Culture determines what we don't notice

Culture = the people gathered around us, and the scripts designed to make sense. 

Making sense has always been more important than making truth. Truth has an agreed authority, but truth has a social function, the prime of which is to make sense.  

Life is finite: my energies are finite, my perspective is finite, my time on this earth is finite. 

I exist in three dimensions, with limitations and reductions placed all the way. I will be dust at some point.  

There is no valley where I seek to walk the middle line. Rather I see only a slope, a rececss, or a plateau: a field, a forest or a fence. Maybe in a spiritual sense I see the valley, but it is never a visual one. 

_____________________

Perhaps the time has come once again to for certainty. For leverage. Maybe the time has come again to impose my will upon the world around me, albeit in a way I determine as ideal. But for why? 

I lack a 'why'. I lack a 'who do I want to be'. I find these questions banal, and unfulfilling. But they are limiting, and they might be able to be... 

Often the the answer is 'not what I am at the moment'. 

_____________________

Each day, have I managed to live 'inner+outer+conduit'? 

Have I managed to sleep better? Have I managed to move and be? Have I managed to improve my mind? 

 ____________________

Apparently I 'saved' 61k last year. I suspect those are COVID returns. That's about 5k a month though. Even without housing, that is a good year of saving money, especially considering... 

How on earth did I save that much money? That's even with miniatures and hoover and VR kit. 

What kind of life might I want to lead? 

There is something about books and reading and imagination that is free. However, time is finite. Being poor takes a huge time, and huge emotional energy. The space to read and imagine is sorely lacking, instead taken up by the need to survive.

_________________

Perhaps I can have some kind of tracking of each of my three... and have an ambition for each? 

  

Goals

'Goals' is a term for something that could be special. 

Maybe what are some of my 'reverse goals'? The goals that I might have achieved by now? 

To have avoided being in a successful band. 
To have avoided starting a family
To have avoided a position of high responsibility. 
To have maintained a weight that is slightly over average. 
To have experienced a smoking and drinking habit. 
To wake up most mornings feeling tired and bloated from whatever habits continue in this realm. 

_________________

The first day of the holiday is almost upon me. I sit here on a chair in the familiar position, an emotional vacuum having opened up. 

In my bedroom I wrote: books, brawn, bacon: 

1) Books = to meditate each day on something I should do but for some reason don't - of the inner life. 

2) Brawn = to seek better diet, sleep, exercise - anything of the body. 

3) Bacon = finances, position, status, social capital - anything of me hustling in this world. 

So I find myself in this situation of ignoring the innerlife, outerlife, and the body that acts as the conduit between the two. I lack momentum in my habits somewhat, but... I can consider what I do in each, and perhaps rebrand each

1) Books = Imagination, meditation, inner-nourishment: 

2) Body = Conduit: doesn't capture the essential element of the body, of its framework for the rest of me. Food 

3) Bacon = Hustle, social, interaction, sidegig, writing, blog. The terms don't capture what I aim to do.   

I want to reframe these terms. 

 _________

I find myself with the chance to reframe these terms. It does not really matter what I do, more that I: 

a) Seek to connect with the framing of others, at least occasionally. 

b) Seek to nourish the innerlife, outerlife, and the conduit between, my body. 

Without this triumvite... 

a) Innerlife = spirit, essence, my connection to the great beyond, spiritual experience, imagination, experiencing, the darkside of things: games, books, meditate etc. 

b) Outerlife = Bacon, Social, Job, Family, Other People, Music 

c) Body = The conduit between the two... 

______________

For too long I have lived without conscious nourishment of these three things... Just 'A Richer Me' and 'For Better Others'. It is time to change that. 

Innerlife = Experience

Outerlife = Engage 

Body = Exist/Manifest/Breathe/Lungs

This seems to work for me, although... I wonder if I can distinguish between job + otherwise? 

Overgiving?

A realisation has seeped into my guts today: I am great. 

As a human, I enjoy innate value from being alive. 

Being great + overgiving. 

My approach to education is distinctive. It is punk, powerful and smart. It is ambitious and aspirational. It also overreaches and overinvests. 

My approach and talents are underappreciated: I was promoted to SLT, yet stepped away from that position. 

I found the sidegigs to be... 

To what extent can I be the arbiter of my own worth once more? 

Colleagues: purposefully mediocre, but successful in their sidegigs. Financially successful. 

__________________

My family are limited in their ability to look after me.   

It is time to look after the child in me, in the absence of a child myself. 

__________________

What might happen if I step away from overgiving? That starts now by being with myself. 

Big Picture - Happiness?

This Monday I am delivering a workshop to Sumana's school. I feel the right amount of 'excitement' for doing it, without undue nerves. 

I have had many testing conversations about schooling and money this weekend, saying perhaps more than I should. It remains to be seen what the impact of that might be.

Two colleagues are aiming to quit schools for new self-employed jobs. It made me wonder this: why do I get annoyed at things that 'are not my business'? 

1) I perceive their attitudes or actions as actually affecting me, or at least the communities in which I operate. 

2) It challenges me to assert the attitudes that I prize. 

3) It challenges me to consider whether I do believe in some of the values I supposedly prize. 

4) Because I have a concern with the communities and organisations of which I am a member. 

5) I believe that financial injustice or social inequality should be challenged where useful. 

_________________________

The workshop went well from my perspective. Today I am to do my PDP. 

Falsification is not possible. 

'This is just my opinion, but...'

1) Every opinion is relative...

2) What is the utility of my opinion? 

3) Does my opinion correspond with any external sources? 

4) Is my opinion cogent with other opinions I hold? 

  

Imagination?

 Hi folks, 

Today I have the chance to experience imagination: that isn't to say the experience will be enjoyable or even easy. Instead, it is an experience that can be intense, of a stomach in revolt, the organisers of stomach acid putting down tools and leaving the lining to be overwhelmed. 

Do I have the physical strength to do this?  

_________________

When I close my eyes to be with myself and my breathing, what do I experience? The experience of closing my eyes to be with myself has been difficult. I will swim now. 

The swim was decent. 

_________________

If I had choice about where I would live, and what I would do, what would I choose? Is there a RPG game where I can min-max?  

a) I would be overtly tall, standing out. Supremely handsome etc.
b) I would be immensely articulate. 
c) I would have an upper-middle class family with social connections and much property.
d) I would have a dynamic wife and easy, fun kids.
e) I would have extensive savings and a wide and rich international network. 

As I typed more than the first one of these, I realised that this task becomes more of a: 'what does my culture recognise that I do?'

 

I never chose my culture, my family/nationality/race/class. 

Seeking to achieve in these various fields feels contrived. For a long time I have struggled with 'ambition', and what I 'really' want, or who I 'really' am. 

In reality, I think that I overgive. I step too far towards others in the need to 'survive in this world'.

I think perhaps a far better approach to realising 'who I am' is to consider some of the darker psychological and political truths out there. 

1) People are concerned with their own survival and self-interest above all. It takes some spiritual and social reckoning to be different and subvert self-interest and survival. Even then, the self-interest of your family or chosen spiritual affiliation will take precedence.

2) Social capital is underprioritised. Social capital controls what we recognise through our chosen culture. 

3) Underpinning the finer things I enjoy in life is actual coercion, the threat of violence once enacted, from the state or others. 

___________________

What culture would I want to experience from others? 

NATE. Schooling. Do I enjoy schooling? Is it about me? 

I have three distinct groups in my HL class. They can connect in ways I cannot imagine. 

Does NATE help me? I am not sure. 

_________________

The problem with drinking and eating junk food is that it impacts me for a long time afterwards. 

Bacon? Aggressive Finances?

I sit here and write a day before students return to campus. 

My approach to education really might change. I never grew up being a teacher, and derided it as a failure, as submission to a system I do not respect. 

I still feel the education system has huge issues. It is a cartel. 

I am finding myself slipping into a more relaxed stream of what could be. My savings increase by an appreciable rate, and I wish for a better life that is also relaxed. 

I have completed all my tasks this week, or good enough. 

I am resisting the culture of aggressive finances at the moment. I do not feel I want them. 

_______________

If you take socio-historic trends as a framework... that makes sense. 

Can I nurture my imagination once again?  

 

 

Managing Expectations

Yesterday the director of education visited my classroom and commented on my passion. I spoke about Hughes' Jaguar, and the ability to feel free whilst being trapped. It was a seminal moment in my career because the recognition will stay with me for life. 

I woke early today, rising from the pool of a vivid dream, its heavy feelings soaking me still, dragging me back into memories once lived, of a school experience suffered. 

The dream saw me teaching a class from the UK again. The room had been changed and I was waiting for the students to meet me at their new destination. One boy, small and wiry, was clearly a handful, eager for fun and sniffing for mischief. I had to pursue him into an adjacent room, before giving him the benefit of my wisdom. He slowly calmed his frantic search for distraction, letting me return to the classroom, ready to welcome my new charges. 

The room was filled already with the heaving waves of violent childhood, the students having entered early and ready to cause mayhem. Crashing again the walls were several students playing some fighting game. In the middle were two young men, hands whipping two long black leads stretched across the room, two dark snakes threatening to snap against others.

I woke up at this point, those old feelings of energy-sapping naughtiness remained. 

I watched an episode of naughty and antisocial boys. Blimey. I am blessed to not swimming in that treacle of social casualty anymore. Those memories will stay with me for life, making me appreciate the ease and kindness of the students I teach now. The difference is between a bucket of scorpions and a massage from a goddess. But that difference is one that I sought and nurtured, a niche that will appreciate for life.

Each morning this week I have woken early and ventured to the pool. I will do that again. I wake up and I experience the cool breeze of a tropical morning across the water, the gentle waves brushing my beard, washing the sleep into the dark past. I walk to school, the easy commute a deliberate choice.   

The heroic teacher model is limited, the idolisation of romantic poets is difficult.      

 

  

It happened again, a job offer

Last week my boss was fired. 

This week I was asked if I would take his job. 

I spoke to my colleagues. Two of them were a little indifferent. One has yet to 'get back to me'. 

It is a decent enough department, although not without its issues. However, I really do not know if I 'want that responsibility. 

There are some complications: 

a) I am finishing my MA soon: it might be practically finished. Therefore, I have some headspace.
b) I am not sure if I want to be busy 'doing things'. My social connections are tricky. 
c) Whilst I want to help the department, I am also a little ambivalent towards them. A new staff member could change things, or they could encounter what is already here.

Am I happy with my headspace of 'guitar, books and music'? Do I want much more? 

Tom said that the job is 'as hard as you want to make it'. Why am I choosing to make the job as hard as I can make it. What does that mean to make it as hard as I want to make it. 

I also experienced a colleague's angst about his work. He felt that others 'take the piss'. I felt a mixture of feelings, both with him and against. 

I feel today is seminal. 

Or is it? 

Do I want other folks to listen to me? Do I want my voice to be heard? Am I OK to park my other blogs? I think perhaps so. 

I am a bit tired. 

People I love and trust speak to me and tell me that I would do a good job. 

_____________________

It would only take a few days to feel better I imagine, or even to feel worse.

Existential angst is also possible to feel. 

I will talk to Joanna to see where that takes me.  

 

 

Integration

Today I have some time at the start of my day to consider how I feel about the immediate future. 

I have the privilege to not seek or accept leadership positions that might disturb me from the rhythms I have established this term. 

For me, a sense of perpetual actualisation is a privilege: my music, my fitness, my reading - all of it is aiming for something that may very well never happen, or even come close to happening. However, it is something that makes me happy, at least for now. 

It is something that makes me happy because I can choose the extent to which I want to aspire to these creative ambitions. If I do not want to work hard on a particular day, I am not obliged to. And that feels good to me. 

For a huge length of time I have worked too hard, frankly. We are talking regular 50 hour weeks, often more. I lived an almost monastic life, interspersed with moments of hedonism. Now? I happily drink tea and feel better than before. The purpose of drinking beer seems to have passed me, waving only to acknowledge a form of culture that demands a huge physical cost for the sake of social cohesiveness, a price of flesh I wish to defy.  

Tomorrow I speak with a boss about a potential promotion. I want to make a pros and cons list for an application. The list encourages a rational approach to these decisions, an approach that belies how I usually decide. My decisions for changing my life are made because I cannot make an alternative decision. 

How will I feel if I am a teacher forever without any alternative? Perhaps not great, but I also feel it is a neutral job. 

Two things: 

a) Integrate colleagues. 

b) Seek headspace. 

I have almost finished my MA. That frees significant headspace. When that is done, what will I replace it with? 

I also want to integrate the voices of my colleagues into my psyche. When I hear the voices of a few, my heckles raise defensively, and perhaps not without reason. Before one man died, he told me to be wary of one colleague. That is perhaps the case with colleagues across the world: there will always be one or two that wish to occupy, to even just affect, the roles of leadership we want to play. 

For now, finish the MA. Talk and consider. And do not rush into something you do not feel you want. The choice is simple, and one that the little boy with big dreams once believed.  

 

 

Scheduling Emotion

Another half-term is upon us, and I feel well-positioned to enjoy it. 

I have three categories of work: planning; marking; school tasks. I intend to only complete work tasks if allocated to those three concepts. 

I do not have an infinite amount of energy left before I die. Many of my years, good years in me, have been spent inspiring young people. Very many worthwhile young people have passed into my care over the years. 

My emotional energy over a lifetime can be allocated to many things. Relationships, fitness, spirituality. 

Emotion Management

I have a finite amount of money and time: I have a finite amount of emotion to spend. 

I am moving into a new age. 

I want to be smarter about how I allocate my emotion and my time. Sadness and conflict are inevitable in life: an ennui can easily settle into my bones during a holiday. 

How did I spend my time? 

I guess there should be 'school tasks'.

Then I can consider how much I am actually spending, emotionally, on the tasks in my life: 

    

It seems that I mark for 4.4 hours a week on average. What do I think about this? This is about 10/11 pomodoros. This seems a lot more than my desired 1 pomodoro a day on average. 

I also plan for about 4.2 hours a week. That is about 10 pomorodos. 

This is relentless, so that include on holidays too. 

Is this sustainable? I mean... marking a class set of books takes about 1.5 to 3 hours for one set of work. 

My next term is 8 weeks as well, and so I should expect 20 pomodoros between the planning and marking each week (or 160 pomodoros over those eight weeks). 

Might I expect instead less than that? 

Actually, I have marked for 95 pomodoros this term (including a marking project with Cambridge), and I marked for 90 pomodoros this time last year. Or was that for all 16 weeks? 

I think that 10 hours a week on marking and planning sounds doable. 

Is that really what I want? That an average week is 8/9 hours of marking and planning? Does that sound ideal? I have about 4 free periods a week. There are other tasks that come up...  

I wonder if I can have a 'school related' pomdoro? So I have 

Marking
Planning
School Related

Because report writing etc has different demands. 

How to Retire?

In fifteen years I wish to retire. The major stress will of course be money, where I live and what I might do for a passive income. 

My boss has not had his contract renewed. An option rises from this for me to apply for his job. I am uncertain. 

I am uncertain because I enjoy some of my lifestyle now. I am uncertain also because of the stresses I would suffer managing some of the people around me. Their culture is one of... I cannot really capture it. It is the culture of people that 'do it already' and 'know better'.

When I want to work hard at something, I want to do so on my terms. I do not want to work, then I do not want to work. If I want to converge with the culture of others, I want to converge with their culture. If I do not want to challenge their culture, then I do not want to challenge their culture. That is where I am at now. 

 

Half-Term: Feeling Decent

Hi folks,

It has been a month since I wrote because my systems run the rhythm of my life. Beat, brawn, books: the foundation of my lifestyle is strong, making my health flourish and my mind sharp.

I am increasingly happy about how I approach education. Marking a little smarter seems ideal, but some of my approaches to notes seem cool. I want to write about that. 

Trivialising some of the pains I suffered in previous places turns out to be excellent at this stage. Life is not lived in a linear fashion. 

I am mean + pragmatic response + empathetic? 

Do I need more than a few days of holiday? 

 

 

Writing for Esteem

I am 39, although I thought this morning I was 38. One lap below 40 felt right. Yet I am 5 months from 40. I do not have a goatee, a child and a sweater. 

Instead, being 40 excites me because my social position frees itself from some expectations.  

My cultural expectations are limited, with no expansive heritage to pass on or conventional position of status to enjoy. I have little to lose, and need to remind myself of this. Yet I work in a competitive environment. It is hard to imagine what a non-competitive environment would look like. At school, I must occupy roles that impinge on others, regardless of my efforts or intentions.

My expectations are based also on fear. I work hard but cannot escape a strange fear of work. An email might arrive and my stomach drops. My angst against my tutor, and my old teachers, drives me even now. Still, I might in doing so sense a greater awareness of others and awareness of myself, like a familiar walk past the slapping bracken branches towards the mountain heights. 

The consequence of my cultural experiences and expectations is a fundamental lack of self-esteem. By 40 I am successful in many ways yet lack confidence.  

Is my presence with others an impingement? Must I fight my way in this world? 

When has my presence been a warm light? A guiding figure? When has my presence been detrimental, my actions and thoughts damaging to others? 

Has my behaviour and presence been good for a substantial time now? 

Simply being 'good' in the passive and pious sense does not tackle the danger of unintended outcomes. I can avoid drinking, but maybe that isolates me from colleagues or makes them spit ire at a perceived judgement of their drinking. Promoting the moral imperatives of education can make me seems zealous and annoying. I cannot escape that. 

I am a distinctive man. I want to live by breathing. 

My presence in a classroom and meetings can be made better by a practiced and calm intensity, through breathing my words out. Through employing silence. 

Within my cultural background are many versions of me that scream and shout in unpleasant and unhelpful ways. These can never be expunged, as once I wished. Instead they are integrated, residing in a careful and distinctive place in the infinite constructions of my stomach. The low hum of the strangely chordate harmony resonates in my chest. 

They can be fearful. They can live forever in Hull, in that cold house with the broken drum. 

Presenting a 'big S self' to the world, especially at work, is wise. Every Tuesday and Wednesday, integrations of me will scream in frustration. The Big S will respond. 

The desire to influence others will verify my voice. This is the power of teaching. But perhaps this is 'wrong', or at least not ideal. 

Instead, to nuance by understanding others is to influence them another way. 

I am a lower middle class man who gains power by aiming for achievement. Who knows the consequences of some of my compromises, for my sakes and others? What financial and social issues have I caused by investing myself in the ways I have? 

Aesthetic experiences and exercise seem open to me. Calm speech is a chance I have today to write for esteem.   

A Fourth Week

I find myself moving into the fourth week of teaching with well-judged moderation guiding me, that wiley old man seeking the less trodden steps up the mountain, seeking the easy bumps of small hills that make the journey a slow experience. 

Many of the usual things that might fire my nervous system still exist at work, of vexatious approaches and busy students, of colleagues with other demands, but mostly of my uncertain and complex dance. 

Breathe more deeply than before, and integrate who you might find outside you. Breathe because you are alive and that your imagination might take you places beyond the fleshy prison of your skull, and the inky confines of these words. 

Perhaps I quit my job a while ago. And that I save the money I do and live the way I do is a testament to another way of being :-) 

A fourth week comes up, with the seven days of teaching leaving me with energy in reserve. I start that week now. 

Today I write about a calmer, moderate life

For the first time in a long time, I catch the shallowness of my breath and breathe more deeply. Without deep breaths my body suffers, stifling itself in a crushing posture, like industrial terracing housing blocking a casual amble up the valley hill. 

I hear from friends that the Middle East is as busy as ever with bosses demanding a pound of flesh. Knives flash as timetables are demanded. The price? 10s of 1000s of pounds of savings are enjoyed by them. For me the price of the mind is too much. To sit here and type is a privilege I have granted myself, a freedom to step away from work for a pomodoro and explore what cultural manifestations might emerge from my mind, what figures might step from the collective unconscious. 

I breathe. 

Negative Capacity, Integrating Humanity

Outside the castle of my body stretches the spectrum of humanity, a discordant valley populated with some pretty terrible people committing heinous acts each day. The black poison of their values threatens to discolour every tree in that valley. 

Inside my torso, from the keep of my heart to the rampart of my stomach, lives the integration of colleagues and friends, people who might at worse be more annoying than poisonous. Rather than seek to reject the siege of the world's problems, I have tried to accept parts of these people into my keep, to give them a room that contains a manifestation of who they are.

I am building a manifested integration of people past and present who I might have disliked. Inside various rooms of a marbled palace they sit, agitated and provocative as they might be, seeking attention, demanding recognition. Although visually perfect replicas inside me, the real person exists outside me, independent and sentient. The version inside is really my experience and perception of that person, with my prejudices, biases and limitations. The limited information I have based upon the often sharp and painful interactions forms a version of them that is real to me. 

Let me take for example an old English teacher who was fairly rude and anti-intellectual in my old school. His behaviour upset and angered me in a way I would not do to others. He denigrated my appearance in a public forum and undermined my work by group email. Yet by integrating him into my psyche, two things happen: 

a) I sympathise with whom he must be, a man who seems unhappily married, conducting affairs and insulting colleagues. These are not happy acts. 

b) I see myself somehow committing those same acts, with negative repercussions that damage myself and attack others. They are not beyond my moral limitations.   

These two effects are unpleasant to me. However, they are effects they are forced onto me whether I accept them or not. They also give me some sympathy for the self-serving perspective of people, of the protective heuristics people like this man and his friends employ to survive the world. 

The integration is protective. The man hopefully does not 'poison' other elements of me, but rather exists to make my interaction with people like him in the world easier. I hope he will not seem so alien and threatening to me when I meet him, or his ilk, again in the muddy recesses of the valley. 

Parents, colleagues: so many folks have seemed threatening to me. Let me see if it is possible to integrate them all, and still maintain the essential and nourishing elements I admire. 

In all of this is the need to breathe diaphragmatically, to let energy flow into whoever that manifestation might be. 

Integration: my own energy and narrative

A week of teaching has gone by. 

I managed my energy levels well, breathing well most of the time. 

As I teach more, I see different types of lessons: the teacher led inspiration, the collaborative research, the close-reading intensity, the meta essay-writing experience...

The rhythm of planning and living them seems skilled. 

I am a positive force. 

__________________

Each Sunday I reflect on the week just gone. It is easy I think to let things slide. 

Starting a new year

Breathing should be enough: appreciate the present, of being alive and ready to live with my students next week. 

I emailed two people who normally trigger me. Instead I find myself integrating them into my psyche, finding a place for them in the mansion of my mind, a comfortable room that becomes as large as they desire. I can pay them attention as they need. But they do not need to control my reactions to the outside world. 

The past week I have felt the ire and anxiety of past parts, developmentally childish and instinctual, urging to beat my chest and pursure conversation and more with an undue intensity. This week I talked to those parts, urging the 'Big S' to be the face to the world, speaking with wiley guile. 

People like my father or liquid do not desire the passionate parts of me to communicate. My parts will rise, sure as a scripted rebellion, but they will not be the ones at the controls, signing the decrees. 

Last year I was tired in my nervous system. This year be calmer. 

___________

This morning I woke up feeling tired. The morning swim was tough with the water cold, its harsh embrace never comforting. My stomach and body are tense, grabbing my breath, making relaxation flow a little less strongly. 

Perhaps this is how I have always felt when starting a new year. Speak with calm breath and power. 

__________

I am into my third day of teaching of this new year. Am I tired? I must be. 

My dreams are vivid, with one day of particularly erotic dreams, and another day of dreams concerning huge lads from my youth. The violence I suffered in my childhood is unintegrated. I cannot know why some boys attacked me, and nor will I ever know because I possess only a partial picture. 

That those tormentors see themselves as bad people is unlikely. Instead their actions are self-serving, supplicants to our king ego, deigning only to protect ourselves... 

In my dreams, the whiny and scared voices, defensive and snide, celebrated the victory of attacking a small boy. I need to integrate that voice, with its limitations, into the mansion of my mind. 

Last night I struggled with tedium in the evening. I struggled with breathing. 

 

Let's speak about reality

In my head I have been teaching for twenty years. I phrase it 'almost twenty years'. 

Of exam classes I have 13 years' experience.

I feel I am an expert at KS5 classes, with years of credible experience behind me.

I have, in reality, taught three Year 13 classes ;-) This will be my fourth. 

This is a year of something new. Of balance in teaching, of realising how I might have been in the past. 

This year already I have spoken with a deeper breathes than before. Yesterday in the dentist I breathed purple into my stomach, ushering a healing aura into my chest and stomach, relieving the pain of my cleaning. 

I am slightly less earnest than usual. I do not want to tire myself. I have still attended every session... 

Being with people infuses me with energy, stirring up the unmanifested essence that resides within me. Whether it forms anxiety or excitement is unclear and uncertain.  

A day before 2021/22

I am due to start work again tomorrow, although I never really left. It is a journey through a winding valley, an academic pilgrimage I take each year, passing many varied and curious interests before meeting testing ends.  

Breathing better is my ambition this year, as is sleeping well to recover each day. I am 36 inches on the waist, and about 71-72kg. I am about 6 stone above ideal weight for being healthy. The person I could nurture needs disipline to carve him out of the lazy fat that protects my ego. 

Yesterday I ate well but consumed about 4-5 biscuits near the end of the day. Still, I recorded this on my app.  

I start each day with a phone check and looking at media. Is this how my day is best started? With Volound complaining, that spicy waste of stimulation? 

Each day is a mini year, with a similar rhythm. I start my days reasonably, with 'bacon' (although I have stopped 'bacon'...)

_________________

I have so much, and I enjoy the comfort of no commute and little job pressure. But I do not feel happy or satisfied. I need to be healthier. Without being healthier, my body does not feel happy. The head cannot dial in emotions that are crushed out my body.  

I think losing weight will help me breathe better. It is perhaps the best thing I can do. 

I remember that the earnest child resisted those habits of the pack, of smoking, overeating etc. The cost of separation and loneliness almost cleaned him out emotionally. At some point he engaged in those dirty habits, but he was not seized by them, did not prize or respect them. 

_________________

Like Brian says, changing the inner landscape leads to outer behaviour. But can I integrate the less ideal elements of my past and nature into an authentic whole? The adult element that interacts with the wide world is hardly 'ideal' too, needing to be both wilely and wise to function. I have a family of emotions, many negative and unhelpful, that experience the world as it arrives around me. 

I think the discipline I seek is, fortunately, part of my nature. I can put my head down and push pomodoros as I need. 

Doing things that I do not 'want' to do will make for better days ahead. 

Can I control 'what I want'? I am able to do what I 'want', but what do I want? 

Seek those who might influence you. 

Planning, Planting, Pantsing

Three days remain until the new school year begins. 

My stomach feels constrained by the fat around it, pressing my breath from my lungs. My eyes feel tired from too much screen time, aching from satisfying internet marketing groups. I am overconsuming media and undercreating and underappreciating my hobbies. 

I have many hobbies, but perhaps too many. My plate is overloaded with rich food but what I do eat, I scoff, leaving no time to enjoy. 

I have a finite number of hobbies: 

a) Music

b) Reading

c) Gaming

d) Painting

I have a finite number of demands: 

a) School planning

b) School marking

c) MA completion

I have a small number of nourishing elements: 

a) Brawn

b) Balance

c) Breaking Bread

d) Books

e) Blooming

___________________

This holiday (and indeed a bit before) I relaxed the rules of my pomodoros. A pomodoro should be: 

a) Concentrating on one distinct task. 

b) No breaking for doom scrolling or media. 

c) Consumption of social media should be regulated on relax/rest periods. 

By jumping from task to task I find myself sadly led by the frantic youngster who will redouble his efforts. He lives inside me, manifested by cultural scripts, speaking frantically and arduously, eating the spaces between words. He will be here forever, created by the influences around me that I can not control. I do not want: 

a) to let him control me. 

b) to destroy him. 

Instead of letting this frantic child decide how I will act in the wider world, the 'adult element' of me should step up. A continual discipline regulates my interaction with the wider world, building low fences to separate the different nourished plots of action. Passion still grows in my life, unfettered in its inclination to overgrow into other plots. Drinking and socialising can leak into other days while a lack of brawn and blooming eats into my energy stores. 

What does this adult seem like? He is: 

a) On my side. 

b) Starkly true. 

c) Fallible and aware of it. 

d) Aware that being calm and responding with rhythm helps. 

What should happen to the child of passion inside me? They must live inside, finding expression in ways beyond language. They do not need to lead when I feel unsettled. 

The adult of me, the sociopathic outside element is calculating, compassionate and aware. His actions are wilely. He is the best friend to many, and appreciated by bosses and colleagues alike. 

Sitting with more pomodoros seems to be me to be a route into the new year. I cannot think my way into wellness. 

Spoilers

I want to read more spoilers. 

I want to embrace that one day I will die, and that to appreciate the patterns that emerge when a book is considered as a structure. 

Can I appreciate the patterns of my life. 

Yesterday I spoke to many people, watering the seeds of thought and love that seem to wither in the garden of my head. A garden tames the wild vitality of nature, setting careful fences to contain the thrusting growth of wildflowers, of unspoken . This balance appeals to me. 

_________

It is Monday now. I have struggled with: 

a) Reading the work I once did. 

b) Integrating unideal characteristics of others around me. 

c) Over the past 4-5 days I have found it hard to breath deeply. This in turn leads to other issues. 

_________

It is Tuesday now. Yesterday saw me tend the grove of music, seeking a new plant for amongst the most ancient of my fields. I trekked Manila in search of a new guitar, considering what pickups I wanted. travelling Manila and in the end servicing my Mexican strat. I watched many videos on music and guitars, 

My childhood feelings about music are tied in the social connections they suggest. The quietness of now means that no live music will occur for years yet. In the meantime, it is a hobby that I can play with again without the pressured expectations of youth. 

I am looking forward to starting my job again next week. With that in mind, I want to breathe again. I want to walk and be. 

Sit and be. 

_________

It is Wednesday. The job awaits next week. I am beginning to join again the world of: 

a) Podcasts. 

b) Music. 

c) Books. 

We can choose some of the influences around us. This does not need to be Coal Chamber and Lord of the Flies any more. 

I can also read some of my past writing and integrate it. 

Do I move apart from others?

As the years move behind me, the people I once knew fade into their fiefdoms. What people may have once meant to me still remains though. 

Breathing deeply means I experience my body more. 

I wonder if I can begin to integrate experiences today... 

Take some time to walk now my brother. 

____

More podcasts. More writing. More short and sharp posts with concepts included. 

What concepts to include? What noun phrases to extend concepts? 

Identity

The benefit of identity

The search for identity

The use of identity to excuse actions 

Identity as a framing metaphor

Cultural influences as a framing metaphor for identity

________

Today I breathe, and I feel tightness and acidic pain. 

________

My visions: 

a) 40k. 

b) Family? 

c) Football? 

d) Music? 

e) Abstraction? Books? 

f) What visions really inspire me? 

_______

Yesterday I felt weak with a poorly stomach and tired eyes. 

Don't do too much

I sit here at the start of the day aware that I want to avoid overloading my plate. Too often I feel obliged to pluck different projects from the buffet of my list and eat them in one sitting. Even nibbling a bit each day is perhaps too much, leaving me with little time to savour each one. 

Each day for four days I have thought about moving along my MA, and yet I choose a different path. So many times have I stepped away from the tedious road of self-study that it has become overgrown again. I need to hack whatever weeds of disaffection away from that path so that I might once again make some progress. 

I struggled to 'lose weight' this holiday because I refused to track the logistics of what I was eating. Whatever small battles I might win through sheer will mean little when I run out of energy in the evening. It is not enough to fight openly with smaller meals and less sugar because small forays of hunger can sabotage my efforts. 

Today I will join again with Mark to talk about all sorts, probably political correctness and how various minority groups fail to walk together towards shared ambitions. To share a coffee and feel another mind sparking with ideas and thoughts invigorates me, creating a flow of energy that powers my heart for the rest of the day. I am blessed to enjoy that kind of connection. 

Above we see small short paragraphs, each with a different metaphorical landscape. 

1) To do list + Food

2) MA + journey

3) Eating habits + battle

4) Mark + connection

The metaphorical landscape creates images that make the reading easier, often providing stimulating signposts for what I write. 

Each of my immediate colleagues is a solitary creature, desiring to nest in a... 

_______

Understanding the world through metaphor

Reading two books on metaphor made me think of the two following ambitions: 

1) Marshall the metaphorical landscapes so that I might experience them, 

2) Frame the world around me using metaphorical landscapes. 

Here are the metaphorical landscapes I know of: 

Conflict

Journey

Food

Body

Animals

Good vs Evil

Growth 

Warmth/Comfort 

Family

____________

Breathing as a metaphorical landscape.

I feel 'shit'. 

Metaphors as individual phrases in sentences have a power, but a metaphorical landscape makes more sense. 

“balance, connection, container, control, journey, resource, and transformation.”

“In Zaltman’s taxonomy, the deep metaphor of:

Balance refers to social and psychological equilibrium, expressed in phrases like “I am centered” and “It feels slightly off.” 

Connection involves the sense of belonging (“a team player” or “a loose cannon”). 

Container describes psychological or emotional states (“in a good mood” or “out of your mind”). 

Control implies mastery of events (“It’s out of my hands” or “We’re on the same page”). 

Journey suggests movement toward or away from a goal (“We’re on course” or “We got waylaid”). 

Resource references basic necessities such as food, family, friends, and finances (“bread and butter issues” and “My job is my lifeline”). 

Transformation encompasses physical or psychological change (“He turned over a new leaf” or “She’s a different person now”).”

_______________

When I was younger, I battled for survival. I retreated from conflict when I did not need to see it, and I was suspicious of control. One friend seems to strive for transformation, to perhaps battle his past, seeking to destroy old demons. 

Now I do not need to fight as much. Instead I can seek balance, embracing the 'centre' of my cuture that lifts me on a firm foundation, providing a platform for perspective. My cultures are not perfect, by far, with racist and sexist overtones in the people who have impacted me.  

“Many of the metaphors we use every day are synesthetic, describing one sensory experience with vocabulary that belongs to another. Silence is sweet; facial expressions are sour. Sexually attractive people are hot; sexually unattractive people leave us cold. A salesman’s patter is smooth; a day at the office is rough. Sneezes are bright; coughs are dark. Along with pattern recognition, synesthesia may be one of the neurological building blocks of metaphor.

No one is quite sure how synesthesia works. Some researchers suggest that we are all born synesthetes, that synesthesia is the original way we experience the world. Newborn infants have an abundance of neural connections among the various sensory centers in the brain, connections that are gradually pruned back over time. According to this theory, synesthesia is the natural result of crosstalk among these massively interconnected neurons. Only after the age of about four months, when the cortex has sufficiently matured and the excess neural connections start to snap, does this innate synesthesia fade.”

Excerpt From: James Geary. “I Is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How It Shapes the Way We See the World.” Apple Books. 

Breathing

The past four days I have enjoyed a better energy thanks to my ambitions with my breathing. 

My nose accepts oxygen, masses of it to open my chest, to push my guts aside. 

Move now. 

Today I moved, 15k steps. I watched, I browsed, and I read. 

_____

The day after I travelled to the jungle. 

+++++

This day I woke early. I dreamt about teaching a class with various annoying boys who spoke over me and my boss. The atmosphere of the classroom was terrible because it centred on the lazy actions of a few, their irritating words said with laughtr, distracting others and destroying the thread of the lesson. I suffered it as a student; I witnessed it as a teacher. 

I do not have the time in a life to understand my experiences in Scarborough. Instead I can hope to integrate some of my experiences. 

Fearing parents and what they might say...
Remembering the violence and aggression of some male students... 
My fear of exam results... 

I cannot think of much else I want to integrate from my experiences, save that I want to mark exams, and avoid teaching in these violent state schools again. 

When I think of: 

a) who is voting for the government;

b) or what will 'happen to society' when tens of millions are forced to move for entry-level jobs;

c) or how the aggressive and foolish boys I once taught see their lives; 

I forget how I am educated. 

My education does not overcome entirely the handicaps of my family and father. But I do not esteem it as perhaps I should. 

My sensibility is competitively developed. 

Today I walk, read, music and MA... 

Imagination? Gaming? Endeavour?

Over the past few days a few homely annoyance rose to interrupt me: 

1) My RFID ran out thanks to errors by those who look after me. 

2) My internet bill was charged, and no email was sent to inform me. 

These events are enough to seize my mind continually. However, I was able to breathe into these events, feeling the attention they demanded, integrating their childlike responses before letting the adult respond. 

I intend to walk today and to see my tutor for my MA. My MA bores me, but that boredom should not be unduly challenging. 

Gaming. I find myself wondering what games to play. If I am honest, the list of games I have played over the past however-many-years are increasingly small. Too many games require too much investment, of time and emotion. 

Casual games should really be more my thing now. Something I can experience in a few hours. Some RPG games give this; other games demand more. 

I am tempted to uninstall Steam. In fact, I will do so now. 

When I log back on, I will consider the games that I will play. It was fun to download the hardcore military simulations. I wonder if I can read and walk and breathe and talk. 

With breath in my body

Yesterday's experiences with Joanna: 

a) When finished, I walked High Street and Forbes Town, holding my belly and seeing people sitting in their spaces. What might have triggered me instead washed into me, to see people focused and being. 

b) My breathing deep into my body, feeling my diaphram move, flooding my brain with oxygen: this is a practice I am picking up thanks to my walking. 

c) Ready to move? Ready to be... 

d) Nurture relationships with the voices inside your head. See the occasional malformed folks that reside whom culture has formed. The bald angry and aggressive man who seeks to destroy; the greasy and rounded deviant with terrible hair;   

e) Malformed states of self, malformed in that they are stuck in a child-liked developmental state, do not realise that they are child-like. I imagine them embodied as adult men, but they operate and exist as children, limited and unable. 

f) The Adult Part of me does not need to operate only within a spectrum of good vs evil, but rather as a way to negotiate a complex and fragmented world. 

g) The malformed states operate in their way: they cannot be destroyed, and formed by cultural influences, shaping the rocker, the writer, the lover, the writer.

 

If, then

If... then... 

Let's play a game: I predict scenarios, some extreme, and I commit to what I would rather do. My motivation for playing this game is the suspicion of my 'relative response'. By that term I mean I do not really trust the 'why' of what I am doing, and feel that I am too easily led. 

I read some moral situations. What about my specific situations? 

If I do not get housing, what will I do? 

I am living responsively, not responsibly. 

________________

It has been a week of living. I attempted to drop sugar and alcohol. But this was a huge struggle.

The problem with games is that I become reliant on the outside world for entertainment. 

I lack focus. I have many games, yes, but I do not seem to play many. 

I am physically bored. 

_________________

My responses when I am bored are: 

a) Drinking Mentality. 

b) Mental Promiscuity. 

c) Doom Scrolling.

These are obviously unhealthy. In an attempt to be better, I focus on work. However, my work is perculiar: I am invested emotionally, and cannot rely upon my colleagues to be the same. To hear 'let's do less marking' and 'we do this already' irritates me unduly. 

_________________

I read of several women who are angry at transrights activists. Where feminists fail is when they concern themselves with the fights of middleclass white women, deciding that their experience is the 'feminist experience'. I will not engage or respond because I wonder how to integrate my anger and frustration at that. 

What perhaps I need to integrate are some of my negative actions, accepting them and the negative elements of me. It makes me tired. 

Do less

I was going to name this post 'do less to do more', but just doing less is enough. Rather than tire my body where like Boxer's corpse it is taken to the knacker's yard, I want to make it leaner. 

Combine these concepts: 

1) Appreciation of time

2) Appreciation of life and death 

3) An aesthetic appreciation of life

4) Being healthier: stronger, healthier, leaner

5) The need for an altered state of consciousness. 

6) The ability to absorb damage

7) The ability to accept suffering

And you will have the thread of this post. 

Feeling various voices + tiredness with Catholic Guilt

To watch England play I stayed up all night, wrecking my sleep, severing my connection to the earthly energies under my feet. 

I was barely able to leave the house the next day. Instead, my mind sank into what I call 'Catholic Guilt' unable to focus and leaving me nervous and disembodied all day. Usually I feel that drinking causes this, and no doubt it does contribute, but it is the lack of sleep, of quality rest that replenishes me with vital energy, that reduces me. 

I am listening more to my body these days. These are some things that are motivating strong feelings: 

i) The IB results. 

ii) England's football. 

iii) WWII reading. 

iv) The MA. 

Am I happy that this is where my gut is stimulated? That this is where my essence is processed? To where does my mind wander in those moments by myself? 

Reforming a relationship with the voices in my head

The 'voices in my head' are 'part of me', but they are not 'fundamentally me'. 

Each of these terms operates like a swirling mist, occasionally solidifying into a bridge or house, something physical and functional whose purpose is clearly known. Yet too often those feels feel vague, slipping in meaning and purpose.  

1) Voices in my head = consciousness, construction of a narrative for my actions, speaking to myself, lambasting myself, praising myself, the definition of my emotions, labelling of my actions, considering of how others might consider me  

2) Part of me = Not entirely me, not authentically me, not a major element, still significant

3) Fundamentally me = The base of me, the most important element, the base upon which all else is built. 

______________

The voices in my head are influenced by things over which I have no choice: gender, race, people I have worked with, family, etc. I do not know how factors form those voices. Those voices consider me and my actions, crowding for attention, eager to pass judgement, and keen to pursue the agenda of others. 

Those voices also create sanity, guiding me to interpret the world the way others might. Their voice, or what I think their voice might be, becomes part of the voices that whisper to me in the night. 

_______________

I am stimulated in various parts of my body. The stimulation of my guts and chest has for too long been dismissed. When I feel strong emotions in those places, I am unable to stay with them. 

Being able to stay with those parts of my body is my ambition now. Listening to the voices in my head, usually the unpleasant ones, and more consciously forming a relationship with them seems useful now. 

What about the affirmational voices in my head? 

________________

I am a manifestation of essence with some dim consciousness. I can manipulate what I think about things to a degree but controlling that manipulation is difficult. 

I should read things and see how they make me feel. By feel, I mean the moral, aesthetic and intellectual reactions, so I really mean react. How do they make me react? Can I begin to engage directly with the various voices? 

It should take me a while to really consider what I think. To realise that there is an orchestra of voices in my head, some remarkably quiet. 

Let's try that today. 

My energy today - IB Results

Hi folks, 

Today some IB results came through, that neon email flashing a potential future. Some numbers shocked me, of what seems two cheating defeats, but the overall message was ideal. As usual, my heart flies to the two kids who dropped grades rather than the dozens of kids who achieved or scored more than expected. At least I notice that feeling, and come to expect that gut feeling like an old friend. It is rare my gut feels moved by something.   

I also think of my own MA, that dusty journey to an uncertain X on a map. The time I spent on it seems arduous, but if I see how many pomodoros I spent... 90 hours in a year perhaps? That is like Pillars of Eternity, an experience that felt easy in comparison. My first draft is in and I wait on feedback. Then that endeavour will be complete. 

Yesterday I spoke at length to a colleague. Some thoughts: 

a) He dismissed any conversation about Buddhism despite wanting to seek enlightenment. To shut down those avenues might keep us focused on his ideal destination, but how do we know what roads we have passed? 

b) If a story did not affect him personally, he struggled to listen through it. Speaking about the Miami Condo collapse, he did not feel empathy for the tenants or the landlord. 

c) He did not feel he could tell his subordinates what to do in terms of pedagogy, thinking repeatedly that I was referring to transfers or interpretations. 

d) He actually seemed to listen at one point, which felt strange. It was for a few minutes. In that dark space I found that whatever I said would not sit in my mind.  

I spoke about my desire to be more like two colleagues who mark and focus on grades. There is little in the way of conversation outside that, and the vindication they will feel about their marks might reveal itself in the coming months. Their approach is everything. 

For now my plan is clear: converge with my department and take on some external marking responsibility. From that marking, perhaps be firmer in what my students need to get to get their marks. 

I should realise that I was not always so firmly committed to school and schooling. I am suspicious of education because of the schooling component and have a difficult relationship with schooling.  

______________________________

One thing my colleague questioned was the need to find vindication for our actions from someone else. Is it ideal to seek justification from others for what we do, first and foremost. I see a spectrum: 

a) Being the sole arbiter of meaning and worth in your life. 

b) Relying on others for meaning and worth in your life. 

I have found myself on both sides of the spectrum. Post-university, I found others confusing and speaking around me or over me. I dismissed what they thought about my worth, or otherwise. In Dubai, I found myself almost towards the opposite, feeling unduly affected by what others might think of me and my lifestyle. 

The thing about being the arbiter of my own meaning and worth is that I understand myself through the eyes of others, the culture that forms my head and meaning. I cannot escape my eyes, my gender, my age, my race. Instead, I might see what relationship I could form with those feelings: to listen to where the stimulation occurs in my body. 

The Everchild and the Parent can take more control. They speak through my broken voice, that human and nasally whisper, so they are not entirely heard. But one voice is playful, and the other is cynical. Together they can protect and drive me, integrating the more painful feelings that I might suffer, not fleeing them but instead find their rightful place in that fantastical city of my mind.

 

A trickster

I felt 

Negative capability

I perhaps have enough money to not worry about money anymore. It is highly unlikely I will build a dynasty or raise children easily. But I can live comfortably, or at least as I do now. 

Last night talking to Joanna I felt for the first time the kind of energy I want to nurture: neutral good energy. Like a Trickster, I act long-term on what I sense might be a balance either side of the middle line. I see myself as the voice of my culture, and the aggressive voice of progress as a bit of a con. 

Denigrating myself for humour seems attractive. My culture does not seem to benefit me as it might have done. 

Perhaps it is time to embrace the potential energy of negative capability. 

Habits for the Holidays

I have six weeks of holidays now. 

My habits are clear: 

Books, beat, brawn, brains = being. 

Connecting with people each day seems useful, stopping me from sleeping too late or drinking too much. 

Getting my heart beating also seems ideal on a daily basis. 

Day 1 = I have done this. 

The ending of a school year, and new expectations

Today sees me 'teach' one lesson. The demands on me have fallen away over these years in Manila, with only my expectations leading me. 

I am stepping into six weeks of the holiday soon. 

a) I seem to be the 'best friend' of many people. There is something about the way I speak, and the kind of people I connect with, that makes them appreciate my powers and our intimacy. 

I read this morning on Twitter of the bullying of a teacher, the UK state system providing little protection for a vulnerable woman, and the marking expectations hoisted upon her being especially arduous. 

I do not expect too much of colleagues in a classroom. Being kind and easy to work with is my bar. In turn, my expectations are lowered as well. 

A moderate life awaits me. Moving, beat, reading, social... I do not have harbour the strong feelings I do about finishing a term as I once did. 

 

Being 'with' my imagination

These past weeks I have struggled to be with my imagination. I have flicked through games and videos plenty. 

I am in a better position now than two weeks ago. 

I still need to be 'doing' beat, books, brawn, brain, and being. I think if I do all these, then I find myself with the day ahead. 

I have been missing 'books' a fair amount. That is a mindfulness I should not ignore. 

Remember reading books in Canada, of the intensity of that summer 
Remember reading books for your degree, of reading last minute, and struggling. 
Remember reading books in shisha cafes, beyond a voice. 

Now remember the reading with pomodoros, of running through anthologies last year. 

Now remember the reading of the first time you heard a reading voice again. 

______

Hi Dad, 

Just a quick email. 

1) What I deserve. 

I deserved a father who took more of an interest in his son. 

I deserved a father who wanted to take some therapy so he could deal with his issues. 

I deserved a father who would have let me look after him when he got older. 

I deserved a father who would have tried to make the family better, to build for the next generation. 

2) I felt... when... 

I felt furious when I heard of how you were spending your money in Thailand. 

I felt sadness when you 

3) Like I said before, it could be that we don't see each other again before you. If that sad case comes to pass, would you like me to attend your funeral? Is there anything you'd like me to say? It feels like you have resigned yourself to dying already. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

The distinctiveness of my life today

Today I will shower in a nice and clean place, sitting in on one lesson and drinking before drinking with an interesting friend later. 

This life could be remarkably different. I could be living with different people in different ways. 

I no longer feel great anger about many things. 

I do think I could potentially tackle the feelings I have about my father. Something like: 

When you... I felt... because... 

Then... you will die soon. You've chosen to die already by... but you might find some peace. 

I do not know you... 

Maybe there is a poem I should write? 

Then beat and brawn... these are two things I should enjoy. Feel the rhythm of just being. Walking and music, rhythm and experience. 

I am in transition. 

My Voice...

A summer holiday will soon be on me in two weeks. My interests and focus have changed, and pleasingly so. 

I need: 

a) Brains - some kind of intellectual thought 

b) Brawn - physical activity, with breathing

c) Books - reading fiction and experiencing the perceptions of others

d) Beat - Feeling a sense of rhythm in others and myself

When I was younger, perhaps primary school age, I was more determined to espouse what I believed. I found my peers mostly dry and ineffectual, wondering how and why they wanted to just be. Where there was a socially significant boy, I would challenge him. 

At university I very soon found my way into a greater confidence, enjoying my years and socialising well.

At work my confidence dropped. Lynn Stanbridge's crazy timetable, and the overall degredation of David Lister... my vision of myself was challenged by people around me. 

My life could have been remarkably different if: 

i) I had a family that gave me social capital.
ii) I had lived in London or a place with creative potential. 
iii) I had found a partner earlier who allowed me to direct my energies usefully. 

As it is, I near 40 years old with a nice partner and an easier job than before. I have a chance to sit with my voice. 

To sit with myself is to hear my voice. To sit with myself is not easy. 

There are monsters I need to meet. 

Brains

Brawn

Beat

Bacon

Being

Let me get this down. 

___________

Spending more time in silence is to: 

a) Listen to my rhythm. 

b) Listen to the voices of others, and what happens to my body when I hear their voice. 

c) To hear again the context of others. 

Siding with my interests, and my voice

Capitalism harnesses our self-interest into something we hope makes for a better society. The pooling of wealth in the hands of the few damages society though, fermenting a possible rebellion against social order, and benefitting few. 

I am suspicious of success. I am interested more in mediocrity.  

When I was younger, I read into promotions the con of the modern working class. I felt that to get a conventional career or network was beyond me, and not something I sought. To desire improvement at all times feels... wrong. 

I am fortunate that my partner now is flexible enough to travel abroad. What the future holds is mirky. 

In me is a child who wishes to scream in fear and anger at the psychic stress of the world he sees. He is derided because he is awkward and unhelpful. Should I feel compassion for him? 

Do I have a choice? He is me. 

Compassion for vulnerability is not a choice. 

I see the animalistic elements of my brain as helping me. But I should also see it as a child who cannot cope. It is up to the remorseless adult to step in.  

The remorseless adult should be seen as sociopathic or psychotic by different measures of being. He steps into scenarios with calm assurance, and tells the child that his feelings are righteous, and that he does not need to rise up any more, at least not with the same intensity as he wants. 

The Everchild does not recognise the peculiar stresses of the adult world, and instead delights in the weirdness of human interaction. How will the Everchild and the adult talk? 

Thoughts about work and sleep

I have thought a lot about the texts I will teach next year, and specifically whether I will begin with The History Boys. 

Like many things, doing things in one way round this year is important. Part of my stress, I think, is the intensity with which I explore an option, which then means I struggle to change it. 

I will deliver The History Boys and will ask the kids if they critique it later. It is one book for three weeks... 12 lessons maximum. My worries are real, but I can run through this once to then see what happens next. 

Understanding the text is... 

It has been a long time since I wrote a scheme of work properly... 

I need to clear some of my time I think. I am remarkably busy at the moment. 

I think making my calendar soon is useful. 

Taking on marking, and doing an iteration of this curriculum, is my ambition next year. Simple. 

I think that the investment I give to certain things makes them hard to change, but perhaps for a good reason. Relationships, work - we need a certain connection. 

Own our choices and do not live in bad faith, Sartre says. 

Find little videos... stimulate! Be better.  

I have been working hard at things, clearing my schedule for the weeks ahead - but in doing so I might be focusing away from myself, whatever that means. 

Leading a Curriculum Next Year

Planning by myself reminds me of my indecisive nature. 

For next year I have the privilege of leading a literature curriculum. Quite how lessons should be... I think lessons on context, plot, then on distinctive themes whilst moving through the text...

The balance for me is on how to move through the text whilst addressing theme... How to make it appealing? How to balance critical opinion with personal aesthetic response? 

Writing Literature Essays

I think what will make me happy in my work is knowing more clearly what essays score highly. 

Signing up to marking for iGCSE and IB literature will make me happy. Being firm about clarity and cogency will make me happy. 

I am looking to source a number of essays now, but it is proving tricky. An introduction and one paragraph is what I want... 

I struggled with writing my own essays. Even now I struggle with how students might write and respond with cogency and clarity. My energy and cerebral focus are not helping. The frantic intensity with which I work has helped me in the past, but I need to change for the sakes of better health. 

Literary essays are not about clarity. The who/what/how structure of IB literature is apparent in the exemplars. 

Being clearer about this might help. 

Responses to ideas are also useful. 

Knowing the texts myself helps ;-)

Paper 1 Unseen Response = 

What is happening in the extract? 

Details and Examples

How is it happening? 

Techniques or process-concepts, evidence previews

Why is it is happening? For what purpose? 

Introducing a concept...?

Energy, death and integration

Today I have an 'easy day', the likes of which seemed so distance when I was in David Lister. 

Today my timetable is clear with one easy lesson awaiting me. I have few demands because I finished so much in advance. 

Aside from IB induction planning, I have no real demands on my time. My job is the easiest I have wanted it to be. 

Imagine if I was in India or Japan right now? What emphasis on work over all else would I have? 

I felt my happiest when I was living a 'balanced' life, each day giving some pomodoros to things I either enjoyed or enriched me. Was this an indulgent life? Is the default life one of scraping and striving? Is it one of idle rest? 

All that can be said to exist is in this moment. This moment can change, and become unduly comfortable with demands of work or sustenance. 

To avoid, or even just manage, the stress of work, I overinvest. Rather than work for a pomodoro and move on, I just sat and worked interminably. I just marked until my marking was complete. And now? I have space. 

I think I will walk for now. 

As I walked self-doubt washed over me. That self-doubt serves a purpose, helping me to change my mind and become less intractable. 

I have three choices of the starting text for literature: 

a) The History Boys

b) Streetcar

c) Another

I want to consider the context of these pieces, and what might inspire... it has been a long time since I have planned... 

Emotional Allocation - Thoughts Today?

Today I woke up a little later to find an old colleague has attained a job in a low-tier school in Dubai after being ignominiously fired from his previous post. 

My first response was to feel happy for him, especially after the suffering he must have endured from the mean leaders who pushed him out. Yet after a few minutes I remembered how he was lazy and inept, and that he will likely approach this job in the same lackadaisical manner. I remember leaving my post on an open evening to witness his first speech, only to be disappointed by the rambling mumbles of a generic teacher. He is weak. 

Does this mean that he deserved the cruelty he experienced? I do not think so. 

Does the cruelty we experience or enact match our actions? Alas, in that I am more uncertain than I might have once been. 

Today I tired. But in that tiredness I feel... ok. Difficult challenges of marking and finding boundaries were tackled and defeated this week. 

I am in a state of transition. 

Today I need to consider my MA, making notes for Tristan. 

Focus Time - How Much?

On average I spent 3:30 minutes a day focused on work. This does not include socialising which can feel like work. 

This sounds like a suitable allocation of time. 

In the past, I would work too hard. I chose to work too hard. I felt guilty if I did not work hard enough. 

Not working too hard is a worthy ambition now because it leaves more time for whatever I might see important. 

Each Sunday I have completed a series of tasks and habits, regardless how I feel about things, and often feeling better afterwards. 

______________

Yesterday I worked too hard because I was agitated. The complexities of the mark schemes was formidable. 

I seem to have 'cracked' what I need to have done. 

I then saw a colleague afterwards. He enjoys the gossip but also talks joyfully about various things to do with teaching. 

I felt various bits of gossip flow past me. 

______________

Differences of definition and perspective can be particularly painful to express. 

Becoming Calmer

I think becoming calmer involves: 

a) Becoming cogent in my thinking, which improves cogency in my speaking and then my writing. 

b) Recognising the difficulty of 'staying with' past impulses, and letting the 'adult part' take control more often. 

staying with past impulses = 

i) past impulses = my inner child rising to intervene, often in frantic passion

ii) staying with = resisting the desire to satiate that impulse

iii) the adult part = executive function, pausing before responding 

iv) take control = keeping the impulse firing while the adult part is taking control

My position right now is privileged because I can practice calmness. Calmness is a measure of writing, but also a measure of spirit. 

Being calm with friends = lifestyle I might want. 

Knowledge, Insight, Wisdom - Calm?

Forging relationships between themes in literature seems fruitful. 

Making themes more detailed... 

These themes can then become more detailed and situated. 

This then becomes... 

____________________

Compartmentalising ... 

____________________

To regulate emotions I think we need to be with ourselves. When I close my eyes, what do I see? What happens to me? 

Some of my habits was been especially useful these past weeks. 

____________________

Yesterday I spoke to four people. That communication with other people... 

See... 

Writing... 

____________________

Speaking to different people over the past two days has enriched me. How Grace continues without talking to others amazes me. 

Things to consider nearing June 2021

Things to consider: 

Am I overinvested in teaching? Not in time these days, or in the status elements. Perhaps in my emotions. 

What might be my current narrative about teaching? The past narrative? The objective world? 

What would/did/will I want from my teaching? 

Planning a Literature Curriculum

I have relative freedom now in a literature curriculum. 

What do I want to give my literature students? A well-planned curriculum for one, I think. A space to record insights and transfers seems useful, especially one that is done to be efficient. 

What makes interpretations? 

Interpretation - dominant interpretations. What is canon? 

What are power dynamics? What causes canonical interpretations? To what extent is the teacher canonical? How to facilitate interpretations? 

Power and Interpretation? 

How do power dynamics manipulate interpretations? Inform interpretations? 

If you have an interest in how power dynamics influence you, then you have an interest in how interpretations influence you. 

What kind of energy am I experiencing at the moment? 

To what extent am I suggestable? 

Can I move better? 

How might I change my energy and way of speaking? Where might I be emotional? Where might I be measured and moderate?

 

To be social

Social capital is a terrible term because it does not sound organic and human. Instead, it feels technical. 

Finding friends is what I desire. I fluctuate in my social desires. 

LG lives in the US at the moment. My image was that they were educated and capable, a cosmopolitan. Expectations are resistant to reality. I thought her group of friends would be mine; I never made that effort. It was an effort because I have never run with the crowd. I remember the 

I found myself checking out my phone a little more often than usual: this is not ideal. The stab of dopamine on a notification is real though. 

My sympathy for folks who run with the crowd is real because I appreciate their self-preservation. 

The price we might pay for contending the crowd is real. Our rebellious idols will not rise to protect us, why should they? 

 

 

Triggered by Meetings?

Hi folks, 

Yesterday I felt triggered by meetings, considering dynamics of in-group vs out-group and wondering what happened to Brian. 

As it stands, I sat and spoke to my mother two hours, and apparently slept well last night, or at least unfeasibly deeply. 

I cannot think of an ideal scenario in which I talk to liquid girl. Maybe in school, or in an attempt to be untriggered outside?

I feel that I have moved reasonably through my MA and now I can consolidate my data with the four themes. 

I have three lessons today, and each lesson sees me not really teaching either.  With no debate club, I have more MA time as well. 

Thanking that vigilant child

My vigilant child often leaps up within me, his fists wildly clenched, ready to help defend me against those who would demean me. I feel him rising in my chest and belly, a violent spike of emotion that readies my body to run as I once did. 

That boy is very often not needed. The measured adult can instead step in, telling him to relax, to stand down. The overemotional reaction that he often suffers is almost always not needed, and instead leads to an increase in my pace of voice and the painful churning of my internal reaction. People can respond negatively to that perceived franticness, seeing me as out of control because my voice loses its rhythm.  

I am often 'extra' - that has been my mode for a lifetime. 

I remember perhaps when I was 13-14 of becoming 'zany' in order to function in the limited social space available to me. Did I ever change? 

That vigilant child will often rise in me, ready to strike. We can call him defensiveness. But who needs that response from me? 

a) Those against me do not need anything from me...

b) I do not need anything from that child...

Instead, it is time for the adult inside me to take his rightful role as the masterhand of my ship, to recognise the turmoil of my body and the fire in my heart and steady my course. Pause, and breathe into the moment. What consequence might happen if I did curtail my defensiveness? 

It is time to try. 

I do not need anything from you...

And so my mind continues with that agreeable philosophy of 'I don't need anything from you'. 

It is different from 'I don't owe anything to you' but the sentiment is the same. 

Yesterday I sat with Adam and Ian in a bar in our privileged district, enjoying their company. At a few points I sat back and consciously thought: 'what do I owe to you?'. I was happy to sit back, not feeling that I had to give anything to the conversation that I did not want to give. 

This is not quite the same sentiment as hedonism or reactionism. 

Instead it is the sense that: 

i) I can reduce my ego and just be socially, to just sit and listen, and offer a few responses. 

ii) I can do bad things in my job and still get paid. 

iii) I can just be. 

The need to attack the world around me, to seek constant interaction, to fight or fuck, does not need to 'switched on' all the time. 

I read my diaries over the past ten years with some compassion. 

I worked from 2007-9 furiously hard. Too hard. 

Likewise, from 2015-19. 

To work as I am now is fine. 

I do not need anything from me right now. I could say, 'I don't owe anything to myself right now.' I could even cut out the 'right now'. 

I do not owe myself anything :-) This feels like I have saddled my horse, ready to stride a world... 

 

I don't need anything from you

Those words spoken last night by Joanna released me from decades of tension, freeing my sobs to heave out my chest, leaving it flushed and quiet. 

Earlier this week I sat outside the mall and I imagined the people who walked past. The men I wondered if they wanted to fight, and the women I imagine if they wanted to fuck. Both responses require action on my part. My anxiety feels partly a worry about whether I want to expend energy on 'moving towards' people in this way, on giving something of me to them.

I rarely if ever see awareness of this condition in my past writing. Just being sounds ideal. 

Not 'giving' myself in conversation might make me seem morose. So be it. Let's move down this road at my own pace, stopping if I feel the need. 

I dreamt of Cottingham High School

As before, more than a few times, I dreamt of Cottingham High School. It looked different, appearing to be a selection of rooms in a huge old house. These rooms housed the teachers, as well as classrooms and a gaming shop. 

My presence there was for a job as a teacher. I was given that job because I am a good teacher with a great CV. I did not want the job, fearing a life living with other teachers. I could not refuse at the time. 

In time, I did refuse. 

Upon waking I searched for videos of Cottingham. 

In comparison to David Lister that school was great. In comparison to Scarborough... ? I am not certain it was great. My experience was tempered by my lifestyle, a lonely middleclass man with zero social capital. 

I am lonely now. I am sat with someone who is kind, so likely no. 

I perhaps now need to be kinder to myself. I have worked hard at school and feel that I played 'hard mode' for too long. It is time to take my 'foot off the gas', and live at a different pace. 

Some patterns of my life are becoming clearer, of how I might have lived, the cold of working in the UK, and the loneliness of a postgraduate life in neoliberal UK. To be honest, my life is boring. Does that mean that 'I' am boring? 

The anxiety that I feel sometimes seems to be a voice that urges for a different life. Can I appreciate the emotional ways I see my actions and my life? Can I test out provocative truths to see how I might react to them? 

Marking: Autumn - 35 hours 20 minutes

18 weeks x 5 = 90. (90 pomodoros in reality!)

Spring 25 hours 30 minutes

11 weeks x5 = 55 (65 pomodoros in reality...)

Summer - 15 hours 20 minutes

(20 pomodoros so far - 39 done in reality...)

76 hours so far 

180 pomodoros (x1 per day). 

I have done 195 so far. 

_____

Feel your emotions like an orchestra. Not just one emotion at a time, and sense those more subtle emotions...

A Balanced Life - Easier than you Think?

A balanced life is perhaps 'easier than you would think'. For me balance has been for too long a distant ambition, hazy in its appearance and dangerously tedious. Balance can be transending, a continually evolving experience into something else. 

Today I enjoyed a session about atomic habits. Its best insight made me consider how hard I am working: is 'hardness of working' relating to how much time/effort/energy I give?  

80/20 running. This means that some sessions need to be easier than you think. This means REALLY easy. Like today I woke up at 7:00am and I have trickled along with work. 

Plan for that ease. 

What does it mean to work too hard? What hours? Read penzu.com. Realise that absolute 'dedication' to work... Have you bene in survival mode?

What does it mean to work easy? What is the easiest I can work? Can I even see this from penzu.com? Have my easy periods been filled with ill-habits? 

What is the hardest I can work? How often will I work that 'hard'?  

What I call 'easy' is perhaps someone else's 'normal'... 

Why might I feel guilty about working too hard? Is it a moral imperative to work harder? 

If I am in a niche now where I do not have to work hard, why should I feel guilty about that? Is there a feasible minimum? 

I feel ready for something... 

Boredom at work?

I read my old writings. I am finding life boring right now. 

I feel in my stomach discomfort. There is tightness in my chest. 

My weight is actually below 70kg. 

I managed to transfer stock yesterday with relative ease: about 40 minutes to transfer from P to UK to S, and then to put in an order when the markets open. 

It was easier than trying to get money from that deputy head in Hull. 

Lynn Stanbridge lives in Dubai offering ideas on school improvement. I watched kids telling her to fuck off on a regular basis. 

I had my chance to be in school improvement and I stepped back before that role even started. 

I am happy to be alive at this. 

The Idealised Mind

I am sitting with my emotions more than before. 

That means sitting with uncomfortable emotions more than before. 

There were four years between Camp America and York. Four years. 

I have read old writings about being in Hull and York. I have made some useful choices, although not always emotionally useful choices. 

Making emotionally useful choices should not be optional. 

Being healthy is emotionally useful. I have 'the best health' of my time. 
Being financially focused is useful. 
Being occupationally secure is useful. 

I remember reading about Briony and how I thought about not going to York because of our 'relationship'. Insanity in retrospect. 

I am here and happy now, in perhaps the best relationship of my life, or at least the most comfortable. 

My mind is still flawed in its desire of darkness. But that is fine. 

Rhythm and Integration

More often than before am I sitting with emotions. They feel strong, images of past slights staying with me, of boy-men pushing me off my feet, of girl-women cackling into their cozy privilege. Unlike before I am not overwhelmed. Instead I sit with the feeling, rolling my eyes at the mundanity perhaps. 

I think back to how two women affected me financially, AM and AR. How often do they flash onto the sketchpad of my mind? 

How often does the boy-man Grigg flash onto my mind? I guess I have yet to integrate him, the context in which he operated, and how his emails were left unchallenged by my peers. 

Despite how I did stand up for myself, and how I did come to challenge him, he returns in my mind. Is that a rhythm that will continue indefinitely? 

Imagine a life where this memory never rose at all. 

Is that a life you want? 

Last night I dreamt of Camp America

Last night I dream of Uma Thurman from Camp America. I have not thought of her in decades. 

We ended sat on two chairs in a coach, arms crossed, clothed in warm coats, watching a horrific accident in the muddy fields outside our window. 

The coach rattled slowly around a narrow corner on a high hill, the steep drop on one side precipitous. Rain had fallen on the voracious earth, leaving puddles amongst yellow crops. 

A collection of farmers busied themselves in the muddy fields. One huge lorry, loaded with cargo, overloaded perhaps, attempted to leave the field. Wings of dirt splashed as tires span furiously on the wet ground, desperate to find a grip on the treacherous earth. A low roar sounded out as the lorry smashed backwards, hitting the bridge, collapsing at the worse moment to leave the driver trapped. 

The dream ended there and I came to record it. My feelings of whatever past events echoed. That essence created a dream more interesting that I had experienced in the past. 

Too often when I close my eyes do I experience the same images. 

Reading as Mindfulness

Yesterday I read mindfully in the morning, appreciating the rhythmic flow of words from my mouth. Each breath came and went, in and out, the vibrations of my stomach warmed my chest. That rhythm lasted most of the day. 

Today I am privileged to start that again. 

From time to time I lose that rhythm of my heart and words. To realise that stumble is a chance to step back again into that rhythm. 

I talk to my friend in Malaysia about work, and how to work hard. I think I know what he thinks. 

The profession does not have clear expectations of how hard teachers should work. But that can work all ways. Teachers can work too much, and teachers can work too little. 

I feel there is too little work here. And that is fine, frankly. 

Do I expect others who do not work as hard as I once did to accept that? I would be naive to believe they would. 

____

My new HoD, for all sense, is earnest. I admire earnest people. 

____

What does it mean to work hard? I feel myself changing, the people I spend my time with pulling me into different fields. 

Appreciating Myself

What am I seeking? 

Is my quest an appreciation for myself? What would that look like?  

Am I to feel 'great' about myself? Should I see myself as distinctive? 

Am I to rely on others for my esteem and my idea of myself? 

The thing about being distinctive is that it may not always be 'moral'. 

How can I be both moral and distinctive? 

How else can I understand my actions, beyond moral/immoral? 

_________

Why should I appreciate myself? What if I was not 'successful' by the various expectations of my societies? 

One of my colleagues is extraordinary in how little he contributes. Today he request to 'only' moderate four pieces of work per colleague, so that is twelve pieces of work in total to moderate a year group. How should I feel about that? 

When I close my eyes at night, what should I expect to see? 

Slow down your mind and feel your heart. This frantic energy you have felt for half a life need not control you. Feel the breath and how you need to at least pause every ten syllables of patter. 

__________

I do not suffer that impossible tiredness that the overworked might feel. Today is an exercise in slowing down. I will read in a voice that slows down. 

Distinctiveness and Truth

Who knows how to 'feel better'? Better than now? Better than before? Better forever? 

I watched Rocketman today. A powerful scene saw the adult hug the child. 

What am I looking for? Someone to play with? Someone to love me? 

______

I find that comparison triggers me. It is not what I found nourishing as a student. I instead want to seek distinctiveness. 

Today I embarked on a project to rank my colleagues past and present. It is interesting. 

The worst colleague is consistently bad, unpleasant and ineffective, with little deviation across her categories. They are somewhat of a self-starter, but just is destructive for a team. 

The bottom four colleagues are righteous, ineffective in skill and unpleasant as well. 

Two colleagues in the bottom six are there because of personality issues, not necessarily because of their ineptitude at work, or their dedication to the profession. 

The top colleagues are interesting people, effective at their jobs and pleasant universally. 

Interestingly, the dynamic of my current place is the best I've experienced, or at least the easiest. No-one is in my top 10, but no-one is low. 

Even with some edits, I can see that these people are simply quite distant. They are not actively unpleasant. 

_________

I think to 'not care' what others think is to actively annoy others at times. Am I really willing to do this? Did I do this before? 

Can I 'not care' what others think? What does that even mean? 

_________

If I meet someone in the street, do I have to speak to them? Feel judged by them as I judge them? 

_________

The 'issue' with the ranking is that it does not capture the distinctiveness of each person...