The problem with ideas people

[Guest]

I guess I'm an ideas person. Many of the people on this forum seem to be the same. Things come into our heads or into others' heads. We write stuff down. This is not to say that, like many, I can't be organised and quite practical. There are a lot of things I know how to do and I do them well. On the surface, it might appear that I'm functional, even above the average in terms of functioning. On paper, it looks that way. There is though a huge gap in me - call it credibility - that others just can't comprehend and it is only partially indicated by my personal history. I would like to ask people on this forum if they feel that it is typical.

It is that I really cannot fathom how very ordinary people do ordinary things. It is like they are on a different planet. I can relate to a doctor perhaps better than most but I just can't see how doctors can deal with the myriad of people they have to see. Sure, I could handle the complicated diagnoses with training. I'd never cope with having to see tens of people, all different, in a day. Ditto taxi drivers. I chat to taxi drivers easily but I couldn't handle having any old person jumping in and out of my cab. I can understand how electricians can learn electronics. However, I haven't got a clue how they can go in and out of umpteen strangers' houses. More to the point, I don't know how they do the work they do in others' houses and not worry themselves stupid that a fire won't then break out there. I don't understand how a pilot, a train driver and a surgeon can be responsible each day for whether others will live or die. I could serve beer in a pub but I couldn't cope at all with others being drunk. I'd end up being the one in trouble.

I don't understand people who are happy spending their lives on committees, nor the giving nature of volunteers. I could probably write books but I'd never get started because I wouldn't believe that any would be published. I just can't understand how people work their way through all the regulations that are required to open a B and B or run a cafe. I'd be sued. I can't understand how anyone can ever be in charge of big things like HGVs or supermarkets, universities or countries. I don't understand people being at ease on a stage. I don't understand how foreign people can arrive in this country and get a room, a job in Starbucks, a job picking fruit in a field. I have lived here for 48 years and I can't find my way around the basics. I don't understand how people can be 50, 60, 70, 80 and romping about as if they aren't concerned that they are physically and mentally heading towards the grave.

It is odd. It isn't as if I wasn't a very effective employee for many years. As I say, other people find it almost impossible to believe. But it is like there is a normal life - the kind where you make the dinner and hoover the house, chat to the neighbours, walk round to the local shop, have a chat on this forum. And then there is the other life which is like a maze the size of Jupiter and with very high walls around it. It is a totally different world to me. I just don't feel that I would ever be able to make that leap, be accepted into that territory, be able to function there. Even when I was a part of it, I never felt a part of it. I'm beginning to see why. I never felt I was there. It isn't incompetence, laziness or stupidity. I am not sure what it is exactly but I feel in awe of most people who do not seem to feel these differences. They have special powers. Are you like this? Is there something wrong with me?

[Serial_Apologist]

Ideas people aren't necessarily or always the same as the people who put them into effect.

Be that as may, regarding the deeming of personal characteristics as of worthiness, there are certain activities claimed to "build moral fibre", such as canoeing rapids and mountaineering, which within reason I haven't personaly felt the need to resort to. Team building is another participatory activity said to help socialisation, but for Sartrian-vindicated, evidential reasons I've long believed it to serve exclusivity, and thus act as a tool of divide-and-rule. The Sherpas who guided white westerners up Everest clearly knew their way around, but this I believe to have had more to do with an intimacy with surrounds than the moral virtues supposedly inherent in "conquering nature". As Buddhists they would see themselves as part of it, and believing in their own nature as part of it all would by self-definition run counter. Well, this, seeing the activity in question as pointless, is how I guess I excuse my own cowardice(s).

When it comes to assuming responsibility over more than just my own behaviour and outlook, I prefer a good-sized wodge of insulation between me and those to whom my being made accountable might render at risk of my own stupidity, inadequacy, thus far unrevealed selfishness, whatever. Then there's the Alpha Male... and doubtless the Alpha Female to come if ever the glass ceiling is broken. It seems to me that the putting of people on pedestals to carry the can for coping in systemically uncopable set-ups, and the expectation that we all look up to them lest they leave taking their god-given gifts to some other lucky place, and paying them well, is part and parcel of maintaining the masses in intellectual infantilism. And I wouldn't mind betting that many on boards of directors of companies, feeling protected by organisational layers between themselves and the hoi-polloi, forms a large part of class distinction. The class war doesn't stop just because the left loses heart: it's systemically inbuilt. Advocates of the whelk stall to multinational ceo route from rags to riches claim its virtues over the inherited family business on the basis that "a priori" it grounds one in the common experience, but I have my doubts about that; I'm pretty sure the average rich man or woman is quick to be proud to have got away from all that, whether self-made or not. If my own socialism could be explained by not liking the thought of being left out to dry, it has not quite stopped me from assuming positions of authority when the weather vane seemed pointed in the right direction; but when it didn't I've still spoken out for those unconfident in their own position. Going out on a limb for principle's sake may not be particularly "me" but what's life worth living if it comes to this? In general I prefer to think socialism would suit people and planet more than the crazy wasteful anarchic system we're under, seeing the latter, not "human nature", as what turns people into monsters - but I only have myself to go on, and at age 66 can admit to not having put myself/been placed in positions which might put the theory to test. Not having an alternative context to hand helps when it comes to self-exoneration.

S-A

[Lateralthinking1]

Wow. That's impressive. For example, I hadn't seen the political dimension to it before. When I came away from what I'd written, with the feeling that it was a horrible mistake, I felt gloomy. Then I thought about it a bit. What I saw in the examples I gave - possibly every one - was a worry both of killing others inadvertently or being killed by them. This will no doubt sound melodramatic but it isn't intended to be. Rather it might come somewhere close to describing what tends to underpin the most common tribulations in all. This, funnily enough, is not a fear about death per se. I couldn't cope with the idea of dying in a plane because someone couldn't be bothered to ensure it was technically sound. However, I am entirely relaxed about the idea of going off to my maker because of being in a plane struck by lightning. Similarly if I were the pilot, my worry would be that any crash that led to the deaths of others might be because of poor judgement in me. It would not be about piloting during a devastating storm.

I find the alpha male and female ways threatening not because they are blase towards themselves - sometimes they are but I suspect more often than not they are very self-protective behind the facade - but because of their blase way with other people. This need not be particularly in respect of me but of people generally. It can bring out the fury of the gods when I see someone hurt. The perpetrators are likely to be absolutely astounded by it and run for the hills. Of course, society deems that they are always within acceptable limits - they are supposed to be role models to us all - so when I disagree in that way it is viewed as over-reaction and I still come off worse. It is probably best that I don't go into too much detail here. Needless to say, on the rare occasions that it happens - and it is always memorable - it gets a mixed reaction from any audience. Authority figures are likely to be full of condemnation, however dodgy they are quietly themselves. Lifelong victims have been known to clap and cheer and have even asked me if I have ever considered not being single from now to the end of time. It tends to shift things.

Killing and being killed by others is not necessarily a literal reference. If one does one's best and Lord and Lady XYZ are still unhappy with the service, they can sue. To me, having to serve in that way is like living on a knife edge of being sued. It can lead to ruination of a kind that in the long run could bring a faster demise. Perhaps I can see this afternoon in a new light why I lean towards socialism. It is the fantasy of surviving in an environment where the conditions insist on care and consideration. It means that moral anger becomes less necessary, at least in theory. I think one of the reasons why I find so-called no nonsense attitudes so difficult is that I am a great forgiver of genuine mistakes. I couldn't possibly be looking to what I could make out of them. I do have a feeling that many "in charge" differ from the rest of us by being highly adept at being or seeming only just inside the law.

I would happily canoe on rapids or go on the most frightening fairground ride. That would be me only putting myself at risk and I would expect to survive such things. I often think back to the time I abseiled down a cliff at the age of fourteen with a sixteen year old holding the ropes. He might as well have been forty from my perspective and I have often wondered if I would have the same level of trust now. I think though the answer is yes. I have more faith in people who are capable of error than people who are manipulative and motivated by selfishness. It seems to me that the maze of bureaucratic organisation - all the requirements that are like trip wires to bring the unsuspecting down - are there essentially to ensure that those with advantages continue to rake them in. It isn't people that I am scared of as much as what the system encourages them to be and depicts as strong.

[Anna]

Lat, you seem to be very troubled at the moment. However there is, it has a name, I don't recall it, a fancy syndrome name possibly, whereby it is possible to feel totally disengaged, that is, floating above and not being part of what is perceived as the real world, looking in at in like a bystander. Sort of, you can look but cannot touch, you are somehow in a bubble, insulated, so immune from real life, if that makes sense and unable to get back down to earth?

[Lateralthinking1]

Thanks Anna - very kind - I will try that. I am not as troubled as I was a year ago fortunately.

[Serial_Apologist]

Lat, you seem to be very troubled at the moment. However there is, it has a name, I don't recall it, a fancy syndrome name possibly, whereby it is possible to feel totally disengaged, that is, floating above and not being part of what is perceived as the real world, looking in at in like a bystander. Sort of, you can look but cannot touch, you are somehow in a bubble, insulated, so immune from real life, if that makes sense and unable to get back down to earth?

You may be right, Anna - if so, forgive me my insensitivity - but I share much of what Lat says, and have ever since I left school, where I had allowed myself ineluctably to drown under a weight of authoritarianism and collusion. I think what we're talking about is a perceived need for Someone - and I guess it has to be me - to stand up for people against what we see as unnnecessary injustices.

One sees the way that these injustices get re-perpetuated as the nature of the beast changes.

At a Business Studies module, part of a retraining course I attended in the mid 1990s, we role-played the job interview situation. One of the questions we were asked as part of the expected routine was, what do you consider your main strengths and weaknesses to be? I stated one of my main character traits was not liking to see people excluded or left behind. There was a woman in the class, also like me a mature student, who had had experience working in local authorities. One of the classes was Computer Studies, and the instructor was hopeless, rushing ahead with instructions without heed for the pace that was leaving a minority of students in tatters, myself included. Sue was wonderful: fortunately she was ahead of the game when it came to computers, but she made it her business to rush around to the students in difficulty, clicking them through to the stage of the exercise imposed by the lecturer, and offering her services gratis after the clas for extra-mural assistance. Subsequently it occurred to me that this might have been the reason that she had lost her job: she was maybe too accommodating towards co-workers who were a bit slow on the learning curve, and therefore an uneconomic unit of production. Another question we were asked was, where would you envisage yourself as being in the company in three years' time? My answer was: anywhere the company saw my abilities as fitting into its scheme. Wrong answer! The coreect reply would have been so say in no uncertain terms: doing the job you (the interviewer) is doing, or better still, a higher-graded one. Having worked 21 years in a heavily hierarchised company, well unionised, I was being made aware of just how far work ethics had changed since the coming of Thatcherist individualist careerism; and it was quite a shock: to have said such a thing at an interview back in the 1960s/'70s would have had you rightly and instantly typecast a bighead, and out the interview door.

I can of course only speak of in my case: I don't feel in any way in a bubble, and insulate myself only in terms of my own capacity and protection. OK - retirement may make it easier to speak out, but what I beleive we're talking about here is the *wrong* kind of involvement, and attempting to measure along with assumptions about the desireability/counterproductiveness of taking a stand, given a given balance of forces.

S-A

[Lateralthinking1]

I left a section where we were forever being told by senior managers that we were being too helpful. This comment was made most frequently to my immediate line manager and me. I felt that the line manager was the best immediate line manager to whom I had ever worked. I liked how he was with me and with the public. But similar comments about being "too helpful" had been made about me in some previous jobs so that had been consistent, whoever had been my manager. In my final five years, I was getting seriously aggrieved by some of it. The irritation had been growing for some time. Years earlier, I had been on a training course in which we were supposed to come up with constructive criticism about the others attending. Not for the first or last time I got - and I noticed this was from those younger - that I was "too nice". It made me furious and actually I hated them for it.

Increasingly, while I remained popular just as I was from the first day I walked into work, it became less than universal. I started to find myself in positions where I came across to some as quite horrible. Perhaps one of the worst. Being heartfelt, uncontrived, spontaneous and noticeably different from my ways with most people, being less nice was felt by those involved to be personalized. But actually it was a response to an attitude. I couldn't help it and the attitude which brought out the horrible in me was one in others which I considered not nice at all. The kind of attitude that saw others as "too nice". There was definitely a sharp ethical division and at times almost opposite values. Suddenly, I was not on the wavelength of now. Frequently, I pointed out that we were being paid to listen and advise, to serve others, to help. It was only on leaving and attempting to find another job that I saw how it all had changed. Yes, by today's standards, perhaps by the standards of more years than I could have believed, we were too helpful and by a country mile. Our courtesy and our outlook were anachronisms. It really shocked me.

On interviews, one learns the devices late. I read recently that the successful when asked about their weaknesses always choose things that can only be regarded as strengths, ie I tend to work too many hours when it is busy to ensure that things stay afloat or I don't always have the responsibility to take all of my annual leave. Gamesmanship in other words. The system requires you to lie through your teeth. As for saying "I want your job", I would find it threatening and disrespectful to say or to hear it. I find it the very opposite of impressive. I have to conclude that I am not cut out for this country as it has become and I don't want to be. My values make it impossible for me to adapt. At the same time, I find that I get along with its citizens much as I always did when they are being themselves, as long as I sense that those selves are not the same as the ones they display in the workplace.

[Serial_Apologist]

On interviews, one learns the devices late. I read recently that the successful when asked about their weaknesses always choose things that can only be regarded as strengths, ie I tend to work too many hours when it is busy to ensure that things stay afloat or I don't always have the responsibility to take all of my annual leave. Gamesmanship in other words. The system requires you to lie through your teeth. As for saying "I want your job", I would find it threatening and disrespectful to say or to hear it. I find it the very opposite of impressive. I have to conclude that I am not cut out for this country as it has become and I don't want to be. My values make it impossible for me to adapt. At the same time, I find that I get along with its citizens much as I always did when they are being themselves, as long as I sense that those selves are not the same as the ones they display in the workplace.

The desirability watchword, in other words, is dishonesty. I bet Nick Leason presented himself well at interview. No wonder cases of company property theft have risen in number, and the country is going to hell in a handcart.

[greenilex]

The anchor to reality in my case, and I've been lucky, has always been small persons of the infant class and their needs. Otherwise i could easily live inside my head and not make contact.

[kernelbogey]

Lat and SA - I don't understand all you've written but want to express sympathy and a degree of empathy.
BW, kb

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

what you describe as an inner state Lat has a parallel in your circumstances ... being made redundant is notorious for provoking feelings of detachment and self doubt ... and is in itself a physical and social state of detachment ..

what i dislike about the self help and management success pulp fiction is that it always avoids the centrality of pain and discomfort in life's challenges ...

i was limping down the high street at the weekend feeling the pain in my skeleton, looking about i noticed that most of the older geezers like me were all walking with what i call the hip roll and subdued grimaces ... and it was yet another gentle reminder that i was not alone in my little challenge ....

there are many people in your position Lat, this is no consolation, but it is a thought that you are not an outcast deserving his fate, but a harbinger of the pattern of life to come for very many people ... you may be alone in the uniqueness of your experience but not in terms of both your situation and your contribution here and the very real connection it makes

[Lateralthinking1]

Thank you Calum. It is very good of you to write with such feeling and wisdom. You are right, of course, and it ebbs and flows. There is often a low point just after spending some hours becoming informed about the options and then realizing that there are hardly any. Damned if you do or if you don't etc. I can't say that I am full of drive but the sense of needing to steer a vehicle that is in the hands of others can be quite bewildering. Obviously, it exacerbates lifelong part-neuroses which when in work could be relegated to the trivial. It also leads back to safe but not always focussed compulsions towards over-thinking and words.

It is right to remember that others are in difficult positions. I am pleased that I am not any younger. However, what you say perhaps helps me to question whether thoughts of wanting to be much older now are really appropriate. Every age and every era bring plus and minus points. My father does his best to walk with a stick and I know how difficult it can be for him. It is seeing hardship of that kind in someone else that enables me to see similar things occurring in others. I always find your contributions stimulating and wish you the very best. - Lat.