You've all pretty much figured out I'm a confident person if you've read these posts. I don't have an issue making my case or wants known, I don't resign from responsibility easily and I pretty much am a control freak in all things on this planet that I can possibly control and some things I shouldn't. I've also blogged about my belief in being right.
What if I'm wrong?
Decisions made at forks in the road can have quite dire effects. Take the wrong path and end up god knows where. I have been very lucky in my life that each fork has ended up in a better place. If there was any chance it wasn't going to end up that way, a big dose of luck kicked in and made it right. Buying and selling houses or cars, having kids, moving states, investments, changing jobs, or getting married. They all worked fine! Is that good luck or good management? Is it a function of me being right or just dumb luck and I was wrong the entire time! How can I not consider this may well be the case and that any future decisions could be so fucked up my luck just throws its hands in the air and walks off talking back to me over it's should that I'm on my own now! I'm finding myself more and more paralyzed by this thought but forge ahead in "doing things" and "getting things done", "being a doer" to disguise the fact.
Maybe its time for me to just sit and let others make my mind up? Run an ad in the jobs section "Position Vacant - Decision Maker. Previous experience unnecessary as we have no good yardstick to measure you against".The good side of that is that if it works, I gain. Whatever the decision was, I didn't have the stress about knowing if its right or wrong, just the benefit of it's outcome. The bad side that if it doesn't work out, blaming my newly engaged decision maker is fruitless and all I can do it sack them. I'm leaving the decision regarding getting a decision maker to the decision maker I hire if I decide to hire a decision maker.
Monday, 16 December 2013
Monday, 9 December 2013
We forgot about nature
As a child, we had a small dog called Puck (after Puck of Pook's Hill) and we had him since birth essentially. Due to the nature of his name, he got used to his outside name too. 'Lob'. This was required as the eyebrows of neighbors upon hearing us yell 'puck' up and down the street were raised in disapproval. So there it was , Puck inside and Lob outside. It made complete sense to us. One day, he was just no longer in the yard. He was old and grey and I missed him. My dad told me dogs just know when nature has finished with them and they go away to die in peace.
Years later as a teenager, my now wife's family had a golden retriever called Benji. A lovely family member they'd had since a pup and at the age of about 14, simply went down to the back garden, lay down under a bush and died. Nature was there big and proud but the yard fence was bigger and prouder, stopping his most natural migration to his final moments and death.
It seems to me that we've forgotten about nature in some respects.
As some of you may have read, my mum is suffering chronic dementia and resides in a secured high dependency facility. When I say high dependency, I mean total dependency. There is just no one home anymore. Walking into such a place is quite confronting. There is a range of oldies in varying states of oblivion. Some happy, some with verbal diarrhea, others seemingly quite normal and then there's the one that are no more. The blank staring eyes, unable to talk, walk, control their bowels, feed themselves, smile, laugh, cry or even acknowledge their own existence. Nature has finished with them but we haven't. Resources a plenty are poured into these places keeping our elderly comfortable and fed and cared for and I question why. I can say this because my own mother is there in that bucket. It's impossible not to feel differently about her given her condition, but I feel for the mum I used to have, not the existing remains. The mum I used to have was mum, she was OK, not the best, not the worst but was OK. The collection of cells passing themselves off for mum nowadays is nothing short of criminal.
But what makes you god? I here you ask. What makes it OK for you to decide who goes and who stays? Take a look into their eyes and you'll know that answer. I am enamored by eyes. I love them. These eyes have nothing, no spark, no life, no knowing, no appreciation, no joy, no sadness, no nothing. Nature has taken that from them but we have as a society decided to overrule Nature, sideline it, render it a passenger and forge ahead maintaining life at all cost. We are wrong. Trust nature, let nature decide. We forgot about nature.
Years later as a teenager, my now wife's family had a golden retriever called Benji. A lovely family member they'd had since a pup and at the age of about 14, simply went down to the back garden, lay down under a bush and died. Nature was there big and proud but the yard fence was bigger and prouder, stopping his most natural migration to his final moments and death.
It seems to me that we've forgotten about nature in some respects.
As some of you may have read, my mum is suffering chronic dementia and resides in a secured high dependency facility. When I say high dependency, I mean total dependency. There is just no one home anymore. Walking into such a place is quite confronting. There is a range of oldies in varying states of oblivion. Some happy, some with verbal diarrhea, others seemingly quite normal and then there's the one that are no more. The blank staring eyes, unable to talk, walk, control their bowels, feed themselves, smile, laugh, cry or even acknowledge their own existence. Nature has finished with them but we haven't. Resources a plenty are poured into these places keeping our elderly comfortable and fed and cared for and I question why. I can say this because my own mother is there in that bucket. It's impossible not to feel differently about her given her condition, but I feel for the mum I used to have, not the existing remains. The mum I used to have was mum, she was OK, not the best, not the worst but was OK. The collection of cells passing themselves off for mum nowadays is nothing short of criminal.
But what makes you god? I here you ask. What makes it OK for you to decide who goes and who stays? Take a look into their eyes and you'll know that answer. I am enamored by eyes. I love them. These eyes have nothing, no spark, no life, no knowing, no appreciation, no joy, no sadness, no nothing. Nature has taken that from them but we have as a society decided to overrule Nature, sideline it, render it a passenger and forge ahead maintaining life at all cost. We are wrong. Trust nature, let nature decide. We forgot about nature.
Right
I sit and stare in to the ether and the edges of my field of vision go fuzzy yet the centre of my stare stays crisp and rigid. I am thinking to myself could I be wrong but knowing all the while that I'm right. My belief in my being right is concrete. But being right is only ever useful if those around you accept the fact. Denial is common. What use is being right if you're told you are wrong? Maybe its not about being right, but maybe life is about grey and greyer. My chest aches with the words I hold back for fear of angering but I know I'm right so why even bother pushing my point. I should embrace the grey, celebrate in its cloudiness and hide among its puffs. I can still be right in there too can't I?
Monday, 2 December 2013
Trust me
My youngest has what can only be described as an over active fear of bees. A phobia of biblical proportions. Even today on the cusp of 12, whenever a bee comes within his field of vision, no matter how far away it is, he'll recoil in fear and demand I do something about the clear and present danger. I have no idea where this came from but did once, try to remedy it without success.
The family was frolicking in the pool as families do. Water splashing, laughing and all around a great time in the sun. We had an airbed in the pool too, taking turns trying to stay on whilst the others were all trying to flip you off it. It was one of those magic family times that can only ever get fucked up by the dad.
Griff saw the bee and immediately went into flight mode trying to dodge the insect flying a good 6 or 8 feet above our heads.
"Dad he'll sting me, kill it, make it go away"
"don't be silly son, he has no more interest in you than we have in him"
I continued, "bees don't sting unless they are threatened, its the way they repel enemies so that the others in their group are safe". My calming dad voice echoed across the water as I help Griff up on the airbed out of the water so that I could allay his fears about this innocent little bee going about its business. Griff was not happy about this and wanted to return to the water and safety but I felt it reasonable to let him understand that there was zero risk and that he was being unnecessarily paranoid. He looked at me dis trustingly and I could only reply "trust me".
The bee must have been broken is all I can think. It flew straight down onto his leg and stung him deep.
As Griff's eyes widened and he experienced his first bee sting, his attention turned to me and my inability to keep a straight face. His horror at me was unmistakable. I know its bad to laugh at a youngster as he struggles with nature but hey, you had to have been there! I did try to conceal my smirk but rather unsuccessfully I'm afraid. In one sense, it worked because his pissedness at me over ran the pain of the sting and he maybe felt less as we excavated the pulsing spear from his flesh. I like to think that anyway, trust me!
The family was frolicking in the pool as families do. Water splashing, laughing and all around a great time in the sun. We had an airbed in the pool too, taking turns trying to stay on whilst the others were all trying to flip you off it. It was one of those magic family times that can only ever get fucked up by the dad.
Griff saw the bee and immediately went into flight mode trying to dodge the insect flying a good 6 or 8 feet above our heads.
"Dad he'll sting me, kill it, make it go away"
"don't be silly son, he has no more interest in you than we have in him"
The bee must have been broken is all I can think. It flew straight down onto his leg and stung him deep.
As Griff's eyes widened and he experienced his first bee sting, his attention turned to me and my inability to keep a straight face. His horror at me was unmistakable. I know its bad to laugh at a youngster as he struggles with nature but hey, you had to have been there! I did try to conceal my smirk but rather unsuccessfully I'm afraid. In one sense, it worked because his pissedness at me over ran the pain of the sting and he maybe felt less as we excavated the pulsing spear from his flesh. I like to think that anyway, trust me!
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