Life – Page 67 – Achilles & Aristotle

Barge Hauler

Work,
Think,
Eat,
Drink,
Wake,
Walk,
Type,
Talk,
Work,
Work,
Work.

As Aristotle once said: “all paid work absorbs and degrades the mind.” I have been working my n#ts off this week – heavy lifting from start to end – and a good deal of it thankless.

We end the week in a much much better place than we started – but the narrow steam of technicolor bandwidth which is my ‘consciousness’ has been totally absorbed in work, work, work.

For the first time in many months, at the weeks end, I can’t recall a single original or worthwhile thought in the last five days, that hasn’t been yoked to the chariot of work. I have been one of Illia Repin’s Barge haulers on the Volga.

Work owes me this week, I am paid a salary for my labour not my soul. Onward.

Death, Life, Odysseus, Poetry

Pigeon Toed

Cat sat
Glancing sideways
Next to pigeon toes
Facing skywards
A scatter of feathers
Betrays the act
The plump bird
Too often at seed
Had not heard
Soft paws
Presage sharp claws
At his final feed.

Cleaning the fish tank, my eye was caught by a handsome cat looking over his shoulder at me through the back door. Stone me! Feet up, flat on its back, is the greedy pigeon which spends most of his time in our back garden chomping on scatters of birdseed. It’s a cat eat pigeon world.

Eventually I shooed the tabby off as he was playing with the lifeless body. But the dispatched bird needed dispatching. The missus having toed it and returned indoors, indicated such matters were clearly down to me. A food bag reversed and the pigeon was quickly bagged and binned.

As the kids exclaimed ‘yeuugh’ I was struck by life’s rich pattern. I used to be ‘nesh’ on insects, muck and vermin – dead or alive. I’d probably have dithered with a shovel in years gone by.

Today I just picked it up and bagged it. Last week I enthusiastically stuffed my hand down the drain in pursuit of congealed fat, without so much as a ‘by your leave’. Dealing with a dog, a family home and two kids certainly lessens the standing on ceremony. I find ‘yeuugh’ much less toe curling these days.

Children, Life, Psychology

Concerted Cultivation

It transpires – from considerable research in the USA – that middle class parents’ relentless intervention in their children’s lives: through music lessons, cultural experiences, ferrying them hither and yon and pandering to their every whim, creates a strong ‘sense of entitlement’.

This much we know. But what is less obvious, when you’re getting some lip, is this fits them better for success in institutional settings – from school to the workplace.

So called ‘Concerted Cultivation‘ – aka the pandering, worrying, nurturing and relentless attempts to nurture ‘talent’, ‘gift’, ‘achievement’ and ‘aptitude’ in middle class children – makes them more than just a pain in their parents’ ass. It makes them a pain in everyone’s ass. And this is vital for success in school, university and work. Suitable stamping of feet gets you noticed.

Working class families use a different approach – equally well adapted and just as caring – but different in impact and outcome. Working families apparently favour the so called ‘natural growth‘ route. This encourages independent development, standing on your own two feet, fledging from the nest – and doing what you’re told.

This works well in getting kids into life and into work, but does less well in ensuring that institutions – schools notably, but also workplaces and other institutions – pay attention to them as individuals. This can increase the sense of alienation of working class kids from such institutions, which further exacerbates the effect and further favours the ‘Concertedly Cultivated’.

One very telling example of the difference is making – or not – strong eye contact. ‘Concerted Cultivation’ promotes it, ‘natural growth’ discourages it. If you’re wanting to get your way in public and private institutions, strong eye contact is a mark of confidence. If you’re walking the street in less affluent parts of town it looks dangerously like disrespect. And to a foreman or staff sergeant being looked squarely in the eye suggests confrontation or insubordination

‘Concerted Cultivation’ is much more resource intensive, and less ‘natural’. But, according to the American research, it does fits kids with the tools to be taken seriously by adults and institutions.

I would say my childhood was 50% ‘Concerted Cultivation’ and 50% ‘natural growth’. That would fit with my half and half social class as a child. It worked for me. But we’re ‘Concerted Cultivators’ now in our middle class milieu.

A whiff of science helps me keep up my enthusiasm for ferrying them to activities, downloading maths apps, humouring hissy fits and constantly keeping them busy. I have a pang of guilt at the advantage I’m giving them, but it’s concerted cultivation for my little flowers.

Life, Odysseus, Poetry

Ham Fisted

Man handling
Pipe fitting
Wire stripping
Fuse popping
Floor slopping
Finger trapping
Pushing and shoving
Dishwasher in
Knackered out

Why is it most ‘manly’ installation tasks come round so infrequently that you make all the mistakes in the book? Having wrestled and heaved the new dishwasher into service, I look back on several now obvious errors of approach. If this one busts I’m laughing – I now know exactly what’s what behind the sink. But it’ll probably be another 10 years before I get to do it again, by which time I’ll have forgotten. A sense of relief but not much ‘flow’ – except all over the kitchen floor.

Life, Psychology, Work

Never Mind the B%llocks

I found myself swearing a lot this week – a sure sign I’ve been depleting my modest ego. Self-control carries a cognitive cost: the more you soak up the more you get p155ed off.

There were good bits, but also plenty of b%llocks. According to the Broadcasting Standards Commission the relative severity of the various profanities, as perceived by the British public in 2000, placed “b%llocks” in eighth position in terms of its perceived severity, between “pr1ck” (seventh) and “ar5ehole” (ninth). Enough said.

A lot of angst in life comes from the need to be in control. People seek position and status in the hope of controlling more – and controlling others more. But the definition of larger roles is in fact that you control less: you directly do less, precisely determine less and very often control less of your immediate environment or your time.

As someone said to me of a senior absentee a few months back: “Well he’s obviously at the level where he can’t control his own time”. Wherever you work, whatever level, there is always someone who can jerk your strings.

But as I said to a colleague, and later the missus, if a meteor hit London we’d be scrapping for tinned food not worrying about being jostled at work. The Stoics knew this in Ancient Rome. If a senator could be ‘offed’ for offending a fickle Emperor, what refuge is there in status, money or power.

Life also throws constant spanners in the works. Last week the dishwasher broke – B%llocks! Rushing, I forgot key elements of my daughter’s school gear on two separate school runs – B%llocks, B%llocks. And my bike back wheel literally exploded, scaring pedestrians, as the rim buckled from too much wear – B$LLOCKS! All three made a mess of my best laid plans. Just as you fancy you have things under control, life intervenes.

So control is illusory, power is perverse and life is capricious. What to do? Curl up in a ball? Nope, I think aiming for ‘mastery’ not control is the answer. Mastery means being alive to context, alive to the environment, staying in shape, investing in good friends and support networks, developing resilience and sometimes stoicism and not letting the b@stards – or the botherations – get you down.

A little bit of mastery can go a long way. Giving up on control allows bigger things to become manageable and smaller ones to be less irksome. There will always be days where ‘B%llocks’ is the politest way of saying it. But giving up on the illusion of control means the next impulse is to laugh, not cry.