A little while ago my husband's car key broke whilst he was at work. Obviously not wanting to have to start a new life within the school grounds he sent me a message to let me know so that I could cycle to his workplace with his spare key, deliver it to reception and cycle home. All in all, a pretty solid plan, it's not far and the route is not hard.
The problem is that I had never been to his place of work before, and I am shockingly bad at following maps or directions, I don't know why, I am an intelligent woman with many great qualities but a sense of direction is not one of them.
With trepidation I popped his postcode into Google maps, hoping that there would be some kind of magic that allowed me to arrive at my destination without turning any corners. Unfortunately (but expectedly) this was not the case. The little blue line told me that it would take me around 15 minutes to arrive where I wanted to be using a variety of quiet roads, I could have shaved time off if I were willing to cycle on a busy roundabout in the middle of a town populated with heavy traffic, but that's a thing I would rather avoid. So I stared at this blue line, I followed it with my finger, I recited the names of the roads it traversed like a mantra, muttering aloud as if it were a prayer to whatever deity or saint it is tasked with keeping travellers where they want to be.
Steeling myself, I put on my helmet and picked up my phone, the invention of smartphones serves as a wonderful tool for those of us who are directionally challenged, I hoped that my obsessive muttering would keep the route I was planning in my head, but knowing that my phone will almost always be able to find me and tell me where to go is very comforting. Even so, I was scared. Probably more scared than it was reasonable to be before taking a relatively short bike ride on what was actually quite a pleasant day, but the combination of new places, it being my first real ride on a new bike and the uncertainty of my route left me feeling as if I were about to deliver an important presentation to a group of important and judgemental people.
I did have to stop several times on the way, and my 15 minute ride did take me at least half an hour as I rode around various loops and cul-de-sacs, but I got there. And I got back. I managed neither journey flawlessly, but I managed them, and I arrived home feeling as if I had climbed Everest.
Next time I am called to go to a new place, well I'll probably still be scared, but at least I'll know that I can probably do it.
Sunday, 29 May 2016
Choices
Freedom is important to me, it is one of the most important aspects of being human and it hurts me when I see people giving away their ability to choose.
Freedom is important because it means that the choices you make matter. If I choose to do something good or bad then the repercussions of my actions are squarely on me. If the things I do are only because I'm being made to do them then I deserve none of the credit (or blame) for my actions.
I see people arguing that the world would be better if no one was free to choose to do bad things, if we enforce good behavior to the extremes that these folk want, if even your thoughts aren't a thing that you choose then how can the world really be even half as good as it is now? What makes humanity beautiful is its ability to choose to do good.
Of course, I'm not saying that no one should ever be punished for their wrongdoings, when they hurt another person of course we, as a society, should disapprove, and provide consequences to those actions. It's not okay to hurt people. I find it difficult, though, to find the proper line for protecting people. There are undoubtedly people who need protecting, and it is our duty to protect those who can't protect themselves, children are an obvious example, but what to protect them from? Should we really be striving for a world where no one is ever upset, no one is ever offended? If people aren't free to say their offensive things how can we argue against them? All that happens is people harbour those thoughts and grow them inside their minds where no argument can dissuade them and so we are actually losing the chance to help someone to make better choices.
When I am discussing behaviour with my son, I usually frame it in choices. Today, we are going to choose to do the right thing, because it is right, but it is still a choice. He grasps this, even at the tender age of five, and when he does wrong he feels bad, and he says 'Next time, I will make better choices.' Teaching him to choose to do what is right, in my mind, is far better than simply not offering him the choice in the first place, if he can't choose to do wrong then how can he be praised for being good? How can I see that he is growing into a good man, if I never give him the chance to be a good boy without being told how?
It is also important to respect that other people, too, make choices. You don't have to like the choices they make, and if you think they are harmful you can try to explain why so that they have the ability to make better choices in the future, but taking away their ability to choose stifles their growth, and if you truly believe they need to change then you need to leave open to them the choice to do so.
More than that, though, I see people rejecting the choices others make even when there is no harm. Not even any pretense of harm in anything more than the abstract that 'It is wrong, and so it is bad.' Which is incredibly circular logic. If someone isn't hurting themselves, or you, or someone close to you, or someone who you know needs you to protect them, or someone who has asked for your help then how can you feel righteous in taking away that choice from them?
Freedom is important because it means that the choices you make matter. If I choose to do something good or bad then the repercussions of my actions are squarely on me. If the things I do are only because I'm being made to do them then I deserve none of the credit (or blame) for my actions.
I see people arguing that the world would be better if no one was free to choose to do bad things, if we enforce good behavior to the extremes that these folk want, if even your thoughts aren't a thing that you choose then how can the world really be even half as good as it is now? What makes humanity beautiful is its ability to choose to do good.
Of course, I'm not saying that no one should ever be punished for their wrongdoings, when they hurt another person of course we, as a society, should disapprove, and provide consequences to those actions. It's not okay to hurt people. I find it difficult, though, to find the proper line for protecting people. There are undoubtedly people who need protecting, and it is our duty to protect those who can't protect themselves, children are an obvious example, but what to protect them from? Should we really be striving for a world where no one is ever upset, no one is ever offended? If people aren't free to say their offensive things how can we argue against them? All that happens is people harbour those thoughts and grow them inside their minds where no argument can dissuade them and so we are actually losing the chance to help someone to make better choices.
When I am discussing behaviour with my son, I usually frame it in choices. Today, we are going to choose to do the right thing, because it is right, but it is still a choice. He grasps this, even at the tender age of five, and when he does wrong he feels bad, and he says 'Next time, I will make better choices.' Teaching him to choose to do what is right, in my mind, is far better than simply not offering him the choice in the first place, if he can't choose to do wrong then how can he be praised for being good? How can I see that he is growing into a good man, if I never give him the chance to be a good boy without being told how?
It is also important to respect that other people, too, make choices. You don't have to like the choices they make, and if you think they are harmful you can try to explain why so that they have the ability to make better choices in the future, but taking away their ability to choose stifles their growth, and if you truly believe they need to change then you need to leave open to them the choice to do so.
More than that, though, I see people rejecting the choices others make even when there is no harm. Not even any pretense of harm in anything more than the abstract that 'It is wrong, and so it is bad.' Which is incredibly circular logic. If someone isn't hurting themselves, or you, or someone close to you, or someone who you know needs you to protect them, or someone who has asked for your help then how can you feel righteous in taking away that choice from them?
Poetry
Like many young folks, I went through a phase of believing that only I could see the true nature of the world and it was my unfortunate duty to make others aware of the futility of existence. I chose to do this through the medium of poetry. Then I didn't let anyone see the poetry because it was too personal. Luckily this phase didn't last for very long, but I continued writing poems for a few years before my interests moved on.
I still have my collected works, they range in quality from awful to okay and in tone from morbid to confusing to a hint of whimsy in the most recent ones. I often wish I'd continued to develop the skill but I didn't, and whilst it's never too late to take up a new hobby the impetus behind my writing has faded somewhat. That is the main reason I'm starting this blog, and perhaps one day I'll try my hand at poetry again.
Poetry, when executed well, is marvelous, to take words which are already complex in nature, and layer metaphor and meaning behind them is a work of genius, but to further constrain that behind meter and lyricism astounds me. There is something timelessly beautiful about poetry, Shakespeare's sonnets are still often read and quoted even now because their rhythm captures something almost melodic that speaks to the soul of humanity.
Rhyming isn't as easy as it seems, especially to not end up sounding contrived, but the end result sounding natural and simple, it's a thing of wonder to me.
Language has always fascinated me, the way we take letters and arrange them into sounds which we assign meaning to, that we use an assortment of phonetics that can be traced back through countless generations, that have evolved along side us. Language is like a living thing in many ways, adapting to new environments, picking up words and phrases that are useful and discarding those which it no longer needs. Our ability to create, grow and then shape these words into poetry, songs, prose, is really quite astounding if you think about it, you can convey so many emotions if you so choose, or cleave them from the text and present it cold, all whilst using the same letters and sounds just in different combinations.
I still have my collected works, they range in quality from awful to okay and in tone from morbid to confusing to a hint of whimsy in the most recent ones. I often wish I'd continued to develop the skill but I didn't, and whilst it's never too late to take up a new hobby the impetus behind my writing has faded somewhat. That is the main reason I'm starting this blog, and perhaps one day I'll try my hand at poetry again.
Poetry, when executed well, is marvelous, to take words which are already complex in nature, and layer metaphor and meaning behind them is a work of genius, but to further constrain that behind meter and lyricism astounds me. There is something timelessly beautiful about poetry, Shakespeare's sonnets are still often read and quoted even now because their rhythm captures something almost melodic that speaks to the soul of humanity.
Rhyming isn't as easy as it seems, especially to not end up sounding contrived, but the end result sounding natural and simple, it's a thing of wonder to me.
Language has always fascinated me, the way we take letters and arrange them into sounds which we assign meaning to, that we use an assortment of phonetics that can be traced back through countless generations, that have evolved along side us. Language is like a living thing in many ways, adapting to new environments, picking up words and phrases that are useful and discarding those which it no longer needs. Our ability to create, grow and then shape these words into poetry, songs, prose, is really quite astounding if you think about it, you can convey so many emotions if you so choose, or cleave them from the text and present it cold, all whilst using the same letters and sounds just in different combinations.
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