THE HEIGHT OF UN-WELLNESS

Did a BBC Radio Interview today and as per usual in November I loose my voice. Change in season, I always use to blame the dry air and continual shouting of the experience that is World Travel Market, but this has happened before WTM, so perhaps I'll explain it on a course I went on at the weekend.    Visited Greenwich. Lovely place and the Cutty Sark.  A ship I visited last when I was ten.   I like Greenwich village. It has a bohemian edge which Richmond has lost.  

The radio interview was about Stress Awareness Day.  I chatted in my husky voice which occasionally verged on Minnie Mouse about stress in the work place and how they are offering employees ways to deal with stress. Surely the best way to deal with stress is to change the working systems, change the management and identify that the people who work in the business aren't hard, tough, sociopathic enough to deal with what is expected of them.   It would make things much easier.

Of course, there are things you can't change.   The people around you may cause you stress.  Family and friends who cause you stress should be deleted.  It is possible and yes you might feel lonely initially but it is amazing how quickly white space makes you appreciate those you really miss, and those who were just, well, filling space.

So tomorrow yoga-ing all day and to radio show and then to a meeting and full day on Friday. Hope the voice will hold out. Radio is a bit of a bummer without a voice.

 As for how to deal with stress, and basic unwellness - I go for sleep. Sleep should be made statutory in the afternoon for two hours - 2 - 4.  That would deal with stress.   We don't need a day to make us aware of it.  

LOST IN ACADEMIA..

Lost in academia for the past four years, with little distraction I have observed more than I usually do. Culled friends rather than the other way round, and started to say no.   I don't usually do no. I do, can we work this out, which means I have to re work my thoughts completely, or perspective completely.

Academia is safe. Its a bit like being in an intellectual monastery.    You feel safe bound in by rules and regulations and you are irrelevant to the outside world although you think you are.    Our education system is irrelevant.  We have forgotten what we want.   We are told what we want but actually, when we listen to ourselves, we don't want that at all.  I learnt from the degree how little we teach our young, and how what we do teach them is largely irrelevant to what is valuable and of worth.

RAINY SATURDAYS WITH SPOONFULS OF SUGAR... (AND COFFEE).

Here I am on a Saturday evening, grey, wet and windy (the weather not me), playing Mary Poppins, a spoonful of sugar, trying to find the fun in cognitive psychology.   Categories and concepts, working memory (of which mine is limited, that’s why I write) and the issues with cognitive psychology (with which there are many). Perception, recognition and cognition and emotion, which is a very short chapter because we (or they did) know naff all about it.

So I went out to the cinema for a quick break to see the first Monday in May.    Vogue and the Met Ball and the Chinese connection.  V interesting.  Couture is art.    Back for more revision and pacing up and down. Exam on Thursday.   I feel for Tom. He has years of this to come. Ouch.

LOST VALUES

Each morning I wake up and have a brief look at Facebook and twitter. Twitter has a lot of rubbish on it I'm not interested in.

Facebook is a bit more selective, a mixture of happy silly things animals do although I didn't like the one about cats knocking over small children. No didn't get that one.    And then there is the rant about Brexit and about how everyone who voted out is stupid, ignorant, bigoted, selfish and racist, unaware of the greater good and the darker evil that lurks in all the media to manipulate hearts and minds.  And how all those who chose to Remain are elitist evangelistic intellectuals who are untrustworthy, arrogant, deceitful, sociopathic liars, who are emotionally dysfunctional with bullying mothers and are fearful of losing all their money because that is the only thing that holds them together.  

We have politicians who have shown themselves to be self absorbed cowards (although we knew that already, didn't we?), and probably into the dark net more than those they monitor, and who are arguing against each other and vindictive, irresponsible media who are mis quoting, misrepresenting and turning every positive into a negative and trying to find a lot more of their own.

Combined with this, you have baby boomers who are wondering what their life is all about, trying to find their inner child when they should be finding their inner grown up, and if they have wasted their life so far on the accumulation of money and stuff (short answer - you have).   And haven't focused on what is really important and have valued that are completely screwed (short answer - if you focused on accumulation of money and stuff - you have).

Counsellors, psychologists, healer, yoga classes have waiting lists because everyone is stressed and stressed people are easy to manipulate and they desperately feel out of control because they never had it in the first place.

Then you have the woo woos, who are the other group of evangelists, you tell us we have to be kind to each other and kindness is catching (there's a survey out today saying that is true. Really, you needed a survey to show that did you?).  But they have a sanctimonious air about them as though they are full of the holy spirit and despite preaching rising above ego, are all high church.    And they tell us to stop doing something which has been ingrained since childhood through social conditioning which is extremely difficult to get rid of.    It is not that easy.   And then they tell us they know its not that easy but its a bit like being told how to give birth by someone who has never given birth. Every experience is different.

Stop.

Stand back and realise that everyone has a point. Both sides have a right side and that the good from both sides should be addressed. There is good and bad in everything.  The remain side had a point and the leaver side had a point.    EU was a bad marriage.   It was a bad marriage.   Both sides need to work on themselves and both sides weren't prepared to.    There was a striking lack of maturity in how all this has been dealt with.  I know the media dumb down things so that the masses are able to understand things, but by simplifying things to such an extent they made a very complicated relationship seem one of black and white 'economy vs immigration' right and wrongs, and like every relationship, its not that simple.  Culture and nature and values and use of language are complex and can not be decided on with a 'yes and a no'.   A bit like friends only getting one side of the story on which to base their advice, and not getting the whole story.   No side told the whole story and the one who could (the media) was the last person one should trust.    

Then there was petulant behaviour from politicians who are unworthy of the people they serve.    I don't know if it is just how its being reported by the media but my analogy to playground politics is really quite accurate.  One boy doesn't like another boy so he won't play with him.  One politician doesn't like another politician so he won't vote for him.  

We tried to make the marriage work.  We went to counselling and it couldn't be worked out because both sides have to make it want to work and if they don't, it won't.

One side won't give up - the remainers.    The leavers would not either if they had lost.   But rather than just being constructive about it, and realising we have to think long term (as in two years which is a forever in this short sighted, must have world), we are panicking.

There are a lot of voices of doom and gloom.   There are very few voices of balanced reason out there, who are not resorting to emotional rhetoric.    I can't hear many of them.  Even those names in journalism I have long respected are sounding armageddon.   As though the end of the world is nigh.

It is not. Just this warped world of warped values is crumbling and that is a good thing. The dead wood has been too long held up by the fresh wood and the dead wood has to go.   It is only held together by the systems that have long been broken.    Of course, it will want to take the rest of us with it, and it won't go without a fight, but go it will.  And that makes them even more afraid and needy.    Hence the aggression and anger and fighting and rubbish that is being printed in the media that passes for balanced commentary.

What it has shown me is to what extent people are afraid and greedy.   People I know who I thought would have more substance.   This is the only thing I have found shocking.  I don't care about the people I don't know. Who are mere names in a paper. They are PR constructs and I don't have a clue who they are.   I'm not sure they do.   I'm shocked by those I know.    I thought people would have more courage and more compassion.   When we change our values we change our perspective.   We tell our children kindness is paramount but we do not show it in how we behave or how we are communicating with one another now.  

I think we will be fine.  Because in divorce, you find out who your real friends are and you go as low as you can go.   And then, you rebuild your self and find out what you are really made of.    Just that those who lack substance are finding out just that.   That they lack substance.     I do not believe we have hit rock bottom yet.    It is only then we will identify what is of value.  Because most of us have forgotten.

WHERE ARE THE GROWN UPS?

This is playground politics.      We have voted out of the EU and those who 'lost' are throwing the toys out of the pram because they didn't win.   This is the so called political class, who are also becoming very much the sneering class, classifying those who voted leave as imbeciles because they didn't understand what they were doing.  That is extremely arrogant and ignorant of those who voted to remain. Those who chose remain felt they benefited from being in the EU and the economy is going well.  Actually they said they 'knew' it.    And that staying would mean we would have better negotiating skills inside Europe.    Those who voted leave felt they weren't benefiting from being in the EU and although they were told the economy was going well, they didn't feel it.   If they did, they would have voted remain.

Under the banner of immigration and economy the two sides have fought but actually neither are the real issues.  Yes immigration was increasing dramatically, but the economy is also doing well.   But neither are as dramatic as they say. There was exaggeration. As soon as you exaggerate, you lose credibility.   Both sides had a point. Rather than saying 'both sides have a point and are valid', both sides  chose to bash the shit out of each other and say this is a black and white.  An immigration vs economy issue.  And its not that simple.   The media were irresponsible but then they always are when they are given such obtuse hypothetical information in the first place. They also make stuff up.  
Furthermore both sides offered such weak and convoluted 'hypothetical' evidence for their cause, often spouted by people who lacked credibility despite being headlined as 'experts' that I am amazed the turn out was so high.    The 'people' thought everyone was lying to them.  These people had before.

Meanwhile there are parents apologising to their children for ruining their future.   Really?  Well, that won't scare the shit out of them will it.  They may feel the vote was irresponsible but not as irresponsible as telling their children that the end of the world is nigh.  Creating a generation that will be stunted by fear, just as in many ways our own parents were.  

Shit has happened.  perhaps. We don't know yet. Not even the ones who think they know, know yet.  The markets are depressed, in turmoil, unhappy, as though they are living breathing human beings. They are not. They are run by gamblers who care more about their wine than they do about other peoples money. They guess.  Everything is hypothetical.   Its like screaming at a river for flowing the wrong way.   Like screaming at water.   And hey, the shit may fertilise some new idea thats better.  The river may take us to a better place.   We don't know. There may be grown ups somewhere who will realise there was value in both sides of the arguments and come to a balanced compromise so that every one wins.  Just like a divorce which this is being compared to, no one should go away with everything. No one wins in a divorce.    The man will always give more than he wants and the wife will always get less than she wants. Or the other way round depending who earns most of the money in the first place.   And the one that earns it doesn't mean they deserve it or are worth it either.   Its a fifty fifty thing, just like this vote was really.  That is how it should be.  So with this.

This proves we could see both sides of the argument.    Because both sides made a valid point.    Now go back and tell your children that.    YOU are scaring them.

BIRTHDAY BLIP

I haven’t been on here for ages have I?  I thought I would write as so much has happened, but I want to keep it to myself.   I’ve just read Bridget Jones ‘Mad About a Boy’ which best friend Caroline gave me some years back. I don’t read but strangely thought on way back from yoga retreat at the French house I would have time. I did. My flight was cancelled and I spent the night on a bench at Toulouse airport. All the hotels put up their prices just in time for cancelled flights and air traffic control. So it was an intriguing way to start the birthday.  Not the worst birthday I have had which says a lot for my birthdays, but worthy of a blog. And I felt I was doing something, going somewhere on my birthday,  which I don’t often.   And the fact I can think of it as intriguing as opposed to bad says a lot for perspective.  Not exactly rose tinted but everything has an upside.  Even air traffic control strikes. 

So reading Bridget Jones I have decided I am Bridget Jones and her friends. Having read about her and her life, I am her only there isn’t an SAS man in my life at the moment who’s pretending to be a teacher or anything. Or not to my knowledge.   There could be but I can’t see the usual suspects.   She has a surreal life and so do I.  Never dull during the ‘intriguing’ and downright wonderful moments. 

Yoga is going well. I love it.   I love teaching it and doing it is fine, but it’s the teaching it I love.   Writing I love too and that’s going well.  I’m blessed with a wonderful son and lovely friends who I don’t see enough of.  Radio going well. All going well, so that’s why I haven’t been writing the blog.   

So the birthday blip got me back to the blog.  

What else is happening?  Oh EU. 

In the world there is the EU debate.  The politicians are being purposely obtuse. If you can't convince confuse and thats what they have done.   Even the journalists are at a loss for more ways to describe 'no one knows what will happen'.   

On man front nothing, other than my ex bf turned up at my ex husbands birthday party, which was odd.  Both for him to invite and him to ask to be invited as they haven’t been in touch for thirty-two years but nice to know they have a connection now of sorts.  Me.   One’s more S & M the other more M & S.    I married the better man.

TRUMPED BY LACK OF CHOICE.

Watched the Trump interview last night.    The more I see politicians the more I feel the non politicians would do a better job. Politics is not about doing good, its about looking good.  Two very different things and at the moment the politicians in our government are being transparent (something they ironically say they always want to be) showing themselves to be self serving individuals jostling for places m the next government and not giving two hoots about the country.  Trump has enough money not to be at the bock and call of anyone.   he jumps to his own tune and although I think his hair is a mess (who cares) he realises the power is not only in the message but in delivering the promise.  He knows the 'people' are fed up of being run by people who are out of touch.   The politicians are The Riot Club. Even to the extent I believe their behaviour sickens some of them to the point they want out.   Just as the law has nothing to do with mortality and ethics, politics has nothing to do with the people.   It is to do with self promotion and keeping options open.   Point is, when you need a decision to be made for the good of the people, this lot do not understand they are there to facilitate, as are all the establishments.  They are not hierarchy to be revered or respected.  They are something to facilitate the rest of us making the most of our lives. That is what they are there for.    And at the moment our politicians do not deserve our respect or time, let alone our vote.

As for Trump, I don't know. He's a media man, so probably a very good liar and all you know about very good liars are they are very good liars. But then so are our politicians.   What a choice.