Tag: Fallibility

The Woes Of Newly Morning People

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

My alarm went off at 6.30am today. I did this out of choice. I had the wonderful idea about thirty hours ago that I would become a morning person. This isn’t a new thing, it has been attempted before and judging by this being a new shot the previous ones evidently didn’t go to plan. Quite often the issue lies with my inability to go to bed early enough and is coupled with my need for a good eight hours, ideally nine. If I’m to wake at six, at the height of the summer I would be going to sleep while it was still light outside. Lets be honest that’s unlikely to happen.

One reason I have struggled to sleep earlier is my inability to switch off the technology before sleep. There are various stories out in the ether about how we should switch off phones at least an hour before sleep, or we should dim the lights so we have evening sensitive light but for me the issue lies with the fact it’s too easy to just stare at the phone in a trance when tired. Were you to be reading a book you may need to think a bit more, would get tired and sleep, but the internet is made up of short simple articles and pictures, include it’s ability to hypnotise you and the spell isn’t broken without force of some kind.

Last night though I slept at about midnight, about an hour later than planned but earlier than it could have been and has been. I crawled out of bed half an hour later than the alarm but managed to do some yoga and drink a cup of tea before starting work at 8am, a whole hour early. Today has been completely non stop and while I didn’t get all the things I wanted to do done it wasn’t down to idleness and wasting time which makes it in a funny way acceptable. However I’m still awake and it’s already gone 11pm.

I have probably averaged six to seven hours of sleep per night these last two weeks and I am tired. I’ve only had one morning of being a morning person yet I’m struggling to see myself getting up as early tomorrow and the original plan was 6am the second day. It’s the late nights, and it’s not even that late but it is for an early morning person. It can be so hard to change habits at the best of times but when that change of habit gives you bags under your eyes then you are really making it hard on yourself.

I know I’m not alone in this world though. There are plenty of fellow reprobates out there who have attempted all sorts of things but have been too open to temptation and given up after a few days. Even those disgustingly well groomed, healthy and happy people surely must give in to temptation from time to time and not just the temptation to be perfect. As I say this it makes me feel so pleased to be fallible and to accept my fallibility. If I don’t manage this then so be it, I’ll try again or I’ll try something else. But I’ll try. I’ve had the determined focus of someone capable of achieving things these last two days. I wonder if he’ll be around tomorrow too. He might just need to set the alarm a little later though. A semi-morning person perhaps.

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.

How To Be Human In The Zombie Apocalypse

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Coronavirus panic seems to have ramped up to zombie apocalypse levels. I have not been able to resist keeping an eye on the latest news updates online and we seem to just be seeing photo’s of empty shelves and pandemonium everywhere. Apparently everyone is being selfish and one Tweet from some politician told of some guy buying the last of the pasta and refusing to share even one with some old lady. This would seem to prove the existence of widespread selfish behaviour, or at least prove examples of it exist and therefore the selfish narrative if you’re attempting to push one. I of course wasn’t there and haven’t been to a big supermarket in about ten days when I went to buy some goats milk butter, I’m so middle class, because they don’t have it in my local shop. Unsurprisingly there had not been a rush on it although I can confirm there wasn’t a great deal of toilet paper left, it does appear people think they can eat it. Seriously though of all the things to rush to buy, the one thing people think they can’t survive without is loo roll? In times of emergency I reckon you’ll get used to Indian style pretty quickly.

But back to this arsehole hoarding the pasta. If true I would love to know the bigger picture. Did he finally give her some? Did someone step in and persuade him to share? Or even force him to share? There are videos online of people fighting over toilet roll, imagine how it’ll be when it’s over the last tin of baked beans. I wonder what I would do in that situation, would I be a coward or would I stand up for the old lady, and would I give up or persevere. I doubt people really know beyond the fantasy of their imagination but I’m sure we all hope we would one way or another have managed to get the old lady her pasta.

Other updates in the ensuing apocalypse are that a raft of rather disagreeable world leaders seem to be getting tested. It’s a tricky one and I wonder how our public sentiments on these issues vary from our inner thoughts. Scumbags like Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton have tested positive, do we respond joyfully, neutrally or compassionately for him as a human being (supposedly). The Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro tested negative, do we admit to a little disappointment? And then there’s the big one, The Donald has taken his test and will find out in a day or two. We are only human, are we at sainthood levels when we can react equally to everyone in the public eye getting tested? At what point do we just admit our response to hearing Tom Hanks and his wife tested positive was not the same as when we heard Donald Trump is being tested. Does that make us bad? They are still humans, they are still someones mother or father despite how disconnected from any concept of an emotional bond we imagine they have. But we’re also human so we’re fallible. That also means if we want to be excused for our own fallibility we may just have to try understand and excuse theirs. Or just continue being fallible, and proving how human we are.

Saying all of this, it won’t matter anyway soon. We’re all going to be deep in a zombie apocalypse as people prove the fragility of society. Proving they have no sense at all of the so called community they think they’re fighting for with guns or the ballot box. It’s depressing when you realise just how shit people not are but can be. I really hope that old lady got her pasta and whoever reported the moment didn’t just stand there and take a video of it on their phone. To miss the point of ones very own judgemental reporting. Ah to be human.

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.