Failures Aplenty.

During my last year in high school (at age 16, don’t forget, if you’ve ever bothered to read my profile) I was made a prefect and Head Boy. I assume they must have thought me a pillar of the establishment mindset and a worthy person to be the face of the school at public events. What they didn’t know about were the illegal things I got up to once I was on the other side of the school gates.

A year later I was granted a cadetship at the Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth.  I was the only one on my application panel who got through, so I assume the Admiralty must have decided I was a born leader. What they didn’t know was that I had no more desire to lead than I did to be led. All I ever wanted to do was play my own games my own way. (The reason I applied to be a naval officer is long and complicated. Don’t ask.)

When I was 20 I got a job as a travelling salesman/merchandiser with Mars Ltd, winning the day over 104 other applicants. I assume they must have thought that I was perfect salesman material because they delighted in telling me that I had the highest IQ in the whole company, apparently failing to realise that the two skills are entirely unconnected and people with very high IQs hardly ever aspire to be salesman/merchandisers. I only applied for the job to get the company car which was big and white and quite swanky by the standards to which I was accustomed. A year later I left without another job to go to because I’d learned very quickly that trying to tell people what they should and shouldn’t be selling in their shops is not only unconscionably presumptuous but actually quite depressing. (And then I spent a wonderful summer decorating the house, fishing, getting to know my little daughter better, and watching every ball of the test matches on the TV. I think we were playing India that year and I’m fairly sure we won.)

One thing I never tried to be was a teacher. Maybe I should have done; maybe I would have realised even earlier than I did that 99% of what people claim to know is actually just what somebody else has told them. And no doubt I would have failed at that as I failed at everything else.

Nowadays I do little other than listen to stuff like this on YouTube:

  

It’s the same Sámi woman I posted a couple of nights ago. Her voice comes close to blowing my head off and frustrates the hell out of me because I can’t sit with her over a cup of coffee or a glass of whisky or a plate of spaghetti Bolognese, talking endlessly of things shallow and profound with equal fervour while gradually exploring every aspect of her being. (No déjà vu here; just repeating something I wrote a few nights ago because I like the sound of it.) But I expect I’d fail at that as well. It’s what I do.