BBC

References

* Dana Institute in Staying Sharp: Learning as We Age

Miller, G. (1956) 'The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on our Capacity for Processing Information', The Psychological Review, 63, 81-97

Keep Learning to Keep Young

"Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. 
The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young." 

 Henry Ford

So what do we do with our young ? We start teaching them from birth, first survival skills like feeding. Then skills like movement and communication. Then we put them in a compulsory learning environment for approximately 11years, with an option to stay on for a further two or three at college and three or four more at university.

At the end of the the 11 years of compulsory education (preceded by 5 years informal education) we say they are of age to marry, to join the forces and to have babies. They are not thought to be educated enough (despite this being the time when people have had the longest period of formal education of their lives) to vote.

This is either a sad indictment of our educational system or a sad reflection of those in power who have left their learning years too far behind.

And we wonder why some young people have no interest in politics. Why do adults feel the same way? Because they think it doesn't concern them.

It's just another way to control them...limit their voice...forget that they are our future leaders. They will run the world. And hopefully they will learn from our mistakes. They will keep learning and keep young.

TED Talks on the Importance of Failure and Mistakes

Learning about the value of mistakes, I stayed up until early morning (2.37am. as I write) watching TED Talks. This in itself is a mistake in some ways, considering how tired I will be tomorrow but what I have learned will have such a positive outcome, hopefully it will outweigh any negative consequences. This is a somewhat subjective measurement of the situation which may be more about justification than an accurate account of my actions.

I watched and listened and waited for new ideas and inspiration, reinforcement  of learning and reassurement and on top of that some new challenge and knowledge and understanding. I wanted and got it all.

Now I will not compound my mistake by staying up later to finish this piece. That constant battle with myself (or my monkey according to some therapist I saw on TV). This balancing act I perform. This constant struggle to do the right thing. The neat mind-ledger of life with + & - and the balance where I don't owe or am indebted to anyone or feel like I forgot something or got it wrong. Where everything is a tidy column of nicely written balanced figures and letters, expressing the equally measured karma to come my way. Rather than the crumpled up, illegiblly written post it note, lost in the tower of post it notes with more illegible lists which I will never get round to not least because I can't read my own writing.

It's 3 am. I press Save, thinking how these posts are trying to be some interpretation and re-organization of the metaphorical tower of crumpled illegible post it notes. These blog posts are the nearest I will come to the organizational and analytical equivalent of a spreadsheet.

Ted Talks about the value, joy and necessity of making mistakes:

The writer of Eat , Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert gives an inspiring talk on finding your way home from the disorientation of the being thrown off balance by either success or failure: Success, Failure and the Drive to Keep Creating 

Kathryn Schulz, a writer from the New Yorker says Don't Regret Regret and tells us to embrace our wrongness in On Being Wrong.

Tim Harford, the Undercover Economist stills about the value of trial and error for success and, he asks us to make better mistakes in Trial and Error and the God Complex.

Diana Laufenberg, a school teacher,  in How to Learn? From Mistakes, talks about the idea of that school isn't today necessarily where people get their information and how the projects she has worked on with students havce found more to learn from in the mistakes than in the perfectly executed, using the formula 'fail, procees, learn from'. She is an advocate of 'experiential learning and empowering student voice and embracing failure' which does not come about with standardised tests or a 'culture of one right answer'.

10 Reasons We Should Make Mistakes

"Make glorious, amazing mistakes" was Neil Gaiman's advice in his New Year Wish, "because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something."

 

Many amazing inventions (and possibly inventors) have been born of mistakes, from penicillin to Xrays. We think of mistakes as things that are problems and cause injury and death. We think of things aa mundane as spelling mistakes, as worring as forgetting to turn the gas off to tragedies like the sinking of the Titanic.

We don't think of mistakes as learning tools, as ways of experimentation, as ways to find out what works from what doesn't work. It's not call 'trial and error' for nothing!

Quite a few people, according to Quote Investigator have thought similarly about mistakes over the last 150 years:

1. He who never made a mistake, never made a discovery. (Samuel Smiles, 1859)
2. The man who never makes enny blunders seldum makes enny good hits. (Josh Billings, 1874)
3. A man who never makes a mistake will never make anything. ( Mr. Phelps, 1889)
4. It’s only those who do nothing that make no mistakes. (Joseph Conrad, 1896)
5. The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything. (Theodore Roosevelt, 1900)
6. The man who does things makes many mistakes, but he never makes the biggest mistake of all—doing nothing. (Poor Richard Junior’s Philosophy, 1903)
7. Every man makes mistakes; they say a man who never makes mistakes never makes anything else. (G.K. Chesterton, 1927)
8. The man who never makes a mistake must get tired of doing nothing. (Will Rogers, 1993)
9. A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. (Albert Einstein, 1995)

10. In 1891 Oscar Wilde wrote in The Picture of Dorian Gray:

“Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.” 

As Gandhi said:

“Freedom is not worth having 

if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.”

(Cited in Inspirational Quotes and Thoughts, 2013 by G. Beri)

New Year Traditions: What to Wear, Eat and Do

New York Graffiti on Rock on the Shore of the Hudson, 2014

What makes a good year? Can anything we do influence the year to come, apart from what we actually do in that year? I've heard about everything from the colour of your underwear deciding your future success to what you eat, whether its 12 grapes, lentils or hitting a loaf of bread against the walls or what old furniture you throw out your window.

There is an abundance of traditions around the world which focus on what you wear, eat and do and are all about trying to prevent or ward off the negative and promote and welcome the positive. Not a bad idea, how it's executed isn't always easy to understand but there is nothing wrong with a new start.

What can we do?

Wear the right clothes (more specifically – the correct colour underwear):

1. S. America – Red for Love, Gold for prosperity ***/++
2. Columbia – Yellow for Happiness and peace***
3. Puerto Rico – White for fertility and health***

Eat (or don't eat) the right food:

1. China: Eat long noodles for longevity/long-life*
2. Greece/Philippines: Eat round food like donuts in Greece and 13 round fruit for luck in Philippines ++/*
3. Turkey: Eat Pomegranate for health and prosperity as it looks like a heart*
4. Italy/Chile: Eat lentils as symbols of abundance and coins*/***
5. Spain, South America & Mexico: Eat 12 grapes with a wish for each month of the year **
6. Germany, Poland & Scandinavia: Eat herring as its an abundant fish and look like silver*
7. Southern USA: Eat Black Eye Peas as look like pennies and corn bread which looks like gold*/++
8. Russia: Write your wishes for the new year, burn them and put ashes in the champagne you drink at midnight. **/+
9. Scotland: Have the person who takes the 'first foot' inside your door bring you luck with such items as coal, bread, a coin and good wishes. **/++
10. Ireland: Bang bread against the walls and doors of the house to ward off evil (and check the bread is baked) ***/+/++ 
11. Any where with green cash – eat greens for obvious reasons*/++

Do the right thing (or something):

1. S. Africa: Throw your old furniture our a window. ***
2. Columbia/Ecuador: If you want to travel - run round your house with suitcases **/++
3. Denmark: Jump off a chair for good luck **
4. Philippines: Jump up if you are a child and want to grow taller ++
5. Germany: Rub ash on your forehead for good luck **
6. Scotland: Swing fireballs in the air +++
7. Russia: New Year's Tree and fireworks celebrate the arrival of Ded Moroz and granddaughter who bring presents for children on New Years Day ***
8. Ecuador: Burn a scarecrow to get rid of the negativity of the previous year ***
9. Iran: Bang pots and pans at midnight in the street ++
10. Japan: Watch the sunrise from atop a mountain to welcome the light of the new year +++
11. Bahamas: New Year Day parade to welcome the New Year

The last three traditions I mention, I am most familiar with: 

• Anywhere that uses fireworks and crackers, this is to to ward off/scare the negative and darkness and light the future ++
• US, UK and other areas: Kiss the person at midnight who you want to share the good fortune of the year with. ** 
• Writing New Year's resolutions (see below).

Rank	Top 10 New Years resolutions for 2014
1	Lose Weight
2	Getting Organized
3	Spend Less, Save More
4	Enjoy Life to the Fullest
5	Staying Fit and Healthy
6	Learn Something Exciting
7	Quit Smoking
8	Help Others in Their Dreams
9	Fall in Love
10	Spend More Time with Family

           Source: University of Scranton. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 2014

Whatever way you chose to celebrate the new year, whenever your new year is, there is nothing wrong with new beginnings, change, new things...and doing things that seem strange or making resolutions you never keep. Its doing something.

As Neil Gaiman wrote as his New Year Wish, in his blog in 2012:

'I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something. So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life. Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it. Make your mistakes, next year and forever'

I am looking forward, as Gaiman (2012) advocates, to making more mistakes this year and 'making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing [myself], changing [myself], changing [my] world'.

 

More New Year Traditions Round the World

Sources of New Year Traditions:

*     Woman's Day, 10 Good Luck foods for the New Year

**    Eyewitness News, New Year Eve Traditions Around the World Said to Bring You Good Luck

***   Boston.com, 10 Quirky New Year's Eve Traditions Around the World

+     International Business Times, New Year's Eve Traditions Around the World 2015

++   Houston Chronicle, 19 Strange New Year's Traditions

+++ The Guardian, Alternative New Year's Eve Festivals Around the World