The greatest gift my parents bestowed on me was to not encumber me with either religion or politics. It enabled me to become a free thinker.
My parents took the view that childhood was a time to play and learn about nature. They brought me up with morality and a sense of awe and wonder at the world. They took the view that I could explore religion and politics when I was an adult.
I think they were right.
I used to think that human beings are able to think for ourselves but now I am not so sure. We are the products of our culture and the principles instilled into us.
The human brain appears hopelessly inept to me at thinking for itself. We tend to blindly accept what we are told. The ideas that are fed into us as children seem to solidify into concrete. We are immensely susceptible to indoctrination.
‘Give me a boy until the age of seven and I will give you the man’ – the Jesuit motto.
All too true, I am afraid.
All over the world parents and religions are busy feeding concepts of god and religion into young receptive minds that have no facility to evaluate or reject. Those concepts are neatly injected into the grey matter to solidify. It seems to me that once entrenched they are impossible to remove.
I see people like Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard whose lives vacillate between extremes and are racked with guilt. I find that sad.
What are we doing to our children?
Shouldn’t we be educating them to explore and question rather than saddling them with guilt?
Surely we can teach our children morality and awe and wonder without burdening them with medieval concepts that have no foundation?
When they are old enough to make up their minds they can then explore religion, can’t they? Shouldn’t it be a personal choice rather than imposed?
What god demands this blind obedience under pain of everlasting torture?
Are we not abusing our children?
I would probably just tell my kids about all the religions and explain it to them and then let them decide what they want to believe in. In my opinion it’s their choice.
spot on Pooj.
I think I’m in agreement – after being raised as a Roman Catholic and then raising my own kids as Roman Catholics – the damage has been done. I have difficulty shedding the religious notions that were part of my personal indoctrination. And then there are the expectations of family, in-laws, that pressure one to “toe the line”. It’s a tough topic – but an important one.
Good to hear from you John. It is interesting to explore just how greatly this does affect people.
I am often dismayed by the images of little children in Madrassas and Jewish Schools being made to recite verse and actively indoctrinated. That impact must be great.
You and I – one the product of religious indoctrination, and the other who is not – and yet we can see eye-to-eye on this topic despite the voices within me that scream “heresy!” I have no expectation of ever escaping the Catholic guilt that was implanted so many years ago. But I have resolved to battle this demon along with my other demons!
Guilt is not Catholic its universal due to our moral nature , some feel it more than others and about different things. Most Catholics no longer feel guilty about using contraception these days it’s like the king without any clothes. Religions direct our guilt to in list us into their tribe the psychopath has no conscience and feels no guilt . Incidentally Robert Hare believes about 1% of the American population are psychopaths.
Freud describes guilt and uses concepts that are very meaningful.
Well you’re doing a good job of it John.
I agree with that tribal aspect Kersten.
1% is an awful lot of people – but I suppose that doesn’t really surprise me.
I’ve often wondered this myself. To me it is a sickness we just keep passing on.
Hi guys – I think you’re right – very well put.
Got to feel a bit sorry for Roman Catholics and Muslims as they certainly pulled the short straw in life. What a waste of energy and opportunity. So many psychological wrecks created by these filthy Catholic priests. There’s 4,000 of these beasts being investigated by the FBI in USA.
Where I come from, Catholics were somewhere between the Irish and dogs, although you’d be hard pressed to find an Irish person that wasn’t Catholic. They didn’t begin to get a white collar job until the 1960’s.
Once a tribal institution is set up it becomes stronger and builds itself up in order to take over their other tribes and rule the world. This tribal nature we inherited from our evolutionarily background without it we could not have survived. We see it at work all over the world at this moment in Turkey and under Putin in Russia. It’s the story of the tower of Babel being enacted out in human nature. The best viewpoint is to opt out of tribalism and regard man as one human tribe.
Kertsen – that is the only sane, intelligent response. But I would add that we need to see ourselves firmly within the web of nature and respect that too.
Intelligent and sane?! I’m afraid you’ve just dropped the ball there.
This response has nothing to do with it and some half-baked half-a-story from some student with half-a-clue. The clue being their previous bizarre reference to Freud. What was that about?
Does she actually know what the story of the tower of Babel was? Seemingly not.
And her analogy does not compute because what’s going down in Turkey now has nothing to do with tribal majority rule – it’s about a minority of thousands with resources and force, arresting one hundred and fifty thousand defenceless opponents. It’s exactly the same as the SS Gestapo.
The analysis here is a goof ball and you seriously cannot be too bright to ever consider it the only sane and intelligent response. It’s holds no water.
Particularly because as stated above, “guilt is universal due to our moral nature, and some feel it more than others and about different things” although I totally disagree with all of that and would call it a load of verbal tripe.
A what stage is this consensual collective understanding of guilt suddenly swayed into the political arena and therefore very easily ignored? As was obviously the case with members of the SS Gestapo or the thugs today operating under Erdogan in Turkey. The more you think about it the more her analogy sucks.
And what about Robert Hare? He’s just one of about 100,000 other people in this profiling non-science. And if the USA has 1% psychopaths, then the same ratio goes for every other country too. There’s absolutely nothing special about the USA, apart from it’s insane and out of control administration expenditure on defence of 9 trillion dollars for 9/11 to end 2016 by extremely destructive psychopathic Democrats.
It is true America is not special and it could well be similar for other tribes or nations but America is the country of Robert Hare and he is a well respected expert in the field. I forgot to mention psychopaths have a different brain scan from others and that many of these hold down important jobs they are certainly not all visible. That guilt is a universal human experience I supposed was obvious it goes alongside duty ; when we ignore what we believe to be our duty we experience guilt. When rule becomes tribal it will stand no opposition and often violence is the result . Attendance at any football match will confirm my reading of the nature of tribalism. It is our prehistoric origin and we all carry a huge evolutionary baggage. The main problem is we deceive ourselves into thinking we are civilised, but we could destroy ourselves and ruin the planet very quickly.
I agree with you Kersten. The tribalism of humans is very destructive. Sociopathic and psychopathic people tend to rise to powerful positions because they have no empathy or compassion; they don’t care who they hurt. They have a wish for power and to use their power to hurt others. It doesn’t surprise me that there might well be 1% of humans in that category. There are a lot of mean and nasty people in positions of power. We elect them time and again, we promote them and are taken in by their strength and black and white vision.
Tribalism is not operating as a loner!
You’ve still got to be an extremely smart person and still better than all the rest in order to get the job in the first place.
Some jobs require tough people. That’s why the position of Home Secretary is considered so important. That’s why we have the position filled by a person with exactly the right sort of credentials. That’s also why fat Abbott wouldn’t last a morning in the real world in the job, she has zero credentials.
Hare is one of many, many thousands in his field. Understand how American society works – everybody is respected until such time as there are reasons to withdraw that respect.
I think you forgot to mention that each of these psychopaths will also have a different brain scan from that of any other psychopath.
Tell me, what is visible about a psychopath? Is it the haircut, the tie, what? What on earth are you saying here?
Would it be expected that they wouldn’t be holding important jobs?, because I was completely unaware that there was a from-to limitation of the career development of yer average psychopath.
And seriously, everybody has the potential to be a psychopath, but full-blown manifestation is another step entirely. Just as owning a handgun does not immediately indicate that one is actually going to use it.
I entirely disagree that guilt has any correlation at all with duty. You’re talking oil and water.
Not all tribal affairs are malevolent entities, so you cannot automatically assume there will be.
Your football analogy is complete nonsense. Most people today go to football matches to watch football. They need not be actual firmly rooted long-term fanatical supporters of any particular club, and/or engaged in any kind of thuggery.
You obviously completely failed to notice the massive transition that occurred within football some years ago now. In order to salvage the game from the hands of violent thugs, new terms and conditions were put into operation. The concept of the “must have season ticket” and most importantly that being corporate hospitality. Effectively, the bovver boys were left standing outside the ground.
There is nothing whatsoever tribal about corporate hospitality watching football and neither do any of the invited attendees necessarily regularly watch football either. As was certainly the case with my ex-wife who’s been to more corporate football matches than I ever have, by a country mile. It’s now become a tick-list bucket item. Sad waste of very good money inho.
Certainly, some people are more civilised than others, but I think that’s very obvious. That’s why we had the Enlightenment, whilst the rest of the world was chopping off heads.
I’m not too sure quite how you go about constructing your case for debate, but it could do with slightly more forethought and omission of such leaps from prehistoric origin to ruining the planet in just one sentence. You won’t be passing any exams is you write like that in them, will you?
Let me confess I have no qualifications and no higher education so I attempt to find out about the world through the experts although they do not always agree on cutting edge science. I’m also limited by my IQ which is about 105 or slightly above average and it makes some difficult subjects tough to comprehend. I’m 75 and have been retired for 14 years during which time I have made an effort to self educate with some success. Many psychopaths are charming , intelligent types as described by Mr Hare that is part of the problem, but then that is a common problem , who can spot a pedophile or a rapist ? I agree the potential to kill is in all of us but the only thing stopping the psychopath is the plausibility of being caught. Let me add everyone has the potential to be a thug especially if his favorite team looses. Violence is part of our nature and it’s very clear as we look back through history. It was an evolutionary necessity for our survival and we carry a huge evolutionary wattage. It was the enlightenment that ushered in Protestantism with the printing press and yet it was not long before the protestants were at each other’s throats ; the pilgrim fathers escaped to start a new world free from religious persecution. It was not long before the same persecution soon started in the new world. By they way I won’t be taking any exams ; I did early on in my retirement get somebody to help me master simple algebra. There is a continuity in the human race from its beginnings when early homo species interbred until the present day it’s recorded in the DNA many alive today have a small percentage of Neanderthal DNA in their genome.
Just a short mention many scientists including the brilliant Stephen Hawking are highly concerned about the future of our planet which is seriously threatened by climate change.
Kersten – IQ and qualifications count for nothing. If you have an enquiring mind and an eagerness to appreciate the world we live in then that is all you need. Some of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met are among the most selfish, nasty people – arrogant and selfish. People who spend their time sowing unpleasantness and putting people down. They are the lowest.
Welcome and it is good to communicate. That’s what blogging is about. I too am concerned with the madness of this world that creates such destructive enterprises for selfish profit. My hope is that we can find a better way of doing things that does not cause so much destruction.
Well there’s nothing wrong with trying no matter what age you are.
I think you’ll find that a person requires an IQ level of 100 in order to operate at the most basic level in this modern world. I really don’t think a score of 105 is anywhere near slightly above average and is actually very low indeed. Average is around 125-130.
Yes, I understand how psychopaths operate, thank you.
As for you question – who can spot a pedophile or rapist? Well, since you’re obviously an American person, given the spelling used for the word pedophile, I’ll give you an American answer – that’s the 64,000 dollar question, isn’t it? It would depend entirely upon how these individuals operated, the amount of risks taken, pools of contacts – as often used by pedophiles, whereas, rapists usually operate independently. There’s no one answer to that question.
No, I entirely disagree with your claim about “everybody” has potential to be a thug over a football team. Let me just say that’s total rubbish. I really don’t think you’ve got much of a grasp on the world of the average football fan. That’s a deeply irrationally disturbing statement to make.
Let me stop you right there on your take on the Enlightenment. Protestants were around from the 16th century, some 200 years at least before you seem to think they arrived. I suggest you revisit that history asap, because presently you couldn’t be further off the mark if you tried.
At this point I gave up trying to decipher the incongruous threads on your post as it began to jump all over the place. What do you expect to achieve/receive with all that? All I can offer is pity.
The population curve for IQ is a bell curve with a peak around IQ 100 , 50% of the population above 100 and 50% below. An IQ of 125 is about the old grammar school level and above 140 Mensa. I’m an English man living in a small bungalow on the south coast. You are speaking of investigation appearance tells us virtually nothing. Let me be clear I’m not boasting about being English as I am not a nationalist and regard all men and women of equal value . Naturally talents vary enormously as do IQ’s but I would question the argument which suggests the gifted successful man of woman should be valued more than the average ordinary person.
Yes, Kertsen, I get how IQ works etc. I worked for several world leading companies and mental aptitude and psychological profiling was always a big deal in the selection process. People needed a bit more than an exam result, warm smile and firm handshake because of the money involved. No room for the Joe Average’s.
I know the south coast area very well. Used to have a lovely house in Rustington and a really old huge rambling place more inland up in Horum that had I not sold, would have happily left the keys in the door as I hated it that much. I remember it was situated across from that dancing couple, Torville & Dean. It had massive electric gates to the property as the whole area was one of the first affected by the new influx of European crime sprees courtesy of the EU. My surround 12 foot wall cost me 25 thousand + 10 for the gates, 35 grand to stop Romanians smashing your windows in.
I could not care less where you come from. I worked in many countries for most of my career. Yes, all are of equal value, that’s a pre-requesite in my business, but there again, it was a people’s business as opossed to some kind of sterile laboratory.
I’ve no wish to make any further comments on paedophiles or rapists as I have to admit that your train of thought has lost me. I answered your question perfectly clearly on previous occasion.
If somebody is gifted, then why not value them? Clearly the non-gifted average ordinary person is simply that. They won’t ever be the entrepreneur and giving many others the opportunity of gainful employment. So I’m really not sure quite how or on what basis you’ve made that conclusion.
Would you take your car in to be repaired at the ice-cream seller’s van? Are you going to value the ice-cream seller at exactly the same level as the car mechanic?
I would suggest that you have very little experience of the selection process of people within the workplace.
If my designer was responsible for an extra quarter of a million pounds in sales, I think I might be valuing that designer a little bit more than the car park attendant.
Andrew you have obviously moved in high financial circles where money counts but interestingly not all successful business men have high IQ’s but they all have the motivation to succeed. I had not heard of Horum but looked it up on Wiki there is some very expensive property in these small villages. Torville &Dean were fabulous entertainers they carried me into a world of magical movement with their art.
Perhaps you should not have let out the fact you hated it for that sets a curious mind ,but not a very smart one, like mine wondering. I gather you are glad to be rid of the EU on the grounds of immigration but some businesses are not so happy.
We have moved in very different circles, my life has been spent among the working class poor ( not by world standards) but by background and necessity. I’m quite flattered to have lost you regarding rapists and pedophiles but I often rummage among the dregs of humanity to get to the bottom of what makes us tick.
Of course a talented man or woman in business has to fetch the market value , that is what all the argument in about in the recent BBC pay exposure, but surely there is more to a man or woman than market value?
You are right I was one of those hoping to be selected and not one doing the selection but remember the world needs both.
There certainly is more to a man than market value Kertsen – there is the sum of their character – whether they are negative or positive – a builder or destroyer – a grouch or beam of sunshine – there’s much more. Some are worth being with and some are good to avoid.
Kertsen – I couldn’t agree more. The value of a person is not measured in their IQ (or race). I, as an educator, would put far more value on other areas of human nature – compassion, empathy, respect, tolerance, kindness, loving attitudes – all much more important than IQs. Some of the nastiest most useless people I have encountered have been exceedingly bright. Some of the nicest, most worthwhile have been not bright at all. All are equally worthwhile.
Teaching people for careers is a misuse of education, in my view. Education is so much more than that.
Read the post properly Opher.
Firstly, race was never an issue, so why even cover it?
The value basis was about people who are gifted, and not IQ.
There’s no such thing as a teacher who can teach people, aka children, for careers. The only people who can do that are industry trainers and they are in extremely short supply on the floors of nondescript comprehensives. Schools are absolutely useless at preparing children for the workplace, hence why so many go into a state of near shock when the day arrives.
Is it the job of schools to prepare children for the workplace and nothing else ? If so they are learning a lot of stuff that will be useless to them.
What good is algebra to a bricklayer? or history to a lathe operator? or computer science to a window cleaner . What do lorry drivers need to know ? do they need to know how to spell ? and what reading skills do they need? Why are such huge numbers going to university and getting into 50,000 pounds of debt? Perhaps we should turn back the clock and reserve the classics along with Latin for the upper class. Darwin’s cousin Francis Galton believed in selective breeding which eventually led to eugenics mind you that only became a dirty word after Hitler and his wicked holocaust.
Kertsen – we have to make education relevant to our children. We teach so much more than knowledge. A child has to be able to take their place in the 21st century and the technological world. Their brains need expanding and developing. Their curiosity stimulated, Their compassion, tolerance, empathy, respect and sense of responsibility tweaked. We don’t want them going out in the world being mean, nasty and unpleasant, do we?
Education should be rounded, creative and fun. It should expand and stimulate. Everyone needs it.
Careers are not the main function. There’s much more to life.
Opher, that’s somewhat of an ill-considered comment to make that IQ and qualifications count for nothing. Perhaps the sort of opinion I would expect from a guy who wasn’t remotely personally driven, devoid of any career aspirations, no natural calling to anything other than dirty, remedial, dead-end, manual labouring jobs, dossing about going nowhere fast for at least the first 25 years of his life and subsequently sentenced to a life of state controlled wages.
IQ and qualifications are the be all and end all and make or break a person’s life and determine everything. Those with a low IQ have an automatic limited capacity to earn decent money.
Those with average qualifications have the same problem, plus a far longer length of time to be considered for promotion as opposed to those with first class qualifications. Look how long it took you, hanging about waiting for people to die one after the other to enable you to slide up the pecking order bit by bit.
I think you also have your priorities and understanding of “the lowest” somewhat confused. Surely the lowest are those that cheat the system taking money they’re not entitled to. Life isn’t a free ride and too many people looking for something for free have this attitude that the person who says no to them, are arrogant and nasty, whatever nasty means! Such a poor word, similar to the word nice, it means sfa. You seem to take that view also towards myself when I’m forced to correct your poor research and misappropriated accreditation with quotes and people etc. Hardly appropriate and somewhat arrogant in itself. There again hypocrisy has always been your maker.
One of my cousins is visiting me. She has 2 large farms (as most of my relatives are farmers) and was telling me of the abuse she has to put up with from these hill walking and rambler people. She hates them on her land anywhere near livestock as too many have no idea that they must never approach, but they see a cutesy little lamb and make the approach. She or her people always keep these people on the roads and keep their land off-limits. They point to their maps indicating caves and waterfalls, stuff that’s well off the beaten track, but they don’t understand, it’s private property and nobody gets to visit. They call her nasty and arrogant – for preserving her own natural land.
Destructive enterprises for selfish profit.
This must surely include people who insist on writing fictional books and then sell them privately.
Such a waste of paper. There’s really no need for paper books anymore, particularly non-reference pulp fiction stuff that’s churned out by thousands of bedroom writers. I’m appalled to know that trees are cut down to produce this crap and I’d like to see much higher rates of tax applied to the people receiving money from books.
You should know human nature well , where there is a loophole a profiteer will exploit it , it’s called getting ahead and some will even break the law to do it. The wealthy can circumnavigate the law by moving abroad or doing their banking in Switzerland. The immigrant traffickers are in the game for financial gain outside the law.
Kertsen – There are some despicable people about who put money before people. The multinationals exploit and the rich avoid paying their dues. They need sorting.
I simply despise hypocrits. People that complain about destruction of natural resources and between breathes appeal to people to please buy their books. More trees have to fall to fulfill their greedy lust. If they were taxed at a much higher rate we’d have less of these leaches.
You don’t have to be wealthy to do banking in Switzerland! It’s a country, remember?
The true capitalist should pat them on the back for having the sense to find a loophole from which to make a profit , it has nothing to do with hypocrisy that’s a word invented by do-gooders who get upset when a new source of income is found by the smart. Take the unions they are a capitalist organisation designed to benefit their members and sometimes they make a very good job of it. Look at the earnings of train drivers! Many have also jumped on the green wagon to sell carbon relief to those who still wish to fly around the world with easy consciences : hypocrites ; no entrepreneurs using the available means. What you see at work in all these things is human- nature like it or not ‘ turn the other cheek is a forgotten dream and even ‘ an eye for an eye ‘ is avoided at all costs .
Kertsen – don’t get caught up with Andrew. He’s a nasty troll who is trying his hardest to annoy people on my blog. Pathetic really. Leave him be.
Andrew you have obviously moved in high financial circles where money counts but interestingly not all successful business men have high IQ’s but they all have the motivation to succeed. I had not heard of Horum but looked it up on Wiki there is some very expensive property in these small villages. Torville &Dean were fabulous entertainers they carried me into a world of magical movement with their art.
Perhaps you should not have let out the fact you hated it for that sets a curious mind ,but not a very smart one, like mine wondering. I gather you are glad to be rid of the EU on the grounds of immigration but some businesses are not so happy.
We have moved in very different circles, my life has been spent among the working class poor ( not by world standards) but by background and necessity. I’m quite flattered to have lost you regarding rapists and pedophiles but I often rummage among the dregs of humanity to get to the bottom of what makes us tick.
Of course a talented man or woman in business has to fetch the market value , that is what all the argument in about in the recent BBC pay exposure, but surely there is more to a man or woman than market value?
You are right I was one of those hoping to be selected and not one doing the selection but remember the world needs both.
Kertsen,
I’m not too interested in this cod psychology of the IQ level of successful businessmen. I worked for very successful international world leading companies and that’s a big difference. I was one of many people involved in the management of these companies, it’s people being it’s major asset. And I take great exception to these utter nonentity comments found elsewhere suggesting that if one was involved in anything successful to do with money, therefore, by automatic virtue one is a nasty and uncaring person. That’s the sort of bitter and twisted, mentally defective vile vitriol that I would expect from a non-achiever or under-achiever. Whilst he sat for 30 years waiting for people to die so he could climb the ladder of some crumby backwater secondary school in the north of England, I applied myself.
I knew what I was going to be when I was 16 years old. He didn’t until he was 26 and was forced to get a proper job.
So let me tell you now and make it crystal clear for you – this guy has zero qualifications in anything other than teaching kids. He knows nothing about world leading operational practices, international companies human resources incentives, human resources development and retention, or anything to do with the selection process engaged to ensure the psychological profile required for any particular job matches that of an individual. When your business is reliant on 6 main key personnel components, there’s no room for love and kisses and everybody’s equal talk. I’m sorry, but that crap just does not cut it at all. One firm I worked for in Asia, had 175,000 employees throughout the world. The CEO not only walked and talked the job, he breathed it. He would be as far removed from these people (whoever they are) as described by you at the top of the page. I have never been near any top management people with average IQ’s or anything average about them. These people, including myself were the top 10% representatives of the industry in the world. Not a town, a city, a county or even a country, but the world. When one begins to understand that, then any silly childish talk about low IQ levels and being a nasty person begins to look ridiculous. It’s your customers and your industry peers that tell you you’re the best – although you do already know that by all the sheer hard work that you’ve put into your product in the first place and of course, continue to invest in.
One resort conference hotel I managed had an annual cleaning budget of 5 million.
It cost 20 thousand just to open the doors everyday. See if you don’t have the right calibre of people managing these budgets and the right calibre of people responsible for sales revues, you’re finished and you may as well go work for the government or one of these dead wood jobs.
I hated living in that house in Horum. Just because something is expensive doesn’t generally make me value it anymore. I simply didn’t after a while like living in the house, it’s that simple. I’ve remembered its name now, Canon Cottage, but it wasn’t a cottage, as it had a first floor with 4 or 5 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms and a loo, if I remember. I had a full size billiard table in the drawing room, never used the dining room, an office, big lounge, big dining kitchen and several loo’s. I’m sure there was another unused public room that I used for storage. I could get 3 cars in the garage.
The garden was so big I had a small tractor lawn mower. More than anything I probably got tired driving back and forth up to London all week and usually getting back quite late. Whereas previously I lived in the west end, so it was a doddle getting home.
No, I didn’t know Torville & Dean, nor did I ever speak to them. I could see their house from mine, but it was quite some distance away. It wasn’t across the street. There were no streets!
I lived in Horum in 1987-89. I worked and lived in Asia and other places from 1992 until 2009.
Yes, I do approve of leaving the EU. It is a corrupt cartel and very expensive and not competitive with world market prices. It is in fact 8% too expensive. Immigration was obviously a disaster and it could nor possible continue on that scale.
Ref rapists and paedophiles. You misunderstand me. You didn’t lose me, but the manner in which you were writing did. I couldn’t follow what you were trying to say. I couldn’t see any equation for “identification” as you had previously alluded to, other than paedophiles more often than not seem to get caught having left their mark on group meeting internet sites. Rapists, well they’re just common and garden low lifes. Takes all kinds. However, murdering rapists, such as Peter Sutcliffe, whilst perhaps more interesting, none the less, what about them. They get caught because they are creatures of habit or they make a mistake. Some have been caught because a family member was dna profiled for a completely unrelated other case.
Of course there’s more to a person than market value. But the work place is the work place and all things are relevant. It would be irrelevant to discuss person A’s great abilities as a father at Monday mornings board meeting, wouldn’t it? There’s only one reason why person A has been employed and it has nothing to do with his children.
There’s only one of two reasons why you never got selected.
First reason: You didn’t do enough to apply yourself to make you stand out and be counted for selection.
Second reason: you never learned how to tackle a psychometric test. They always tell you, oh don’t worry about it, just tick the box that’s most relevant to how you feel.
They’re lying to you and do worry, as these tests make or break you.
The first one I ever did early on in my career, I hated it and thought it was such bollocks but still realised its importance. For some years I regarded them as total crap, then I woke up to the reality – they were never going to go away and would always be around and the sooner I knew how they worked, the better.
So I paid another private firm to teach me how to tackle them in future.
The individual tests, of course, all vary from company to company, and which particular Californian institute has produced the tests, but the general concept does not change.
The tests are intentionally designed to confuse you as to whether you are answering questions from a management perspective where you are in control over a responsive and responsible work force or to where there’s an unresponsive and out of control workforce. One minute you are a team player who delegates very well to the next minute where you are a dictator who only uses total forced authority.
My profile is one who does not like authority – other people telling me what to do.
I have to be in charge of my own area. Nobody else can ever have that job. Which makes the life of any assistant very difficult as basically I leave no room for any job for them.
I am reticent to delegate to people that I do not have 100% confidence in. Nobody has 100% confidence in anybody else, therefore, I was looking for the impossible and had to work on that aspect of my character.
I will never give up and stop trying to solve a problem or improve something.
That was my saving grace. That was what got me some super jobs and enabled me to make some seriously decent good money. That was why I got hired.
Nobody has the perfect profile and most have a dislike of losing complete control, but certainly not too many people are prepared to not give in to a problem. Most brush it under the carpet and learn to live with it. They are prepared to live with a white elephant in the room.
That’s also reflected in how people live. You visit their homes and it’s a smart looking house. In you go and it’s a chaotic guddle of storage boxes, piles stashed in corners sort of thing. They live like chimpanzees. They might be lovely people, but their home is slovenly.
That kind of thing cannot exist in the business world. Chaos is the nemesis of the business world.
I saw it myself ten thousand times. I’d meet people, tell them the deal, come three months later, it’s a case of – OK, so you didn’t get around to this or that yet you expect me to change your life around for you, whilst you do jack shit for it?
No way, pal, you just kicked your own balls. I met so many non achievers, so many no-hopers all too dim to work out that I was their conduit, the rest was work they were going to have to put it in in order to master their craft. I just wish that schools could iron out that stupidity in the bud early on.
Opher, if it wasn’t for the fact that you are displaying tell-tale signs of early alzheimers, such as the continuous repetition of posts, I really couldn’t give a continental what you think.
You are a hypocrit. Full stop. Not once have you announced that you will replace any trees that are destroyed. I think that is highly irresponsible behavior.
You really don’t need paper for your books.
Kertsen, please find a dictionary and remind yourself what hypocrite means.
Secondly, you know nothing of the relative subject matter.
No Kertsen, you are confusing a discussion theory that trade unions in the modern age today could be considered as capitalist organisations. But because not all trade unions operate exactly the same, therefore, that theory holds no water.
Trade unions per se are not capitalist but the industries that their work forces work for are.
This is the sort of stuff that swamps the pages of socialist web pages, it’s cod-quasi-intellectualism with zero foundation, not worth a tinker’s cuss.
All trade unions are a form of socialism that work as a safety net.
You mean some train drivers driving some types of trains get paid better than other drivers driving much less sophisticated and as fast travelling trains? Yes, I know, I have stocks and shares with 3 UK rail firms. They deserve decent money (it’s still not great money – I wouldn’t be getting up at 4am for a morning shift for it), but their European counterparts with even faster trains get paid more.
You’ve over complicated the carbon footprint ease of conscience stuff. All one needs to do if they want is pay for a new tree to be planted. It takes zero effort.
As for the rest of your chat, such as turning cheeks, forgotten dreams and an eye for an eye – eh…what? No friggin’ idea what your on about there. Or were you absentmindedly reciting an old sea shanty?
It was a religious reference Andrew in the New testament Jesus Christ taught ‘ turn the other cheek to your enemies. The Jews of the old Testament believed in the law ‘ an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth. It was the main reason they hounded Jesus although he was a Jew.
The Bible is perhaps the most important document in the development of western democracies because their history and laws follow its pattern.
There is a sharp edge to your comments which I suspect is your background high up on the wealth pyramid ; you have had to fight and watch your back and that must be tough. Down here on the lower levels life is a bit more easy going and relaxing ; yes there is violence but tension is notable so high. I noticed your comment about how business cares not about how good a father a man makes I expect that applies to husband as well. What about those who like Scrooge in the Christmas story who lost his sweetheart due to his obsession with money making.
Let me say I do not believe that the better attributes such as honesty , concern, loving kindness belong exclusively to any level of the pyramid of wealth , because human nature is changeless and common to us all.
I’m a little concerned for Opher whose blog we are using as a debating ground so perhaps we should call to a halt our lifestyle debates or move them to another venue. I have been blocked on some sites by others not for rudeness or name calling which I detest but for persistence
Andrew – You talk such utter crap. There is obviously something very wrong with you. What you are coming out with – a stream of invective and filth – is beyond belief. Are these sociopathic tendencies for real? All this paranoia, Islamophobia, homophobia – is that what drives you? You are an intelligent person for fuck’s sake. Get a grip.
I write books and I am an environmentalist. The sales of my books are mainly electronic. Hypocritical to write books because they destroy trees? Are you for real? Grow up for heaven’s sake. You are really scraping the barrel.
I live in the countryside and I enjoy Hull. It is a great thriving place. When I take photos, which I enjoy doing, I deliberately avoid people if at all possible. On a gloomy day there weren’t that many anyway but Hull is usually packed. You really are struggling. I’ve been to Glasgow and enjoyed it too. Cities don’t greatly appeal to me apart from the facilities and for gigs, art galleries etc. I prefer the countryside and it is beautiful here and up in Scotland. It isn’t a competition. Grow up.
You spend hours trawling through my posts and checking on your computer to come up with something nasty to say, to pick fault, to belittle, deride or put down. Look in the mirror. You appear like a nasty bully. What does it say about you?
All the guests on my posts you try to belittle and drive away with abuse and put-downs. You have become an unpleasant troll. What is that about?
Your temper is extraordinary. You fly off the handle with expletives, threats and abuse. You come over as a piece of scum. Get a hold of yourself. You are better than that.
You specialise in pedantically picking up on tiny insignificant details and dismiss the whole thrust of the post. Childish and anal.
You take everything literally like an autistic child. Clapton did not play cabaret. He played as if he was playing cabaret – a soulless performance. You might not agree but you don’t have to be so dumb as to not see what I was saying.
You obviously have a lot of psychological problems – all this self-grandeur about what a genius you are – how you’ve put everyone right on everything – what a high ranking job you had – all the gangsters and nobs that you hung around with – how only you has access of the ‘real’ news – all this anal recording of details. It’s a bit sad. And I really don’t care. It does nothing for me. I take people as I find them. You’re so uptight it’s unbelievable. One can’t discuss anything because you are always right and everyone else is hopelessly wrong. You can’t bear for anyone to hold a different view to you. If they do they are morons. Well you can keep your Trump and Brexit – all going brilliantly. You are so stuck up you can’t even bear anyone calling you Andy or anything informal – it has to be Andrew or you get your knickers in a twist. What’s that about?
You have developed a vendetta against me which I find utterly puerile. You are like some school bully trying to intimidate me and my guests. It’s not really working is it? My blog has now got 8000 followers. If you don’t like what I say or do why don’t you just fuck off and get a life. You seem to live on my blog trying to piss everyone off. Haven’t you got a life? Nothing better to do? Obviously not.
I leave all your vitriol up on the blog for people to see what you are like – a sad person who spends far too much time trying to cause misery for others. Futile and pointless.
You belittle my career – what is all this ridiculous nonsense about walking into dead man’s shoes? You talk as if you know me. I was the driving force at my school from day one. I got my job because I was good at it. I was the best Head the school has had and education is one of the most worthwhile careers. If I had been ambitious I would have done it fifteen years earlier. I was doing something useful and good – not selfishly feathering my nest like you. I wasn’t a person who was motivated by earning large sums – but I did OK despite that. You might well have been high up in hotels. Big deal. A great contribution to the creation of a better world. What’s there to crow about?
The other thing you do is lie and come out with outrageous crap – like I write my own reviews or reblogging some of my posts for my new followers is a sign of Alzheimer’s. You really do have an unpleasant side.
I don’t mind discussion, disagreement or debate. That’s what it’s about. I am a writer. I enjoy writing. You’ve been very useful to me. You’ve given me a character or two. But you are not into sharing interests or debate are you? You’re into putting people right, lording it over them, ridiculing and picking fault. That’s no way to go about things is it?
Sad on many levels. You could deploy your intelligence and skills to some positive use. Instead of which you contribute nothing and are like a parasite. I am truly sorry for your physical problems and how you were invalided out. But seriously, do something creative, find an interest that you can contribute to, develop a bit of compassion – go out and help someone. It’s perhaps time you started contributing instead of taking.
Enough said.
Just look back through all the nasty crap you’ve been putting up. What does it say about you?
It’s perhaps time you re-evaluate and get down off your high horse.
Kersen, I honestly could say that I have not one morsel of me that is remotely interested in religious texts. I might know a couple of quotes here and there, but there ends.
I was lucky in that I had parents who never forced religion upon me. My mother had sent me to the local Presbyterian/Protestant church sunday school and at age 8, I came back one time and said I didn’t believe this stuff they were telling me and that was the end of that. I know my father was delighted about that.
I did continue to receive religious knowledge classes at secondary school which were the bain of my life and I think back to that with grimness.. How dare they shove that garbage at you. We had a zealot for a teacher, who mainly taught music, and was also a careers advisor. I hated him and he hated me. He would belt me everytime I yawned in his god squad class.
We were expected to ask him questions regard careers and we allocated time slots for one-to-ones with him. I never prepared anything and never asked any questions.
He’d ask if I knew what I wanted to do and I’d say no I didn’t (I did really) and was there anything I wanted to ask him and I’d say no, and that was the end of it. He’d move me to another table as he marked school stuff as the clocked ticked off my allotted time slot. It was like Monty Python.
I did everything with a completely straight face which would wind him up no end. He knew all too well that I was of course taking the piss, and I’d have been the 1000th to have tried it too, but to his credit he never lost it or wasted a second of his time any longer on anything. He was actually a pretty good teacher (always wore the big black gown with his leather 2-pronged belt for thrashing you, draped over his left shoulder for expedient production in a flash with right hand) but he just taught 2 of the worst subjects I could imagine – classical music and careers.
I spent most of my life winding people up, seeing their breaking point amused me no end.
My well practiced straight and emotionless facial expression proved a very useful tool for putting people at unease. Obviously I carefully picked the victim, it wasn’t just anybody and everybody – far, far from it, but people who needed taking down a peg for their own good (and many others, too), you understand.
Anybody with a decent job that has great perks has to watch out for themselves as there’s 199 other guys looking at it. But a good relationship with your bosses keeps these leaches at a safe distance. Some people make the mistake of thinking gossip mongering will help them up, not for me and I never engaged in that nonsense ever and always avoided the gossip mongerers. I wouldn’t even sit at the same table with a coffee with them.
Funnily enough there was a high divorce rate. There was also a strong contingent of “batchelor” types too, but I never made many inquiries.
Opher, since you’ve gone to such trouble and thought and as I know you’re a one-finger typer, I moved this over to here so I can reply to it in an orderly manner. Your sentences prefixed with O, unless otherwise obvious. Mine will be prefixed with A.
Andrew – You talk such utter crap. There is obviously something very wrong with you. What you are coming out with – a stream of invective and filth – is beyond belief. Are these sociopathic tendencies for real? All this paranoia, Islamophobia, homophobia – is that what drives you? You are an intelligent person for fuck’s sake. Get a grip.
A: You accuse me of talking utter crap a lot, yet always completely fail to back your comment up.
You wouldn’t last a second in the real world, as I’d take the shirt off your back quicker than you could button it up.
I don’t know how many times now that I’ve indicated to yourself about your paranoia – It’s not me that’s frightened of Brexit. You are so typical of the leftist apologists who immediately smear anybody who objects to wanton out of control immigration and replies with “oh, your racist, your Islamophobic and all that crap. I will have had more Islamic girlfriends in my time than you. In fact I would very much doubt you ever had any. My knowledge and personal experience in general of Isslamic affairs will be vastly superior to that of yours for the simply fact that I worked and lived in the midst of Islamic countries for nine years. You did not.
Yes, I probably am an intelligent person, otherwise I would not have been able to do what I did for so long and at the level at which I did it.
O: I write books and I am an environmentalist. The sales of my books are mainly electronic. Hypocritical to write books because they destroy trees? Are you for real? Grow up for heaven’s sake. You are really scraping the barrel.
A: I think it is the responsibility of everybody to rethink our behavior and responsibility towards our environment. We’re gradually closing in on inner city traffic pollution – which should have been solved years ago and these filthy diesel carts of all descriptions regardless of size scrapped.
Just because somebody ‘likes’ to do something is neither here nor there. Non-essential, non-referential writings should all be going direct to kindle type reading facility only and no more trees cut down to support this crap. That barrel is also taken from a felled tree.
I love trees, they are my favourite things on this planet.
O: I live in the countryside and I enjoy Hull. It is a great thriving place. When I take photos, which I enjoy doing, I deliberately avoid people if at all possible. On a gloomy day there weren’t that many anyway but Hull is usually packed. You really are struggling. I’ve been to Glasgow and enjoyed it too. Cities don’t greatly appeal to me apart from the facilities and for gigs, art galleries etc. I prefer the countryside and it is beautiful here and up in Scotland. It isn’t a competition. Grow up.
You spend hours trawling through my posts and checking on your computer to come up with something nasty to say, to pick fault, to belittle, deride or put down. Look in the mirror. You appear like a nasty bully. What does it say about you?
A: I grew up in the countryside, almost. Our house was situated in the last cluster of houses on the outskirts of town whilst surrounded on 3 sides by a reservoir estate, a moor and woods.
I spent years out in that avoiding people. I went into to Glasgow city for the opposite spectrum.
I don’t think your city or my city can compare. Let’s leave it at that.
Glasgow is superb for gigs, one of the best indie venues is 150 yards from me, but I don’t go too often.
O: All the guests on my posts you try to belittle and drive away with abuse and put-downs. You have become an unpleasant troll. What is that about?
A: Actually, I seldom talk to any of them directly. So few have anything to say. And if you care to pay attention that Canadian guy took it upon himself to act as some kind of moderator by sarcastically thanking me for my Latin lesson that he didn’t think brought anything to the discussion. When in fact if you actually read what I said, I wasn’t being rude, it was actually a jest with a bit of factual correction, nothing more. But you allowed him to be rude to me for no fucking good reason as the guy had brought sfa to your table with any calculable knowledge on the subject at all. Hypocrisy again rears its ugly head. So if I let him know that I know he knows sfa, too bad for him. Don’t bite that what you can’t swallow.
O: Your temper is extraordinary. You fly off the handle with expletives, threats and abuse. You come over as a piece of scum. Get a hold of yourself. You are better than that.
A: And who was that told me to go fuck myself two weeks ago? Remember? Oops, there’s Hypocrisy’s ugly head again.
O: You specialise in pedantically picking up on tiny insignificant details and dismiss the whole thrust of the post. Childish and anal.
A: Not if a post is given over as factual and references are given. If the references are bullshit, I just might say something. I might not. Depends on how outrageous the claims are.
For instance, your recent claims of the origins of life on earth are quite out of date and I said so backed with information. You ignored them, but carried on with the post like it was 1953 or something. It’s a case of “Let’s forget about any new discoveries because I don’t know anything about them, and if I don’t know anything about them, then they simply can’t be true”.That’s basically how you operate, isn’t it.
O: You take everything literally like an autistic child. Clapton did not play cabaret. He played as if he was playing cabaret – a soulless performance. You might not agree but you don’t have to be so dumb as to not see what I was saying.
A: You therefore do not have the cache of live recordings in audio and film that I have. I don’t know what period time line you refer to other than that dreadful MTV horror show he did in around 1993.
But I would say that his official live albums are crap in compare to the bootlegs. Everything is muted down for what seems like the ears of “family radio” or “housewives choice” on Radio 4 sort of thing. I don’t know who his record company think they’re fooling putting that crap out. So perhaps you’re dead right. So, I’ll give you that back completely. No contest, you are right on that.
O: You obviously have a lot of psychological problems
A: No, I don’t have any.
O: all this self-grandeur about what a genius you are – how you’ve put everyone right on everything
A: Eh, sorry, have you any examples?
O: what a high ranking job you had
A: I had a very good quality job in that I didn’t have to shovel dung, but I had to work to keep it.
O: all the gangsters and nobs that you hung around with
A: No gangsters! If any were that then they certainly never introduced themselves as such.
I did know many fly-boy sorts who sorted me out for stuff on the QT. As for the nobs, yes of course I would “hang out” with them at work only. Not in my own private time. The nobs are the people that spend the most, so I’ll gladly relieve them of the pressures of having that kind of money. That’s the hotel business at the top end – you have total pain in the ass clients, but you have to deal with them. They want and expect to speak to the man in charge, not his horse’s arse.
Quite how you always seem to harbour a problem with that I’ll never know.
There are some areas in life where socialistic egalitarian concepts do not exist and this is most definitely one of them.
O: how only you has access of the ‘real’ news
A: That’s still rankles with you when I told you about 2 years ago that you should widen your search for better sources of information. I too had been in your shoes 10 years ago until other people showed me the light. But I thanked them for it. All you’ve done is criticise me. What a silly man.
O: all this anal recording of details. It’s a bit sad. And I really don’t care. It does nothing for me.
A: Anal? If I didn’t have details, I’d be where you are, totally confused and ill-informed. I sold a lot of music, so I need lists. I sold a lot of bespoke collectors stuff, so I need lists.
If a guy tells me he has bought all the Hendrix releases in the last 20 years or so, and wants to know what else is available, well I can tell him real quickly, I can also easily make up CD-R’s of all that stuff missing from his collection. I have hundreds and hundreds of pages of info just for that purpose. You aren’t the one making any money from it.
O: I take people as I find them.
A: Sometimes a bit more caution is the sensible approach, at least that’s my mantra.
O: You’re so uptight it’s unbelievable.
A: You’ve no idea have you. You’ve met me in real life. I couldn’t give a fuck about anything.
O: One can’t discuss anything because you are always right and everyone else is hopelessly wrong.
A: I’m never ever the one swinging the bat castigating anybody who dared to agree with Brexit, was I? Check out your own behavior there on several occasions. It was other people that came in from the cold to tell you that you were very out of order. Remember?
O: You can’t bear for anyone to hold a different view to you. If they do they are morons.
A: That’s bullshit. What I do do is provide some factual information. I don’t just make insulting remarks because I “FEEL” a certain way about something. I don’t belong to any shitty political party, so there’s nothing dragging me around. You’re the “follower” and the party toe-rag “believer”. That’s your problem, but you insist on showering everybody with that same shit and I simply tell you to fuck off from doing that. You can’t take it. But that’s my opinion. I hate being showered with leftist shit. You’re right – I do think they are mostly – when all is said and done – Morons.
O: Well you can keep your Trump and Brexit – all going brilliantly.
A: When are you going to wake up to the reality? What will it take to convince you just how insidious Mrs Clinton was. Trump is cleaning out the garbage in the Washington political spectrum and you still don’t understand why they are gunning for him at every single second of every single day? Have you really got a handle on just how fucked up the US is? You scare me. How can you be so blind?
As for Brexit. I just don’t get you at all. But I’d need a good 4 or 5 hours solid to explain to you the why’s and what’s – all the stuff that I really don’t think you’ve considered.
Meanwhile, do buy and read that book “Adults in the Room”. You will be very pleased you did read it and it will relieve you of your anger and frustration and open your mind to how the EU has turned into a really crazy monolith.
O: You are so stuck up you can’t even bear anyone calling you Andy or anything informal – it has to be Andrew or you get your knickers in a twist. What’s that about?
A: Several reasons, none of which are any of your business.
O: You have developed a vendetta against me which I find utterly puerile. You are like some school bully trying to intimidate me and my guests. It’s not really working is it? My blog has now got 8000 followers.
A: Wrong. I rarely comment on most posts, maybe 10% of them at most if I have time or enough interest. I don’t do love and kisses replies to your posts Opher. But you know that. There are enough chuckle-heads to take good care of that aspect. Working? I don’t know, but it would be good to see a few people with at least a working brain. I’m not saying they’re not friendly people and all that, but let’s face it, there’s sfa between their ears. There was one very interesting guy who rocked up several weeks ago, forget his name, and he really was a smart cookie, but alas, it was yourself who chased him away with your invective vitriol that wouldn’t accept a single point he had to make because of your infused political persuasions that are so inflexible. I use the word invecctive as you were highly critical as opposed to insulting, I’m not suggesting you were insulting. All the same, I thought that was a bit sad to watch really, to be honest.
If there’s 8,000, where are they? There are around 5 or 6 regular contributors. That really doesn’t add up to your claims of 8,000. But hey, it’s your ego trip, call it 180,000 for all I care.
O: If you don’t like what I say or do why don’t you just fuck off and get a life.
A: I thought the idea was to have a debate? What’s the comments bar for? Or is that just a ruse?
O: You seem to live on my blog trying to piss everyone off. Haven’t you got a life? Nothing better to do? Obviously not.
A: I spend very little time on your blog. Why, because nobody debates! Simples.
There seems to be an element that truly believe that they should only comment if they believe what you have said is true. Tell me this, just exactly what will (let’s say an Australian or a Canadian) they understand of what it would be like for an English white family to live in the middle of a Muslim enclave in Bradford? It’s situations like this where I do not believe that you have given them the entire spectrum of the problem and situation. I don’t understand your dishonesty. I don’t understand why you are prepared to sell your flock short on the truth just for the benefits of core liberalism type beliefs. I feel obligated to speak up. Of course, I end up looking like the elephant in the room because the others possess no further understanding as all they read is your crazed non-acceptance of any of the truth. You’re almost like a religious zealot in that respect and it’s very difficult, no, impossible to deal with.
I’ve provided you with a ton of very good info on Brexit, but you refuse to take on board one single fucking detail. Yet you are the one complaining that there was no information available, or there was only false information. Yet you are still saying that today when all evidence suggests things have moved along a bit in that respect. But seemingly not in Opher’s World. I really don’t understand that either.
In a perfect world, if I were you, I’d being doing a two-pronged update report like every week sorta thing. Informing people of what’s it about from both sides.
All you do is publish things to do lists – of course there’s things to do lists! But my god, the hysterical manner in which you go about it is really, really childish. And what’s even worse, is you’ve got 2 sorry clueless souls agreeing with you that the list looks quite tricky, too. WTF!?
Wtf did they do with their lives? Run hamster hutch’s or what?
And if I step and say hey, people get a grip, I’m evil incarnate! You gotta feckin’ laugh at that.
O: I leave all your vitriol up on the blog for people to see what you are like – a sad person who spends far too much time trying to cause misery for others. Futile and pointless.
A: But also a person with a lot of good information at his fingertips. If it contradicts your point of view or maybe even theirs, too, they will survive. It will cause them no harm or long term damage.
It may in fact get them to think a little harder. Flip the coin, see what’s underneath. So many people spend their entire adult lives in stasis in aspic because they had dum-dum jobs. You and I very probably forget about that. We probably couldn’t even begin to imagine the overall connotations of that sort of existence, as frightening as it seems.
O: You belittle my career – what is all this ridiculous nonsense about walking into dead man’s shoes? You talk as if you know me.
A: I believe that you believe it is the only career that a man should have. I think that is nonsense.
I believe that you think school education is good enough to ready young people for the workplace. I disagree as I was at the receiving end of that contingent for 10 years in the UK. I do know you better than probably anybody else here.
O: I was the driving force at my school from day one.
A: Sounds like you said to yourself, with no regard for anyone else, “I’m here now, so shut up and listen up”. Yup, we’ve all met a few such people.
O: I got my job because I was good at it.
A: Yes, that’s the usual procedural process in most industries. Funny that.
O: I was the best Head the school has had and education is one of the most worthwhile careers.
A: Who’s to argue? Am I missing something or do you infer the school was founded in 1597 or something?
O: If I had been ambitious I would have done it fifteen years earlier. I was doing something useful and good – not selfishly feathering my nest like you.
A: Seems you had enough feathers to have 4 children, feed and cloth 4 children, buy your own property, buy your own car, tour yourselves around the world on holidays, buy thousands of records at a whim, you know, all the essentials of life etc? Excuse me, but what part of anything were you doing that was so different to what I might have done?
I earned so little in my initial years. I couldn’t have afforded to be starting families, buying houses, buying cars. I worked my friggin’ nuts off, seldom having weekends off, and wait for it, matey, TRAINING hundreds upon hundreds of young people relentlessly for years so that they may keep their jobs – or feel free to go work for somebody else if they felt like it. You don’t half talk fucking tosh.
O: I wasn’t a person who was motivated by earning large sums – but I did OK despite that. You might well have been high up in hotels. Big deal. A great contribution to the creation of a better world. What’s there to crow about?
A: When you know what those above you are earning, that’s when to start taking more interest.
You might like know or should in fact know that the hotel industry is probably the single most highest employer of people in the world. I wouldn’t dismiss it quite so readily if I were you.
Hotels are also the single most popular business perk and single most popular vacation pursuit by a country mile of millions of people. People just absolutely love going to swanky, posh, magnificently managed hotels. They are popular pursuit #1 in the world.
You were waxing lyrical the other day about there’s more to life than just teaching school at school.
Well. let me tell you about something you never got to see. When you invite all the senior years in for a day’s exposure experience and you see their faces as they disembark from the hotel’s cruiser coach (not some old bus) and walk into the main foyer lobby area, are they’re hit by the door teams and the scent of expensiveness and the expanse of that first arrival area in full decor and layout, they think they just landed on Utopia. The are grinning from ear to ear in simultaneous combustion of extreme excitement. Your pupils have just completely forgotten all about your grubby school with it harsh fluorescent strip lights and bleach smelling floors. We’ve just done a Walt Disney on them in an instant. By lunchtime when they can’t believe they can have all they like from the 3 course, multi-choice, hot and cold sumptuous buffet, reality has hit them. There is another life entirely from that of the school.
O: The other thing you do is lie and come out with outrageous crap – like I write my own reviews or reblogging some of my posts for my new followers is a sign of Alzheimer’s. You really do have an unpleasant side.
A: Well all I can say it seems a trifle suspicious to be reading said reviews using your trade mark language patters. I’ll take your word for it though. It would never do to ask a mate to write something up. Of course not.
When you see the same post re-blogged for the 4th time in 6 months , one begins to wonder.
But hey, I don’t need to read it, do I? No, cos I know it off by heart.
O: I don’t mind discussion, disagreement or debate. That’s what it’s about.
A: You patently do not. That is a fraudulent statement. You will disagree regardless what evidence is thrown at your feet. We’ve seen it a hundred times.
We saw it with the Remain/Leave campaign and the Clinton/Trump shoogle.
You’re living in cuckoo land if you believe that to be the case with yourself.
O: I am a writer. I enjoy writing.
A: Is that a self proclamation? Is it awarded by your peers? Or just some loose term given to someone who wants to spend their time thinking up stories.
Usually, in the real world, a “writer” has an excellent command of the mechanics of the language that they indulge themselves in. Now don’t confuse this area with that of the expedient use of one’s thesaurus. A handsome command of vocabulary is not indicative of said command of mechanics.
I’ve made my point and the rest is up to you.
O: You’ve been very useful to me. You’ve given me a character or two.
A: Just two? My word we have been sleeping on the job haven’t we. Opher, matey, I can be what ever you want me to be. I spent my life having to something that only other people imagined.
They imagined that I was interested in them, perhaps even liked them some. Isn’t the reality cold and disheartening at times?
O: But you are not into sharing interests or debate are you? You’re into putting people right, lording it over them, ridiculing and picking fault. That’s no way to go about things is it?
A: No, I always give them the good grace of respect and fair play from the offset. If they disappoint, or I sense an unwarranted flippancy, I may well take their trousers down in public. But I’m seldom anywhere near my most capable and cruelest around these parts. I usually espouse that energy in other areas.
O: Sad on many levels. You could deploy your intelligence and skills to some positive use. Instead of which you contribute nothing and are like a parasite.
A: Contribute nothing? That’s not exactly correct and I could very easily prove that.
I’m sorry that I can’t join others in admiring your poetry. But a list of paintbox colours does not maketh much of a poem. My girlfriend gave a 9.5 for my own contributory comment on that poem of yours. I think I scored higher than you did there.
O: I am truly sorry for your physical problems and how you were invalided out.
A: Of which improve every day. Today, one year from last, I have nothing like the hassles I had then. My deal is don’t smoke. So I don’t smoke. I haven’t smoked since October last year.
I’ve got rid of so much fluid gunk crap in my lungs. So I’ve experienced a great deal of difference.
I’m also doing a lot of stuff that a year ago I couldn’t have. I’ve done loads of building stuff on my roof in Portugal. Or at least there’s evidence of my hindrance of those that were paid to do loads of building stuff.
I wasn’t invalided out as I’d sold my business some time before I decided to come back to live in UK. But I even delayed that for a year as I decided to have one last go selling music stuff in Italy and Germany. Try that for a while and see how much you still love Europe. But my symptoms were getting worse and worse and by February 2014, I went for consultation and received the bad news.
That I may never smoke a fat doobie ever again. That pain was almost too much to bear, but relieved as I now do a pretty tasty baked “Honey slide”, courtesy of a recipe included in Neil Young’s “Archives Vol 1” Box Set.
O: But seriously, do something creative, find an interest that you can contribute to, develop a bit of compassion – go out and help someone. It’s perhaps time you started contributing instead of taking.
A: To be honest, my empathy battery pack is running on emergency supply now. Most people leave me speechless. I’ve no idea how they get through life. I’ve no idea how they reach the conclusions that they reach. I’ve no idea just how much effort they have engaged in their decision making process. Etc.
O: Enough said.
A: Touche
O: Just look back through all the nasty crap you’ve been putting up. What does it say about you?
It’s perhaps time you re-evaluate and get down off your high horse.
A: OK, so you don’t like caustic humour, subtle putdown, sarcasm, injurious slander and malicious intent. But, honest, I never once fucked your wife…
Yes, perhaps it is.
I was fortunate enough to have been brought up with no religion. When I became curious enough, I was able to explore various types of religious though on my own and at my leisure.
That is the best way. I think all curious minds have to look into the possibilities.
It is possible to undo indoctrination as an adult, but it’s not easy. The group I grew up with is actively discouraging education for young adults from going to college, because college grads usually leave their movement.
The trouble, as I see it, is that once it has been implanted it sits dormantly for life creating guilt and doubt and resurfaces later. We see that with Rock Stars like Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis whose lives vacillate between excess orgies, drugs, alcohol and outrageous behaviour followed by guilt atonement and religious fervour. Both behaviours are the result of indoctrination. I’m not sure anyone ever gets over it completely.
Not completely, no. But once you realized what happened to you, it gives you the ability to resist, even if it’s a real struggle at times.
That is true – and it is a struggle that, with a bit of support, you can win. Most people never even realise.