Tag: children

The Real Lord Of The Flies

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

I awoke this morning to discover I had been sent the same link to an article by two different people. Interestingly enough they both share the same birthday just to add an extra layer of intrigue. This then is an article in the Guardian about ‘the real Lord Of The Flies‘; as they describe the story of six boys in the 1970s who found themselves stranded on a small island off Tonga for eighteen months. Incidentally I mentioned William Golding, the author of the dystopian novel that inspired the article, just the other day when I discussed one of his plays. The Lord Of The Flies is a great story, and like others I found his ability to get inside the psyche of these boys and explore the depths of human behaviour remarkable. It helped he was a Headmaster at a school, and according to this article a depressed alcoholic who sometimes beat his own kids. It suddenly becomes clearer why he had such little faith in the fictional children he created working together towards any kind of positive outcome. They really were the naughty little archetypal child of his time, this being the 1950s.

The article is quite interesting though because it raises the prospect that in fact the inevitable outcome of such a scenario is not death and destruction as these kids from the real version proved. Over the course of their eighteen stranded months they managed to exist in their own structured, disciplined and harmonious little world. They worked together and despite some serious incidents managed to all survive intact and healthy. The article is adapted from a new book by Rutger Bregman called Humankind, he previously wrote the relatively well known Utopia For Realists which I haven’t read but I hear is very good. He is attempting to change the narrative to one that shows “how much stronger we are if we can lean on each other” than the tired old one which convinces us we’re a destructive animal destined to ultimately destroy ourselves. There are and continue to be many stories out there of us working together when required, and the fact we have survived this far shows we must have been and still are capable of this cooperation.

It is important to mention though that clearly society is full of psychopaths and all it would take is for one person in the group to adopt that position for events to take another turn, as Lord Of The Flies demonstrates. In many cases then it turns out luck plays a defining role, the luck of who else you would find yourself stranded with. Perhaps if we knew a little more about how to handle such situations, to resolve a destructive element, we may be a little better prepared but how to do that is beyond my limited knowledge. Still narratives clearly can and need to be redrawn if we are ever to come together and survive as a species to benefit of all life on earth. Perhaps it’s time to see whether we can feasibly translate one of these micro examples onto the world at large.

When Will Saturday Come

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

It’s Saturday. Thought I would stumble out of bed a little hung over, not too much, just a enough to create edge. Have my breakfast which is more relaxed than the mid week one but fundamentally the same, I leave the dirty sexy breakfast for a Sunday. While eating plan all the semi-productive things I would like to accomplish for the day before leaving for the supermarket, ticking that off the list but being exhausted enough upon return that the list get scrumpled up and thrown in the fire which I made to sit in front of feeling like a wild man as the football results come in. Secretly I’ve quite enjoyed this lockdown, mainly because I’ve not really been locked down I imagine, but there are certain old habits and routines I miss. I enjoyed those semi-busy Saturdays. I long for the return of the football. And I’m currently not in the same house as the fireplace unfortunately. If that all sounds hard then don’t even get me started on the pleasures of a Sunday morning drinking coffee and reading the newspapers as my dog sits beside me and I’m surrounded by countryside. It’s pointless longing for things we cannot have but it’s good to be able to see the things we really value when they’re not there. I quite fancy a pint as well. Don’t give a shit about much us though. Although a holiday would be nice.

I miss my dog. She lives with may parents these days which is good for her because they live in the countryside and it forces them to go on walks everyday. People don’t appreciate the value of pets I don’t think. I can’t see her at the moment though because while I deliver food to my parents, I don’t let her see me because I won’t be staying and she won’t understand why I’m leaving so quickly after coming back. Poor girl. Poor me too. There are going to be some parties when this is all done. It’ll be a while until the pubs are open I reckon and people will be warned off getting together too much too soon but lets be honest, folk are going to go wild. We’re like school children at the best of times let alone when we’ve been stuck inside, away from everyone, sober and being healthy for what must feel like an eternity. I can’t wait for the outcry from the media, front pages of people having fun. Probably the same papers which will be a week earlier pushing for the end of restrictions. Theres nothing like a short memory.

I’m tired today. I was woken up early and now I need to go to work. I’m attempting to write this early now instead of tonight when I get in. It’s strange, sometimes late at night I get my best ideas. Maybe I should give up on being a morning person and accept life as a night owl. They usually seem happy. A little white and sickly maybe, but happy enough. But not tonight, this is certainly not going to be an old Saturday night. When I’m tucked up in my bed before midnight I guarantee there’ll be no nostalgia from me. I love you all. I’ll see you tomorrow. Fresh, awake, invigorated, just like an awful morning person should be.

Don’t Taste The Wasp Twice

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

We as a species have an inbuilt response to new things, we fear them. There is a practical reason for that and it is rational; new is unknown and unknown could mean danger. As a species we have managed to survive, adapt and evolve to the point we’re at in our evolutionary cycle. I don’t doubt one reason for our success so far has been down to instinctively following that practical approach mentioned above. Is it instinctive though? When we are young children we try to touch or eat anything new, it appears we sense next to no danger in anything, yet as adults we have become cautious if not neurotically fearful. That would suggest we are taught to fear new and unknown things but then puppies and adult dogs mirror human growth fear patterns too. Perhaps puppies learn new can mean danger because sometimes they experience the pain of discovering new things, like the taste of a wasp, or a dogs parenting is just not something obvious to my untrained eyes. Can we then take that further and use it to explain why we are so weary of new sources of information, or even new information that may contradict our previously held beliefs.

I suppose it is probably quite a straightforward idea, we distrust new sources because they are unknown and we haven’t built up a relationship of trust with them. We reject new information because our current beliefs are known to us and with them we have so far survived to this point in life. With them we have safety and life, potentially this unknown new information may lead to danger and the taking away of either our safety or in the extreme our life. There is also the issue of narrative to take into consideration, what doesn’t fit our narrative we are likely to dismiss but I’ll not go down that avenue this time.

I was sent a link to a video on YouTube by a friend who has a differing set of ideals and beliefs about how best we should approach the world than I do. I rarely bother engaging him in discussion anymore because neither of us come close to seeing the others perspective and I always end it feeling exhausted and frustrated that I’ve wasted an evening arguing with a brick wall. When I received this video I assumed immediately it would relate to one of his points previously made, which it did, and in my mind I had already rejected it before even contemplating watching it. My initial response was to see it was a YouTube video and dismiss it as worthless. There are many useful videos on YouTube and I have taught myself how to do all sorts of things through them, but videos of a political or social nature are quite often just a pile of tosh. I had already rejected the point because of the source platform. I decided to watch it a little, not the full one hour because I have better things to do, and did some research on the speaker and his organisation. Seemingly they are of a different persuasion to me but I still watched and tried to listen to the message. After ten disagreeable minutes I gave up because I found him frustrating, it appears you can’t argue with a pre-recorded person. I do understand why angry people comment now but I still refuse to get involved in that game. Ultimately my point is that I like to think I gave the speaker the opportunity and I listened with a clear mind but it’s not easy when you already think the platform the information is on and the source of the information are unreliable and bullshit.

Absorbing new information is clearly an incredibly challenging task. We struggle to absorb anything that is new because it is unknown and potentially dangerous, and we struggle to accept anything contradictory to our present set of beliefs as it challenges what has so far kept us safe. The YouTube example above is an easy one to dismiss because the contents and the platform are like the Daily Star of video journalism but sometimes we get contradictory information from credible sources and this can be hard to accept and equally dismiss.

The more I delve into these things the more I’m starting to realise just how hard, if not impossible, it is being some kind of discerning, moral and decent person. Here I am, just like yesterday back to the fallible human. Is failure what makes us human, or perhaps the ability to recognise and improve on our past failures. It is okay to be fallible. It is unavoidable clearly, but is it only acceptable if and when we try and avoid repeat failure. Being conscious of our previous failures, accepting that they are inevitable and pushing on in the search of perfection, or at the very least an acceptable success. Don’t try and taste the wasp twice, it’s all so simple now, if only I had realised that earlier.

Another Political Pervert

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Another day another pervert ousted in politics. Pervert may be a little strong but you shouldn’t try and seduce sixteen year olds when you’re twenty-two let alone when you’re forty-two. Maybe it is because they’re in the public eye so much and that they work in such a sneaky corrupt industry but politicians seem to get caught out in so many sex scandals. I must also commend Boris, or should I say Dominic Cummings, and Rupert Murdoch for such a perfectly executed political assassination. The night before Derek Mackay, the Scottish finance minister, is about to release the budget proposed by the Scottish Government, one already delayed because of shenanigans between the Scottish Parliament and Westminster, the Scottish Sun release their exclusive about him contacting a schoolboy who he thought was “cute” over a six month period. They’ve done him, they’ve taken him out. No matter what moral beliefs you hold on this it is undeniably a work of art. They have sat on this story and waited for the most opportune moment to release it. A future leader of the SNP apparently. Not anymore.

If anything though it does highlight the lack of neutrality in the press and the influence of people like Rupert Murdoch within our political system. This piece though is not going to be about one of my favourite topics; that of a perennially corrupt media. It is more just about being an acknowledgement of what they’ve done and despite the fact I dislike these people immensely it is important to be able to tip your hat to them when you can see how well they’ve played something. Saying that I also don’t have much time for any forty-two year old who harasses school children so morally this one is all over the place.

Politicians are a remarkable people though and it shows the lure of power that despite the obvious dangers to a free and happy life so many get involved in that murky world. These next five years are going to be incredibly interesting for the objective observers, and a mix of great and terrifying for everyone else. For every person who is horrified that Boris is ripping up a centuries old rulebook of tradition there will be another delighted about it. Change needs to happen and with current events in Britain, as well as around the world, this is clearer now more than ever. People are angry and when emotive responses like that are your main driver you are also easy to manipulate. The fear then is that while everything needs a good shake-up, when it’s this mob doing the shaking we perhaps should be a little concerned. And not only that, but while we can tip our hats to their work, never forget that this and worse is exactly what they’re capable of.