Taking Advice and Criticism

I have always been plagued by indecisiveness. If there is a choice of more than one, it can cripple me to the point of missing out; I dither in a standstill and watch the opportunity pass me by. My Mum knows this well, and would often make decisions for me when I was younger, such as 'What drink would you like?' at the restaurant - Coke or lemonade? She would choose for me. Consequently, I would then suddenly arrive at my own decision - the opposite. I'm like that too, you see.

So, it didn't help much when my Mum told me, as a child, that I could grow up to be whatever I wanted. That offered more choices than my mind was able to accommodate, and resulted in years of hesitant murmurings and frequent changes of my future occupation. I also took to a wide range of hobbies, some lasting only moments while others had the longevity to survive through to my adult years.

I am still unsure what I want to be. I work as a programmer analyst, writing and fixing programs. It is sometimes fun, almost always challenging, and something I have been interested in for many years. However, it can be dull, tedious and laborious, and leaves me feeling empty and unsatisfied.

I have a creative side, which I try to nurture. That is the main point of starting this blog, actually. I like to write, partly for escapism but mainly for anti-drab therapy. As with most creative endeavours, it requires an audience to fulfill its purpose.

I read a few blogs. Some are to do with hobbies, some are the oft-neglected pages of my favourite authors. I follow Nik Vincent's blog, which is a daily discussion/rant/opinion on all sorts of things, and I enjoy it. I don't always agree with her point of view, but that is what makes it interesting. It is far from the inane, useless trite that clogs up the internet like cholesterol in my arteries, and it is regular so I get a daily dose, like cholesterol for my arteries. I would love to be able to sustain the impressive amount of entries, but I hardly find the time. The odd occasion I do find to write, I spend working on a story I started a few years ago. I had never really thought about how I would get an audience for it, or get feedback, until I read one of Nik's blog entries. It was about Authonomy, a community website created by the publishers HarperCollins. It allows users to upload their stories, in part or in full, and other members can read it and give advise, critique or praise. As an added bonus, every month 5 titles make it to the desks of the editors, who read and offer their opinions and suggestions. There is even the chance that it will be taken further, although this is quite rare.

I was intrigued by this concept, and joined immediately. I didn't have the confidence to upload my unfinished story at that point, but did read some of the offerings and generally browsed the site. There are some helpful tips, and interviews with established authors where some advice can be gleaned.

More recently, however, I decided that I should upload what I have written. It is still a first draft, but by having it there for the (Authonomy) world to see, it might encourage me to spend more time writing it, and eventually completing it! I haven't done much in the way of promoting it to other readers, but I will start to soon. I am quite anxious about the feedback I might get - no doubt there will be a lot of mistakes in the writing, so technical help will be invaluable, but I am more concerned with the creativity. I am eager to learn what people think about the characters, the direction of the plot, and so on. I have, of course, enrolled my family to read and critique, but there might be more bias there, and perhaps there is something different about a reader who has been coerced into reading it, rather than choosing to. Either way, time will tell how well I can take criticism, and whether I have the capacity to learn from it!

The Loneliness of Consideration

There are many things that rouse my ire. Mostly, they stem from other people. In fact, the only thing that annoys me beyond belief that is not caused by a fellow human being is when inanimate objects start misbehaving – it usually happens when you are in a rush, or already cheesed off with something else. It is at times like that when I feel like the entire universe is against me, but that just shows how little I comprehend the size of the universe.

I digress. I want to discuss consideration, kindness, and awareness of your surroundings. I was recently involved in a discussion regarding an inconsiderate commuter who kept his large rucksack on his back when standing on a packed train. He was also oblivious to the fact that his luggage was taking up extra space behind him, and as an extension of his body it would attack other commuters with every move he made. This is an example of a fundamental lack of awareness, and no consideration for others. Personally, I find this intolerable. If you consider only yourself, then who should think about you?

Maybe on a good day, I wouldn’t care as much – I have been led to believe that I am quite laid-back, sometimes with vexatious effects for those around me – but the fact remains that when you are living on a planet that is as overpopulated as ours is today, you really need to think about how you impact other people’s lives. The small things count just as much as the big things, and knocking your selfishly-placed belongings into other people unnecessarily is not the best way to progress.

Dog eat dog, look after number one, etc. I have heard these many times before, and it appears that this is the credos of the masses. The main problem I see with it is that someone has to lose. Often it is more than one person that suffers, when a singular being cares only for the self. But that focusses on purposeful greed and carelessness, which really is a topic for a slightly different discussion. I just wanted to point out that it doesn’t fit in with consideration and kindness.

I think part of the problem is thought, and this can branch off to the lack of thought (choosing not to think) or conversely, the inability to think (stupidity). For the first, we can lay the majority of the blame on the subject, although it could be argued that they will only have learned this from others, their environment, role models and so forth. Whereas that might have some truth, we all have the ability to choose, whether it was a divine gift or not. I doubt that choosing not to consider others was part of the plan, but I am the wrong person to ruminate on that. The latter is a disease that is crippling the human gene pool. Stupidity is rife in every city and town across the planet. We, as a race, are increasingly half-witted – there are some very intelligent people about, but they are hugely outweighed by the dense and the doltish. So who do we blame for these inept fools that don’t realise they are stupid?

I am not the [proven] most intelligent man in the world. There are some people out there that know more than I do on a wide range of subjects, I acquiesce. However, I simply cannot tolerate stupid people that are unaware of their own stupidity. Anton Szandor LaVey said: “It’s too bad stupidity isn’t painful. Ignorance is one thing, but our society thrives increasingly on stupidity. It depends on people going along with whatever they are told. The media promotes a cultivated stupidity as a posture that is not only acceptable but laudable.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Disposable Society

I am becoming more unnerved by our culture. We appear to be a fickle bunch, and have lost the art of tradition. I know I can be a bit cynical, and I don't find it difficult to castigate humanity for the staggering multitude of flaws, but recently I have found myself spending more time with that quizzical look of concern on my mug, deepening the furrows on my brow. Not only does this increase my worry for our future, but also the number of wrinkles I will have, so nobody wins here.

Allow me to expand. For anyone with the knowledge, even a notion, of the history of the planet, they will know that we have categorised and sub-categorised the timeline into 'ages', 'periods', 'eras' and such. To give you an idea of how that relates to the age of the Earth, the well-known Triassic period (dinosaurs) lasted for 50 million years*. The Earth is 4.57 billion years old*. Therefore the Triassic period was 1%* of the history of the Earth. If you are 50 years old, 1% of your life is 6 months**. We humans have been walking around (in various forms) for 4 million years* - 0.09%* of the history of the Earth. If you are 50 years old, 0.09% of your life is 2 weeks and 2 days*. The point I am trying to get across here is that we are still just newcomers, guests even, to this planet. Yet we have raced through our evolution with such increasing rapidity that we haven't had a thought for our surroundings. I have often heard people say 'If the dinosaurs were so good, why are they extinct?' which is a very short-sighted and uneducated point, but there is an unwitting point in there. The dinosaurs actually were that good, that they lasted more than 10 times what we have so far without causing irrevocable damage to their home. The actual point is that we have been here for what might seem like a beach holiday for the Earth, yet we are doing our best to not only make sure that we are extinct, but also everything else around us.

What is mostly causing my discomfort at the moment is fads and phases. Nothing really lasts 'the test of time' anymore - we consume and discard almost everything in our lives without a second thought. I don't want to sound like an activist, partly because it is more of a frustrated observation, and partly because I am just as guilty as everyone else, but I seriously think that the Earth would bloom and flourish if it wasn't for the humans developing new ways of suffocating it. So, the only things that are truly disposable are us. And maybe banana skins.

Happy Earth day!

*roughly.
**exactly.

Ridiculous, Crazy: Life

I don't spend enough time on my blog. I don't spend enough time on my hobbies, either. According to my significantly better half, I don't spend enough time cleaning up after myself. That does seem to leave quite a large portion of my time not doing much, and I'm not sure what it is I actually do, when I am not doing anything useful.

Life actually happened for me quite recently. I am now a father to a wonderful little girl, who is a magnet for spare time; I can spend hours just staring at her, joyfully mimicking her coos and gentle sighs. I also spend a lot of time unable to do anything else, because "I've got the baby on me", which invariably means I am unwilling to move (to clean up after myself).

There are 168 hours in a week. That is a reasonable amount of time to share between projects, I think. I spend about 40 asleep, all being well. There is the obligatory 40 hours at work, and probably 6 hours travelling to and from said Hell workplace. I imagine I spend around 8 hours, outside those previously consumed in this exercise, eating. Menial tasks such as washing and dressing myself probably equate to roughly 5 hours a week. Other tasks that require a little bit of brain power or elbow grease, like cooking and cleaning, take up maybe 10 hours. Alright, that's 109 hours so far... what do I do for the remaining 59? I suppose there is additional travel, and weekly tasks like shopping for food - that probably uses an extra 4 hours. I will allocate 5 hours for socialising, although it really does depend on what is going on, but I guess average is the key here. So, 50 hours to find. I can't imagine I spend 50 hours staring lovingly at my daughter, but I can easily believe that I spend that much time feeding and burping her, bouncing her on my knee, changing her nappy, changing her clothes, putting her down, picking her up... you get the picture.

It is strange to think of the time when I wasn't a father, and didn't even have the urge to become a father. I can't say it has been all plain sailing, but I am very much enjoying fatherhood. I am lucky, I suppose, that I don't suffer from panic and worry in the same way that other people do, because I can see that it has a real strain on the body and mind of the victim, but also those around them will feel the tension and it will test relationships of all descriptions.

My conclusion is that time doesn't stop for any reason, and quantifying useful activity and efficiency is going to take up far too much time. It is better to just live, and make sure you enjoy every second you are given.

Foresight

I remember when fighting was about strength and skill. You either knocked your opponent out, or made them submit. I know that makes it all sound simple, and that couldn't be further from the truth, but things moved on anyway. Things changed, like they always do.
A lot of people perceived fighting as a brutal sport; many still do. I can see where they are coming from, but I don't see that as a sufficient reason to dislike it. Life itself can be brutal, more so than any fight I have seen. Combat is in our nature; our history is steeped in it. Fighting really is a way of life - perhaps not always hand-to-hand combat, but the struggles that we all experience are our individual fights; some you win, some you continue to fight.
Let me get back to what I want to tell you, before I get lost in my metaphorical self. I was a fighter, many years ago. I trained hard to condition my body, increase my strength and stamina, and learn to fight using different styles. I devoted my life to it; everything I did was to better my fighting - training, diet, observing other fighters - and that left no personal time at all. My only friends were my trainers and sparring partners. I was a warrior.
Things started to change in the sport when a young fighter call Tony Valcari made his debut. He was a talented and devoted fighter, having spent most of his teenage years learning various styles and increasing his strength and stamina, as we all were. His devotion to his craft had another effect: he started creating his own styles. He was very technical, his movements measured, his throws tested and weighted to the smallest margin. His first technique set, simply name 'Valcari', focussed heavily on striking. Each punch had a specific design - from the placement on the opponent to the way the fist was clenched or the structure of the open palm. It also incorporated defensive striking, whereby certain strikes where employed purely to parry an incoming strike, such as the open-palm strike to inner forearm to parry a jab. He first used this to great effect when knocking out World Heavyweight Boxing champion Drew O'Thenion - known for his ability to knock his opponents unconscious with a single strike - taking almost no hits directly due to striking parries. It wasn't a title fight, but Valcari wasn't interested in glory, only his own betterment.
It was quickly afterwards that the world witnessed Foresight. It was during what was believed to be Valcari's toughest opponent ever - the undefeated Shaun Stigheim. There was a reason that Stigheim had not lost a fight, and that was primarily that he dwarfed even the largest fighters. The fight, although sanctioned and overseen by the Universal Fighting Committee, had no weight class. In fact, Stigheim outweighed Valcari by almost 200 pounds! It was David and Goliath, in a cage fight, and nobody thought Valcari would be able to walk out unassisted, much less defeat the giant. But defeat the giant, he did, and not only did he walk out of the cage without any help, he also walked out without so much of a bruise on his body. Shaun Stigheim, known throughout the world for his supreme strength and speed, didn't land a single punch on Valcari.
There was uproar. It was called a fix - and the bookmakers made a killing. A few extreme gamblers had taken the long odds on offer for the underdog, but nobody could see any way that the relatively unknown, lean looking fighter could have any effect on the mountainous slayer of humans. Most people had tuned in to the pay-per-view event in the hope of seeing Valcari brutally destroyed in what would have been sanctioned murder. The fact was that the fight looked like it was staged, as if they were carrying out a well-practiced and perfectly choreographed dance. Worse still, there were so many clichés, and what appeared to be some terrible acting, that nobody believed it was a real fight. There are a few that still hold on to that belief today, regardless of the information that came to light shortly afterwards.
Now this is the part of my tale that you wanted to hear: how Foresight works. After Valcari had perfected the art of aggressive defence, he began to develop an interest in technical psychology. Knowing an enemy's actions based on their temperament was a useful tool to have; Valcari was able to evade attacks that he knew you were going to make, even before you did. This study of man helped for many months as he continued with this direction of his training, but it was only the start of Foresight.
More than 2 years of dedication to the improvement of Foresight forged Valcari into an unbeatable machine. But it wasn't his supreme conditioning or speed that prevented his opponents from defeating him. His strength came from Foresight, his polished methodology that had taken him across the globe, learning from Tibetan monks and South American warrior tribes. It was his ability to see the future.
There has always been a great deal of stories about people who can see their future, or other people's. And that is always what they are - fictional tales. Valcari's ability was different, believable. There was an education behind it; Valcari had structured the method based on what he had learned from his travels and the ancient civilisations that he encountered. In truth, he had spent a lot of time learning to condition his mental awareness in order to capitalise on what he had learned, which is what had taken so long. It was when he started to teach this to others that fighting changed forever.
Foresight was a mixture of knowledge, skill and perception. First, you had to train to notice everything around you; your environment, your opponent, and yourself. Once you can do that, time seems to slow down - in order for your mind to process all of this information, you become aware of more which stretches the seconds out. You aren't slowing time down at all, but instead you are alert during each passing moment - most people simply go through their lives only aware of the smallest fraction of their lives, which makes time pass a lot faster for them. Valcari first came across this when he noticed that children always complained about long trips or having to wait until their birthday, and realised that for them everything was new and exciting. They would see things that adults took for granted, and even use their imagination to make it even more fun. Clouds would take on shapes, the hole at the side of the road would be the home for some sewer-dwelling troll, people they would see instantly had an effect on their thoughts. They would notice everything, and time would slow down. Valcari worked this into his training, and soon was able to react faster because of it.
While meditating with the monks across Asia, Valcari learned about the most important part of Foresight: reading your opponent. The human body is a very complex organism, and much of the actions we take are born long before they are delivered. The time it takes for you to decide on a movement to your body obeying can be quick, but when you have trained your senses it becomes an eternity. This in itself is only slightly useful, as we all have limits to the speed that we can move. However, knowledge is a very powerful tool, and Valcari had learnt about the signals of movement. Certain slight indications can tell you when someone is about to strike, and how they will deliver the blow. Raised hairs, increased colour of the skin in certain areas - these are just a few of the methods used in Foresight. Valcari had developed a system that allowed him to know what you were going to do before you had even started to move, so when your punch, kick or lunge was employed, he had already moved to block, parry or counter - and he already knew exactly how to do that to maximum effect. As he perfected the art, he added subtle differences such as surroundings, temperature and weather. Knowing how people react in different conditions would lend itself to Foresight, and make each decision even more accurate and effective. Valcari was considered a genius.
Over the years, many have learnt to use Foresight in their fighting. It wasn't long before the top fighters had no choice but to learn it, as no matter how good they were in their chosen disciplines, they just couldn't overcome the advantage of seeing what is about to happen. All title fights were between Foresight warriors, so it wasn't long before the world of fighting returned to a battle of strength and speed. Fighters had to train to become so powerful that even knowing what was coming was not enough to deflect the strike. They increased their speed and stamina to make it harder to evade the strikes. Valcari had rewritten the way we fought, and changed the world of fighting forever, but eventually fighting looked the same as it always had.