Where are we going?

I have as far as I recall covered this topic a number of times. Whether focused on work or leisure activities in the past, this one is here to help you stop for a moment and take in the massive amount of hours put in to our daily lives without recognising the great machine we are all gradually turning.

This week I had a very surreal meeting, the context was so big and powerful, my role just doesn’t justify what people who have serious management and operational roles may have to do in their day to day lives. When you consider your own role, there are a number of other people who are working behind the scenes to make it the day to day life continue from the front desk to the top table. And that was just it; the top table had to work at the same level as my world – all be it another team mainly does it, to ensure everyone was safe and no long term issues would arise. Decisions are made just as fast and as easily, it’s just bigger digits on the bill exist, with higher consequences for getting it wrong.

So on my train journey home, I found myself observing all my fellow passengers, but the number of us who get off and have to wander the corridors, fill in spreadsheets and hold debates over topics from the mundane to the important. Whilst we all might hide behind catch up TV and iPods on the train, we may well be sitting next to somebody who has decided to change your life – for better or worse who knows. You may have sat next to someone designing a new phone, social media site, well known journalist or a government worker without realising.

Dealing with all the daily minutiae, means we forget to check in on the wider important aspects, we get tired and bored of doing the same old task. So sometimes a little perspective is required, what if it turned out you had that dreaded phone call of a loved one dying or witnessing a traffic accident where someone was seriously hurt. Would you manage to get through that trauma and not take stock and reassess what were doing in life? If you really said no and meant it, I have to ask if you have any empathy and care of other people around you.

We are forever seeing in the news about how someone was killed by a violent act, maybe at war, maybe a crime. The news has a way of making it all seem normal and either help make your point or give the complete opposite account, we are numbed to the violence because it’s through the TV and so regular. The issue is we are so used to hearing about bad things in the news we don’t take it in, but if that news report was very close to your heart you would pay more attention to it. Swap from bad traffic incidents in the news where a certain number are serious injured to having a doctor ring and tell you a family member or friend was involved in the same type of accident. These are different feelings, so it’s important to note what’s happened, take it all in and formulate a new plan to make it better…after all life is only short.

If we didn’t keep trying to improve life, it wouldn’t be worth living. We need that time to step back and evaluate what’s been happening, and take yourself out of your comfort zone to understand how other peoples lives are affect and how you can help them in the future. Maybe what needs to be done is a little bit of peace time to digest everything as I did…

…on my train rolling and rocking along, through the dark evening, listening to music, staring blissfully out the window trying to make out trees, houses and streets, I’ll never meet any of those people whose gardens I commute through, tired from all the days work, digesting what the people at the top table were having to go through to make sure myself and thousands of others were still safe the next day.

It’s definitely a strange feeling when you are in a meeting and the presenter brings up high profile characters and figures which could change everything very quickly. So as you can see, my little role just fills in with many others but contributes to a wider plan, only we don’t always get to see what the plan is or what the top table people were doing to oversee the success of larger issues whilst I deal with the smaller everyday ones I’m tasked with.

Where are we going?

I don’t know, but it’s enlightening to see that people at all levels have similar problems but just at a different scale. We sometimes need a little jolt to put everything into context and perspective otherwise the little problems would be unmanageable and actually, they are small enough because they might be forgotten about to make room for the important issues you really should be looking at when the time comes.

Simmering Ships that Sail the Sea...

Well, I had to ask myself what to write this week. I had ideas many were broken and beaten, some forgotten. The one that's stuck is the mayhem of the following week...if you saw last week as being crazy for commuter ville, this week was the environmental stress on everyone.

First, the early mornings to crisp, the bitting wind left over made for slippery ground, crystalised air forming under my feet glistened in mornings street lamps. By the time I got to town, the sun was up but that idea of the city being warmer didn't exist...that water really must have been cold.

 But at least it could be seen, the perfection of sunrise had already hidden the weekends flooding nightmare up the east coast. Now, in true disbelief of the perfect aftermath, everything looked fresh. No wind, just a silloute cloud and a a more damp ground.

 Only I should have known better, all that dampness stuck in, and the week turned into a re-enactment of the the 1950s smog. If you could see whats ahead you might be able to plan your route. For the un-initiated, it might have been quite daunting yet, justifiably enjoyable.

The photographers around town have died off because summers been and gone. Still, enough people were out to enjoy the silence that meant standing still was eery. The more bleaker part of the year heightens the senses and each foot step next to you could be heard...beyond those few feet of vision absolutely nothing.

 To not be able to see the other side of the river, and hear Big Ben strike the 8am gave small chill. Like nothing before, the world still goes on, somewhere, unseeable had to be going about its daily routine.

Yet the London hubbub everyone knows, was quietened down. The only things that were well placed were the ghost ships bobbing around like they could take you to another world.

Train people

This last week or two has been very trying on the commuter lifestyle.
A fire caused havoc to most of the network round my way laying out three hours of painstaking slow progress home. Having left at half four I made it in the door four trains and one car lift later at quarter to eight.
I was evacuated off a mass packed underground station due to crushing risks - (I've never seen it so heaving), I was 'bottled' down a platform on the overground as everyone headed for the train, and we all squirmed through the stairwells and passages to one of the few trains able to run.

Meanwhile, I looked on to one older gentleman in a very smart long jacket the other day, yet I realised it wasn't so much the jacket but the crisp white shirt and tie, and ease of the newspaper. More and more people are dressing up on trains, people in jeans are decreasing, even for a Friday when dress with ease can be the norm. Pulling off a well kept style, also apparently requires a certain amount of hair gel, or at least something thats looks like a magazine print version on their heads. Uncontrolled mayhem, mayhem controlled, smooth, slick, grease, short, long, long and fluffy, fluffed but held in place.

It's almost as bad as this trend in oversized black rimmed glasses, why are people wearing 1980s styled huge glasses with noughties clothing and I think it's hair from the 1970s. I'm so confused by my era.
 

I,I have...forgotten

I have forgotten who I am,
because I am not who I was back then.


What does this mean,
oh do you see the need to call a friend?

What does it mean when you forget who you were and are,
and left, to wonder about your future?

---
At first written from a lonely heart, in thought for all those trying times. And now on reflection, when you're old you do forget times can seem daft, but some really have mental health issues (Dementia and its variations of) that make forgetfulness more of a tragedy.

Can we really think of the future without knowing our past?

Losing Connection, contactless, across the skyline

To listen to on your way through: Gem Club: Lands and Red Arrow

On one late autumn afternoon with the sun disappearing over the hedgerows, leaving a redish sky turning vaguely purple, I sit on a train. Crossing the countryside at high speed, where the chilly breeze can be seen pushing on the hedgerows and tree stands in the far distance.

A brown leaf clings to the train window momentarily, I stare longingly out of the window into the middle distance weighing up my thoughts: where am I going. This train journey could actually be an eternity if I wanted it to be. I know I only have this hour in the day to myself to think about everything and resolve numerous questions that have been posed on me.

Across the distance, the wildlife stares back, some fields with sheep and cows others where the winter crops have been sown already. The farmer is out near Haysden Lakes, walking his sheep up the field towards the pens. I could have been transported back to the 1920s with that bog coat, cain and hat.

I'm wondering what else does that farmer do in the day, I'm trying to explore other avenues of people lives. All of us on the carriage commute straight through and see lots of things on route, frequently repetitive, yet everyday a slightly new twist in the tale. The free newspaper tells of the 'rush hour crush' sometimes I see these forming as one commuter nods to other. Only when the trains go completely wrong do we really chat to each other, but a silent acknowledgement everyday goes on between us.

Out of the window beyond the books and newspapers in front of me, the fence line dissolves away and is replaced quickly by a new image as we move across the landscape. This dream state between imagining another life in the villages and fields I go through is shattered as we pull into train stations, resetting my thoughts. Realligning us with reality we pull out again, the urbanisation of our lives carries on as we move through swathes of open countryside. One town going through the motions of its day as I move between each place on my day.

Does the average commuter take note of the trees that are now missing, or the types of trees that are growing on the banksside we pass under it? Through the tunnels, the geology has been chased out. In to the open air again, a scare crow could be standing firmly in the field with an oast house or thatched cottage just beyond the ridge, where the owner cooks a homely meal for the family, two children and a pet.

Just maybe that house instead just has one person living in it, a lonely existance doing all that work to go home to little in reward of other peoples company. Still the clickity click of the train hurtles past the cottage, the thought is brushed aside rapidly as new things come into view. Men in orange jackets walk the line checking and fixing track sections, where do they go at the end of the day? I pass them everyday, do they live in my home town, maybe they have that caravan round the corner...knowing how small town is, the six degrees of freedom is usually only three or four.

 I start the walk out from the town and back down the lanes towards home. I myself live on the way into town with a regular row of semi detached and terraced houses side by side. But what if for one moment I kept my dreamy head on and wandered out on a route I used to walk home. That one meant covering rural lanes and an old peoples home secluded away, the back garden had long grass - munched readily by sheep in certain times of year. That was years ago though, still it reminds of the day I had a deer stare back at me, (it was only small, probably monkjak) its eyes clear and crisp before turning its tale and bouncing its way through the forestry.

It would have been quite profound though, if I had had one of the full sized deer that clipsed passed me in the car, to stand and stare on my rural road home, its feet making a faint sound against the solid road. Antlers full and proud, if I'd have been in another country, a moose might have stepped over the piles of leaves, three feet high, before acknowledging me silently to go on its way. Still my deer carried on into the foliage to leave me to walk home after a long day, I wonder what it had been up to whilst I was sat in the office?

Night is drawing in and the city lights come up for the festivities, but I'm miles from the city and this rural lane to home takes me through the foggy places that hold history to their core, but only the landscape knows what has been and gone in that place.

If only trees and stones could talk...as Karl Jenkins said 'In these stones, horizons sing'.

People and places

Remember who you are,
and where you stand,
you're not too small to understand,
that it's all just so big- the randstad.

Like the place upon the hill,
far across the waters edge,
you meet and greet many a place,
to show a face of wanton need.

The towns gurgle through lack of water,
yet the Randstad is such a jolly place.

Don't make a face at it, be with it,
history has shown its hand upon the land.

Now remember who you are,
what you are and where you shall be,
you're not too big to be forgotten,
just buried beneath this old stead,
but do stand in stead,
it's important to hold one's true self.




Not quite sure that really worked in the end, the first paragraph was what started it and initally ended randstand until i found out randstand was not a word and had to change it all.

Storms

Storms are in a way fun to watch,
lightning strikes,
the sky lights up,
you see the trees swaying...

and then they fall to the ground.

It's not so fun after all when people are injured,
 and yet we are all so blar-zay when we wander around unwittingly searching for that edge factor that gives us a little kick of enjoyment.

We forget to check in, and make sure that everything is safe when were taken up in the swirling motion as time stands still and you feel free. It's only after you pick up the pieces and recognise the destructive power that it brings with.

What does it mean, the trains as ever in such british style grind to a halt and the commuters do something else. Those who live and breathe the time between waking and work and leaving work and getting home have an un-excused hour of time where you can only watch and wait. Back in the day it was top hats, big coats and massive broadsheet newspapers. Now as we pass the fields, it's catch up TV, emails, ipods and ipads. People don't carry big brollies anymore.

In all for the commuter who gets to stay at home for once,
patterns are thrown out of order,
hopefully we've done something more with our lives in the day,
to make it worthwhile
for storms come and go,
but some things are left to go.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01k0kr5
Job Satisfaction, The Forum, BBC World Service

-
P.s. Anyone notice I spelt satisifaction wrong (satusfaction) unintended play on words, has been corrected

Winters past before its come

It's been so long since I've been in here. Not really remember why I write on here, the effort the curiosity of other peoples lives, the blinkered-ness of my own maybe here, still its late and I am here to remind you and me, we are all trying to go somewhere, be someone or something and yet know we are just standing still right here.

There's a tale to be told, but its true its too late this minute to be told, the bed is calling the clock have gone back and an early windy and wet start for a train is meant to be here, I promise you I will have to work from home, and if I don't then something looked down on me and said ' here I give unto thee a  free ride with little issue, a car undamaged, a safe house and free passage to your place of work', just me this will not happen the sun will rise one hour early again tomorrow and I will have very little to add to my days existance, although the work you could say is important but nothing like the geography I once did, that held all thoughts together, I am just trying to catch up and be here...somewhere on this planet with you...

or perhaps I will just have to keep wandering this road of existance, for where ever here is, appears to be gradually shrinking.


---
I will come back,
I will strike with avengence to put my thoughts back on the page,
where I can think,
to understand,
and once again believe my own thoughts,
"for whence I came unto this earth",
nothing shall stop my own beliefs.

I say unto the rest of you,
do not under estimate the sleeping dog,
I collect, archive, assess, analyse, correct and adjust,
I will find the answer and make right upon the land to which you destroy,
my soul is not for your pleasure, (nor mine),
but maybe I will give unto thee,
new found meaning to your lost cause,
a hope to your own demise,
to set me free.

Purple Prose? Time is short

And so, the wheel of time befalls us once again. We see the rise and fall of each passing season. Where trees stand for hundreds of years; men and women grow, love and die from the famine and tireless drive of the human race, in turn destroying the wonderous environment in which they both seat. The oak will see 400 years, multiple generations of one family, an eternity which started at the end of the last ice age. As we gradually make our way through, the future beckons us to live within our means, like bushmen before us, they remind us of our past and teach us the old ways that are new.

The Tree of Life (2011)
"The way of nature or the way of grace...you'll be grown before that tree is tall"

A humbling thought, for time is short. Are we moving on through blindly ignoring are surroundings, trying to hide our feelings from others to protect ourselves from the others who are trying to hide their own feelings and blindly treading on you.  

Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye, and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? (Bible NIV, Matthew, 7,3-5)

Business communication for the personal life in a professional situation.

Isn't it just a wonderful day today. The winter is half way through, it's the weekend. The sun is shining. Everything is just spit spot, perfect and oh so la de daah.

Does anyone ever think how fraudulently they are with the truth of their own feelings towards others? When asked How are you? You're expected in many an office environment to say something that makes you sound good and capable. If you suggest otherwise not only do people not want to know that you are under the weather but also it's too much personal information for a work environment - or is it?

So, how are you?
I'm good,
I'm great,
Just fine,
excellent.

I mean if someone you asked replied, excellent, would you notice the undercurrent of hidden truth. On the surface smiles all around, life is just what it should be, but actually at a deeper level you know a lot is at stake, you worry about what is coming next and how to organise your next plan or project and stiffly profess to have everything under control. (I'm sure some do have it under control) how many people then go home and work every single hour to find the result they need to show how hard they've worked in "the same number of hours" as all the other colleagues.

This will in time take it's toll on the personality, drive them harder at first, before relinquishing the reigns and realising that actually it's not happening as planned and something is definitely wrong. This can for some be a sign of depression because those who work so hard to perfect an item try to fix there "mistakes" which are actually really good and so begin the downward spiral where you're lying to yourself about it and then the negative thoughts take hold.

In the meantime, as you tell people everything is just fine three things happen.

1, You are secluding yourself from you work colleagues because you have lied to them about your well being.

2, Potentially damaging your work in view of others because your colleagues expect such high standards and don't notice that your actually hurting inside. Everything after all is just fine. Even if it's a personal thing. If you went to work having been told of a family death. Would you be willing to put on the brave face and say I'm good, oh by the way I need Wednesday off for a funeral. Or would you not tell anyone why you've got the day off. (That would sound a bit weird wouldn't it, I'm fine, but I have a funeral. )
In turn secluding yourself from your colleagues.

3, People begin to realise that your just a face and don't show anything. You have no feelings or care, maybe you're an outright liar and should not be trusted, maybe you just enjoy playing the business politics and try to hide, when in fact you have just shown your cards - your trying to hide the actual answer. To stand there and be asked how are you and reply with a I'm good. Or:  


How was your weekend?  
Yeah, it was fine. But not mention of what you did. Did you sound like you meant it?
Yes, it was good, I think. Huh? what does that mean.
Yeeaah, it was alright. Not completely confident you had a good time or a bad time, trying to forget it existed, trying to dodge the conversation, trying to keep the personal away from the professional, trying to show it was good as can be (after all it is Monday morning and no once wants to be back at work so it sounds worse than is!)


Of course, if you turn up and say. No it wasn't good. Everyone listens and then doesn't want to know because its a professional environment, it's not a counselling service and you then recognise that some people will still stay clear of you for your the moaner in the office, or the one without a happy face.

What is so hard with being truthful about yourself, after all the business needs to know how your mindset may affect the business outcome of the day. If you're not good enough they'll make you do something else because you're not on form. And that's the crux of it, you need to show the face value to keep in the lead, one ahead of everyone else. When actually, everyone is in the same boat. The fake environment, the political gambit of using words to make things sound better than they are, to suggest the outcome without directly saying it, makes it all smell of rotten eggs.

No one actually likes it but we all play along. In the end those who really know how to play are never caught and those who are find new ground. Those who know how to play along may not even recognise they are because they line everything with enough information to sound innocent of it all and keep out of the this personal/professional nightmare by bringing you in without your knowing.

But then there are those who don't play and don't get dragged in and remain innocent and confident of it all, they are the ones you can trust because you know what they say means something. They don't have to play along because actually to these kind innocent people everyone else appears to be trying to get one over someone else whilst standing their ground in suttle forms of bullying.

By dodging this they don't need to get involved and leap ahead with their own way because they won't be dragged through this ridiculous thing everyone else plays and pays attention to. However, the final hurdle is when they have to meet people who play this silly front, can they take the strain or still remain above board, is this fake happiness and the conversations where you're reading between the lines be removed so that the real work can begin. Or is this this kind of atmosphere so acceptable that it should be listed as a skill and those who do not have it are seen as weak. How do you play your colleague at their own game? Do you accept this lie you're told or do you just not ask because it's easier not to ask. After all, everything is just fine in the end, whatever happens?