Violence will out, whatever the circumstances

What an unedifying sight: two ‘fighters’ brawling at a press conference after a boxing match one of them wasn’t even involved in.

It underlined the ludicrousness of violence for entertainment. Were these men in a ring throwing their fists with such abandon, the audience would be applauding, after parting with large amounts of cash to view the spectacle.

Instead, their ego-driven, dignity-deficient display was met with hand wringing from the boxing authorities and horror from the journalists who witnessed it.

My question in these circumstances is always, ‘what do you expect?’. It’s the same question I ask when men and women who are trained to fight and kill an enemy abroad, mete out barbaric treatment to the enemy when captured. The public reaction is horror and surprise. Seriously, what do you expect?

We are human, bred for empathy. But to be violent we must lose a part of ourselves, believe that we are powerful, believe that the subject of our aggression deserves it. Managed violence – boxing, war – demands that we behave this way in defined circumstances while resisting those trained instincts outside of them. It’s hardly surprising that sometimes violence spills over the boundaries we set for it.

So we have two boxers belting each other at a press conference and soldiers beating prisoners or pissing on enemy corpses. As a public we recoil at the defiance of these boundaries and yet, for our entertainment or military needs, we require our boxers and soldiers to spend their professional lives doing the most inhuman things to others without going so far as to offend our sensibilities.

When will we learn that that it is violence itself, in all its forms, that must be banished from any culture that wishes to call itself progressive?

The sun also rises

I’m not very good at coping with the unexpected at the moment. Everything over the last few months needed such rigorous planning, forethought and contemplation, I’ve lost my ability to deal with the sudden and unforeseen.

The scaffolders arrived this morning but I wasn’t expecting them until Monday. Cue minor and completely unnecessary meltdown followed by grovelling notes through the doors of our neighbours.

But, sitting at my desk looking out over the hill, I find myself reflecting on the sunshine that arrives in the garden at this time of day. We’ve only been here a few months so we’re learning about the light. It’s an odd feeling and a welcome one as the sun climbs higher each day.

The sun in the garden, the promise of spring and new light in the house all calm the tension. We need these moments. I know I do.

The benefits of collaboration

One of the unexpected bonuses of being freelance, is the opportunity to get involved in so many different projects and work with a number of teams.

I have found myself working with some fantastic people, all of whom are achieving brilliant things. It’s my privilege to be able to do something to help. I think I assumed I would spend a lot of time working at home and not having anyone to play with. I’m wrong, thankfully.

The other thing that happens is that I meet people who know the same people I know. Bath is small, this happens. But also, because I have spent a lot of time working nationally, it goes beyond Bath too.

So I’m liking this freelance thing and I’m busy. That’s good. Long may it continue.

The Importance of Optimism

A lot of us had a crushingly grim 2011 and in some quarters 2012 has not got off to the best start. I’ve found myself pondering the importance of optimism over the last couple of days.

I know that one of the main reasons for my mental survival last year was an unwavering optimism. I have always (and I think it’s partly inherited from my father’s innately sunny disposition) believed that no matter how awful everything is, it will eventually get better.

If I reflect on it, it may be a combination of Dad’s influence and my experience of being frequently unwell as a child. I had a condition that meant I regularly had bouts of quite scary illness, right into my late teens. However, I learned quickly that they always ended and I always felt better afterwards. I think this has helped me during the other difficult times in my life, some brought on by ill health, some grief, some just the bloody-mindedness of the universe.

So I think I’m lucky to have an optimistic disposition but it’s not special. I think that in adversity, our will and ability to survive is actually a form of optimism. We surprise ourselves with our capacity to recover from trauma and challenge, to pick ourselves up – perhaps not always in one piece – and carry on.

To be clear, I’m not some ‘Buck up and get on with it” fascist and I know that for some people, the darkness is intolerable. But generally, as a species, I think our urge to survive is strong.

We need to recognise our power, individually and collectively, to persist and name it optimism.

Let’s face it, our economic outlook is grim, climate change is a threat and leaders around the world are singularly failing to perform on so many fronts, choosing mostly to kick the can down the road.

We will survive it. I know it and I think you do too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Good Death

In the early hours of this morning my granny, Hazel Sweetman, died peacefully at the convent nursing home where she had been living since last spring.

She’d been frail for some months but was enjoying the convent and the care from the Maltese nuns who live there. I visited in May and was overwhelmed by their welcome, kindness and endless supplies of tea and cake for visitors. Granny seemed happy to have found a place so suited to her needs and faith.

Although it’s immensely sad that Granny’s gone, I’m grateful for the manner of her going. She didn’t want to be in hospital and feared a drawn out finish. Instead, she slipped away peacefully in the night after a day of visits from her children. When my Grandpa died in 2008, Granny said that she ached to be reunited with him in Heaven. She knew it was her destiny and this conviction gave her enormous comfort. She showed no fear of death.

I shall remember the colourful print dresses she wore in the seventies and the enormous summer lunches she created for family parties. She was the master of the meringue, the queen of quiche. She was quick-witted and dry in her humour and generous with an interesting family tale. Like Grandpa, she passed on a love of books and poetry and was a mean opponent in Scrabble.

We did not always see eye to eye on politics and my personal life was somewhat of a mystery to her but if she judged, she never said so to me.

So farewell, Granny. Bon voyage and say hello to Grandpa for me…

 

 

 

Goodbye 2011, you really sucked

I’ve spent quite a lot of this year feeling pretty sorry for myself. Last new year, knowing that redundancy was likely, I was anxious about what was to come but I wouldn’t have predicted the twelve months we’ve endured.

The short version is a lot of worry and uncertainty followed by redundancy and then sudden unemployment again when my next employer went into administration. The catastrophic loss of income led to the decision to sell our home and downsize, the only way to protect ourselves from an almighty financial hole and secure for ourselves a more stable future.

Upheaval upon upheaval, moving house is stressful anyway but doing it against your will is painful and heartbreaking. Now, on the verge of 2012, we are in a new home and it is coming together. We have reduced our belongings to fit our smaller space, we have reduced our outgoings to fit our halved income. We are smaller but still standing.

Enduring such a prolonged period of stress leads to a bunker mentality. It becomes hard to appreciate the good stuff when you’re on high alert for another disaster around the corner. It’s been good to have some time off this Christmas to see friends and family, relax and catch up on some sleep. We’re trying to find a normal routine rather than a constant feeling of being in transition, not helped by the work that needed doing to the house over the last few weeks.

However, we are getting there and sitting here in our back room looking at our new gigantic shelves, surrounded by our books and the familiar objects and detritus that make you feel at home, I begin to feel it. I can feel positive about 2012, a year that couldn’t possibly be as hard as 2011.

The thing is, our little family unit is not alone in having had the monster of all years. And it’s not all been caused by the economy, the debt crisis, austerity or the cuts. Is it possible that every now and again a particular year is a bit of a bastard to just about everyone?

I’ve lost count of the number of friends and family who’ve had a rough 2011. Some of it was certainly rooted in economy and public policy but there was also so much personal grief. I’ve had conversations recently that made me feel we got off lightly, despite our woes. How is it that so many of us could find ourselves enduring so much grimness in one year?

Add that personal trauma to our public torpor and it’s a bleak cocktail. No wonder the public mood is quite so blue. Two things struck me today, an editorial in the New Statesman calling for vision and leadership and a news item on the radio about the increase in prescriptions for anti-depressants.

I wholeheartedly support the first but I always get concerned about the second. We need a renewed sense of optimism but the prevailing political mood is that 2012 will be worse than 2011. Maybe so but give us some leaders who can shine a bit of light. We are desperate for them to emerge.

On the personal front, it’s time for us to throw away the pills and put our arms around each other. This year was only survivable with help from family and friends, from just a conversation or a change of scene, to financial support. It was hard in all our drama always to be there for others but we did our best. That reciprocity is surely what we need to survive the coming year.

Jeanette Winterson once said that you have to be the light. She was right. We have to be the light for each other.

Making the move to WordPress

Well, since MobileMe is going to die, I thought I had better make a move to WordPress. Is this going to be enough for me?  I have a lot of documents to upload, a lot of links and it still needs to look like a place that you can find me for business.

However, I like the cut of its gib so far. I shall be asking for help though, be warned.  This migration is going to take a while, there’s a lot to do.