A teacher asked her young pupils how they spent their vacation. One child wrote the following:
"We always used to spend the holidays with Grandma and Grandpa. They used to live here in a big brick house, but Grandpa got retarded and they moved to Florida and now they live in a place with a lot of other retarded people.
"They live in a tin box and have rocks painted green to look like grass. They ride around on big tricycles and wear nametags because they don't know who they are anymore. They go to a building called a wrecked centre, but they must have got it fixed, because it is all right now.
They play games and do exercises there, but they don't do them very well. There is a swimming pool, too, but they all jump up and down in it with their hats on. I guess they don't know how to swim.
At their gate, there is a dollhouse with a little old man sitting in it. He watches all day so nobody can escape. Sometimes they sneak out. Then they go cruising in their golf carts.
My Grandma used to bake cookies and stuff, but I guess she forgot how. Nobody there cooks, they just eat out. And they eat the same thing every night: Early Birds. Some of the people can't get past the man in the dollhouse to go out. So the ones who do get out bring food back to the wrecked centre and call it potluck.
My Grandma says Grandpa worked all his life to earn his retardment and says I should work hard so I can be retarded some day, too. When I earn my retardment I want to be the man in the doll house. Then I will let people out so they can visit their grandchildren."
How many of you had the opportunity to watch the programme, The Young Ones, where they placed a group of one time famous celebrities in a house where everything was 1975 and they watched as they re-gained not only independence but also some agility?
By the time we reach our early puberty we have already worked out exactly how we should behave at different times of our lives. Scary isn't it. By the time we are 13 or 14 years of age, we have already experienced what is expected of us. And how do we experience that? Well by the people around us. We have seen our grandparents, we have seen our uncles and aunts, we have seen our parents and the work that they do, and we know, what they do, is what we will do as well.
So that little girl who wrote about her grandparents was already making images and expectations ready for her old age, and this was becoming a marker for her to attain (or fight against) when she reached the appropriate age. So what was she looking at as the expectation of her old age? Did she see balloon rides, sub aqua swimming, travelling abroad, living life to the full, or did she see lack of stimulation, rapid degeneration, stagnation of the mind?
In the programme, the Young ones, we watched as a group of people who were buying now in their mid-70s or even 80s, experienced life together in a world they knew so well. They were surrounded by all of the trappings of that time, and slowly but surely their minds developed that way of thinking again. By giving them challenges they soon discover that the expectations they had laid down when they were children weren't necessarily for them. If you think about it, they were laying down these images of expectations of old age during the Second World War. This was a time when 1930 values were still operating, even though the war effort meant a degree of emancipation for women whilst the men were at war fighting. So, what did 1930s values say about old age and when did it begin? For women did it mean at 60 you stop doing anything except basic housework? Did it mean for men, but at 65 they were on the shelf and of no use?
The early baby-boomers are now reaching retirement, and having kicked the system all the way through it will be interesting to see how they respond to this idea of retirement. Will they be interested in climbing into old age people's homes in the same way that their parents generation did? Already we see large estates of semi-sheltered housing for the over 50s and these are being snapped up by people who really do want to step out of the world as it is today. Talking with some of them it is clear they wish to be with people of their own they age, and one question I ask is, why is that? Is it because they have the same background and therefore a similar understanding of the world, or is it that they just do not understand the youth of today and their world? I suspect it's a combination of both with a heavy leaning towards being amongst people with similar memories, such as shared pop festivals, world events, and fashion styles.So perception is laid down very early in life. Does that mean we cannot change it? The answer that is no. We can change our perception whenever we choose to, the only thing that maintains our perception is habit. We have become habitual lies into one way of seeing and hearing the world, and we have become 'typecast' in the way we express ourselves.
I will give you an example. When I was at school most of the teachers were bilingual and as a consequence when they got angry with you they would resort to German. If you wish to remain on the right side of your teachers it was a very good idea to become bilingual yourself, and by the time I reached the second year of senior school I would imagine that my German was almost as good as my spoken English. I remember my mother commenting that one day she came into school and for parts of the conversation she had with the headmaster and myself we all spoke in English, but when the headmaster and I spoke to one another we resorted to German. I didn't even realise. But one thing I did note and that was when I spoke German I perceive the world differently, and that was because of the way the language constructs itself. Joe is a very precise language and doesn't have words for things in the same way English does. If it wishes to name something it will do so by describing its parts so therefore it is a very descriptive language; when English wants to name something new it comes up with a new word, for example mobile, laptop, etc. We know that if we use the word hoover, we are talking about a vacuum cleaner. But the word hoover doesn't describe it in any way at all because it is the name of the manufacturer. We tend to call an MP3 player and iPod again this is the manufacturer's name and doesn't describe the item, but we know exactly what it's talking about. We say iPod, and we have a perspective on that.
These may seem trivial and small but when added together they become a very large whole. If you start putting together the words blue, grey, set, shampoo, little, old, Cardigan, slippers, hot cups of tea, the words start to produce an image perspective inside us. To me these words conjure up a little old lady with blue rinse hair, shuffling about in her slippers, wearing a tatty old cardigan. I carry this perspective of old age, and fight it with every fibre of my being. Fortunately I know it's there, and I know where it's come from, and I also have the skills to avoid it, because as far as I'm concerned there is no such thing as old age, there is just as state of getting older. And there's another difference, if you keep the verb, getting, still in its active state, you allow yourself the privilege of remaining active yourself. If you replace that by a statement, old age, then you create a static image which you can at some stage step into. This is what the little girl had done. Instead of allowing herself to grow old, and enjoy every step of the way, she had created a situation of presuming there was as point at which you would step through a door and move into what was called, Old Age.
If we can create a perception as powerful as that, where else have we created perceptions I wonder? One friend of mine is only too willing to share with other women is the perception that marriage is a wonderful state in which everything is wonderful. She laughs when she says,' it in the vows if you read it carefully enough, you know, the for better or for worse bit, kind of gives the game away.' And yet how many women plan and spend a fortune on their wedding day not thinking about the days will come, and when some of those days aren't so much the fairy tale of the wedding day, it doesn't match their perspective of what wedded bliss should be and they bail out with a quickie divorce.
If you look at the definition of the word perception you are told it is the process of gaining awareness or understanding of the sensory world, and when you look at the words associated with perception you find constraints, communication, control, instruction, meaning, mental stimulus, representation. What happens if your representation is flat, it had no perspective, what I mean by that is you have placed no three dimensions on it? This is what often happens when we make statements like, old age, getting married, in a relationship, having a baby. Each one will carry an image and that image will have a few senses attached to it, but will not indicate its relationship in time. As we have already seen, getting married, very rarely goes beyond the day itself and perhaps the honeymoon. This is where the image stops and when reality kicks in, it often doesn't live up to the image held within their perspective. My friend turned round and said when you say the word, having a baby, you are invariably not looking beyond pregnancy, and it isn't until you reach six or seven months you realise that that lump can come out! Then you start thinking about the birth itself, and all that's going to entail, but you still don't think about the 20 odd years you have a child to bring up. That as she said is not part of the perspective.
If you want to think about your own perspectives, then stopped for a while and think about what it is you are wanting to achieve over the next 10 years. Write them down as the list and then have a look at them and see if you can pickup any statements where the verb has ING on the end. If it does then chances are use have a degree of three-dimensional perspective in that particular area. If it doesn't then there isn't any three-dimensional perspective, you have created a two-dimensional image with no substance, and as such it cannot and won't materialise. So how do you make it three-dimensional? Ironically, put the 'ING' on the end.
Here is an example;
a client I worked with recently wanted to run her own business. When she told me what it was she wanted I listened very carefully to the verb is in the sentence. It had become static, she wanted to run, instead of saying, I see myself running my own business. We worked on it for a while and then she went away and because she had now changed the verb in the sentence she found she was miraculously coming up with three-dimensional thinking. To cut a story short, it is now three months since that conversation, and her business is already beginning, she has four clients, and the possibility of quite a few more once they see how these people get on. As she said, 'I could see myself running a business, but I couldn't see the three dimensions behind it, because all I was looking at was a two-dimensional picture.'
Friday, October 15, 2010
That was September then...
The acts and power of the Second World War and all of its influences have certainly left this world now. That became very clear when our present Prime Minister made the comment he did about being the junior player as it were to America's dominance during 1940. To the people of the baby boomer generation and their parents, that was a big gaffe. However, it does illustrate just how far removed the present generations are from the influences that the Second World War had upon the world. The way we spoke to different countries, the way we traded, and the way we acted, was very much based upon the experiences of both the First and the Second World War and as a consequence the actions of those years dictated how we lived our lives. It gave us a set of values and beliefs that were very strongly formed from loyalty, patriotism, socialism, equality, and the right for all to live in peace.
Looking around the world now, it is interesting to see how many of the younger generations are in the throws of civil unrest, demanding independence from their domineering patriarchs. Once more the pendulum takes its full swing, and we can see we are returning to a state of independence, self determination, and operating a set of values not seen since the 1970s riots in Great Britain and America. Thinking back to those times, many changes happened in society as a result, such as equality for men and women, the acceptance of gay and lesbian life, the ending of apartheid in places such as the United States and Great Britain. There was change too in the way monetary policies were utilised and as a consequence we moved from a socialist outlook and attitude to a more monetarist one, hence the 1980s boom.
My question is, with the uprisings we are seeing now, what changes will be put in place as a consequence? How will it affect society in that area, and how will that society move on? What major changes will happen to them as happened to us?
It was interesting coming back from Spain the other day. I went into Maidstone to do some shopping. Usually I remember to take my MP3 player with me, but for some reason, I left it behind and therefore had to listen to some of the inane chatter that many of the youth of today engage in. By the time I came home I really did want to be back in Spain. It brought me up short once more, as it made me realise I was sensing the difference in value sets. To be honest those exhibited in Spain suits my values far better. It made me think, why do we choose to live in the place that we do? Obviously we have to find the right house, and if we have children, we have to take into account the schools and what they offer. I know of many a family who has moved into a particular school's catchment area just because, and have no real interest in the neighbourhood they are moving to. Often they settle in quite happily, but sometimes they don't and they remain separate from the world around them.
What was it that sold the area you live in to you? What was it you had to satisfy to make that move worthwhile? What aspects of the area did you ignore? And has the area lived up to your expectations whether they are good or bad?
Whilst away I watched film about a man who had lost his sight by the time he was three years old. When he was in his 30s he was given the opportunity of having an operation which would restore his sight, and after some deliberation he decided he would have a go. As his surgeon said, ‘what have you got to lose’? Interestingly enough he has a lot to lose, and it wasn't until he gained his sight he realised just how much there was he was losing.
One of the first things he realised was he was completely disorientated. He had developed a feeling world in which he could sense rain, size of buildings, position of doors, and other essential things that helped him get around the world. He had no sight and yet he had a rich imagination one that had been fuelled by all of the explanations he had been given by sighted friends and family. But the question here is whether the actual sights live up to the expectations he had inside his non-seeing brain?
When he first opened his eyes, he would have been as a newborn child, with no idea as to what was a face, a body, an apple, or any other object that was in the room at the time. Imagine seeing movement for the very first time. He had no idea of depth of field because he never had to have knowledge of it, and yet the sighted world presumed, wrongly, that now he has his sight everything was fixed. It wasn't. He had gained a sense and in many ways he had lost his others. They were still there, and he could still access them, but this new sense, sight, was interfering with his original brain processes. He was disorientated.
So we present our children with new situations and we wonder why they are disorientated. We give them new hurdles to climb such as 11+ examinations, GCSEs and so on and we wonder why some of them are drawn towards this new experience, some of them hope it will go away, and some of them just accept it and plod on through.
I looked into some early research into corneal replacement surgery and the restoration of the sight in people who had become blind. The first surgery to be recorded was in the 1950s and this was on a subject who when he first saw for the first time, felt really disillusioned and let down by the whole experience. In fact he became so overwhelmed by it all he believed it was the worst thing that ever happened. Now in those days, psychologists were few on the ground and he didn't get the support that really and truly he needed, and as a consequence he found the adjustment to this new world very, very difficult.
If we return to our children for the moment and think of how they adapt, then we can see a potential parallel. We give them new experiences to give them a wider experience base but we must also remember to give the correct psychological backup to make them feel safe secure and inquisitive. If we wrap them up in protection, when do they get to experience the full force of what they will have to live in? When will they have t adapt to a new set of senses they had been protected from. I realise this is a tenuous link but there is one here. The man in the film had been ‘protected’ from the need to understand large aspects of the seeing world and he operated very well in it. He was then thrown in and told to cope. For the first few months he didn’t and that’s a rational 30-something man. Protect our children too much from the world and we are denying them the development of their full set of senses too.
I always find it very difficult when I come back from Spain, adapting back to English life is always a tough one for me. This time I sat down and had a thought, what was it that I was finding so difficult to adjust to? I came to the conclusion there were three main things; the way of life revolving around the siesta from three o'clock till five o'clock, the much milder climate, and the difference in light levels. It wasn't until I got up the following morning and opened the curtains I will eyes just how rarely alights source we have here in England. I chat with my mother, an artist who understands these sort of things, and asked her what was the fundamental difference between the light. She reminded me of some of the continental artists and how gaudy colours appear to us when in fact they're not. When whereon the continents especially Spain or southern France, the light is very clear and as a consequence we are able to see the colours with complete clarity, hence the bright blues and the clean pinks. In Britain we have what is known as the grey pall which hangs over us, rendering most of the colours greyed. Without that clarity of colour and that brightness of light is it any wonder so many people suffer from SAD? I have already installed daylight bulb into my bedroom but I suspect I will be doing the same in the living room and in the bathroom. A question I must answer, what is this type of light that comes from these halogen energy bulbs that we get these days? Is that deficient in some of the necessary colours within the spectrum?
Looking around the world now, it is interesting to see how many of the younger generations are in the throws of civil unrest, demanding independence from their domineering patriarchs. Once more the pendulum takes its full swing, and we can see we are returning to a state of independence, self determination, and operating a set of values not seen since the 1970s riots in Great Britain and America. Thinking back to those times, many changes happened in society as a result, such as equality for men and women, the acceptance of gay and lesbian life, the ending of apartheid in places such as the United States and Great Britain. There was change too in the way monetary policies were utilised and as a consequence we moved from a socialist outlook and attitude to a more monetarist one, hence the 1980s boom.
My question is, with the uprisings we are seeing now, what changes will be put in place as a consequence? How will it affect society in that area, and how will that society move on? What major changes will happen to them as happened to us?
It was interesting coming back from Spain the other day. I went into Maidstone to do some shopping. Usually I remember to take my MP3 player with me, but for some reason, I left it behind and therefore had to listen to some of the inane chatter that many of the youth of today engage in. By the time I came home I really did want to be back in Spain. It brought me up short once more, as it made me realise I was sensing the difference in value sets. To be honest those exhibited in Spain suits my values far better. It made me think, why do we choose to live in the place that we do? Obviously we have to find the right house, and if we have children, we have to take into account the schools and what they offer. I know of many a family who has moved into a particular school's catchment area just because, and have no real interest in the neighbourhood they are moving to. Often they settle in quite happily, but sometimes they don't and they remain separate from the world around them.
What was it that sold the area you live in to you? What was it you had to satisfy to make that move worthwhile? What aspects of the area did you ignore? And has the area lived up to your expectations whether they are good or bad?
Whilst away I watched film about a man who had lost his sight by the time he was three years old. When he was in his 30s he was given the opportunity of having an operation which would restore his sight, and after some deliberation he decided he would have a go. As his surgeon said, ‘what have you got to lose’? Interestingly enough he has a lot to lose, and it wasn't until he gained his sight he realised just how much there was he was losing.
One of the first things he realised was he was completely disorientated. He had developed a feeling world in which he could sense rain, size of buildings, position of doors, and other essential things that helped him get around the world. He had no sight and yet he had a rich imagination one that had been fuelled by all of the explanations he had been given by sighted friends and family. But the question here is whether the actual sights live up to the expectations he had inside his non-seeing brain?
When he first opened his eyes, he would have been as a newborn child, with no idea as to what was a face, a body, an apple, or any other object that was in the room at the time. Imagine seeing movement for the very first time. He had no idea of depth of field because he never had to have knowledge of it, and yet the sighted world presumed, wrongly, that now he has his sight everything was fixed. It wasn't. He had gained a sense and in many ways he had lost his others. They were still there, and he could still access them, but this new sense, sight, was interfering with his original brain processes. He was disorientated.
So we present our children with new situations and we wonder why they are disorientated. We give them new hurdles to climb such as 11+ examinations, GCSEs and so on and we wonder why some of them are drawn towards this new experience, some of them hope it will go away, and some of them just accept it and plod on through.
I looked into some early research into corneal replacement surgery and the restoration of the sight in people who had become blind. The first surgery to be recorded was in the 1950s and this was on a subject who when he first saw for the first time, felt really disillusioned and let down by the whole experience. In fact he became so overwhelmed by it all he believed it was the worst thing that ever happened. Now in those days, psychologists were few on the ground and he didn't get the support that really and truly he needed, and as a consequence he found the adjustment to this new world very, very difficult.
If we return to our children for the moment and think of how they adapt, then we can see a potential parallel. We give them new experiences to give them a wider experience base but we must also remember to give the correct psychological backup to make them feel safe secure and inquisitive. If we wrap them up in protection, when do they get to experience the full force of what they will have to live in? When will they have t adapt to a new set of senses they had been protected from. I realise this is a tenuous link but there is one here. The man in the film had been ‘protected’ from the need to understand large aspects of the seeing world and he operated very well in it. He was then thrown in and told to cope. For the first few months he didn’t and that’s a rational 30-something man. Protect our children too much from the world and we are denying them the development of their full set of senses too.
I always find it very difficult when I come back from Spain, adapting back to English life is always a tough one for me. This time I sat down and had a thought, what was it that I was finding so difficult to adjust to? I came to the conclusion there were three main things; the way of life revolving around the siesta from three o'clock till five o'clock, the much milder climate, and the difference in light levels. It wasn't until I got up the following morning and opened the curtains I will eyes just how rarely alights source we have here in England. I chat with my mother, an artist who understands these sort of things, and asked her what was the fundamental difference between the light. She reminded me of some of the continental artists and how gaudy colours appear to us when in fact they're not. When whereon the continents especially Spain or southern France, the light is very clear and as a consequence we are able to see the colours with complete clarity, hence the bright blues and the clean pinks. In Britain we have what is known as the grey pall which hangs over us, rendering most of the colours greyed. Without that clarity of colour and that brightness of light is it any wonder so many people suffer from SAD? I have already installed daylight bulb into my bedroom but I suspect I will be doing the same in the living room and in the bathroom. A question I must answer, what is this type of light that comes from these halogen energy bulbs that we get these days? Is that deficient in some of the necessary colours within the spectrum?
The Great British Cooked Breakfast
Sitting outside a transport café, enjoying a mug of tea and the last rays of the hot sun, two cyclists came and joined me.
They too, ordered tea and sat down with their iPhones to plan their route to Tunbridge Wells. From what I could gather they were cycling around the UK and were from America, apart from that I took little notice, too wrapped up in my own newspaper to pay much attention to them.
Until, that is, it came time for them to pay and move on. As they stood up I did my usual which was to imagine those really tiny, thin saddles and imagine the pain after being on one for a day and marvelled at how they coped. I watched one of them as he teetered on his cycling shoes and looked at their carbon fibre machines.
As I drifted back and fore, I heard the second one come out of the café and with amazement, referred his mate to ‘look inside’. They could believe the amount of greasy food these people were eating by choice. I did chuckle when one of them said to the other, ‘it certainly keeps me wanting the healthy food seeing the size of them.’
It brought into my mind the family I had seen in Spain, unfortunately British, who all resembled butter balls, from the 30 something mother and father to the 6 something daughter and the 8 something son. What are we laying down for the NHS to deal with I wonder. If its not obesity, it alcoholism and both are getting worse.
I watched as the two cyclists re-mounted and cycled off into the distance and came to the conclusion the more they saw the over weight and under-fit, the more it would give them horrendous stories to tell their mates when they got back to the good old U.S.A.
Oh dear.
They too, ordered tea and sat down with their iPhones to plan their route to Tunbridge Wells. From what I could gather they were cycling around the UK and were from America, apart from that I took little notice, too wrapped up in my own newspaper to pay much attention to them.
Until, that is, it came time for them to pay and move on. As they stood up I did my usual which was to imagine those really tiny, thin saddles and imagine the pain after being on one for a day and marvelled at how they coped. I watched one of them as he teetered on his cycling shoes and looked at their carbon fibre machines.
As I drifted back and fore, I heard the second one come out of the café and with amazement, referred his mate to ‘look inside’. They could believe the amount of greasy food these people were eating by choice. I did chuckle when one of them said to the other, ‘it certainly keeps me wanting the healthy food seeing the size of them.’
It brought into my mind the family I had seen in Spain, unfortunately British, who all resembled butter balls, from the 30 something mother and father to the 6 something daughter and the 8 something son. What are we laying down for the NHS to deal with I wonder. If its not obesity, it alcoholism and both are getting worse.
I watched as the two cyclists re-mounted and cycled off into the distance and came to the conclusion the more they saw the over weight and under-fit, the more it would give them horrendous stories to tell their mates when they got back to the good old U.S.A.
Oh dear.
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