but to be fair...

maslow's hierarchy of needs

..which are, if I recall correctly, physiological, safety needs, social needs, status needs, and self-actualisation. Something like this gender-oriented version, made during a workshop on the new interactive whiteboards:

what's got 12 heads, 48 limbs and dozens of opinions?

...a Jury.
Bah. I've been called up for jury service. Again. I last did it 14 years ago, just after having done my TEFL certificate: Now they want me once more.
I'm annoyed because a) I've been summoned for our busy exam period and b) I'll lose roughly £500 in wages. Although compensation is given for loss of earnings, it's capped at just over £50 a day.
This is not something I can afford to do right now.
Also, my experience of being on a jury is of it being bloody boring, and having to share a room with people whose opinions are somewhere to the right of the BNP, or who only just evolved from amoebas.
Still, I may be proved wrong: I might have a pleasant time indeed.

Gloomy.

'How's it going?'
'Alright.'
'What did you think of how the exams went?'
'They were OK.'
'What did you think of the concert?'
'It was good, pretty good.'
Compared with:
'How's it going?'
'Fucking brilliant mate!'
'What did you think of how the exams went?'
'They were fantastic!'
'What did you think of the concert?'
'It was just...wooh!'

As you may have gathered from my posts previous, I am not the sort of person who regards every event in my life as being superlative. Indeed, you may have garnered the idea that I am a somewhat bad-tempered, gloomy and pessimistic type.
All of which would be true.
As someone recently said, 'Why don't you ever write about the good things? Why are you so negative?'
to which I replied, 'i usually write when I feel pissed off.'
Yet is this blog, or indeed any of my rather extensive diaries, actually negative?
My answer: not really.
Even my best friends would describe me as being a somewhat moody person, but I am not a doom and gloom merchant as such. Rather, I am someone who values words and emotions. I have always distrusted (amd occasionally despised) people whose reaction is to go 'Wooh!' to any given situation. as in:
'I'm at a concert! Wooh!'
'I'm driving round in a sports car! Wooh!'
'I'm in the Big Brother House! Wooh!'
'I've just made a large amount of money! Wooh!'
'I'm in the pub and someone's just told a brilliant joke! Wooh!'
Wooh.
The war-cry of the addled; of someone desperately trying to convince themselves that they're having the timeof their lives, RIGHT HERE AND RIGHT NOW, when all it is is something rather quotidian.
I distrust people who overuse strong adjectives to describe their experiences, because so often they are used in an over-blown, indeed a fly-blown, way.
If a gig I've been to is good, I'll say that it was good, not that it was brilliant. If the fact that 80% of the students I've arranged an exam for have passed, I'll say it is a good result, not a staggering one. If I appreciate someone, I'll tell them that, not say 'I adore you, man'.
And why? Well, because when I say that something is brilliant, fantastic, superb, gorgeous, when I say to someone 'you're great' or 'I love you', I actually mean it. When I say 'wooh!' it fucking means 'WOOH!'
In other words, I choose my words carefully, becuase I don't want to abase my feelings. someone who uses strong words all the time strikes me as someone who cannot make a distiction between the merely good, or bad, and that which is truly amazing or awful - inother words, someone who is essentially incapable of comprehending, emotionally, spiritually and mentally, the heights and depths of all that is here in this world.
I simply can't go 'Wooh!' at every thing that is good; However, I did so when I got to each of the three peaks last year, because I'd never done it before; Likewise, a production of 'Julius Caesar' I once saw was good, but a production of 'The Merchant of Venice' was brilliant because of Anthony Scher's performance.
I reserve the right to use extreme adjectives and go 'Wooh!' only when the situation only really requires it.
So if you still think I'm a gloomy bastard you can bugger off. True it may be, but I cherish words and situations both.

As you can see, I'm fiddling with the design and layout of this blog. Bear with me.

Derailment...

..of one's train of thought, I mean. Cycling by the river bank on the way home, I had a fantastic idea of something to write down here. You know how it is: You get into a rhythm on the bike, or into an activity that doesn't quite take over all your concentration, and your brain begins to foment ideas, almost unbidden. Anyway, there I was, thinking this wonderful idea, and the sentences I was to write appeared almost before my eyes, when suddenly some little cockhead - one of the breed of cycle fascists, all lycra and expensive lightweight bike, and about whom I shall write in detail later - nearly forced me into the bloody river. Bastard.
Worse than that though was that my idea had completely disappeared. I mean, totally. To say I was infuriated by this is an understatement. Cycling back home, I tried to scrabble for the memory of it, its shadow fleeting away from me, and I couldn't grasp it at all. A shame, as it seemed to be a damn fine one at the time. This got me thinking about the numerous times I have had good ideas, yet have omitted to writing them down and they have disappeared like clouds over a desert.

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men...

..Frequently get torn up, eaten, chucked up, stamped on, then flushed round the U-bend. Take this week: a week away from the pressures of work. My plans? Very simple: go to either the Brecon Beacons or up to Snowdonia for a bit of climbing, just for a day or two, and spend the rest of the time diligently doing my Diploma. Simple, no?
Fat fucking chance. The trip git blown out of the window for financial reasons - I can't spare the dosh - and the working diligently on my diploma for familial reasons - one slightly ill wife and two children who need plenty of attention. It's not as if I haven't done anything, just not as much as I'd like.
Anyway, I am now ensconsed in my shed-cum-office-cum-breeding factory for wasps, trying to work. And avoid being stung.
I'm going to return to the concept of credospheres in later blogs, as I want to deal with, as I see it, how people create the things and then how they manipulate them, and why it is arguable that this is unethical.
Well, that's the plan, anyway....

More on credospheres.

OK, so what's the difference between a credosphere and a meme? That was the question put by the same colleague after the last entry. A meme is an idea transmitted as an idea; it may remain the same, or mutate, or grow stronger, or weaker, or become extinct. An urban legend is a good example of a strong meme: The forgotten gods of our neolithic forbears a good example of an extinct meme. These ideas, these beliefs, necessarily need belief in order to thrive - they need to people to have faith in them as some kind of truth, a kind of 'good', in order to live. A credosphere is basically an area - physical or metaphysical - where a meme, or a set of memes, thrive.
The other difference is that if you can recognise a credosphere and you're cunning or powerful enough, you can influence that area, and subsequently all those individuals who fall within that particular area. One example would be in the theatre. Anyone who has been to a great performance of a play or a magician's show can attest to how they are held spellbound while the performance lasts, thanks to the skill of the actor(s) or magician. Another good example is of the call to patriotism in times of national distress - to believe in a core set of values, the centre of a creed. While it makes the core meme stronger, it also strengthens a counteridea. The Bush government's call to arms is ironically making its enemy more focused and powerful, both as an idea and as a physical form. Al-Quaeda started off as not much more than a loose set of (admittedly nutty) ideals; Now it is far more sinister in reach and capability, simply because it has been given form and shape, and a place in which to foment.
Credospheres, while inherently about belief, can actually inhabit a physical area - where, for example, you get several different national, linguistic or religious groups inhabiting the same city, you are most likely to end up with some kind of ghettoisation.

Credospheres.

Following a discussion with a colleague, I have been asked to expand upon the concept underlying the word in the title. Since it's my own invention, I suppose I shall. Feel free to mock it if you will, although I think it's a neat way to describe the way ideas interact - or not as the case may be.

What is a Credosphere? Very simply, it's a way to describe an area of belief, or an area where a common set of beliefs and ideals exist. Credospheres cover a multitude of different ideas, yet what they have in common is this idea of faith and belief. In other words, they do not deal with things that are solid facts, but rather with those things that people consider to be true. They can exist on several different levels:
1) Personal - our self-belief and view of ourselves;
2) Familial/clan - the idea that our family is 'normal' and others are somehow 'abnormal' (or even vice versa;
3) Social, tribal and work groups - the idea that my team is better than your team, or my workplace is somehow superior to another;
4) national/linguistic - my country/language is 'better';
5) supranational - the idea of the EU, or Western Europe, for example;
6) Political - one party represents this particular set of ideas, etc;
7) Religious - hence my originally calling the concept a credosphere in the first place;
and others.
I decided that it is best described as a sphere because of the way each area interacts, or not, with others. At the centre of each credosphere, belief is at its most strong, and is less likely to 'believe' in an alternative; At the edges, where credospheres meet, mingle and interact, the core belief of any given credosphere is more dilute, and more open to change, interpretation and challenge. Where Credospheres have heavy areas of overlap, there is an essential confusion where belief systems clash.
Let me give some examples. Linguistic credospheres are easy to describe. Someone who lives in the middle of a monlingual environment is less likely to learn a foreign language, simple because they are (geographically) distant from the target language, plus they are likely not to actually need it. That belief is likely to be shored up by this perceived fact. British people are well-known for their reluctance to learn foreign languages, partly because of our geographic isolation, but also because we believe that if we go anywhere in the world, we will find someone who speaks English. That, or we will be understood by talking loudly and slowly. However, someone who lives on the border of two countries, let's say for example the Alsace, is more likely to speak the languages of both regions, or a hybrid. There's a given belief that the knowledge of two languages is inherently 'good'.
Another obvious example is of course religion - let's use Islam. The way Islam is practised in Saudi Arabia, its nominal centre, and the way it operates on its idealogical margins - in Turkey, for example - is significantly different. The fact that Turkey borders the 'Christian' west suggests that it is influenced by it - for better or worse, I leave to you to decide, although I personally dislike both labels.
Using Turkey in another example, it has been trying to join the EU for years. The EU is best seen as a concept as much as an enormous, lumbering over-bureaucraticised dinosaur; After all, you have to believe in the project before you join it. And so Turkey has had a hankering for the European project these past few decades. Yet now, after rebuff after rebuff while other countries jump the queue, it is now beginning to look to the Credosphere of the East - not necessarily the world of Islam, but the Grand Turkish Project of connecting all the Turkic Republics that stretch all the way to the gates of China.
And what happens when credospheres collide? Well to take the UK as an example, you end up with a crisis of identity. Can you tell me what it means to be English? No, and I wouldn't be surprised. Can you tell me what it means to be Scottish? Probably, but if your answer is essentially 'Not being the southern bastards next door', then there's an essential void in the description of your belief. Being 'English', as a concept, is remarkably difficult to determine; It has nothing to do, nowadays, with George Orwell's famous essay. And if you come from a family that originally emigrated from the West Indies, or from Pakistan, or even from just over the border, then how do you define yourself? How do you believe? What do you believe, in terms of nationality, religion, which music or sport is the 'best'? The clash of ideas and beliefs is inevitable, because there are so many opinions whirling around as to which concepts are 'good' and which 'bad'. 'Good' and 'bad' are entirely subjective, and I am tempted to dismiss them all under the epithet 'wrong', although that of course is totally unfair.
This is just an outline in brief - and one I will probably come back to. As I said at the beginning, this is just a way to describe how people believe a certain set of things, and how that creates an impetus to create a 'common area'; It is not meant to be a hypothesis, merely a tool.

If your field don't yield, get up and hoe it.

Monday, and no students, seeing as it's the beginning of the Easter break. Now's the time to catch up on errant marking, create lists of students for the marathon of exams in the summer, get all my photocopies done for the next term, and put all the mountain of paperwork on my desk to the torch. One other thing is that it's blissfully quiet in the office -there's only me and another colleague, Ruth, here.
Also, of course, the absence of people demanding a slice of my time means I have an opportunity to write something here. I was listening to this song the other day, and reflecting how hard it is to create, to write, and to do all the things I enjoy, or rather enjoyed - My time being so taken up by other demands, or so it seems. And the song spoke to me, of how I feel about creating, or writing, or studying, and how so often I passively wait for things to come along.
Well, I don't want to be that any more. It's to do with being fulfilled as a person, of doing the Three Peaks in my head, as it were. What has always been a problem for me is a personal reluctance to take a step along a single path - I've always been afraid that by doing so, I will somehow cut myself off from other experiences, other adventures. But by staying as I am, I am cutting myself off from all those possible experiences.
So, it's time to move forward. But to what? Well, first of all, there's the small matter of my Diploma in TESOL. I have been genuinely busy over these past two years, but now I want to get the bloody thing out of the way.
Next, The Booze Rule. I have reflected on how much I have sunk over the past twenty-two years, and the reasons why. It started as a way out of my extreme reticence, and to cope with social situations. The trouble is, I have let it slip into a bad habit. As you can see from previous posts this year, I have made efforts to address this, with varying degrees of success week by week. The general principle is: No Booze during the week, unless in a social situation; Eat something when Boozing; And there is no requirement to finish a bottle of wine once it has been opened.
What else? Obviously (to me, anyway) my writing. I enjoy the process of making words appear on the page, pulled from some recess of my mind, so why don't I do it on a more regular basis?
There are other things, but I will enumerate them later, as someone's just come in with firewood and accelerant so I can deal with my paperwork.