New Glasses

When I started working for myself I chose to take a fairly big drop in my salary, so from the outset Alicia and I were thinking about how we were going to make ends meet. I’ve never had any trouble spending what I earn. To be brutally honest, I’ve always spent more than I earn. Sometimes you hear people talk about what they would do if they won the lottery. There is usually a fairly crafted shopping list. People rarely say ‘Oh I don’t know’ in the way that they might if you asked them what their favourite movie is. The shopping list seems to be written, prepared, regularly redrafted, and ready for that lottery win. It is a conversation that seems, in itself, to bring people genuine pleasure. I see friends faces light up as they reel through the purchases and carve up the fictional winnings amongst friends, family and charities.

Earlier this year Chris Weir, a psychiatric nurse, and her husband Colin, a camera man, netted £161m (around $262m) in a European wide lottery. The prize was Europe’s biggest ever. The couple made public appearances, giddy, excited, energized, unable to sleep, endearing themselves by telling the British public that they were ‘tickled pink’. When the UK lottery was launched the basic idea was for the sale of lottery tickets to support ‘good causes’ as well as give players the chance to win a life changing sum of money. Just over a quarter of the money raised from the lottery ticket sales goes towards ‘good causes’. What constitutes a ‘good cause’ is decided by one of the thirteen distribution bodies. Six of these concern sport, five relate to the arts, one deals with heritage grants and one, a distributor called the Big Lottery Fund, provides funding to community groups and to projects that improve health, education and the environment.

What constitutes a ‘life changing sum of money’ is anyone’s guess. In the UK, chances are your everyday household with personal loans and credit cards is going to owe somewhere in the region of £15,000 (around $24,000), and that isn’t counting the money we owe on our mortgage. Certainly, before the credit crunch, banks and credit card companies were willing to offer me a total of £35,000 (around $57,000) of credit in the form of plastic, personal loans and overdrafts. It was for me, and I’m guessing many others, our very own lottery win. When did it become ok to dangle that sort of money in front of people? When did a ‘life changing sum of money’ become the £15K we need to clear our debts? And what on earth did we all spend it on? The total UK personal debt at the end of June 2011 stood at £1,451billion! That is £1,451billion we have spent before we’ve earned it! £1,451billion we have spent on ‘stuff’ that we told ourselves we wanted and needed. So when we compare our developed world to the developing world, is what we are so proud of, our ability to access and spend money that isn’t ours to spend? And we can’t afford it. Every 14 minutes a home in this country is being repossessed.

So the banks said we could have the money, and the seductive adverts, fashions and fads told us we needed the money, but what about us? The middle men in this exchange of borrowings for ‘stuff’ and services (stuff would sometimes be referred to here as ‘goods’ - now there is a loaded word if ever I heard it). Why didn’t we put the brakes on? Why are we still out there shopping like our lives depend on it? It is as if all those old instincts and drives to seek out food and shelter, to survive, to belong, to achieve and have worth in our belonging, have been played, taken advantage of, substituted. As though ‘stuff’ has become administered like methadone to substitute the heroin we usually call ‘striving’.

I’m not name calling here. I’m at the meeting too, just recognising I’m an addict and trying to come off the dependency. We are what we are, human beings with brains that make us both of the animal kingdom and other than it. Both virtuous and flawed. Saying we are to blame is just nuts to me. We just are… this is what it is to be a human being… it’s tricky… our old instincts and drives are not of this seductive modern world, but they have to get along just the same. Sometimes we seem to elevate ourselves too far above the rest of animal kingdom, and forget we are just another primate with a few extras and some unique ways of using what we have.

Teaching in schools I saw increasingly how school just felt so old fashioned. Despite the ever flowing technology and the new building programmes, it was what schools did with it all that just felt old fashioned. The comment we’d hear with increasing frequency was ‘why do we have to be here’, and ‘why do I have to learn this’. Educationalists and parents alike try and steer a path through these very pointed questions, caught in the headlights of a youth that are ready to start buying, and feeling held on the bit by their inability to earn. And we were right to resist, and stutter out our arguments about the power of knowledge, the value of an education… but I’m not sure even we didn’t feel like our arguments were somehow being hollowed out from within. Nowhere else was belonging and worth and identity so tied up with what you had; nowhere else was the curse of the self more evident. And not surprisingly either, after all adolescence is a time in our lives when our identity is thrown open as part of everyday brain maturation.

I digress, and how difficult it is not to, and how much I want to. So whilst I’m spending like it is the last day of my life every day, along with all the other shoppers… I start wondering where all this ‘stuff’ comes from, where it all ends up. I watch The Story Of Stuff and it’s a good starting point. The prices we pay for ‘stuff’ are determined by the raw materials, the costs of manufacture, distribution and sales, and then the mysterious profit margin… which we are to understand is determined in effect by us…. by how much we are willing to pay… by the worth we place on ‘stuff’. And then there are those things which the price doesn’t reflect: the air and water pollution, the depletion of natural resources, the people whose health, education and futures are jeopardised by the need to keep production flowing and cheap. Isn’t it a strange world where in one country we protect environments and workers from exploitation, and then across the water it happens without restriction.

So I’m spending money I don’t own, to buy things I don’t need, made by people who can’t escape, on a planet that can’t give anymore. I’m not trying to make a political point here, this is personal. This is just one family’s realisation that in so many ways, and for so many reasons, we can’t keep living like this. We can’t live with our consciences if we are perpetuating and contributing to keeping communities enslaved. And we can’t afford to keep spending beyond our means. So we have taken a long hard look at what we buy and who we buy from. We are just starting out, starting out for the first time again. It isn’t about making ourselves endure some kind of suffering… it has more to do with finding happiness in pursuits other than ownership and competitiveness. It is another piece of the jigsaw that we found on the slip road as we left the rat race.

I admit, I never really cared about the planet, but I’ve always cared about people and now I realise that the two are interconnected. When I buy something that impacted on an environment, it also impacted on a community’s way of life and their ability to sustain themselves. I can’t spend money now without knowing a bit more. And the internet has changed that, because I don’t have to take the advertisers’ word for it any more. I don’t buy clothes often but when I do, I can seek out clothing that pays the cotton growers a fair price and that doesn’t use sweat shops. It will cost what it costs and I’ll either be able to afford it or I’ll go without. But I can’t live with myself buying something that brought harm to my fellow human beings, however much they are hidden out of sight, and I won’t be duped into buying something because it appeals to my need to fit in, be accepted and add to my self worth. It is a simple life we are travelling towards and we are learning as we go.

Something that might interest you: http://www.teamsweat.org/

Epiphany, But Slower

Life for us has changed and is continuing to change in so many ways. As I grew up, being taught to believe that there was a God, now and then life would bump up against those beliefs and things wouldn’t make sense. I borrowed my belief in God, rather than owning it for myself. When I was trying to put the pieces together after another major depression, I looked into following a religion. The internet and discussion threads are full with people who recommend God to others at times of illness. My father certainly seemed to think it would do me good.

For many, many years I have been a non-practising Muslim, and therefore in my eyes… not a Muslim at all; only one by birth, if such a thing exists. One by one, each of the rituals and laws fell away from my life… except the one about eating pork. I still don’t do that, although I offer no rational explanation for why I still avoid this meat and I place no importance on this fact. I’ve always been uneasy about not believing in God though. I suppose I’ve always hedged my bets, so that if one day it turned out there was a God I might still be able to argue my way into heaven. I wouldn’t even allow myself to quietly think that there was no God for fear that God would be listening. I’ve declared myself an agnostic in the past… which is a posh word for sitting on the fence. A word no doubt invented for boys to impress girls with.

Recently, and for the first time, I’ve have accepted and I am easy with the view that there is no God. I say this without any wish to influence others and without any delusion that I might be capable of doing so. I’m ok with the idea that there is no God. I am an atheist. I can say that now without looking over my shoulder. I am not any the poorer for living life as an atheist… I like still to make sense of the world and I do so the best I can. Along the way I get stuck sometimes because our knowledge and understanding is limited. But I’m open to ‘not knowing’ and not having all the answers, and feel no pressure to substitute ‘not knowing’ with anything else.

When Alicia was pregnant with Xavier, Alicia and I had discussion over a meal about how we would approach the subject of religion as parents. My parents are Muslims, Alicia believes in God but does not follow any one religion, and I was, at the time, not sure how to characterise myself. I’ve seen others take to religion when they had children, almost out of a necessity to gem up before turning teachers to their children. Having children does bring into sharp focus questions about what is right and wrong and many people find themselves dusting off their moral compass in readiness for parenthood. We decided then and there that for Xavier, religion was part of his cultural identify and we would welcome any religious instruction from all grandparents. That said, Alicia and I would just be ourselves with Xavier, and he would come to know our uncertainties and our own personal beliefs over time. It is easy to think that this is something that can be put off and won’t apply until he is much older, but life is rich with beliefs and ritual and celebration and remembrance. As much as I want him to one day find his own path, he will be impressionable and under the influence of religious belief for a long time before he chooses for himself.

Alicia and I do our best to make sure Xavier feels loved unconditionally, and feels safe and secure through the care, affection and protection we offer him. He is a confident and happy boy and a great companion. It is possible to be a good person without religion, and it is possible to establish a bedrock of feeling loved, safe an secure without religion. We do this through our relationship with him.

Without religious belief, or what people call spiritual belief, I take time to understand better what it is to be human. We are at once falling angels and rising primates. It is why I write and read so much about our unique human brains. Why I learn about biochemistry and neuroscience and psychology. Why I see human behaviour, and struggles and delights through this understanding. I want to learn about our sameness, our unique qualities, our beauty and our flaws. I’m interested in the way we have gone about constructing societies, where these societies originate, how they shape us and how we shape them. I feel like I’m lifting my head, like I’ve been trying to lift my head many times before and not quite made it. I feel prejudice and ignorance substituted with understanding and compassion. I’m sometimes very uneasy about what I see and the temptation is to once again keep one’s head down. But like a bite of the apple, there is no going back. We look… try and better our understanding, and try to steer a path that we can live with. Life for us has changed and is continuing to change in so many ways.

London's Burning

For three nights London has experienced rioting. The news reports and images portray a widening war zone, characterised by violence, looting and arson. There are the usual angles emerging from the media, lawless hooded youths, the lack of a police response, the destruction of local businesses.

Looking to explain why our capital city, and other cities around the country have become battle grounds, some have searched for the chain of events that led to this civil unrest. Four days ago, Mark Duggan was shot in Tottenham in north London. I could say any number of things now that would characterise Mark Duggan in our minds. If I tell you he was only 29 you might think what a young age to end a life. If I tell you he was a father you might picture his young family and think of their loss. If I tell you that he was known to the police you might believe he lived on the wrong side of the law.

But actually, I don’t know who Mark Duggan was, most of us don’t. I can’t discern his character from our plethora of British media houses. I can’t make sense of the conflicting reports about the circumstances surrounding his shooting by police. There seems to be a keenness to arrive at pantomime characterisations of people and events. I guess it might take some time for the facts to emerge somewhere down the line.

It would appear there was a police operation involving armed officers, that Mark Duggan’s minicab was surrounded, that shots were heard. Exactly who fired, how many shots were fired and why police opened fire remain questions without definitive answers. Claims that Mark Duggan was carrying a firearm seem to be confirmed. We are very much in the hands of the investigators to learn more about the incident, and in the hands of political leaders who will no doubt decide what, how and when information is released against the context of a city in melt down.

Somewhere along the line, the peaceful protest that then ensued outside Tottenham Police Station deteriorated and ballooned unexpectedly into the images we have now witnessed over the last three nights across London and other major cities. Does what is happening on our streets have anything to do with Mark Duggan now. Probably not. So what is it all about?

Well, the pundits are not short on analysis and theories. Is it the bad behaviour of unruly teenagers, the product of poor parenting, the uprising of the have-nots, the frustrations of an unemployed youth, the consequence of conservative government austerity measures, the consequence of the labour government’s nationalisation of childhood, the dysfunction of a godless society, lacking cohesion and community, the abdication of parental responsibility? May be it is all and none of these things. Maybe this is not a community united by a single cause, but instead a collection of individuals and small groups united by opportunity to do whatever it is they have each fixed their sights on.

It is terrifying, and the fires have lit up more than just the street of London, they have ignited a conversation in this country.

Kindness

The nurses at St. Thomas’ took good care of me and cleaned me up. Moments after my feet hit the pavement a stranger kindly gave me a polo shirt to put on, and later that day I picked up a pair of standard issue black pumps whilst at Southwark police station. These, together with the jeans I escaped with, would be my worldly possessions. After the fire, the pub cook let me camp on her floor for a month or so, a lovely lady full of east end life and a heart the size of a bowling ball. She was a mother to me whilst I was in London.

There were a few weeks to go before the end of the summer term, and the end of my degree. Everything rested on a final project that had gone up in the fire. I’d have to start again. The university gave me the summer break to put it together. A good friend, MD, gave me an old drawing board of his so that I could get back to work. AK loaned me her boyfriend’s apartment to work in over the summer whilst he was out of the country. JH provided some company and even pitched in with my drawings. This amazing show of kindness came together like a wind behind me. I did my bit too, and I graduated alongside everybody else that year.

The days after the fire, walking about with nothing but the clothes I wore… without so much as a piece of paper with my name on it, those were strange days. It was a long time before I went back to ‘owning things’ again… but I still don’t care about ‘stuff’ like I used to. I’ve lost sentimentality.

The landlords cried; they blamed themselves for cutting corners: no fire alarms or means of escape; the bars on the windows; the drunk and unconscious bar manager that had slept in the bar whilst the events of that morning unfolded; the loss of somebody’s precious daughter. The bar, ironically, had escaped the fire. The arsonist had posted his petrol bomb through the side door and the fire wound its way up the three flights of staircase in search of fresh oxygen, tearing through the accommodation. The arsonist was later identified from camera footage purchasing the fuel from a near by petrol station. He and his accomplice stood trial and served a few years. The pub was refurbished but never really recovered, and I believe it now stands empty.

I graduated into the recession of the early 1990’s and after several hundred rejection letters from sympathetic architectural offices I took up a couple of jobs at local retail stores. So many people did little and big things to help me get a foothold after the fire. “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel” Maya Angelou. Well, I remember it all and I’ll never forget your kindness.