July 2012 – Achilles & Aristotle

Reasonable Accomodation

Life is all about reasonable accommodation. One shouldn’t be taken for granted or for a ride. But if you can accommodate someone you should. And I’m trying to let go of ‘keeping score’ – especially in relationships and family life.

We are hard wired for equality. Perhaps the only species that is. Take chimps. Apparently, give them a resource and they’ll seek to monopolise or fight over it. Take 3-year-old children – who have similar mental resources to chimps – and they’ll naturally seek to share and equalise.

But we are also hard wired to cheat and compete; to seek advantage, freeload and be clever enough to get away with it. But good deeds beget more good deeds – and bad bad. So my mental motto is if you can ‘reasonably accommodate’, you should – even as I’m quietly harrumphing about a given task.

This morning my son wanted to balance in the car door sill before jumping out. I needed him out so I could get off to work. I could’ve shouted or I could’ve accommodated. He was happy and go lucky – why shout, it cost me but a moment.

Either me or the missus needed to go to the chemist to get some cream for him. I could’ve ignored it or accommodated – I went and got it. There are times when you can’t. But when you can, you should.

Life

What do the Olympic Games mean to the UK?

Here’s what I think the Olympics mean to the UK, broadcast on CNN yesterday. Despite the drizzle, high chair and precarious balcony – and the early hour – it was great to be within touching distance of the Olympic Stadium on opening day itself.

Danny Boyle’s Opening Ceremony for me was a stunner – a genuine encapsulation of the UK past and present which exceeded all my hopes and expecations. A truly memorable day. Let the games begin:

Children, Death, Life, Odysseus, Poetry

An Ordinary Day to Remember

Scooting around
Nothing profound
Passing the day
Having a play
Boy and his dad
Momentarily sad
I’m in my prime
His smile is sublime
But time is finite
One day will be twilight
And then away
So remember this day.

I was talking of death with my mother-in-law this week. A relative is very ill and her cohort is slowly dying around her. She seemed a bit troubled, so we talked. I think she wants to talk about death sometimes but not many people want that conversation.

I’m ok with it though. I feel I’ve created my two time capsules nurturing two beautiful children and left them some thoughts and ideas with this blog. Let’s not tempt fate, but if a bus smashed into me tomorrow I’d have a second of pique – b@llocks – and then rest.

I’m happy with who I am and what I’ve done. Opening an improving mortgage statement letter, booking a college reunion, scooting about and making pizzas – a humdrum day. But what’s not to like. Life is good – and both quite long and quite short. So make sure to enjoy the ordinary days, I say.

Life

Relevant Complexity 6) Superhumans

The most moving thing I’ve seen in a long time is the Channel 4 ‘superhumans’ clip to preview the London 2012 Paralympics. Just watch it.

The music, the muscles, the missing limbs and pieces of bodies, the bomb, the womb, the car smash, the slap of the basket long shot. It’s stunning.

But the bit that chokes me up, is the lad in GB shirt number 5101 in the middle. He looks at you like he’s maybe not sure if you’re going to laugh at him, but the almost imperceptible smile suggests he’s starting to believe that after this Paralympics you never will again.

I’m proud of Channel 4 and the UK for taking the ‘dis’ out of disability. There are millions of people round the world who – like those in the video – have to be ‘superhuman’ in their daily lives. All with different stories and obstacles they overcome and some they can’t.

What a way to remind us there’s amazing relevant complexity in people – which we often demean as disability – that too often we, society, employers, even governments choose to look away from and ignore – instead of recognising it as superhuman.

Aristotle, Ethics, Life, Work

Relevant Complexity 5) Age

Talking to someone at work, she said she’d been surprised that a very experienced chap in his late 50s had come on a training course.

We concluded that age shouldn’t matter in deciding who gets training. I know plenty of pig-headed twenty and thirtysomethings who’d have got less and will give less as a result of that training course – it’s openness to new ideas that matters.

It dawned on me that nearly all the people I most enjoy conversation and contemplation with, are at least ten years older than me. And many much older. When it comes to thinking about things, you can’t beat the right sort of older person.

Contemporary society glorifies youth. But younger people haven’t always got much to say. Of course there’s freshness and simplicity but relevant complexity in people takes time to grow.

Openness, curiosity and the experience of age are key attributes of the Aristotelian ‘friend in contemplation’. Aquinas’s ‘prudentia’ – practical wisdom – is not innate, it is learned. Wisdom takes time. Forget youth, when comes to interesting people – the oldies are the goodies.