Being Average

Sometimes I think of myself as pretty impressive. I think I am someone of influence and a leader of people.

Sometimes I think I have potential to achieve great things both in terms of significance and scale.

I think I am terribly funny, creative, organised and strategic.

I think it must be true because people have told me. Part of the reason that I write a blog is so that I can show people all of these things.

At other times I see it very differently.

These are usually times when I speak to or hear about someone who actually is impressive. Someone who makes me feel like an under achiever.

I then spend a day or two trying to work out whether I am just kidding myself. I question almost everything.

I met a guy at the start of the week who made me feel like an incoherent bluffer and it has got me thinking about why.

It has made me think I should maybe get some management training, or so something to improve my communication skills.

Then I think that would just turn me into a slightly more professional bluffer. Maybe that’s a good thing but maybe not.

Some people just have more natural abilities than others. Whether that is intellect, artistic talent or being pretty. Surely we can’t all excel at something. Surely there must be some of us who are average at things. Why is that not ok?

In theory it is ok that some people aren’t all that impressive at anything, but it is just a bit harder to accept when you realise it is you.

I don’t mean to come across all self pitying. I am just trying to reflect ‘out loud’ what is echoing round my thoughts at the minute.

Since I were a lad

I am a Man Utd supporter.

When I was wee I got a ManU kit and since then they have been my team. I was one of only three Utd supporters in my class in school because back in the 80s everyone supported Liverpool.

I am not that into football these days. I rarely watch a match and only occasionally know what the score has been or even who is playing, but oddly I still like to hear about Utd winning.

Perhaps more oddly, for someone who doesn’t really follow football, there are some teams that I really don’t like and love to see lose. I have some pet hates and I think I would support any team who were playing Liverpool.

Must be some hangover from my childhood when they were the enemy.

It makes me wonder what other parts of my worldview or personality have been set by random happenings in my primary school days. It also makes me thankful that I wasn’t bought a Liverpool kit, cause then I would be a wanker.

I used to think I was invincible

I have never been much of an athlete or fitness freak, but there was a time in my late teens when I playedrugby and was generally in pretty good shape.

That was over 15 years ago now and things have really changed.

I have high cholesterol, an ever expanding gut, a sore back every other week, an allergy to dust that wipes me out for days at a time and varicose veins.

I used to be able to survive on a couple of hours sleep and eat or drink what I liked.

Now, it takes me a couple of days to recover from an Indian and a late night.

I don’t know at what point things started to slide but, in terms of physical prowess, I am definitely passed my peak. Now I could exercise more and eat better and get into the best shape of my life but it would only disguise the fact that I am older and slower and that physical exercise is harder than it has ever been.

This is all perfectly normal but I still find it kind of weird. I used to watch Jan Molby play football as a chubby and slow midfield playmaker. He used his natural skill and experience to make up for his lack of speed. It makes me wonder if I have a natural skill in any area once youth has been and gone. Is experience all that is left? Is that more useful than energy?

I am now 35 and am glad that I am wiser than I was 15 years ago, or even one year ago, but looking to what is ahead – incontinence, aches, pains and general decline, I can’t help feeling nostalgic for the days when I could run about all afternoon and still be able to stand up by tea time.

So there you go.

Recurring themes

During certain periods of life I am struck by recurring themes.
Things that keep coming to mind as I chat, read, listen, muse.
I am not sure where they always come from or if they will ever take me anywhere but there is something about them that capture my imagination.

Over the last six months or so the two themes that have been always on my mind are simplicity and community.

They have come to me in many different ways and I really think that is some great moment of revelation just around the corner with regards to their significance.
They both strike me as extremely important, if not, essential to understanding some more of the bigger picture of life.

The problem is when I try to express some of these musings, I inevitably lose my train of thought and end up further from the eureka moment. This is very often the case with me, which is why when I try to blog I talk such banal shit and put so many equivocations in.

But,

I do feel there is something innate about he need for some form of meaningful community, even though I am not a big fan of people in general.

And I do think there is a divine beauty in keeping things simple and not over complicating things.

If I get any further with these thoughts, I will try to log them here. If anyone happens to read this has anything to share on the subject, I would love to hear.

Happy New Year.

Politically Incorrect?

I have listened and read with interest the articles about Luis Suarez (don’t know if that is how you spell it or not) and John Terry (correct spelling) and the chat about racism in football and who is and isn’t a racist, and I am not sure what I make of it all.

Is it any worse to use some words than others on a football pitch or anywhere else? It certainly seems to be the case as far as the FA, the law and lots of other people.
Why is it?

Interestingly, I have no problem using most words on this blog but am hesitant to even use the word “nigger”, even when it is in quotes. What is it about this word or others that they possess such power and cause such offence.

Like the vast majority of people, I believe it is entirely wrong to judge/mistreat/abuse anyone based on their race, or sex or sexuality and strongly oppose any form of discrimination on that basis. But is there a difference, as the Liverpool FC players argue, between using racist words and being a racist.

I think there probably is.

I do find it weird that if Suarez called Evra a motherfucking piece of shit cuntbag, or worse, then there wouldn’t be anything like the same punishment, outcry or media attention.

Who decides which words are acceptable and which aren’t?
How do they decide it?

I guess so much of it is to do with what the person is meaning by the words they use and who can really tell that apart from the person who said it?

Also if the person who is spoken too isn’t offended, do that mean it isn’t offensive?

I do get a bit confused by it all so usually follow the rule that I once read in a Christopher Brookmyre book…

If I hear things described “a victory for common sense” then somebody is being denied their rights, mad when something is described as “political correctness gone mad” then something is being done to fight inequality.

Works most of the time.

Spitting the dummy

Saw a really quite disturbing programme last night about money. It was people who were or who wanted to be financially free. This is apparently when you make money work for you so hat you don’t have to. For example, people who have made so much money from buying property and then sold it for a profit that they have millions invested in so many properties that they have lost count. Basically a lot of people who are cash and asset rich but morally bankrupt.

How can they live like that when others are so poor that they can’t afford to heat their homes?

I know there are many different ways of looking at all this, but that doesn’t answer the above question.

As a society, we have lost sight of the need to live in community. We have a system where the rich are obscenely rich and the poor are getting poorer. There is a sense that some of us deserve to better off than others. The sense that we are entitled to stuff and the fact that we can’t afford it doesn’t stop it.

Again I know that this is both obvious and simplistic.

Today, 2million people have gone on strike because they aren’t happy about having to pay more and work longer for a pension that will be worth less. Maybe they are being screwed over by the man, but at least part of the problem is that people want to maintain their slice of the pie. The fact is that it isn’t sustainable to keep the pension system as it is because people live longer. And some people are opposed to any change to the system which leaves them worse off.

On that subject, is striking the best way to make yourself heard in this debate. Surely it just leaves you vulnerable to claims that you are not interested in solving it and that you would rather take a day off to get your Christmas shopping done than accept that some sacrifice has to be made in order for a better and fairer deal for the situation we are now in.

Maybe it is someone else’s fault that we are in this mess but refusing to accept that in principle it is better to have a job and some pension, than fewer people having well paid jobs and a bigger pension.

Just saying.

Is it really worth it?

Can we ever truly bring about change?
Is there a way or number of ways that institutions, governments or people will ever be influenced by those on the outside?
Or will we be forever, pissing in the wind/trying to push back the ride/insert relevant phrase here?

I hope so.

But it is damn hard work sometimes.

I want to believe that if you have logic, reason and passion on your side and you do a good job of showing it, that things might change.

There are so many different levels to this question. It could apply to those who are trying to fret change by setting up camp in public squares, or those striking to protect their pension. It could apply to those working in communities that are run by the intimidation of thuggish dickheads that call themselves loyalists. It could apply to those on all sides of the current struggle for power in the Church of Ireland. But I think what brings it home to me is the whether if I spend enough time, effort and energy with one individual can I affect a change in them.

This might sound arrogant and maybe it is, after all who is to say that I have should try to change anyone. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t do it and lots of people do it too.

I guess my question is, what do you do with the people you disagree with and, from your perspective, do things the wrong way?
Do you ignore them and carry on trying to have as little contact as possible with them?
Or confront them head on and do battle with them at any and every opportunity?
Or is the best way positive engagement? Seeking to listen and also be listened to? Challenge while being willing to be challenged?

Most of the time I think the last way is best. But then I am an optimist.
What if after all that effort you still have not made any ground? Sometimes I think it is better to just give up and let them get on with it.

But then, isn’t that what being in community is all about? Having a relationship with people who are different from you? Who see things differently than you do? When you can’t cut people off who you are going to have to see all the time?

Agree to disagree is sometimes a workable solution but it isn’t always enough.

Why can’t everyone just see things the right way instead of me having to educate them all the time? Wankers.