On Blame and the Control Freak

Those familiar with the movie Dead Poets Society will no doubt remember the pivotal moment when Neil, a free-thinking student dominated by an intractable martinet of a father, commits suicide. We the audience are horrified by this, and are led by the writer to blame the bullying ways of his parent. The conservative school Establishment naturally takes a different view, preferring to massage the evidence so as to place the blame on Keating, the English master who encouraged Neil’s free-thinking nature. I’m on Keating’s side for my own reasons, of course: I hate any attempt to dominate me and despise any martinet who tries.

But it wasn’t always thus. I was born into a generation – not so very far behind Neil’s – which insinuated into boy children the view that the male is the dominant gender, and that firm, unbending control is the key to personal success and a harmonious society. We were taught that when we reached adulthood it was our right and duty to exercise firm control over women, children, animals, and anything else which moved. And this indoctrination went so deep that the old impulse occasionally comes to the surface in me even now.

I suppose I should be ashamed to admit the fact, and I am to a large extent. But conditioning of that sort is hard to excise completely because it sits at the base of perception, and how many times have I suggested that perception is the whole of the life experience?

You may rest assured that I now recognise the control imperative when it shows its ugly face and take whatever pains are necessary to reason myself away from it. And fortunately, it doesn’t happen often anyway. But it’s still there, and is why I find myself questioning whether responsibility for Neil’s predicament is quite as straightforward as it appears on the surface. And I’m often moved to ask the question: ‘What sort of innate quality do we need to possess in order to rid ourselves completely of unacceptable childhood conditioning.’

Yet More Random Thoughts.

I had a most unfamiliar sensation this morning: I felt, quite suddenly and with no obvious source of prompting, that I wanted to touch somebody. I wanted a woman of whom I approved to slip her arm through mine, or a man of whom I approved to shake my hand. This is odd because I’ve never been the touchy-feely sort, and it never occurred to me that the restrictions consequent upon the pandemic would cause me to miss it.

*  *  *

I saw a headline today in which the term ‘mental health’ was used in a way I deemed inappropriate. I think we’re becoming far too inclined these days to substitute ‘mental health’ for the simpler, more general, more accurate, and less emotive phrase ‘state of mind.’

*  *  *

I felt moved by the sight of the yellowing leaves while out on a walk today, and experienced a growing conviction that the individualised consciousness is driven by the same cyclical imperative as drives nearly all natural processes in the phenomenal universe. Metempsychosis is gaining ground.

*  *  *

And then an uninvited thought sprang into my own consciousness and advised me that the secret of Life, the Universe and Everything is contained within the phrase ‘even earthworms defecate.’ I frowned, but didn’t disagree.

A Foreign Body Down Under.

I strongly suspect, in fact I’m nearly certain of it, that I have a foreign body in my groin. (And just in case you think I’m being uncomfortably personal here, I should point out that it’s in the top part of my groin adjacent to where my left thigh pivots. It’s all to do with the procedure I had done a couple of weeks ago to get my left leg functioning again.)

I won’t bother to offer what evidence I have to support this suspicion, but it’s very strong and I don’t much like it, especially since the object is almost certainly green and made of plastic. This won’t do, will it? If it were a piece of shrapnel coloured gun metal grey I’d be able to hold my head up high in any company. I could even fly to Australia, and when the customs man asked the question which determines whether or not you’re a fit person to be allowed entry – do you like Vegemite, mate? – I could answer: ‘I really couldn’t say, my fine fellow, but I do have shrapnel.’ And then he would be duly impressed and reply: ‘Oh right, mate. That’s the next best thing. In you come and pick up your barbie vouchers by the door.’

But green and plastic? How can I possibly walk freely among my fellow creatures with a green plastic article loitering indecently off limits? And what about when I’ve shuffled off my very own mortal coil and been cremated? Some curious person might empty the ashes out onto an old newspaper or something and exclaim in a tone of disgust and disbelief: ‘Yerk! What’s this lump of green stuff, here?’ And then somebody from the assembled multitude in the room would offer: ‘Looks like a bit of melted plastic to me.’ And the rest would concur, and then I’d be too ashamed to haunt anybody ever again. 

On Spanners and a Single Blessing.

Today the cyber glitches came not as single spies but in battalions – glitches in Blogger, Skype, and my online bank account, all of which caused confusion, frustration and delays.

This afternoon I made three attempts to get some autumn gardening work done. I did so because I was encouraged by the light white cloud, the sunny periods, and the general air of calm and settled weather. Three times I got half way through the job when the black stuff appeared, closely followed by rain. On the third occasion the rain was heavy and driven by the sudden onrush of a gale force wind. It was also accompanied by a blizzard of falling leaves which seemed to take great delight in making clattering noises everywhere. That was when I yelled at the universe and asked it just how many spanners it had at its disposal to throw into the machinery of my life just because it can. I received no reply and I doubt it did any good.

That’s how my life is at the moment. Every day I get one or more spanners landing in the machinery of my activities and bringing matters to at least a temporary halt. It seems to be getting worse, and I’m certainly growing very tired of it.

*  *  *

But today there was one redeeming feature which blessed the occasion of my walk. The Lady B’s dear mama came down the road in her Audi (Audis seem to be catching on in that family), slowed, smiled and waved. It was the first time I’ve ever seen the Lady B’s dear mama drive an Audi, but it mattered little since she does have such a lovely smile. It even looks authentic, which I happen to consider important.

I like the Lady B’s mama, you know. I always have. I think she is now the only person in the whole wide world who may be relied upon to slow, smile and wave when she passes me in the car. She is also the only person currently domiciled in the Shire with whom I welcome a conversation. Having said which, there is of course the matter of Honourable Sister. I think I would very much like to have a conversation with her, too, but Honourable Sister occupies the inner sanctum of some remote and impenetrable part of the palace. One imagines a regiment of hardened personnel securing the labyrinthine approaches from the likes of me. Whether they be eunuchs or a detachment of the Praetorian Guard I couldn’t say, but I imagine it’s something along those lines.

A Change in Image.

Remember when fashion models looked like this:

 

 

I suppose the defining word would have to be something like ‘wholesome.’ Nowadays they look like this: 

 

 

If I may be excused for paraphrasing a well known line from Kind Hearts and Coronets, I should say that her mouth is just a little too full, her eyes a touch too widely spaced, and her nose perhaps a little too fleshy. But the defining difference is in the descriptor: 

Badass.

That’s the name of the game now. And what continues to amuse me is that people who wear top branded clothing which vaunts its name for all to see apparently give little if any thought to the fact that they’re paying large sums of money to give the company free advertising.

On the Matter of Complaint.

‘He was a most worthy man and an example to us all,’ might read the obituary. ‘Life treated him with much unkindness and his troubles were great, yet never once did he complain.’

Why do people regard the lack of complaint as a sign of nobility? I don’t. Any reader of this blog knows that I’m never short of a complaint or two. I complain to managers of shops about their products or their stocking policies. I complain to all and sundry about the state of the world. I complain about the shortcomings of human nature. I complain about the weather. I complain about the airheaded pronouncements which drip from the mouths of policy makers and others in positions of influence. I complain about the absurdity of celebrity worship. I complain about the fact that the progress of life in the so-called developed world is largely driven by the self-interested few and the promotion of shallow and spurious priorities. Let anyone approach me and ask ‘How are you, Jeff’ and what do they inevitably get? A complaint.

I’m a whinger through and through, and I have no problem with the fact. If anybody cares to write an obituary for me, I expect it will begin: ‘He was a right bloody moaner, that one. Good riddance.’

Dylan Thomas, on the other hand, wrote: ‘Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.’ Did anybody call him a right bloody moaner?

I know I occasionally interrupt my natural inclination with a hint of praise where I feel it’s due, but only occasionally. I like exceptions to the rule. They are the stars in the dark night sky. 

Tonight I have a toothache. And ever since I started this new medication consequent upon my vascular procedure, the feeling of being weak, washed out and generally ill washes in and out several times a day like those waves on a beach in Tahiti I mentioned earlier. They’re the first two complaints which come to mind. The third is that I watched the first half hour of the movie Dead Poets Society tonight. The opening ten minutes reminded me of why I so despise the values held by white, upper middle class American culture. (To be fair, I think I was supposed to be so reminded.) ‘Excellence’ indeed! Do they not know that excellence is a variable concept based on a questionable value system? Idiots. The following twenty were more encouraging. I will persevere.

The Bard Being Wrong for Once.

Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care

The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,

Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,

Chief nourisher in life’s feast

~ Macbeth

Last night I dreamed that I was young again and still married. I came home from a trip away and found two strangers sitting in my car parked on the drive. They got out and walked away as I approached.

I went into the house to find another strange man in there, and it dawned on me that my wife was having multiple affairs. I decided I would have to leave and sat down with her to agree on the apportionment of our effects, but we kept being interrupted by people calling her out of the room to discuss more immediate and important matters.

The whole thing seemed to go on for a depressingly long time and I woke up feeling betrayed, frustrated, dispossessed and a little desolate.

None of it explained anything. No knitting up of any raveled sleeve of care here, no balm for any hurt mind. I wonder whether I’ll ever get to understand life while I’ve still got some left.

Connected Notes on Decadence and Guilt.

I still experience difficulty with the habit some people have of cutting the crusts off bread when making sandwiches. It seems inexcusably decadent to me (but I do try to excuse it because, well… kids today, you know?) Posh food outlets do it as well, which is the second reason – after their inflated prices – why I never go into posh food outlets.

My early days were spent in a working class household with parents who had known what it was to live on the bread line. They had themselves spent a childhood immersed in the standard form of working class poverty, and had also been subjected to the privations of the war years. And so I was instructed by them from the moment of weaning to eat the whole of whatever I was given and be grateful for the fact that it was there at all. 

But they allowed two exceptions. The first was brains on toast. (Yes, actual brains – white, slimy stuff which looked vaguely like albino scrambled egg only shiny. Can you imagine anything more disgusting than that?) The second was grilled conger eel steaks. It seems my parents recognised that the taste of conger eel was too strong for a child’s palate and allowed me an alternative. (I never did find out what conger eel tasted like because the smell alone was enough to turn my stomach.)

 

*  *  *

And now the tone of this post has to change because any mention of conger eel takes me back to an incident in my childhood.

We were on holiday in Devon, and one evening I was standing on the quayside at Brixham when I witnessed a man trying to bludgeon a conger eel to death with a heavy piece of wood. The poor fish wouldn’t die, but wriggled and struggled for what seemed like an age on the alien concrete as the brute of a man continued to beat the back of its head with the blunt instrument. I think it was my first experience of true brutality, and it horrified me.

Even now, when prompted to recall the memory, I feel an almost choking sense of remorse that I did nothing to save the creature. Exactly what would be hard to imagine since I was only 11, but the recollection is clear and the guilt wriggles and struggles as the fish did.

When Words Evolve.

When I was a kid, one of the favourite sweets was a product called Spangles made by Mars Ltd. They were cheap and came in a variety of flavours ranging from the standard fruit flavours to mint, aniseed and liquorice.

 

 

Something reminded me of them today and so I read the Wiki article on their history.  It seems they were made between 1950 and 1984, and in the early days the marketing slogan was:

Sweet Way to Go Gay!

Well now, are we to believe that the corporate world was ahead of the times in the matter of sexual orientation? Or was it a case of some mischievous ad-man putting one toe out of the closet? I don’t suppose we can ask him because he’s probably dead by now.

Reflecting on Very Little.

I keep looking for an email but it hasn’t arrived yet. I’m not sure why I keep looking for it. Is it because the sender is important to me and I will derive some benefit from the correspondence, or is it simply that I crave the ego boost of having someone recognise my presence in their world? It’s a sad suspicion that the latter is probably more typical of me than the former, but in this case I really don’t know.

*  *  * 

I’ve just been wiling away a little time reading some of Paul Auster’s short novel, The Locked Room. He’s a hell of a writer, you know. Sometimes he reminds me of me in both style and substance, but he goes much deeper into the substructure of life than I do. I’m too lazy for that, preferring to hint briefly at what I see beneath the surface rather than making the effort to offer a comprehensive view. But at least I understand him, which makes the reading relatively easy. 

*  *  *

And today I walked one of the circuits of lanes in these parts for the first time in a year and a half. It only amounts to about two miles, but when you think that I couldn’t manage even half a mile before the procedure, it was rather pleasant to be able to do the whole thing with no need of rests and nothing worse than very minor discomfort. And it was good to see the old views again and re-acquaint myself with some of my tree friends, many of whom are now in the early stages of their autumn livery.

The walk brought me back along Church Lane and I half-hoped that I would see the sun come out as I occasionally did in the earlier years of my Shire rambling. I didn’t, of course, because the person who used to draw the clouds aside now lives in a different world and probably never walks along Church Lane. And it’s a world in which I no longer have even a small place anyway. Maybe that’s why I keep looking for an email which hasn’t arrived yet.