Parenting?

At present, I work with children, not adolescents but actual toddlers, humans who are more dreams than reality, who speak in growls and relish the feeling of sand between their stubby fingers. It's daunting to imagine that I one day, may be a parent, a vision that I entertain more frequently than in past years.

Working closely with parents and families provides valuable insights into the limitations of human parenting, how intentions are often left unfulfilled once the ceiling of abilities are hit, how an addiction to being a part of a society that is often too large and shrouded in insincerity, can rob a person of their natural resources and resilience. Despite this, I see something quite honourable and humbling about the notion of being a parent.

So, in anticipation of my earthly demise, or the moment my capacity for remembering the salient details of past thoughts erodes, I am starting a list of values/ideas I would talk to my children about. Like all heredity values, they are themes that have played starring roles in my thoughts and experiences but hopefully, once these things have been mastered in my own life, my mere existence alone may act as an example to the children I father.





- I write in order to avoid talking, for you see as a human, I suck at talking.

Location:Caversham Ave,,United Kingdom

Too much too soon?

It was a succession of horrific moments that culminated in a spectacular finale, a climax of self-made cringe worthy moments exploding onto a backdrop of familiarity.

This was probably a time when moderation would have served me well but instead, I jumped feet first into the well of extremities and was subsequently singed to my calves.

Still, it's worth the __________ if I learn the lessons and endeavour not to repeat the mistakes. If.




- I write in order to avoid talking, for you see as a human, I suck at talking.

Location:There, again.

Suicidal Tendencies.

I woke up on Saturday morning to a suicide text from a friend. She wanted to fix all of her wrongs, she couldn't bear the pain and confusion that she lived with.

Her attempt was unsuccessful, she was found by a sibling and rushed to hospital, her system overdosing on angst and unprescribed medication.

She told me how annoyed she was at being found, at failing to end her own life. I stared at my phone for what seemed like a third of an eternity, trying to think of words that would help her, words that would express my deepening concern for a friend but everything felt false.

For most of the day I've sat in silence, grateful for her brother, thankful for doctors but lavished with worry for my friend, someone who is struggling to find a balanced horizon in her life.




- I write in order to avoid talking, for you see as a human, I suck at talking.

Location:Hmmm.

Writing.

I spent the last few weeks taking in various cultural activities, everything from a Tea and Coffee Festival, to Ice-Skating in Hyde Park. I was fortunate and unsociable enough to write reviews for a few of the shows that filled one particular week (interesting fact, at least 88% of each review was drafted on my iPhone using an app entitled 'Enso Writer').

It started with seeing Leon Michener and Seaming To at The Forge, followed by a visit to Yuri Suzuki's latest exhibition at Village Underground, swiftly followed by a night of music courtesy of Robert Glasper's Trio at Kings Place and finished with a brief seminar by Robert Glasper (yes, again) at Southbank.

You might enjoy some of the reviews however it's quite feasible, that you might think they are filled with the flowery language and idiosyncratic ramblings that fill my previous posts. Either way, business as usual will resume once I manage to tear myself from my current Skittles addiction.

Moderation

I'm learning that it's possible to overdose on anything, from fruit to feelings, there comes a point where nimiety begins to incur more harm than good. Even features that we're told are virtuous, in excess, can be harmful.

However moderation, is boring. Being moderately drunk, or moderately in love, or even moderately depressed is an offensive bootleg of something that is meant to be experienced in the extreme. Imagine if Noah had built a 'moderate' ark, it would be little more than the contents of the Ikea reduced aisle stacked two storeys high - with enough standing room for a gazelle and an otter - not the biblical combatant that braved one of the earliest documented cases of global warming.

As of today, I will try to step away from my comfortable and moderate existence and dabble in the world of extremes because if we are honest, it's the extremists who make historical differences and potent memories. I'm sure if Jesus was only prepared to be reprimanded with a 5-minute timeout on the Naughty Step for the sins of mankind, instead of dying for them, he probably would have been a footnote in God's lineage.




NB: Today is Sunday, hence the biblical references.


- I write in order to avoid talking, for you see as a human, I suck at talking

Location:On the receiving end of a bad phone call.

Training Days.

Public sector training days are bound by universal law to have the following:

1) Vile coffee. Not sub standard or passable coffee but vile, gut wrenching coffee. Instant coffee so traumatising you would have thought you were pouring scolding water onto a sachets worth of dehydrated dog turds.

2) Death by PowerPoint. Not only do trainers insist on using templates that have been psychologically proven to bore yet provoke homicidal tendencies in adults, they then cram them with every morsel of dialogue the day contains. But that is only the ailment. The slow spiral of death begins as the speaker begins to read the text to you in a voice that induces multiple toilet breaks, a voice so void of character and interest you wish it were possible to have it subtitled with emoticons just so the speaker can gauge the audience's perception.

3) An average luncheon. In this particular case I was spared the delectable spread of imitation Digestive biscuits and margarine heavy tuna sandwiches cut into triangles. Why triangles I've always wondered? A cucumber sandwich cut in the shape of a dodecahedron, now that would ensure positive feedback on the day's evaluation form.

This training day however provided no such luncheon, another casualty in the public sector bonfire that is austerity? Or the burning effigy we all long to become cinders. You decide.


- I write in order to avoid talking, for you see as a human, I suck at talking

Location:Several leagues below content.

Notes from the author.

"Most of us don't know what autonomous thought is. The world strips it away until all that's left is the intuition you are told to ignore." (K, 2011)