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?
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