Jackie Ashley wrote an article in the paper yesterday entitled “This public nervousness lets young people down”.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/28/public-nervousness-young-people-riots?INTCMP=SRCH

She explains within this that young people are now “gadget rich but they are space-poor”; an excellent summary of young people whether they are from the richest of boroughs to the poorest places amongst our towns and cities.

There is nowhere for them to go.

One comment, in fact the opening comment that wonderfully enables the public to have their say, stated that they had heard this discussion for the last fifty years – there’s not enough for young people to do, there’s nowhere for them to go, they are bored and unimaginative, they are intimidating when they gather together, etcetera.

My response would be twofold for starters. Firstly, yes we probably have been saying the same thing for decades and decades but that does not mean that the problem has gone away. Just because it is a constant topic of conversation does not mean that it has been resolved.

Our young people still have nothing to do. Secondly, I do think it is slightly different these days. As Ashley says, they have plenty of things to do but not anywhere to do it together.

There really is nowhere for them to go.

Yesterday, I spoke to my seventeen year old, intelligent young person and asked him what he had done with his Bank Holiday. He had wanted to meet friends, he said, but there was nowhere to go. They eventually went to the park, which they enjoy and could do so because it was a relatively decent day, but they don’t really want to be hanging around in the park for three hours in the middle of November when it is pissing it down with rain do they?

So what is their alternative? They could go to someone’s house and they are more than welcome at mine, but this is hardly giving them the freedom that they deserve. Friends of young people, at the mere sight of their peers’ parents, either turn into Perry from Harry Enfield and become uber compliant “Yes Mrs Patterson, lovely Mrs Patterson” or they turn into pillars of stone unable to say a word. It hardly puts them at ease to enjoy themselves and BE themselves.

And that is really the only alternative that they have.

Okay, I exaggerate slightly, because they could join some sort of organisation and DO something collectively. And that is fine for those who want to do something, assuming that a group of friends all want to do exactly the same thing (which I would find alarming in the first place). And that is also fine if they want to be under the constant guard of an adult, organising things for them but there is still nowhere for them to be themselves with this solution; just talking and being and developing their various relationships, together.

My young person has told me in the past that that they have been approached by the police in the park for intimidating smaller children and their families by gathering near the play area. They are asked to split into smaller groups or go to another park a mile and a half away where they are politely informed that they will not be pestered by the Boys in Blue. So why is this appropriate?

If they dare to venture into the local shopping area, they are immediately pounced upon and asked to split into twos and threes maximum. As my brother said to me yesterday, it would be interesting if one of the young people asked the copper or the security guard precisely what law they are breaking by gathering together in groups of seven or eight. And in our non-police state, the response could be that they are not breaking the law right up to the point when they used their democratic right to ask this very question, which could be interpreted as breaching the peace or inciting a public argument, in which case, they can be given their little piece of paper to say that they are in danger of committing a crime, and then the move-on and break-up is allegedly justified.

It simply isn’t fair.

These young people just want to be left to converse with one another, to learn about how they interact with one another without having an adult there to contrive and direct every single thing that they do. There are places that they can join, of course, but why should they have to participate in some grand activity all of the time, when all they want to do is chill out, discuss the state of the world and flop down on a sofa to relax at the end of a day when they have been pressurised and forced to do a string of work that they are probably mightily disinterested in?

When I was a young lass (teenagers please don’t switch off just yet), when I was younger things were different. By the time I was my child’s age, I had been drinking in the local pub for nearly eighteen months. Admittedly, I did not drink alcohol but there was one instance when the local Bobbies came in and asked me my age. I replied that I was seventeen. They went straight to the barmaid and asked her if she knew that I was underage to which she politely replied that she did know, that I had never consumed alcohol in her pub and that of course she knew how old I was and who I was because I had been drinking there for at least a year.

At that age, we didn’t want to be surrounded and mollycoddled by adults either. We didn’t want to play table tennis at the local youth club and we didn’t necessarily want to have weekly meetings at the local swimming club. We simply wanted to sit down together and talk, just as our young people want to do now.

And they are interested in the world around them. They do want to discuss what is happening in Libya, they do want to discuss local, national and international injustices, they do want to formulate their ideas and their thoughts that sometimes can only be done in informal discussions.

Recently, I went to a local youth club that has been generally praised for the way it operates. Polly Toynbee wrote an article just over a year ago about the Salmon Youth Centre in Bermondsey and how it was providing an essential service for the young people within the borough. She then went on to say that substantial local authority cuts was jeopardising the vital work that these youth workers were doing.
On arriving at the club, I witnessed all the activities that were laid out for the young people to do, and an impressive list they were too. But what did some of them want to do? They just wanted to lounge around and talk in the comfort and security of a place that they felt at ease in. They didn’t necessarily want to play table football or have an adult-led discussion on teenage pregnancy. Although there were art and crafts for them to do, they didn’t really feel like doing that, and yet, they had to be gainfully employed in something, otherwise they were cajoled and coerced into doing something that they may not have chosen to do.

I am not criticising such clubs. They are vital but they are not the solution as far as young people having a place to be, a place to go and simply organise themselves.

What is the solution? Well, as Ashley points out in her article, there are plenty of places that are not used twenty four hours of the day. There are offices that remain closed with all the lights on well into the night, there are schools that are full of redundant classrooms for 160 days of the year. There are open spaces that could accommodate some parkland for older children without too much investment, and yet we still do not see these as viable options because we have been brainwashed into thinking that more than three young people gathered together constitutes a potential riot or criminal activity.

It is just plain wrong.

Yes, they have their Facebooks and instant messaging but it is hardly the same thing as the personal touch of social interaction within the same room. And of course, those who complain about teenagers spending so much time talking to friends on Facebook are sometimes the same ones who have the resources and the room to enable young people to meet together face to face.

People quite rightly complain about Facebook and how it is turning our young people into sedentary beings but what else are we offering them? At least they do now have a mode of communication open to them that does not cost the earth but it is never ever a substitute for a real interaction with one another.

Where can these young people go?
Well, they can go to the cinema, cry the clever ones. And precisely how much conversing can you do in a cinema, and precisely how often can young people attend a cinema which costs £10 for a round trip of travel, film and a can of coke?

It is a small solution but is certainly not the answer to these peoples’ needs.

Children are merely mini-me’s and they are not mini-me’s. They have minds of their own that are dying to explore the realities and complexities of the world. They are our future leaders, they are our future philosophers. They need to share their ideas before they turn into the insular nobodies that they Facebook fearers fear they are becoming. We cannot sit back and let this happen. They need a place to be and they need it now.

And we adults should stop feeling intimidated by these young people and start listening to their needs in a way that engages them in the decisions made and invites them to participate in this world of ours that interests them so much. They need to be equipped to become the fully intelligent people that we now know they are capable of being, and in order for this to happen, they cannot be left alone in their bedrooms with a computer for company.

That will not do.

When Will East Meet West?

When Will East meet West?

Almost daily I travel across the Meridian line. It’s strange to think that this is something I do and take for granted, often oblivious to the precise moment that it happens whereas a few miles down the road, visitors are anxiously standing, straddling their frame in both east and west, ready to have their photographs taken. Visit Greenwich almost any day of the year and you will see them; smiles on faces acknowledging that this is the known point when the worlds meet through a narrow brass line.

It is strange to think that although Greenwich is the place where time is measured and therefore east and west unite, it is also the place where these two halves of the world divide.
In fact as the longitude line runs through Greenwich, then clearly, by nature it runs through other places in the country; where east and west either collide or unite.

Back in the 80s, the riots of the time in places like Brixton, Toxteth and Handsworth were seen as the “Race Riots”; the latter being not only a ‘war’ between black and white but also between Afro-Caribbean and Asian – a form of west fighting against east.

East and Asia has so frequently been viewed by the West as the ‘poorer’ half of the world; the Third World, together with Africa; the ill-informed, the illiterate, the place where you see slum children scuttling through rubbish tips to find an ounce of mental that they might sell or the shanty towns of sticks, built up above the murky waters of Asia’s great rivers – rotting food, rotten people, all surviving, just about, on scraps, rice and brown water.

That is the stereotypical view of Asia. Furthermore, there are some in the west who see ‘Asia’ as one nation, forgetting that the divide between Pakistan and India or Malaysia and Thailand is far greater than the difference between the Limey’s and those obstinate Frenchies.

And yet, it is all inconceivable that a great chunk of this world has resolutely maintained such ignorance of what the East has to offer; inherent racism, if you ask me.

The riots this year have been dismissed by some, including our erstwhile and present Prime Ministers, as some form of mindless thuggery rather than there being an underlying cause or series of issues amalgamating together to create a tipping point that they have some hand in developing.

But this is what happened. As a society we have served up a Molotov Cocktail of despondency, ignorance, injustice and hopelessness for our young people, together with elitist and futile forms of education that leave the majority without any hope of fulfilment. Add to that a feeling of disenfranchisement and a constant reminder that their world is far from democratic or equal and what you end up with is anguish, frustration, annoyance and hatred.

This hatred can manifest itself in various forms, including some of the things that we witnessed last week; suffering for many.

And of course racism is present, as it always has been.

It was not mindless thugs who gathered at the police station on that Saturday night in Tottenham. It was people who had just had enough when they saw yet another of their brothers, covered in the death sheet that had been placed there by what they saw as the perpetrators of this murder. To further exacerbate an already inflamed situation, the police decided not to inform the awaiting and troubled crowd of what had happened.

Tempers flared, fighting ensued, police knew that they were fighting a losing battle and took a tactical retreat. And then the copycat rebellion, often without such obvious causes began to take shape across the nation.

Fear, as we know, is a destructive emotion. It has a strength of drive that is almost admirable in its forcefulness. The young people in Hackney the following Tuesday who witnessed what had happened in Tottenham were confronted by the police. A stop and search took place on yet another group of black youths. They had seen the dead body of Mark Duggan less than a couple of miles away, and they were frightened that the same thing was going to happen to one of theirs. Instinct kicked in; fight or flight and they chose the former. Lewisham was next; young people showing their fear and rebelling against it, pre-empting similar activity, creating violence through their fear. And so it escalated.

Misunderstanding, miscomprehension, victimisation, destructive emotions, injustice, instability, mistrust all came to the forefront and whether Cameron chooses to dismiss this as mindless or not, it is clearly quite the opposite.

Young people are very mind full – of injustice and greed and the thoughtlessness of capitalists and a government intent on whipping any state crutches away from an already ailing body.

And why are we still in this situation? Well partly because the mass population are unenlightened, and not necessarily by their own fault. Opportunity has passed them by.

When will east meet west?

Today, I had the pleasure of watching two very different documentaries on television. One depicted the recent riots in London and elsewhere; a “Panorama Special”. The other reviewed seven sites and sights of significance to Buddhists around the world whilst simultaneously outlining some of the key components of this Eastern philosophy.

The Panorama documentary was only informative to those who had fallen off the planet for a couple of weeks. The narration was sardonic, predictable, lacking in any real enquiry or analysis. It merely posed the question over and over again, “why did this happen?” without being prepared to delve into this all important question.

There were comments from politicians that sounded as though they had been to their party cliché bank, raided it and were intent on spouting off the usual rubbish that collects there. It’s thuggery. There’s no reason for this looting. This is not political. I was from a single-parent family and I’ve turned out okay – the same old, same old that is neither intuitive nor particularly helpful.

There was Kelvin McKenzie (why do people call upon his brainwashed wisdom at such times? – please tell me) who was coming out with fatuous, reactive and in my opinion explosive comments whilst pretending to be some sort of anthropologist.

There were no solutions in this programme because nobody had bothered to identify the problem in the first place.

The highlight of the programme was the message of hope from Tariq Jahan, who lost his son in the riots. No more fighting, he pleaded. Do other people really want to be in my situation and lose their sons? We are a community of people; black, white, yellow – there is no difference.

The man was a beacon of light, showing all the qualities of peacefulness and hope that is so sadly lacking.

Within this ‘Special’ programme, there was only two mentions of education. One such comment came from Ian Duncan Smith – the quiet man, who despite his work and genuine concern for the impoverished in this country, still misses the point by a very long way. These young people need to ‘attain’ in schools and have the opportunity to get higher grades, he said. The other mention of education came from that ‘Sun’ editor who mentioned the lack of discipline and the fact that the parents should be educated too (missing the point that the parents also went through a flawed education system that did nothing to instil a sense of well-being, community, social and personal intelligence and the likes).

Not once did anyone within this programme consider the fact that our deeply misdirected education system has a very significant role to play. The young people themselves cannot even understand that this is partly what they are rebelling against but we cannot continue with a system that does not do what is purports to do.

When you ask stupid and naive education managers what they want for their children, what they are hoping to achieve, you often get the response that in schools we should be “preparing them for adult life”. Precisely how have we prepared them for adult life? If we have given them no hope, then what do you expect? If we have given them no resilience through developing and nurturing their spirit and their passions, their creativity and their individual minds, then how the hell can we say that we have been “preparing them for adult life”?

What skills have we given these young people, and their parents before, to be able to manage their destructive emotions, to be able to work collaboratively with one another within an implicit set of values owned, understood and embraced by all?

How responsible is the exam factory system for the sort of rioting and looting that we saw on our streets in recent times?

The other television programme was something completely different. Historian Bettany Hughes travelled across the nations of Asia, with a quick stop in California to placate the westerners view that no programme could be complete without the input from the great US of A, in a programme entitled “Seven Wonders of the Buddhist World”.

Her journey started in India at the Mahabodhi Temple where the Buddha first sat under the Tree of Life and considered the three jewels of Buddhism; The Buddha, Sangha and Dharma.

Within her quest to discover what these actually meant, she travelled to a range of phenomenal places, trying to eke out what it was about this ancient philosophy that meant that followers of this ideology and practice are increasing year in year out across the entire globe and not merely restricted to that uneducated ‘country’ of Asia.

It was a vivid and, for me, a spiritual experience, to see these places of overwhelming brilliance, so effectively described and discovered through the eyes and the thoughts of this very capable woman. She did not stop with a simple acceptance of what the three jewels were. She explored further, looking and feeling everything for herself and opening out to the awaiting audience, inviting them to take a similar journey even if they did not have the ability or means to physically travel to these places of wonderment.

She went on to look at other aspects of Buddhism; Zen, the quest for Nirvana and within this outlined the peacefulness and the thoughtfulness of the philosophy itself. She considered suffering and how this needs to be eradicated in all of our lives, whatever the circumstance, if we are truly to reach a state on oneness with ourselves and subsequently the rest of the world.

There is so much to write about this programme that it warrants an entire blog of its own but for now I will continue with my theme.

One of the things that struck me was the insistence of people in the west to numb and dumb things down to comprehensible facts and theories when sometimes it is not actually that simple. Our entire learning process has been indoctrinated into thinking that everything has to be explained and understood. Surely the most important things in our world are inexplicable. Isn’t that the whole wonderment of our world? If enlightenment was so easily attainable then what would be the purpose? We’d all pass our life exam and be done with.

An example of this is the manner in which ‘Dharma’ is described in this country and others in the west. On a recent visit to that esteemed place of understanding, the British Museum, there was an exhibition on Buddhism. The simple description of what ‘Dharma’ was – was ‘teachings’. That is all. Even on this programme, there were some academics who were interviewed who said exactly the same thing but in reality it is far more than this, only we in the west are sometimes too lazy to look into it further. Dharma equals teaching. That is understood, the box is ticked and now we can move on. But Dharma is far more than teaching. Dharma is a road of learning. Dharma is the universal understanding, united and individual. It is the ultimate presence of learning in our lives, throughout our lives, every day of our lives. It is in fact a life-long learning that should be a pathway for everyone, infinite and glorious in its incompletion. It is also about specific learning and understanding along our way but it is certainly not as simple as the teaching of the Buddha.

We are so indoctrinated in the west that it is quite terrifying how much we have lost of our natural minds, all because we have been swallowed into one way of thinking, one way of reacting, one way of learning.

We are so utterly dismissive of the unknown or the unusual that we can only see in to the end of our feet, and sometimes never beyond.

I am as guilty as the next person.

Last year, I fulfilled a lifetimes ambition to go to Granada and see the Alhambra. I was awestruck. I was mesmerised by the detail and the intricacies that I saw there. I wanted to sit in quiet contemplation – meditation – alone and at one with myself and all of the history that surrounded me in this palace of perfection. At the time, I could barely imagine anything more wonderful. I was certainly in ‘the moment’.

And last night, as I watched the television, as I was transported across Asia to all these incredible places, with their unbelievable, stupefying brilliance, I realised that I too was merely a dumb westerner, who could not even begin to contemplate just how much of the world has remained closed to me, even though I am one of the people prepared to open my mind and discover new worlds, new ways, old ways and embrace a philosophy of discovery, of living.

It is a tragedy that we are so blinkered in our opinions, in our thoughts and in our willingness to embrace the east within our closed western lives.

And yesterday was a gentle reminder of that fact.

Recently, friends of mine have been fortunate enough to travel to Asia. Two of my friends sent hundreds and possibly thousands of photographs via Facebook of their visits to the very temples in Bangkok that Hughes visited during her epic Seven Wonders trip. I delighted in their wonderment and began to feel it even though I had never been to the places myself.
Another friend talked about the total acceptance of people within Thailand of one another, irrespective of their weirdness or uniqueness. There were no class boundaries or even language barriers. People of all colour, all creed were accepted and treated similarly; men, women, lady-men, everyone treated exactly the same.

Is it any surprise that this country is so steeped in the philosophy of Buddhism – with 90% of the population here professing to be Buddhists?

The East has had its fair share of appalling atrocities in both ancient and current times, and I am not professing that everything is alright in that part of the world, but we sure as hell can learn from the goodness that comes from there, and do something about changing our own society to accommodate the qualities of learning, oneness and community as outlined in the Buddha’s three jewels.

What if? What if? According to a recent piece of writing that I read, a spiritually intelligent person asks “what if”. An even more spiritually intelligent person realises that there is a time and a place for such “what if’s”.

But what if the west was to embrace the east? What if the rioters of August had been given the opportunity to look inward at themselves and outward to the world and understand the unity of such a thing? What if our education system enabled young people to contemplate more than calculate? What if we could demonstrate the purpose of being uniquely oneself and in being so we can give so much to one another?

Today, I also walked through the streets of war-torn Hackney. The media furore would suggest that it might not be a place that I could safely travel to, let alone walk down a road that saw so much of the violence of the August non-revolution.

The street in question was quiet. It was warm and sunny. People of every creed, religion and race were gathered there together in harmony. Men were sitting together on the street corner, talking about all manner of topics. A young man casually wandered up the street on his bicycle, supping from a bottle of cola, intent on harming nobody. Shopkeepers wandered out of their premises to take in the delights of this latter summer heat. There was peace. There was tranquillity. And there was unity. I only wish that the television cameras had been there to capture the real essence of Hackney rather than the distorted view that they seem to love to portray to an unenlightened and fixed state world.

East has met west in places like Hackney. In fact, the meridian line probably passes through this borough too. But there is still plenty to do. There is still much Dharma to be had. Last week, after the riots there was better news for some folk in Hackney. The infamous Mossbourne Academy had their first set of A-Level results, and indeed it was promising. Despite what some might deem to be dictatorial tactics, it appears that the impoverished working classes do have intellectual capacity and can pass exams of the highest order in spite of the key life issues that have so frequently held them back in this area; poor housing, lack of opportunity for learning etcetera. It has to be good news but life, as I stated previously, is not all about exams. A core set of agreed values for each community within society needs to be established and needs to be without a conflicting set of values from a different source. If east could gently assume some sort of influence in the west then this is achievable, if only people had eyes and ears and minds to see the possibilities ahead.

Today, my eldest child will receive his GCSE results. I don’t actually care too much what he gets as long as he knows that this is not a reflection on him as a human being, as long as he knows that this is not the be all and end all. These results that he receives today are not going to be a true reflection of his capability or of his nature (other than a reiteration of his disinclination to sit and study). What I would really like to do is tell him to get out there into the world and start wandering on a pathway that leads eastward. I want him to discover himself through his journey. I want him to embrace the totality of one and all, together and within himself.

I want him to embrace the East.

So when will east meet west? Or will it remain a fictitious line in the middle of our city? Can we not work together and do something that ensures that the philosophies of living that are so integral to the wise people of the east are somehow discovered and considered by the very people who need it most?

The west needs to wake up. The east can offer some support. The west can listen for once in their lives and not try and categorise everything, putting it in some convenient little box, ready to move on to the next thing without really taking on board what they have allegedly learned. Even calling Buddhism a religion is a classic example of where we go wrong in the west.

But will our leaders and opposition leaders be enlightened enough to consider change away from the realms of their programmed thinking?
All we can do is watch and wait, and those of us who have an inkling of understanding about the Way should be shouting from the rooftops to the best of our ability to see if we can make a change in our world for the better.

A New Society

In today’s Guardian there was an article about Summerhill school that has celebrated its 90^th anniversary this year.

The article header was written by the grandchild of Mrs Lins, one of the founders of this egalitarian Utopia where children attended a place where they had the absolute choice as to whether to participate in formal lessons or not.

That is what people usually think about when they hear the word Summerhill; that and outright anarchy, as though the place was run by a group of Moonies, intent on indoctrinating young people into a counter-existence with no rules and no boundaries, as if this type of existence was a delinquent and unworkable model that would create unsociable finks that would never be able to re-integrate into our ever so organised society.

It was a school for the insane, or for the children of the maladjusted, who thought they were above the constraints of institutional organisation, who thought they were something special.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/aug/19/summerhill-school-at-90

Of course, it was all nonsense. There was not anarchy, there was democracy. Remember that idea, where everybody, yes everybody had an equal say in what happened in the place? There was not all-out sexual deviance but young people were allowed and indeed enabled to make choices based upon what they felt and what they thought was right.

AS Neill was a man with a vision, stymied by his inability in the state system to be able to teach in the way that he instinctively knew was right for children. He felt that children and young people could only ever be taught when they could see purpose in learning. He felt that they did not need a long list of qualifications in order to advance in life. This is a fact that is clearly borne out in the writing of ex-pupils, as they explain what Summerhill gave them.

“The thing that Summerhill gave me is optimism and a pleasure in being me”.

Parents out there – in all honesty, what more could you want for your child?

“Summerhill gave me a different kind of confidence, to like being myself, and I see now that is a very big thing”.

I am almost envious of such an education.

“I’d had valuable years of freedom”.

Isn’t that the greatest gift, along with love and affection, that you can give any human being?

Isn’t this really the sort of life education that all young people should be entitled to receive in order that they develop into fully actualised beings?

Of course, like other institutions, I am sure there are successes and those that did not fare so well. Some of the teaching, for example – according to these ex-pupils, was less than perfect but then again, isn’t one of the greatest roles of a teacher that they should be an enabler or a facilitator of learning, none more so in this century where factual information can be so readily received through IT and the media that the world now offers at the finger tips of a computer?

I wonder how many of us would have welcomed the freedom that a place like Summerhill offered. Again, not all would like this informality but it suits far more than have the opportunity to taste this style of education. After all, somebody has to pay for it, and not many local authorities are or were prepared to part with their assigned amount of money for a child’s education to pass it over to this airy-fairy way of educating.

I remember a parent at my own school who was so despondent with the way state education was not meeting the needs of her child. D was a rather unruly character. He probably had a form of ADHD before it ever got a label in this country. He was exceptionally bright and didn’t like the way his learning was so organised.

His mother had read about AS Neill and this amazing school in Sussex and decided to battle with the local authority, arguing that the needs of her son were not being met and therefore they should subsidise his fee for Summerhill.

As this was slightly before my time, I do not remember how it was resolved, but D did attend Summerhill and was featured in the documentary for all my colleagues to view and concur that this school was probably the best thing for the child.

I don’t know what happened to him but a quick check on Facebook tells me that he is alive, well and employed; something that not all are these days, so it can’t have done him too much damage!

What fortunate people. Here is another quote from an ex-pupil talking about communal living.

“You have to take responsibility for your own actions, and that means everything from the clothes you wear to how you treat others. All that decision-making can be hard at times. Neill's bottom line was that you could have freedom, but not if what you did interfered with others' freedom."

That sounds about right to me. Freedom to do what you want is absolutely the way that all of us should be thinking in life, as long as that freedom does not come at the detriment of others’ freedom. That is precisely what life should be about. Back to compassion, moderation and wisdom.

But this should not be confined to young people. This should be a way of life for us all.

There are so many examples of communal living that are ridiculed in our society. There are many that are, quite frankly, terrifying because they do not hold to that fundamental principle outlined so effectively in the quote, i.e. they do not consider the freedom of others and the freedom to express their individuality. If you think of some religious communities, or indeed cults, they are absolutely not considering individual freedom. Quite the contrary, the only freedom that they consider is conformity, which is evidently a mutually exclusive situation. You cannot possibly have freedom and conformity together.

Or can you?

But there are places where you get a hint of it working, both now and thousands of years ago.

The kibbutz model is something that has worked effectively, even though it is, in some cases, steeped in orthodox Judaism. Look at that old African proverb, “it takes a whole village to raise a child”. We have become so indoctrinated into thinking about a nuclear and extended family of two parents and 2.4 children (though probably lower these days) as the only way to raise a child, just as we have been indoctrinated into thinking that 5 A-C GCSEs and a handful of A-levels is the only way that our young people can move on in life.

Kibbutz living is about collectivism. It is about all members of the society working together to raise the children. It is about everyone having their specialism and celebrating that. It is about democracy and shared decisions. It is about living within the means of the group and not expecting the unachievable. It is about being realistic and it is an absence of greed.

Now obviously all kibbutz and all communities are not perfect and there are some that do not operate according to the original philosophy but there are some that work and perhaps we should take a closer look at these.

Or perhaps we ought to go back in time and consider the Epicurean communities where “pleasure is the absence of suffering” as its fundamental philosophy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicureanism

In such times, people worked and lived together with an aim of living happy and fulfilled lives. The way that they managed this was to cooperate and collaborate, sharing and not worrying about the rules of the outside. Their society worked, for them, and it worked for their offspring too; a life based on shared ethics.

Isn’t this what we want in life? Isn’t this shared ethics the sort of idealism that Ed Miliband was talking about last week? Isn’t it the lack of shared ethics and true democracy that meant some of our young people, yes our young people took to the streets in the middle of August to react against the injustices of our society?

Back to Summerhill and one person described a child arriving and breaking 23 windows over a couple of days. Neill saw him pick up a stone to break a 24^th. Instead of reprimanding the child immediately, this man picked up a stone and hurled it towards the window. The unruly one looked on in astonishment and never broke another window in the school again. He had learned that there was a shared responsibility to the place as well as oneself and nobody had the right to freedom if it affected other people within the community.

But this is all about children and young people? What about the rest of us who have plodded through conformity and restriction all of our lives? What about those of us who desperately seek the sort of democratic approach to life where injustice and inequality is a thing of the past?

Let us face facts, we are not going to change society overnight, and we are not all going to want to live in the sort of existences that share in this way. But what of those who are seeking? What of those who are deeply dissatisfied with the way the world is at present, and indeed the way they feel about themselves?

What about the people who feel instinctively that there is something lacking in this materialistic world, where honest, shared and agreed values are so irrelevant?

What I would like to see is some way that we can amalgamate the theories and philosophies of community living at its best. There were clearly advantageous experiences for many who attended Summerhill and of course continue to do so. Members of many a kibbutz would not consider leaving this existence. Epicureans had an aspiration that they worked collectively to achieve for each individual.

It is not going to happen overnight. However, I do like the idea of providing a sort of Epicurean Gathering, where people of like-mindedness can come together to explore precisely how we can live intelligently, how we can work collectively to create a set of values based on principle virtues in life that enable each and every one of us to live a life free from suffering.

Is it really a pipe dream, stuffed up high amongst the fruit that only the birds can reach?

The world needed people like AS Neill and Epicurus and they still need them today. This form of life is seen as bohemian and eccentric, yet if you consider it carefully, it makes far more sense than the sort of existence that we have throughout our polarised society. People shut in doors, never speaking to their neighbours, never sharing, never considering the needs of others cannot possibly be a means to living effectively and fully.

2012 is approaching. The world is not going to end – you heard it here first. But maybe, just maybe, our world is ready for a transformation, and perhaps we already have examples of how we can take education, family living, shared values and a contented existence forward.

5% and 90

5% and 90

It’s not a good statistic, 5% and 90 if you are a person who believes in equity, especially when you consider this number in relation to ownership and wealth. In fact, if you consider this statistic in any aspect of life it is not exactly fair.

It has been suggested by many on an approximation that 5% of people own 90% of property and wealth. In some instances and in some situations that statistic is even worse, with 1% owning 99%. How can that be morally right? Unless of course it is the state that owns something that is equally shared amongst all people irrespective of their ability to pay. But then again, shouldn’t all things be means tested. For instance, it is irrational that I should receive the same amount of child benefit as other friends with two children of school age or below when they are on the borderline of surviving on their salaries and I am relatively affluent.

I wonder how many other things in life have the same statistic? 5% of the people have 90% of contentment? 5% of children have 90% of educational resources? 5% of women have 90% of the fun? 5% of guys have 90% of the luck?

But in economic terms 5% of the population owning 90% of the wealth is abhorrent. It’s not like the majority have even worked for such iniquitous distribution. All they have done is be born into it, and managed it according to the vastness of the sum, thus being able to perpetuate the statistic as they pass it forward to the next generation of folk who never have to understand what it is like to go without.

Sometimes the statistic is so horrific that it is almost unbelievable. How can we have got to such a situation in our country that in the 21^st century this insane distribution of wealth is still a prevalent and real statistic? Are we really still living with monetary feudalism that should have vanished in Medieval times? Look at our rulers today – David and Gideon are hardly from the Broadwater Farm estate are they? The rich continue to get richer and there is a huge gap between the prospects of a teenager on a council estate in Tottenham than a silver-spooned Etonian from the Home Counties. And what is worse is that we just take that as the natural way of being. Nobody ever seems to want to challenge the society that we have accepted as the Way; be it to do with distribution of wealth or the model family Way or the insistence on academic qualifications of the highest order being the only definition of intelligence.

What a hopeless world we live in.

The irony, of course, is there are plenty of alternatives, and also alternatives that have been around for thousands of years. Take a healthy dose of Marxism together with some enlightened Eastern philosophies, mixed in with some radical thought about economics, the importance of communities in child-rearing and the value of oneself, and maybe the world would be a different place.

I have to profess at this point to being quite ignorant about economics other than the small amount of informed reading I have done on the subject and a gut instinct as to what seems fair and right. However, this ignorance does not suppress my interest in the subject. I merely accept that I do not understand it all and I certainly cannot fathom how we are still in a situation where 5% of the population have such a hold on the massive majority of the wealth.

Take a small town in West Wales as a micro example of a macro problem. In the 1970s we used to joke about the monopoly that one family had over the food outlets in the town. The entire ice-cream merchandise was owned by this one family, including all the ice-cream vans on the beach, excepting the corporate occasional sales from companies such as Wall’s and Nestle. They also owned the only Fish and Chip shop in town at that time. There was no alternative.

And as if we had all been brainwashed, despite other food outlets opening over the decades, we still tend to give our custom to the established places as though someone has placed a microchip in our brains to say that there still is no alternative. But of course, that is how monopolies work.

Today, I look around the place and realise once more that the 5% rule works here as much as anywhere. People in this town with money don’t tend to own one property or one business. They own the lot! Well, not quite the lot but it certainly seems that they have a disproportionate amount of wealth in comparison with the number of residents in the town.

For instance, there is one family who own a complete parade of grand Georgian houses at the far end of town. Mentioning to one family member that I had always loved the red-roofed house that is perched high above the town, she stated that her sister and brother in law own this property and have done so since 1960, expanding it to the point where you wouldn’t get much change from £1.5 million if it came on the open market today. Further still, I mentioned where I had been staying, and yes, the family had invested in a few apartments in that block of flats over the years too.

Another family, I discovered from another friend in town, had bought a whole series of six-floored properties in the 1920s and they all still remained in the same family to this day; perfectly brilliant houses, occasionally let to the plebs but essentially still with the minority of wealthy. My friend herself had never mentioned that she too owned not only by favourite house in the town but also the property next door; two houses joined together in a fabulous location, never one.

Money breeds money. However there are others who have earned it through hard graft. One man set himself up in business at the age of sixteen, finding a market as yet untouched for all the tourists entering the town. Once he had made sufficient money, he bought a pub and then another one and then a couple of restaurants and then a shop and then some property that he could let. And so it goes on.

A different family essentially hold a monopoly on the boats and the fishing vessels. Nobody, or very few, own just one thing. And of course, they are all interrelated, without being incestuous you understand.

People who turn up with money or try to start a business in this town from the outside are spurned and mistrusted. It has to be something very special or the person involved has to be someone special otherwise the hands will turn and twist them out of business. They all need, even if it is subconsciously, to keep their hands on that 90%.

Meanwhile, the youth on the streets of the town have nowhere to go. The drugs situation is not dire but it is pretty well-established. There is abject poverty in certain parts of the town, carefully tucked away in the outer reaches so that we tourists cannot see the real problems of this town that is only really alive for a few weeks in the year.

And then there are the lazy property owners who think merely of themselves insisting there is no society only the needs of themselves and their nearest and dearest. In days gone by, the town used to close at 5.30 but reopen at 7.00 until about 10pm. Why? Because they were greedy for our custom but also because it gave the town some life in the summer season when people were wandering the streets with nothing to do.

Now, the place closes at 5.30 on the dot. The ice-cream parlour stays open till 9.00 on the dot, and only till that time during six weeks of the year. This place could be a real retrospective brilliance; a place where local and touring teenagers could hang out and enjoy themselves, but the owner doesn’t need to do anything because he earns enough. So why should he bother to be altruistic?

This sort of existence is replicated across the country and indeed globally. There is no need for extra work if it not going to immediately benefit oneself, and the immediacy is another issue. What is the point in investing if me and mine are going to do the work for others in the future to reap the benefit? I used to hear that at school when we were fund-raising. Why should I stick my hand in my pocket when my children are in the latter part of their time at school? They won’t benefit from a new playground or a redesigned gymnasium. Me, me, me and now, now, now.
Perhaps there is much to be said for dictatorship if it is altruistic in nature.
Can you have an altruistic dictator? I think I might offer myself as a candidate on a trial run.

The 5% and the 90% may not be understood and seen by all but injustice is staring us in the face. Those young people who rioted through city streets last week may not be able to verbalise all of this, mainly because they have not received the type of education that actively encourages them to think, but instinctively, I think they know. I think injustice can be felt, even when you are oblivious to it. Those young people may not have known why they were doing what they were doing but something within them felt that things were not right. They didn’t go for the big expensive shops in Regent Street to bombard with their feet and fists. They went with the known, and the known that they look on daily, knowing that they cannot have. Primark was raided in many a town; the place where you can empty a stack of shelves with £50 and still have change in your pocket. Why?

Perhaps it is not about mindless greed. Perhaps it is merely a subliminal demonstration against injustice and the gross injustice of the 5% rule.

Yesterday, Ed Milliband stated that the last government got it wrong, as if we needed it spelling out. He said that they had concentrated on the fabric of the country rather than the ethics. I’m not entirely sure they did the former but certainly the latter was not the driving force for reform that we expected from a ‘socialist’ government. The will to appease the middle ground meant that the desire to eradicate or certainly narrow the gaps of social and economic inequality was lost. And worst still, there seemed to be no vision or collective values around making the difference that so many people need and want.

That is why the 5% and the 90% still remain and will do so for a long time to come unless somebody sticks their neck out for change; and even then we all have to join forces in a collective consciousness to do something about it.

Riots and why

In the summer of 1980, I was working as a photographer’s assistant. It was my job to pass her the various lenses as we traipsed around the Midlands taking photos of brides and grooms of all shape and size.

One Saturday morning, I remember a particular wedding so vividly. It was taking place near my school at a small church that I did not even know existed. It resembled a shed; quite a peculiar little place. It was 11am and the bride arrived, as wide as she was tall – a complete ball of a person. Lovely, she was and so excited about her special day but one could hardly call her attractive. I can remember Eileen turning round to me as she passed by, whispering subtly in my ear, “What the bloody hell am I going to do with this one?”
She wasn’t the nicest person I have ever met in my life. I passed her the soft focus lens as she gazed at me in horror.
And then we saw the bridesmaid. She was stunning, all wrapped up in a Laura Ashley dress that was the fashion mode of the moment. It was navy blue with a full bodice front that exaggerated her already slim-line and yet curvaceous figure; such a contrast from the ball-like bride.

Eileen was delighted that she had something or someone to photograph and I swear she took more photos of the brunette bridesmaid than the bride, who had exaggerated her own size by choosing a dress full of horizontal frills of white and apple green!

But of course, the main thing I remember about that morning was that it was the day after the night before. Handsworth had exploded into flames not more than four miles away from us. Toxteth was burning and Brixton was full of flame too. The heat of the summer after a year of a new government had erupted into all sorts of disturbances and looting.

In Birmingham there was the most horrendous attacks on the Bengali community from the Black Caribbean youths who had arrived at this part of the city a decade or so before them. Huge resentment between these two groups emerged and to some extent still remains today, but this warring veiled another truth – that people were terrified about what was happening to the country. Thatcher was here and she was destroying society, only we didn’t even know the half of it one year into her term of office. I suspect that had we been able to look into the future, there would have been far more rioting than the outbreaks in what many deemed to be mere ghettos and annexes of our big cities.

If only we could have stopped her by joint and peaceful rebellion against her reactionary politics at the beginning of her Prime ministry.

Some of us tried, even though we were too young to actually begin to comprehend the damage that she was doing.

And so her predecessor is here now, probably about to start blabbering on about his Big Society and how we should all rough-ride over these trouble makers and develop some community spirit and Blitz stoicism to show what a truly great nation of collective consciousness we are. Not that Cameron could possibly have a clue what collective consciousness is.

I blame Thatcher. I usually do. All this disparate irresponsibility and lack of community collectiveness is a direct outcome of her will to rid people of society and togetherness. Bitch! And I never use that word lightly.

But then I think we are perfectly adept in blaming another ruthless bastard too. I am surprised that nobody has mentioned this but Mr. Murdoch can stand up and take some blame. The Metropolitan police are in turmoil at the moment. There is no clear leadership, and I am not suggesting for one moment that the riots and looting that took place in London over the last few nights would not have happened if there was a definitive Commissioner in charge, but it doesn’t fill you with hope and confidence when you know that there is not really anyone in charge that has the full authority of a substantive post and the experience that goes with such an appointment.

And then there is Murdoch and his papers too. I am sure we can find a way of blaming them too.

What happened in Tottenham on Saturday night was appalling. It was frightening and horrific. In this piece, there is no way that I am going to condone the actions of the mindless but it is also impossible to disregard the cause of such problems, and they are plenty and diverse in their provocation.

99% of times that I drive passed a copper who has pulled a fellow driver off to the side of the road, the man (yes, never a woman) is black. 99% of times I walk along the streets and a policeman or two are talking animatedly at a person they have stopped and searched, the man (yes, infrequently a woman) is black.
Maybe I just happen to be spending my time in areas where this happens but the institutional racism that was so specifically highlighted by the Macpherson Report in 1999, six years after the death of Stephen Lawrence – of which there has still not been a conviction for his murder, is still very present not only in the police but in other institutions in our society.

Add to this the utter despondency of our young people in their inability to get a job or have a purpose in life, you can understand their rage and frustration.

Add to that also the fact that many of these youths have been watching the Arab Spring occurring in places where one could never have imagined the possibility of mass gatherings making change and bringing down dictators and autocrats, then it is hardly a surprise that this has happened.

These people, our youth, our future, are angry and they feel that they have no future. The services where they may have got jobs in the past have been obliterated. Those same services are not even providing them with the welfare to live a life that everybody deserves. There is much frustration and fear, and we all know what happens when fear overtakes one person let alone the same fear being encapsulated by a group who all feel the same way.

Yesterday, it all kicked off in Hackney. Again, I am not condoning this action but it was triggered by yet another Stop and Search where the people felt that the only reason this invasion of privacy had taken place was because the person involved was a little darker than some would like to see on our streets. The violence then erupted because people were angry, and at times such as these, people sadly do take to violence because sometimes reason gets you absolutely nowhere.

I watched as I saw a street that I know relatively well going up in flames. I was suddenly terribly concerned for the owner of the second hand bookshop that hides comfortably in this quiet yet productive road off the main High Street of Hackney. Places need individuality and I am a strong advocate of real shops, independent shops that make a living offering something unique, something different from the big conglomerates who probably have (w)bankers as their best buddies.

Then the rest of London seemed to erupt too. Again, places that I know and that are all too near; Lewisham, Lee, Woolwich – even little suburbia towns like Bromley.
People are angry.

But back to Hackney, there was apparently just cause for this escalation in violence, and it struck me how, once more, our media are prejudice and cower to stereotype when they cover such incidents. Hackney has a bad name. It is a bad borough where bad people live and bad things happen. Ironically, I feel perfectly safe there and there are plenty of reasons for feeling that way.

It is NOT a BAD place, and what Hackney has that possibly other areas do not have, is a sense of community, lots of communities within its borough boundaries. The ironic thing is that people who live in Hackney are somewhat protective of it purely because it has this name of violence and lack of hope. They get riled by being grouped together as this mass of delusion and despondency when really the place is vibrant and wonderful, if you only have the eyes to see.

So the media, go on and on and on about who terrible this place is, how of course violence erupted here but what they do not mention is that there was less looting in this place than other boroughs in the city. Admittedly, there might have been more police present but I like to think that there was some community spirit happening that prevented them from bombarding their own, knowing that there are businesses in Hackney that are not linked or the causal factor of their poverty and inequality. That is what I like to think but the media would never see it as such.

And as I said, there appears to be a cause for the violence in Hackney whereas other outbreaks of violence across the city merely appear to be copycat and mindless. Nobody seems to have pointed this out in the news. The violence in Croydon and Ealing is put as the same violence and the same cause as what happened in Tottenham and Hackney. It is not. There is a subtle difference.

So what next? Where next even?

I am not into violence and I cannot sit here and readily agree with everything that I have seen but Cameron should not sit smug and complacent here. He got away with the student riots in the Spring, sending ludicrous amounts of police officers in to control the situation. The same happened with the riots that took place after the jobs march in London. He got away with that, not just because of the overspend on police hours but because the will of the people to be violent was not there at that point.
But people are restless and with every right to be so. We did not all join in when Thatcher was about to wreak havoc on our society and look what happened. She got away with murder.

We should not let Cameron do the same.

This is not inciting violence, this is merely calling people to consider what should happen next and to also look at places like Egypt where peaceful demonstrations, despite such provocation from the army, took place and made change happen.

Our world is sick and dying at present, and there is part of me that is grateful for that, however bizarre that might seem. The controlling purses of the world bankers need to be exposed, and still they get their bonuses. Our glorious government have reacted to this by chopping the very services that people need, not wish for, NEED, in order to live. And still the bankers earn their squillions.

This is connected. Of course people are fed up. Injustice does this to people and everyone has a breaking point. When the individual’s breaking point combines with others, then this sort of thing happens.

Any government that underestimates the will of the people is a foolish one, especially when they are tentatively part of a coalition that could collapse if the balls of the enlightened few within the Liberal party finally flash in front of the consciousness of their leaders.

Of course I don’t want violence but I do want people to see there is some justification in peoples’ fear. Of course some of what we saw on the television last night was mindless, but if you do nothing to support a rounded education for these people, what the hell do you expect? Constant boredom in the classroom is a direct source for this frustration as is the poverty that people pretend is not happening.

We have so bloody far to go in this country and in others. The dickheads who were looting yesterday are stupid but they are also bored, they are also uneducated in intelligent ways of being, they have knowledge and what knowledge that they have has no relevance to their lives at present. They need channelling, they need excitement, they need some purpose and I fear that I cannot see it coming their way, not even for the next generation either.

There is another way of course, and I just wonder whether anyone in power will ever see what could be.

Acronyms

I’ve never been a big fan of acronyms. It’s indicative of the contrived simplification that has overtaken our world, with L*R and LOL and PMSL. But I suppose there is some creativity in these made-up words that so many teenagers rely on now to communicate with one another.

FINE is my favourite: fucked off, insecure, neurotic and emotional.

I’m fine, people say but what they really mean is more akin to the acronym of despondency. Fine, they say but they are hiding their true feelings behind this insipid word that has little meaning.

Of course sometimes they really are fine and they are content and perfectly at one with their world and themselves and they really are fine, in that moment.

But what it they’re not? They still say “I’m fine” when all sorts of misgivings and concerns underwrite this expression.

I’m fine at the moment, but which one?

If I’m being completely honest, it’s probably both; ever changing with the prevailing wind, ever fluctuating according to circumstance and company.

And that is fine. Ho ho!

It is fine, it is absolutely as it is and as it should be, to oscillate with the flow of the tide and the rush of the wind.
One of the most important things that we should all learn about life is that change is omnipresent and that change doesn’t have to be a life-changing, shattering or enticing experience. Change can be something that happens to us every day, all day if we are enlightened enough to accept it positively, or as it is.

People fear change with such force in a manner that they should fear the absolute opposite. And in fearing change, small change, little changes that are not necessarily as significant as they think, they are in grave danger of enabling the more frightening changes to actually happen: a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.

So I suppose it is fine to be fine but one should always be mindful that ‘fine’ can and should fluctuate.

But what if?

“If”: such a little word, so incidental as we use it daily.
But what does ‘if’ mean?

‘If’ implies doubt. ‘If’ implies possibilities. ‘If’ portrays transience. ‘If’ opens imagination both good and not so. ‘IF’ is an acronym in itself but what is that acronym?

What if? I think sometimes.
What ‘if’ things change irrepairably?

What ‘if’ I can’t cope with change when I know I should embrace all change with the graciousness it deserves?
WHAT IF?

In the context, ‘if’ can be a dangerous little word because within ‘if’ lies the acronym: insecure and fearful.

These ‘if’s are borne out of these two dangerous and destructive feelings, and indeed emotions. Our insecurities are manifestations of the emotion of fear, and as we all know there is no purpose in this emotion other than instilling more uncomfortable feelings.

What do I fear in life?
I’m frightened of flying, or have been for the majority of my life but what is the point of being so fearful? At worst, the big lump of metal will fall from the sky with me contained within it. I’ll know very little about it after the initial horror so why bother worrying when all it does is prevent you from getting on with life and travelling the world?

I’m frightened of fluttering things; birds, moths and fish. Oh yes, they fly alright! I’ve seen them and once they’re out of the water, they flap around uncontrollably, sending me into a complete dither! But what precisely are these animals going to do to me other than give me an instance of discomfort that is gone as soon as it has happened? What is the point in such an irrational fear?

What if I were to lose something so precious that I feel I could not live a fulfilled life without it? The same irrationality applies. In perpetually fearing, one is already living and unfulfilled life, only a slightly different lack of fulfilment than the one you initially feared.
There is no point. Fear is not just a destructive emotion, it is a useless one too.

Insecurity is equally pointless because like fear of change, it can become self-fulfilling.

How many of us have suffered from insecurity in relationships only to find that the constant insecurity brings about the very change in a relationship that we are most insecure about.

It is all pointless.

So why do we do it? Why do we fill our lives with ‘what ifs’ when we know that they have the habit of filling our thoughts and indeed our lives to the point of destruction? Why do we do the ‘what if’s’?

The enlightened of course don’t. They recognise the fact that there is no purpose in the ‘if’

. They understand that the ‘if’ gets in the way of them living life to the full and in the moment.

Is this reckless? Is this thoughtless? Is this lacking in empathy or even compassion?

There is a huge difference between complacency and indifference compared with non-attachment and living within the moment, and that is sometimes hard to grasp and frequently misconstrued.

It isn’t that the enlightened have no ‘if’s. It isn’t that they are detached from the ‘if’s of the most important people in their lives. It is just that they know the futility of lingering on an if. They understand that it can get in the way of real living, real loving, real compassion.

It isn’t that they don’t care. It isn’t that they haven’t considered the ‘if’ but they are not going to let their lives be determined by it. They release the ‘if’ acronym into the place where it belongs; transient and forgotten before it consumes the present with doubt.

This is where I want to be and this, I hope, is where my path is leading, and this is what I am going to consider next time an ‘if’ rises in my mind. That is not to say that I am going to be successful but I am going to try.

It is not to dismiss the ‘if’ altogether. Blatantly disregarding all possibilities, both hopeful and worrying could bring one into a world of unbearable fantasy. One cannot possibly dismiss all ‘ifs’ for if one did, the potential downfall from an ever-present high could be a tumble too far. One should never be complacent. All possibilities, all if’s should be seen for their yin and their yang, making them neither too hopeful or too worrisome.

Which neatly brings me to an alternative ‘if’. I don’t know what the answer is to this for after many days of thinking about it, I would like to offer an alternative to the ‘insecure’ and the ‘ fearful’ IF, that reflects more aptly the Way.

IF: intense feeling? It doesn’t really fit and now I am grasping around for a more positive ‘I’s and ‘F’s to put in place of the destructive ones.
IF: incalculable future? Is there such a word as incalculable but I am getting closer to where I want to be, for we cannot calculate the future, however much we would like to in order to eradicate the negative ‘if’s.

Perhaps it is more of an ‘ef’ than an ‘if’, embracing futures, without fear, without insecurity, with and without hope, with and without anticipation.

What if? Let it be.

But it seriously helps if honesty and trust prevails. Truth may hurt but it is necessary to help sort out the ‘what ifs’.

Talking of acronyms, a story comes to mind of another favourite of mine, well two actually, and both have a vein of Zen truth within them.

The first is FIFO; not even a real word but one that makes me giggle with memory. FIFO is a little harsh and there are parts of such a phrase that are so removed from the Way that it is barely worth mentioning in this context.
FIFO: fit in or fuck off.
I had a boss who said it from time to time when he was exasperated by peoples’ inflexibility.

It’s not exactly zen-like, and it is certainly not the Way to fit in to other peoples’ Way if you lose yourself as part of the process. But there is a message here about adaption, of flexibility, of strength in embracing change, and if one cannot do that, then it is right to peacefully walk away without malice, without angst, with just an acceptance that there was no other way.

FIFO.

And then there is another acronym which was not mentioned in the context that I am about to use it.

My brother was explaining how the company that he currently works for used to have a man on the board of directors who could not stop saying inane things. Others amongst them got so fed up of his constant interjections of rubbish that they made up a phrase that doubled up as an acronym. As soon as this phrase was mentioned it was a sign for someone else to change the subject; rather like the end of a round of Mornington Crescent.

The phrase and the acronym?
“There we are then” signalling and end of the conversation and an indication, through the acronym of what they all felt about this bore.

There we are then. And that is something that we should all live by (not the acronym).

We are where we are, as it is.

There we are then!