Life – Page 51 – Achilles & Aristotle

Bear Necessities

This picture – drawn by my daughter – melted my heart and sums up my week. It captures the beguiling mix of sleepiness, size and sheer cuddliness of the Giant Panda. Like the °0° koala, there is nothing in nature cuter than the right type of bear.

I, for my part, have been much more the sore-headed variety of bear. Plenty of reasons to be grizzly at work and robbed of the hope of weekend hibernation – by the prospect of Spring camping in the cold and rain. But a sneek peek at this picture has cheered me up on at least half a dozen occasions.

The sleepy panda adorned her school campaign poster to save the benighted black and white bear. But the latest thinking says forget ‘enigmatic species’ and save ecosystems if you want conservation – bamboo forests are the thing to focus on, not the coy, inscrutable and often unsuccessful pairings of pandas in zoos.

So perhaps the tree in the picture is as important as the adorable bear hanging off it. Whatever the truth, this picture has made me – and by sharing it – a good few other people smile this week. Perhaps now a few more.

Children, Life

Sociabilidad

Time was… I was a miserable old soul. Grumpy, cynical and unsociable. A heart of gold; but a ‘crusty’ carapace. But the onset of children, middle years – and life in generally good shape – means I surprise myself sometimes.

Of course no leopard entirely changes its spots. I have finite (and quite small) reserves of geniality – just ask the missus and our friends. But in short bursts, and in the right circumstances, I can now be a jolly old soul.

And this morning was a good example. Having bought a nice purple potted plant with my son (who loves a natter and hugging complete strangers). We bumped into someone I’ve only ever spoken to once, a woman from work, painting her new house wall.

Time was I’d have smiled wanly and hurried on by. But today I popped the boy in the car – and jogged back for two minutes of spontaneous sociability with her and her other half. A flower, the son and sociability – the recipe for a blooming good morning.

Life, Psychology, Work

Cheerfulness

Hard yards at the moment. Much ado at work and plenty on at home. But the top tip of this week comes from the Royal Navy – cheerfulness counts.

From the Battle of Trafalgar to the present day, Britain’s Royal Navy has run on cheerfulness.

Nobody follows a pessimist. And grumpiness ain’t attractive. However hard, keeping your chin up cheers everyone up.

So despite the temptation not to, I’m keeping smiling. Life’s too short. Cheerfulness counts : )

Life, Poetry, Psychology

Irrelevant Complexity 1) – Odd Jobs

‘Relevant complexity’ is my theory of everything: satisfaction and joy arise from the pursuit of complex, worthwhile and comparatively challenging pursuits.

Art history, particle physics, the raising of children, the preparation and enjoyment of good food etc etc – all relevantly complex.

You need to learn, improve, occasionally triumph – and sometimes feel you actually know almost nothing – to achieve the satisfaction of mastering relevant complexity with a good degree of skill.

Then there are hobbies. Same effect Csikszentmihalyi’s ‘flow’ – as one become adept or expert but some risks: becoming a bore or solitary obsessive. I have achieved ‘flow’ by hoovering well, even cleaning a fridge. But these are not monuments to my life’s work or relevantly complex pursuits I’d want defining who I am.

What’s in? An eclectic and erratic list: cooking, relevant; gardening, chore. Writing, relevant; drawing embarrassment. Cleaning the fish tank, chore (and only tolerable if I’m left to do it properly) odd jobs, drilling and hanging things source of great irritation and angst. Why?

Because it’s hard to get odd jobs right. Our walls are rubbish, you only ever do a thing once – so you make maximum mistakes, never get the chance to practice what you’ve learned. And the smallest thing can take disproportionate time for a disappointing effect; which then stares down at you in reproach for years. Aaargh. Irrelevant complexity.

My latest botched odd job stares down at me here:

Curtain derailed
DIY failed
Drooping drapes
In awkward shapes
Lots of screws
And hacksaw blades
Variety of fixings
Wobbling and fiddling
Scarcely blocking the sky
Humble pie.

But every cloud has a silver lining. After three separate wasted days on and off up ladders, with hacksaws, at the DIY shop, I definitively gave up in a huff on our lounge curtains.

Then a miracle intervened. My beloved took to the ladders, took up the drill and made it all hang together. Perhaps she found it satisfying enough that she might become Oddjob now… Fingers crossed.

Life, Odysseus, Philosophy, Writing

Cogito ergonomics sum

I think therefore I am – ‘the cogito’ – is Descartes most famous contribution to philosophy. I might doubt everything else; that I am thinking is a certainty.

But thinking – and doing something about it – requires a comparative absence of distraction and ideally a modicum of comfort. And that’s where design comes in.

One of the reasons I’ve written less in the last few weeks is my new shiny iPhone 5. In many ways a splendid device. But more is sometimes less. And I find I can’t write on it.

It’s too big. I can’t reach the top corner ‘action’ buttons. It feels like it’s constantly going to tip over backwards – and tumble and smash into small, beautifully machined Apple pieces.

So I’m back tapping on the iPhone 4 (which I couldn’t give up despite a generous financial offer from a good friend). Fast, fluid, typing is a doddle again.

Ergonomics matter. Hard to think when you’re uncomfortable, hard to write when your hand hurts.

Technology isn’t always getting better. The iPhone 4 is my perfect writing device. Like Hemingway’s Moleskine or Remington’s typewriter, when it comes to writing iPhone 4 is the classic.