Just ended two months of self-prevaricatory procrastination and entered a clinic. For my chest - had a spot of bronchitis type-thing. The doc turned out to be an amazingly friendly little chap - so small and thin one might say petite, or petit. Oldish and wiry with brown leather skin and a huge smile with big sparkling eyes - reminded me a little of ET. Half-expected him to diagnose me, with a squeaky crackle and a long finger pointing out the window to "Go.... home...".
His language was interesting as he had learned a load of technical, scientific, medical English, but very little of the bits in between. I have half-learnt some of these bits in Japanese so between us we could communicate quite well:
anato-no seki-wa productive cough desu-ka?
Oh yes - very productive
Phlegm-wa nani iro desuka?
Kind of yellowish-green
Ah so - wakarimashita
Anyhow, he gave me lots of drugs, five in fact, and I feel much better already. So, the lesson is, don't put it off.
May have mentioned this a while ago, but anyway - a couple of years ago I went on a road trip. In a long-wheel base, ex-army landrover, with two kittens. Bed in the back, kittens separated from me by a wire mesh. I had never had kittens before and was surprised to learn how different they can be. Thisbe would do anything to get near me and went through Houdini-like contortions to arrive on my lap, curl up and purringly go to sleep, as we pootled along. Obi half-heartedly had a go at following her but basically couldn't be bothered, as long as he had a warm place in the back. Very surprisingly, Thisbe would try to tell Obi how to get through the mesh, pointing out with her nose the gap she squeezed through, to no avail.
His language was interesting as he had learned a load of technical, scientific, medical English, but very little of the bits in between. I have half-learnt some of these bits in Japanese so between us we could communicate quite well:
anato-no seki-wa productive cough desu-ka?
Oh yes - very productive
Phlegm-wa nani iro desuka?
Kind of yellowish-green
Ah so - wakarimashita
Anyhow, he gave me lots of drugs, five in fact, and I feel much better already. So, the lesson is, don't put it off.
May have mentioned this a while ago, but anyway - a couple of years ago I went on a road trip. In a long-wheel base, ex-army landrover, with two kittens. Bed in the back, kittens separated from me by a wire mesh. I had never had kittens before and was surprised to learn how different they can be. Thisbe would do anything to get near me and went through Houdini-like contortions to arrive on my lap, curl up and purringly go to sleep, as we pootled along. Obi half-heartedly had a go at following her but basically couldn't be bothered, as long as he had a warm place in the back. Very surprisingly, Thisbe would try to tell Obi how to get through the mesh, pointing out with her nose the gap she squeezed through, to no avail.
She was a bit special, Thisbe. A mean cat, but so needy of love and affection. So loyal.
But then Obi was great too. So into just going along with whatever was fun. Like being playfully eaten by Luna, a Bernese mountain dog - they slept together.
But then Obi was great too. So into just going along with whatever was fun. Like being playfully eaten by Luna, a Bernese mountain dog - they slept together.
The journey lasted three weeks and took me, or us, from the mountains of Tuscany to where the Appenines plunge into the sea at Cinque Terre, along the Italian and French rivieras, through the Camargue, all the the way up through the Pyrenees, into the Basque Country, all along the Atlantic coast of Spain, through the Picos de Europa to Galicia, Santiago de Compostela, and Fisterra, the end of the known world. I have waffled about this at some length elsewhere, but the upshot is that I was going there to weigh up the pros and cons of moving, from Italy to Spain - a country with which I had a very strong emotional attachment. Just the spoken language crumples something inside. The first stop inside Spain was at a supermarket and as the check-out girl opened her mouth to speak I re-fell in love. So much so that I asked her directions just so I could hear her say something again.
Anyway, I was alone for three weeks, more or less. Every evening I had to find some completely out-of-the-way spot so the kittens could freely wander about outside at night. I made a camp-fire, grilled some chops, drank some wine, and gave them the bones - in some wonderful places.
On the way there, a conversation started up in my head, between the rational me and the emotional me - going over the whys and the why nots. Got quite animated.
On the way back, I re-visited the same spots, re-lit the same damp black campfires, and this third presence within me started to make himself known. Some wise know-it-all, who had clearly been enjoying listening to the banter going on between Mr Rational and Mr Emotional. But he kind of knew what the outcome would be.
I like to think of these three as the mind, heart and solarplexus, or reason, emotions and gut feelings.
A couple of years later, here in Japan actually, I managed to open up a channel between these three, for a while, with an incredible rush of awareness - almost trippy.
The upshot being, apart from a great deal of collateral damage to those nearest to me, was the understanding that we need to achieve some kind of balance amongst these three. If we rely on our reason alone, well, we probably would lead very comfortable lives but perhaps not so fulfilling, maybe. If I had let reason alone dictate my life then I guess I would have followed my grandfather George's advice to me at the age of 10 or so and got a job in a bank. I still remember the feeling of total disbelief when he suggested this, as if he had recommended spending the night in a vat of eels.
On the other hand, I continue to learn that our emotions are wonderful things, which we should relish, but which are in a constant state of flux, at least mine are, and are totally unreliable as a basis of making life-changing decisions. Emotions are real - for the moment. They enable us to experience the reality of the moment. I am reminded of a dear friend, a kind of West Country cowboy figure, whose name was Gunn, who had led a life following hunches and emotions - we ended up together for a while in Libya, drinking vaste quantities of home-made plonk, playing that card game - cribbage - and generally philosophising. I remember him telling me one time he had a dream of a place name in Mexico. He got his (Iranian) wife, their two girls, put them in a car and drove down there from California, with the idea of starting a business and spending the rest of their lives there. They finally drove into a small, dusty, poverty-stricken, middle-of-nowhere, like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in Bolivia, turned round and drove straight back home again. I have done similar things once or twice.
So, anyway - a dear friend gave me the book 'Sophie's World' recently, and I was reading it in the doctor's waiting room, and was delighted to learn that a chap called Plato had thought something similar 2,500 years ago, which was highly reassuring. About the three parts of us. Sort of. Head (reason, wisdom, mind), chest (heart, emotions, will), abdomen (solarplexus, gut feelings, appetite). And the need for opening up channels, and balance.
So we are coming to the end of yet another term. Just a few tests to go. I have had a class of 35 young men - I can call them that now as we had Coming of Age Day (20) the other day - who all appear to be dysfunctional in some way, as far as I can tell. All scientists, with no apparent interest in learning a foreign language, even if it is global, who have come through 6 years of English lessons at school with the same proficiency I had in German aged 16, after 4 years of being shouted at by our German teacher. We did 'basic writing' on computer blogs - that way they could at least read each others' work, which I hoped would give it some meaningful point. One chap, I noticed, loved reading, and was heading off into the Russians - Dostoevsky's 'Crime and Punishment', and had just started Tolstoy's 'War and Peace'. I sent him a message suggesting he read Turgenev's 'Fathers and Sons', and Sholokhov's 'And Quiet Flows the Don', which I had read at his age. He came up to me at the end of the final class, and showed me the copy of 'Fathers and Sons' that he'd just got out of the library.
Speaking of which, I was walking along the beach just now and a friend joggingly overtakes me, and says that I am easily recognisable a mile away because of my walk. He says I walk with my hands held behind my back - which is what my father used to do, and I have noticed my kids do it too sometimes.
Another friend told me yesterday that he had tried an experiment with the voice recognition thing on his I-phone, and had asked it to ring his favourite girlfriend - apparently it suggested calling me.
And my final random thought - yesterday I was on the bus home, coming along the coast road - the Sun was thinking about sinking and it was a beautiful crisp afternoon, so I got off the bus and walked along the beach. And there was a chap playing the ukulele, to the sea. Ah, I thought, a dekoboko instrument - just a few chords and Bob's your uncle. I have a vague memory of being told that my father could play the ukulele - 'When I'm cleaning windows' by George Formby, but I find it hard to believe. Anyway, I youtubed 'ukulele' and was reminded that nothing is simple.
Anyway, I was alone for three weeks, more or less. Every evening I had to find some completely out-of-the-way spot so the kittens could freely wander about outside at night. I made a camp-fire, grilled some chops, drank some wine, and gave them the bones - in some wonderful places.
On the way there, a conversation started up in my head, between the rational me and the emotional me - going over the whys and the why nots. Got quite animated.
On the way back, I re-visited the same spots, re-lit the same damp black campfires, and this third presence within me started to make himself known. Some wise know-it-all, who had clearly been enjoying listening to the banter going on between Mr Rational and Mr Emotional. But he kind of knew what the outcome would be.
I like to think of these three as the mind, heart and solarplexus, or reason, emotions and gut feelings.
A couple of years later, here in Japan actually, I managed to open up a channel between these three, for a while, with an incredible rush of awareness - almost trippy.
The upshot being, apart from a great deal of collateral damage to those nearest to me, was the understanding that we need to achieve some kind of balance amongst these three. If we rely on our reason alone, well, we probably would lead very comfortable lives but perhaps not so fulfilling, maybe. If I had let reason alone dictate my life then I guess I would have followed my grandfather George's advice to me at the age of 10 or so and got a job in a bank. I still remember the feeling of total disbelief when he suggested this, as if he had recommended spending the night in a vat of eels.
On the other hand, I continue to learn that our emotions are wonderful things, which we should relish, but which are in a constant state of flux, at least mine are, and are totally unreliable as a basis of making life-changing decisions. Emotions are real - for the moment. They enable us to experience the reality of the moment. I am reminded of a dear friend, a kind of West Country cowboy figure, whose name was Gunn, who had led a life following hunches and emotions - we ended up together for a while in Libya, drinking vaste quantities of home-made plonk, playing that card game - cribbage - and generally philosophising. I remember him telling me one time he had a dream of a place name in Mexico. He got his (Iranian) wife, their two girls, put them in a car and drove down there from California, with the idea of starting a business and spending the rest of their lives there. They finally drove into a small, dusty, poverty-stricken, middle-of-nowhere, like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in Bolivia, turned round and drove straight back home again. I have done similar things once or twice.
So, anyway - a dear friend gave me the book 'Sophie's World' recently, and I was reading it in the doctor's waiting room, and was delighted to learn that a chap called Plato had thought something similar 2,500 years ago, which was highly reassuring. About the three parts of us. Sort of. Head (reason, wisdom, mind), chest (heart, emotions, will), abdomen (solarplexus, gut feelings, appetite). And the need for opening up channels, and balance.
So we are coming to the end of yet another term. Just a few tests to go. I have had a class of 35 young men - I can call them that now as we had Coming of Age Day (20) the other day - who all appear to be dysfunctional in some way, as far as I can tell. All scientists, with no apparent interest in learning a foreign language, even if it is global, who have come through 6 years of English lessons at school with the same proficiency I had in German aged 16, after 4 years of being shouted at by our German teacher. We did 'basic writing' on computer blogs - that way they could at least read each others' work, which I hoped would give it some meaningful point. One chap, I noticed, loved reading, and was heading off into the Russians - Dostoevsky's 'Crime and Punishment', and had just started Tolstoy's 'War and Peace'. I sent him a message suggesting he read Turgenev's 'Fathers and Sons', and Sholokhov's 'And Quiet Flows the Don', which I had read at his age. He came up to me at the end of the final class, and showed me the copy of 'Fathers and Sons' that he'd just got out of the library.
Speaking of which, I was walking along the beach just now and a friend joggingly overtakes me, and says that I am easily recognisable a mile away because of my walk. He says I walk with my hands held behind my back - which is what my father used to do, and I have noticed my kids do it too sometimes.
Another friend told me yesterday that he had tried an experiment with the voice recognition thing on his I-phone, and had asked it to ring his favourite girlfriend - apparently it suggested calling me.
And my final random thought - yesterday I was on the bus home, coming along the coast road - the Sun was thinking about sinking and it was a beautiful crisp afternoon, so I got off the bus and walked along the beach. And there was a chap playing the ukulele, to the sea. Ah, I thought, a dekoboko instrument - just a few chords and Bob's your uncle. I have a vague memory of being told that my father could play the ukulele - 'When I'm cleaning windows' by George Formby, but I find it hard to believe. Anyway, I youtubed 'ukulele' and was reminded that nothing is simple.
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=1vE_x07jZHo&feature=related
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=9toJRdu2bXQ
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=sfmAeijj5cM
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=9toJRdu2bXQ
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=sfmAeijj5cM
Things do not change; we change.
Henry David Thoreau, Walden
US Transcendentalist author (1817 - 1862)
