Karma

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Karma is a concept we’re all vaguely familiar with. I could be mistaken but it would probably not be a leap to imagine the general consensus being that if you do something good something good will happen to you and in turn doing bad will result is something bad happening back to you. That is a rather crude explanation but I imagine it more or less stands up. The next question would be whether the resulting return is the equivalent to the action, for example if you give a homeless man a sandwich will you get either a sandwich given to you later or the moral value of the sandwich in the form of something else? In truth I can’t answer that because I don’t know. It surely wouldn’t be too much of a push though to find holes in this idea of direct equivalence. In that case it must be more of a general thing, do some good and some good will happen to you.

There is one thing that I have always struggled with though and it is the idea that we can do good with the intention of receiving good in return. In George Orwell’s Burmese Days, U Po Kyin the corrupt magistrate and resident bad guy of the story, admits towards the end that before he dies he plans on building a series of Pagodas in honour of The Buddha and that with this act he will earn enough good karma points to receive a positive rebirth in the next life. This raises two issues, firstly that the Buddhist idea of karma revolves around the concept of rebirth unlike ours which is just that good shit will happen to you and secondly the rather perverse notion that you can buy good karma. I once asked some people at a pagoda when I was in Burma about being able to buy good karma and for them it seemed perfectly reasonable. The point here then returns to this idea of what the intentions behind the act are. For example if you buy one hundred meals for homeless children purely for the sake of the children this is an uncorrupted act. If you do the same but with an awareness that you’ll receive the equivalent in return this is not a positive act despite the positive outcome, the selfish intentions surely nullify any karmic points that you hoped to accrue. Does this mean that with the knowledge of and belief in the existence of karma your actions will forever be slightly tainted despite you best efforts? The knowledge and creation of karma renders a karmically pure act impossible? Fuck knows but surely just having loads of cash shouldn’t make it easier to avoid coming back as a frog.

If we insist on giving the receipt of positivity or negativity a name then so be it, but surely by merely being a good person and doing good things we find ourselves on a general level surrounded by good people and good actions. There will be extreme instances which go against the norm but it’s not hard to imagine. In a way it is the classic like attracts like argument and is easily just another way of describing a view of karma. Naturally the Buddhists would be able to look at this and say I’m not describing karma at all and clearly misunderstand it, in that case so be it. This then can be more about the idea that good people tend to be surrounded by other good people and bad with bad. It is probably worth mentioning that I also have issues with the concept of good and bad, and cringe at my own use of it. Maybe that could be for tomorrows piece though. In the meantime I’m going to go buy a sandwich and see who I can find, just in case.

Life On The Fence

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

It can be incredibly difficult sometimes to have an opinion and stick to it. This might just make me unreliable and indecisive but it also seems to allow for flexibility of thought. It means that I am capable of being influenced by whatever mood I find myself in in that moment too which is probably not a great thing, inspired by emotions over intellect or something equally damning. Yesterday I was outraged at outrage and today I am outraged again but this time outraged at my previous outrage of outrage. That is a lot of outrage. Perhaps we do need some outrage without any tangible benefit or outcome that can be measured. Every group needs people of all levels to function as one holistic entity. There must then be a place for those who are outraged by news and share it but do little else. How do I read it after all if someone is not sharing it with me. Equally then you need people below them who are outraged and then have a little rant later to their mates about it. Either the mates will tell them to shut up because they don’t care, will argue with them or will take it in. And finally those who are outraged at injustice but then do nothing, not even talk to people about it, at least they’re one less right wing racist. Clearly there does seem to be some measure of value to the outrage.

It is a hard lonely existence sitting on the fence. The ability to see both sides of the argument without the absolutist dogmatic approach to beliefs is one which rarely wins you many staunch allies. It probably results in more friends but who needs those when you can have allies in the fight, or a fight, or whatever it is you think you’re doing. The world is not black and white, there are benefits and positives to everything if you choose to see them. They may be tiny and outweighed by the negatives but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. That is of course a rather positive attempt to spin a lack of decisiveness. Sometimes it is hard to truly think something when you keep on seeing the other side of the argument.

While the danger of just sitting behind a screen, getting angry and doing nothing is the potential harm to your mental state, equally at some point; you may just have a conversation with someone about that issue which previously outraged you, setting off a chain reaction that results in something actually measurable happening. At the same time logically that makes you another link within whatever chain was sparked into life at some earlier date. Does that mean it is all out of control anyway? What’s the point of worrying about the outrage if we’re just another piece of an uncontrollable chain reaction. Perhaps we just need to sit back enjoy the moment of outrage, see it for what it is and let it go before smiling in recognition when the time comes for it to be useful. What a joy life would be if we were really that present, objective and aware of our actions and thoughts. What an existence it would be if we weren’t able to be angry before forgetting we were angry and deciding the next day we actually think something else. Ah the pleasures of life on the fence.

Mental Self-Preservation In The Internet Age

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

The internet is quite simply the single biggest game changer since the printing press. This is not the first time this opinion has been presented on here and it probably won’t be the last. The internet has allowed us access to such a vast resource of information, one only dreamt of by intellectuals, students and conspiracy theorists fifty years ago, that we have no excuse for being ignorant of anything if we so desire. It is a shame our experiences have been coopted by click-bait, social media and kitten videos, who would have predicted such access to information would have in fact dumbed down society instead of enlightening it. Have our masters and overloads played their cards right when required or have we somehow done this to ourselves? It’s actually not clear, probably as ever a little bit of both. It is undeniable that we have access to information on social media which should bring down governments, and judging by my Facebook wall, the vast majority of people out there believe in the downfall of this corrupt system we live in. It is unfortunate of course that my Facebook wall is probably not representative of society on the whole.

I was reading an article about police in Australia beating up a man with mental health issues on his front lawn. They had been called to his address by his psychiatrist who was worried he might hurt himself. The golden rule in these situations is that the police will end up hurting him far more than he will himself, in America he will likely be shot. Again that may be true or it may not be but it does appear to be pretty commonplace if what I find on social media is anything to go by. Upon finishing the article I realised I was exhausted.

For nearly twenty years now I have been getting worked up about injustice in one form or another. I am instinctively drawn to it and appalled at what I find. For sure judging by what others post I’m barely excitable comparatively but that is probably something that has calmed in recent years from the heady revolutionary days of my youth. Perhaps it is just that after all these years you start to see how getting worked up serves no purpose beyond being emotively exhausting. Saying that there are examples of people making changes but they are not your average outraged person. There gets to a point that unless you’re actually going to do something then there’s no benefit to sitting behind a screen and getting angry, sad and / or excitable. Yet we still do, we keep on coming back to whatever fix it gives us. The buzz at seeing injustice, the feeling of being morally superior to some scumbag in uniform, the adrenal rush as you start fantasising about system change before going back to Netflix and watching Bojack Horseman or Peaky Blinders.

It just can’t be healthy getting worked up and mentally exhausted over things which will exist whether you read that article or not. This isn’t defeatist or fatalist, or at least I hope it isn’t and I’m aware I’ve just created a stick to be bashed with, but it is more a recognition of a certain type of pragmatism which leads hopefully to a little mental self-preservation and also the time and energy for more productive development of both the self and the environment around us. The world needs people to stand up and fight, and the reality is they will regardless, they will go out and make the changes. What it has and what it doesn’t need are people getting themselves outraged by events which have no effect upon them, can do nothing about and / or will happen regardless of what they do, which will most likely be little more than feel anger followed by moral outrage and superiority for the five minutes before they’re distracted by a kitten. Isn’t it wonderful that feeling of superiority, moral or not.

Night Shift

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

There are certain jobs that suit different people over others. I’ve done a few bread deliveries over the last month and it is one of those jobs that would be either perfect or a nightmare. Getting up early is a total nightmare of course when you’re not in that rhythm and you end up doing the shift on only three hours sleep but it doesn’t take a lot of thought so you can get by. It is one of those jobs that gives you the opportunity for some peace and quiet as you rarely speak to anyone until a few hours into the shift and even then it’s only a few sentences of routine greetings and jokes. I can imagine there is a certain repetition and they must love it when a new guy comes along. The roads are empty, it is dark, quiet and you have time for yourself. There’s also another world of things and people going on that over time would give opportunity to the most interesting set of stories. Without the interesting random events though it would probably become tedious like any job and if I’m still helping out here in ten years doing this then please somebody come and find me. There’s also the possibility that these interesting stories are only comparatively interesting and are few and far between. From time to time and in the short term though there is something interesting and enjoyable about it, but then you could say that about virtually any job if you were the sort with a curious mind.

I would be interested to know what a night shift stocking shelves in a supermarket would be like. I hope to never find out, let me make that clear, but the curiosity is more that I wonder if I enjoy the van driving at night over the working at night, I suspect I would hate every second of stocking shelves no matter the time of day, or the packing warehouse, or especially the cold outdoor work in the winter. So perhaps it has nothing to do with the night time but more with my fondness for driving around and feeling all warm inside my van. I do prefer the night hours more though. There is also some romanticism going on here and I have always imagined lorry drivers have been the types who love the solitude, the long endless nights and being left alone. In fact I have met a few, I have hitched with a few, and while I can’t confirm they enjoy being left alone they can be total oddballs for sure.

Ultimately it takes a certain type of person to work nights, to work such unsocial hours which seem to conflict with our natural rhythm. I have a lot of respect for nurses and doctors in that case as not only do they work nights but sometimes days too, and even then there shifts are long and intense. People are generally amazing I think is the conclusion and by amazing I mean they are all so varied there is always something to discover. Why we seem so determined to pander to our fears and box everyone away, especially in such enormous generalised boxes is beyond me. There may be jobs out there but try getting everyone to work a night shift unless they love it or are desperate and you can see why people don’t want to just work any job. If people were just given the education to discover there own paths then what an interesting workforce we would have. That and a bit of variety I would imagine.

An Inspiration Block

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

I accept they can often not be entirely relevant to what I have written of course but I still enjoy them. I have been procrastinating a little too much these last two days and this blog has felt like a chore. I stepped away from my computer about ten minutes ago after struggling with writers block and thought up a great title. I have subsequently forgotten it. It was really smart though and I was very happy with myself. It related to my inability to think of anything to write about and my inability to stop avoiding just writing.

This blog really is a journey. The initial excitement seems to have gone, as has the secondary excitement when I initially published my first piece after the first month. There have been some pieces I’ve been really happy with and some, I suspect like this, which I have just struggled through. I suggested a few weeks ago that I was looking forward to completing the year so I could just write two to three times a week but with quality. This idea tempts me. It is contrary to the initial challenge though and while I have written after midnight and I have regularly written more that the four hundred word limit, to stop writing a daily piece would challenge the very foundations of this blog. It is a challenge though but that is part of what this is as an experiment. Some days I will have only little time and others little idea, but then as I said I have written some pieces I’ve felt inspired by. These ups and downs are natural in anything of this kind of regularity, nobody can be interesting everyday.

There are possibilities that I need to crack back on with that discipline journey. Maybe it is just down to a lack of that. Certainly the fact I have spent the last hour looking at everything online but this blog, would suggest I have slipped slightly. I doubt I ever had the mental discipline to write something of well thought out quality daily but physically sitting down and just doing it never seemed too much stress. I must commend whoever has continued to read to this point, your dedication to struggle through to this point with me is commendable. It really has been a slog this evening and I still haven’t even thought up a title or looked at images to use. A sleeping man might do the trick for tonight. Maybe I should finish with a lullaby. Fuck it I’m off to bed.

An Understanding of One’s Own Fallibility

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

It’s interesting as you get older you start to become more aware of your bodies fallibility. This isn’t something I’ve just started to notice but certainly something that is becoming a far more accepted part of my existence. We have the obvious times such as the body taking longer to recover after exercise. I do some cross fit once a week with a friend and I think I may have hurt my back a little tonight. Being a tall lad a bad back is nothing new and I worry about what it’ll be like if I’m still going in thirty years. I hurt it about five years ago trimming grapes in France and it took years to recover. Clearly it’s still a vulnerable issue. My knees grind and my shoulders feel sore regularly. I suspect part of this relates to something I’m doing wrong in my diet but equally I’m just not a young man anymore. Don’t get me wrong I’m not old but as I said I’m starting to really be aware of my bodies fallibility.

I am attempting to paint the front of someones house at the moment. I don’t trust the ladders without another person holding it and I was going to go up in a basket on the front of a forklift but we just discovered the forks don’t go wide enough. In the past without a doubt I would have just said “fuck it” and gone up anyway, everything would have been fine and the job would have been done. Now I’m aware that with the forks not securely holding it in place if I go too far to one side it could easily topple, if you include the ridiculous wind we have presently the lack of stability becomes even more of an issue.

I’ve rarely had accidents in my life, never broken a bone and usually just taken the reckless choice. While I have had a few close calls, it is unclear what it is that has led me to learn to be a little more sensible. It is not common sense as I suspect that is still lacking. Perhaps being aware of other peoples accidents as we get older allows us to become more sensible and potentially boring as a result. Let’s see what happens but I hope next time I go downhill mountain biking or something fun and dangerous I’m still more interested in the excitement factor and going really fast. It’s such a shame when people lose that zest for the wilder side of life. Maybe I need a little bit of an adventure to remind myself of my more youthful ways. Hibernating through the winter by the sea may not always be good for us after all. It can be the more extreme things in life which remind us it’s all real and we’re still alive. A little bit of adrenaline in my old age can go a long way. I did always want to learn how to paraglide. I wonder, maybe it’s time to dig around a little in that old box of fantasies.

Local Councils

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

This was going to be a piece having a little rant at the local council. Let’s be honest it probably will anyway but I’ve lost some of the conviction having thought a little more about it. It is probably worth mentioning that I dislike councils immensely. They seem to be just small time self-serving bureaucrats. There is nothing worse than a local councillor attempting to justify why they gave their mate a deal or attempting to elevate their own importance despite not being able to look beyond their own narrow little view of the world. I was looking at the road outside my parents today and it is dangerous to drive down, the potholes are everywhere, it could be described as off-roading and that would not be an exaggeration. My parents pay one thousand eight hundred pound per year in council tax, which works out as about thirty-six pound per week. They get their recycling collecting every second week and the rubbish collected every alternate second week. The local farmers cut all the hedges locally and if a tree came down in the road they would have moved it before the council even contemplated having to do anything about it. The local power and phone cables are maintained by the power companies too. The council clearly never fix the roads so that means we’re paying thirty six pounds per week to have a bin emptied. They wonder why nobody believes in the credibility of their existence.

However, nothing is ever as straightforward as it seems and this is why intellectually I start having to question my short sighted emotive rant. They also apparently do certain care in the community things around my area. Now while that is one thing, it also mean there will probably be others I’m unaware of. Also, while there are payment bands and people in town will pay more, it does make you realise that perhaps some of the money raised goes towards funding things in the local town which we do use sometimes.

It is frustrating because you want to rant at their expensive incompetence and when you see yourself getting so little back it is justified but that approach is one that merely highlights an endemic problem within society as a whole. We have been conditioned to think so much from an individualistic perspective, it is about what society can do for me. Why should I pay that much when I am only getting those small few things back. We never look to how we can contribute to society or the community as a whole despite the reality that stronger community around us makes our own lives better, safer, stronger and potentially more fulfilling. I still have no time for the small minded council but it is important to have the time for those around us. Sometimes it is important to pay a little more than we may immediately get back because we never know whether we will get it back in other ways at a later date. It is a shame to realise that because clearly I just wanted to shout and I’m not happy that I’ve rationalised this fairly.

Fuck it…total bunch arseholes!! That feels better. Maybe it’s time to dig out that spray can.

The Times They Are A Changing, Or Not

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

I went for some afternoon pints today with my Dad. There’s something enjoyable about a few afternoon beers that has been lost on contemporary society, and me too I guess. We went to a little microbrewery pub in my local town. They have a few interesting little beers but no cider unfortunately, which is exactly what I had been after, apparently people don’t go for still cider this far north. There was one thing I noticed though and it’s something I’ve started noticing more and more often in recent times; the distinct lack of any younger generation in the pub. I am thirty-four years old now and I remember ten years ago the idea of an afternoon drinking session would be met with a solid and positive response. Even more so if you went to the pub in the evening you were guaranteed to find it beaming with youthful energy. I noticed recently when in what I could class as my local if I wanted and today the microbrewery in my local town that there are a distinct lack of people in their twenties. There was an awful lot of regulars in their forties and above but few of a younger generation. To counter that of course I was in an interesting pub in Edinburgh a couple of weekends ago and felt old whereas I never used to so perhaps it’s just the boring old man pubs and towns I’ve started to frequent.

There are many reasons why we are seeing this change though. Society has evolved enormously in the fifteen years since I started university. To begin with there is no doubt I was a student in what I can only describe as the peak binge drinking period…pound a pint nights…trebles for two pounds. I recently found out that those trebles bars I used to frequent were caught a few years ago mixing their spirits with white spirit, which both explains a lot and is slightly worrisome. A night out on tenner…two big bottles of cider before going out and then the remainder on entrance to the club. I could be nostalgic about it and say times have changed but it’s probably the same now I just don’t see it because thankfully I don’t go near that kind of world. I doubt though ten pounds would get you very far now either which is probably why people can’t drink in pubs, saying that we used to drink in the house a lot too, hence the two bottles of cider trick. I feel like I’m disproving myself as I write. Perhaps I should work these things out before I write them up, maybe the writing up is the working them out. Does this just mean I’ve got no idea what twenty year olds get up to these days? That is more likely, I also have no desire at all to know and don’t want that to change.

That is the point though, times may change but we definitely change and probably faster. The cliche may be the old man horrified by modern day society but I doubt the fundamentals are that much different. We see the society we live in, so if I am a little healthier and drink less, I see twenty year olds doing the same and imagine they’re also boring and clean these days. It’s all about perception then. Or not. It could just be that without any type of scientific data or research I can form any argument based upon the limited world I see. The narrative I don’t even know exists has already taken over before I even hit my first key. When did it stop just being a few simple afternoon pints down the pub with you Dad and your dog. Simpler times…said every old man always.

Death’s Eternal March

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

I was thinking today about death. It is one of those things I find myself contemplating. I have heard it said that we start reflecting on death more often when our own is drawing in but I doubt the validity of that on numerous levels, especially because it would suggest everything is already written and I’m not quite willing to accept that yet. I don’t worry about death, the idea of it coming for me is not necessarily something to fear. Of course the manner of ones death needs to be taken into consideration and despite the bravado; when death feels a long way away, we never know how we will react, if we have the time to react. In regards my own, I worry more about how it would affect others, I can imagine it would destroy my parents for example. Equally my only fear of death is that of my family and the reality that I will one day have to deal with that terrifies me. To know my dog, who is five now, has perhaps ten years to live is also a scary realisation.

It is this knowledge that the life of other’s is finite that helps me to understand the whole phenomena in a way that my own potential death doesn’t. I have already experienced the death of my grandparents, as well as the trauma of losing my childhood dog, but parents are another issue and I’ve invested such an emotional bond with my dog now that I don’t know how I would deal with the loss of her either. It is scary. It also makes you realise how temporary everything is. We’re all going to die one day. That is the only certainly in life we face and it’s the one thing that can give our own lives a true sense of value.

If you’ve ever been back somewhere that you had an intense and memorable experience; let’s say a place you worked, lived or travelled through, if this has happened a few times you start to notice the only commonality is that it’s not the place you remembered anymore. The faces are different, the energy has changed and it is not the same place, other people are now experiencing their own version, as will others after them. We can’t long for the return of moments from our past because they don’t exist anymore. Just like events in time, life is transient, it is an event, it is impermanent.

Your grandparents were your age once, they experienced what you experienced, they felt the same intense emotions and sensations and now it’s you turn and soon it’ll be someone else’s. It is undeniable that there is a deep sadness to this but there shouldn’t be and this is what I am trying to get beyond because supposedly it is beautiful too. Of course understanding how temporary life is allows you to enjoy it and embrace what comes, it helps us lead a full life. The knowledge of the inevitable though makes it feel pointless, if we’re going to die one day then what is the point. The nihilists recognised this, Camus did too and called it absurdism.

Like deaths sadness when felt deep down though, this feeling of pointlessness is surely something to be overcome. The ever present knowledge of death may be what makes the human condition but so does our innate ability to overcome adversity. While death is one thing we cannot overcome, the feeling of life’s intrinsic pointlessness is one we can. Death need not be sad, we can understand this end point, it’s getting there that seems the impossible part. Let’s just hope we have the time to do so but really does it matter one way or another if we don’t.

The Art Of Procrastinating

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Procrastinating really is an art form when done at it’s finest. I sat down an hour ago at my computer to do some work on something and knowing I had a little more time than usual decided to just have a little browse of the easy thoughtless websites I usually like kill time with. My version of those are football related and I can easily spend an hour reading the latest news, transfer gossip, he said / she said stories that don’t require much thought. Perhaps that is why they do so well; they grab you with click-bait style headlines and then are usually written so simply the mind needs to put in only the minimum effort to read them. They are also addictive. Facebook is the other procrastinator but while football is seemingly still there, I have managed to give up bothering with it much beyond emails to other people and obviously posting these blog pieces. Twitter and Instagram? Don’t be silly.

Why do we procrastinate then? Is this another example of a lack of discipline? Procrastinating is about doing something else, usually thoughtless and a waste of time, to avoid doing something more important and likely more challenging. Even this piece today is in itself procrastinating; just as I finally closed the football related windows I realised how much I had just been wasting time for the last hour and how I was still stuck in the old habits of the past. Why not write about it then and while I need to write something today, there is probably a slight avoidance in this action by doing it at this moment.

We all procrastinate though and modern society is just full of opportunities. If it’s not football news it’s Facebook. If not that it’s some stupid click-bait site giving you thirty moments someone you don’t actually care about either embarrassed themselves or didn’t wear make-up. Struggling with not enough click-bait then why not play some kind of addictive game on your phone or become a zombie to short YouTube videos. These are all technological methods but what did people do before Nokia kicked it all off with it’s highly memorable Snake game? People must have still procrastinated but I was about sixteen then so it’s hard to say. Maybe doodling was more common, people certainly read newspapers more but that’s not solely a procrastinating thing. Genuinely I don’t know. Perhaps I can find out online, that should kill some more time.