Season's bleatings

The festive season is upon us.  I don't know why I'm saying that as though this comes as a huge shock since it happens every year.  Every year we spend much of the lead up to Christmas pushing and shoving around various high street shops trying to track down the latest must-have toys, whilst simultaneously hoping that inspiration will strike us and tell us what to buy for that one relative who, whilst being perfectly nice and inoffensive, is an absolute git to buy for.  Every year we run through a list of wonderful gifts in order to avoid resorting to Boots three for twos and Bodyshop gift boxes. The problem is that the relative in question either has everything already or absolutely detests technology. To them, a tablet is a headache remedy that is taken with water and tastes like arse.  You'd get them a book but the only thing they read is the "Radio Times" or maybe "Readers' Digest."  Bugger it, they will probably adore white musk scented toenail exfoliater.

I've just returned from one such trip into my local town centre.  I decided that best policy would be to make my shopping trip on a day when most other people would be working but failed to factor in the fact that it was so close to Christmas.  So, amidst the familiar sounds of Cliff Richard and George Michael, I got in my last bit of Christmas shopping before heading home on public transport.  Whilst sitting on the bus I began my regular festive ruminations....

After considering the whole meaning/ point of Christmas questions my mind wondered to the John Lewis advert.  For those who aren't familiar with John Lewis or their latest vomit inducing ad, allow me to elucidate: John Lewis is a British chain of department stores that stock everything from ladieswear to random over-priced tat.  Their overly sentimental festive ad campaigns have become something of a Christmas institution; rather like the Coco-Cola ads and the awful ballad type songs that are churned out by X-Factor hopefuls.  Last year we had one boy and his penguin; this year we have the man on the moon:

 This advert seems to be making a rather salient point about the festive season and loneliness, particularly with regards to the elderly.  I mean, here we have an elderly gentleman who seems to crave human interaction and a young girl who wants to reach out and befriend him.  Oh it does tug on the old heart strings, particularly because, as much as many of us complain about the prospect of having to spend days having enforced fun with relatives we would probably rather avoid, very few of us would actually want to be alone at this time of year.  Even the most hardened among us would feel a little twinge of loneliness if we had nobody to spend our holidays with.  Aside from anything else, Christmas is billed as a time for families and if yours are no longer around or desiring of your company, that has to hurt.  Year after year we are implored by various charities and the media (I knew they were capable of being "nice" once in a while) to consider those who may be alone.  It would seem that the John Lewis ad may have succeeded in doing just this as Age UK have reported an increase in people expressing interest in becoming volunteers.  Bravo.  Bravo.  Even I can't snear at that.  So what if John Lewis is a company trying to bring attention to their brand in order to get us to purchase more cack that our loved ones probably neither want nor need?  Perhaps more elderly people will have a much more fulfilling 2016 because of a simple Christmas ad.

Ex and why

If there's one rite of passage that confirms you've emotionally arrived at adulthood, it's an emotionally fraught break-up.  You know the drill; your-once-one-and-only-now-new-ex calls, after what may have been months of epic verbal battles and grudging truces, to announce that it's not working and you should break up.  You then spend weeks, maybe even months, chewing it all over in your jumbled little head.  You start to torment yourself (and anyone who is brave or bored enough to listen) with the following questions; what's wrong with me; could I have done things differently; does (s)he miss me; what is (s)he doing now; do they have somebody else.  It's these last three questions that tend to motivate you to engage in the kind of frenzied snoopage that is usually associated with socially inept weirdos and government agencies.  Yet, sometimes curiosity and the very human need to torture oneself just gets too much and one simply has to....

Now, until relatively recently finding out the salacious details of your now ex's life was much more difficult.  I'm not saying that it wasn't possible to find out whether or not they were seeing somebody else or whether they had mentioned you in a conversation.  Indeed, gossips and misery vultures have always existed to hoover up and disseminate news, however banal or corrosive, to those most or least in need of this week's fix.  The thing is that now we have social media we can find this stuff for ourselves so we needn't rely on busybodies to find and hand over the dirt; we can find it for ourselves.  I'm working on the assumption that the ex is somebody who posts their entire being and doings online, which mine aren't.  I'm also assuming that you haven't been blocked from seeing your ex's content...

Step forward Mr Zuckerburg, who is working to decrease the suffering of the broken hearted everywhere.  How's he doing this, you ask.  Well, Facebook are currently trialing a function whereby if a user changes their relationship status from "in a relationship" to "single," the site will ask them whether they would like to restrict the material that their now ex partner can access via the site.

The skeptic in me wonders why this is even deemed necessary.  Surely, if you don't want your now ex to see your beach pics and details of the relationship that you dumped them for, you could just "unfriend" them.  What ever happened to making a clean break if that is what you deemed to be the most appropriate course of action.  Why oh why must we remain friends with everyone online, when we wouldn't in real life?  Cynic that I am I have often theorised that the reason why so many people keep their exes as friends online is so that they can keep them as a sort of insurance option (in case other options don't work out), whilst keeping them at a safe distance.  In other words; you're maintaining contact with them but you're not engaging with them on a level beyond that which is convenient.

That said, I do like the idea of the site blocking any little reminders of your relationship, such as photo tagging and that timehop thing.  I know.  I know.  In times of old you wouldn't have needed this.  You would have either archived or binned any little reminders of your relationship so that they didn't haunt you at your weakest moments.  This was before the likes of Facebook came along and essentially allowed us to archive and broadcast every aspect of our lives so that we could relive every moment, picture by picture, status by inane status.  Whether we like it or not social media may just be here to stay.  The question is not simply how we avoid or get rid of it; it is now how do we utilise it without it encroaching on our mental and emotional space.  This may be one solution to this question.

It's been a long time

So, I've been away from this blog for longer than I intended.  I have no excuse, other than life and adult stuff just getting in the way.  Like so many of my other creative projects, this blog has sort of fallen by the wayside, which is a crying shame because I enjoy writing.

Disappointingly, I haven't actually done or been involved in anything beyond working and day to day living.  I'm finding that I am becoming increasingly weighed down by the business of being an adult and just having to fend for myself.  It tends to be the little pernickety things that prove to be most time consuming; ironing, getting to and from places and sorting through mountains of paperwork (how do I accumulate so much of this?).  I swear that my time was not wasted in these ways when I was younger.  Or maybe I just cared about my messy living room less.  On reflection, the latter is the most likely reason.  I don't know why there has been such a sea-change in my attitude.  Could it be because now that I am thirty I feel I need to start acting thirty.  How ever a thirty year old may or may not act.  There is probably a spectrum of thirty-something behaviour and where one sits on that spectrum is probably largely dictated by personal circumstances and standards.  Even so, I still feel this pressure to be less slovenly and more productive.  Thus, sleeping in and remaining in my pajamas until past noon is no longer permissible in the way that it was when I was a twenty something year old woman.  If I am not at work then I MUST use my days off wisely; namely by doing boring household chores and running errands.

As I type this I am beginning to see the silliness in these sentiments; I am no less entitled to "me time" than I was when I was a student or when I had first properly left home at twenty five.  Whilst blogging may not seem to be as productive as baking, I still believe that it is productive, not least for the personal and creative potential that it presents.  If somebody happens upon this blog and is entertained or inspired by it then that is a bonus.  For now I am happy to have a platform from which I can share my views and observations of the world.  This is why I am going to make a more concerted effort to keep this blog up to date.    

And I Guess That's Why They Call It The News

 If there's one thing that is guaranteed to whip up the general public into an emotional frenzy, it is a pointless celebrity story. This past couple of weeks has seen two such stories: the sacking of Jeremy Clarkeson and the exit of Zayn What's-his-face from boy band One Direction. Both stories have led to a storm of speculation and strong feeling from a baffled public who have seemingly nothing else to occupy their time. I'm not going to sit here and pretend that this is an amazing new phenomenon because I vaguely remember girls in my class being positively distraught when Take That announced their break up in 1996. Admittedly, I was relatively unmoved by the whole thing. Come to think of it, I don't think I have ever felt any sort of affiliation to any band or celebrity. Don't ask me how I occupy my time and thoughts because I don't really have an answer for you. All I can tell you is that celebrities and their goings on don't really intrigue me and never have. What does intrigue me is that fact that people, many of whom earn a mere pittance, can spare so much time and energy on people whose lives are so far removed from their own. Apparently the online petition to reinstate Jeremy Clarkeson got over 1000 000 signatures. To place things into perspective, over 1000 000 people decided that Jeremy Clarkeson's job was worth giving a toss about. This is probably greater than the number of people who would sign a petition to save the jobs of those working in the NHS, local government and police force (many of whom probably haven't assaulted colleagues but who, nonetheless, face redundancy through no fault of their own). Again, this should come as a surprise but doesn't.

Look, I don't want to get into a debate about what should happen to Clarkeson because it's been debated to death by others. Besides, that's not really the point of this post. My main concern here is why, in the name of Hades, we are so hung up on one guy and his job when hundreds, possibly thousands of people from all different walks of life are facing losing their jobs. My guess is that we are just not good at looking at bigger pictures. We can hear facts, figures and anecdotes all day but they don't actually mean anything to us unless we are personally affected. Only when we are waiting for hours in A&E does everything begin to feel real. Until this point, it is just an abstract story and something that is far too big and out of our control. It is as though larger, national issues are so large and unmanageable that even forming coherent opinions can be daunting and somewhat tiring. Sure, we may discuss the privatisation of the NHS with friends and colleagues, we may even sign a petition to save our local A&E department when it is threatened with closure. Yet, we somehow cannot summon a fraction of the vitriolic energy that seems to be so abundant when having a heated discussion about all that is wrong in the world. Why is this? It's not as though we don't care. It's not as though we don't understand what is going on around us. So why this apathy?

I don't know but my guess would be that we are surrounded by such misery that we feel impotent in the face of it all. In the end, we know that however much we may bitch on social media or sign petitions, nothing is going to change. We will still be ruled by the same social elite; we will still be stuck paying taxes to fund wars that we disagree with and powerful people will continue to use their wealth and influence to hurt and abuse others. Our collective outrage will do nothing to alleviate any of this and will only serve to further alienate us from those around us. Conversely, you can bitch and debate about celebrities until the cows come home because it is unlikely to be divisive. Even if your opinions differ from those around you, it is unlikely to cause any lasting ructions. Ergo, celebrities provide an outlet and a focus for all of that misplaced social frustration.

I recently met up with a friend who I have known since primary school.  As has become the custom at such meet-ups, we enjoyed a rather fun trip down memory lane.  I suspect that part of the reason why this occurrence is becoming more and more frequent is because we both turn 30 this year.  We have joked about this eventuality throughout our twenties by saying things like “do you realise that in six years’ time we will both be 30?  This is terrifying!”  I think the jokes came about because we genuinely used to think of 30 as being old, which also meant that we had a long list of things that we wanted to have accomplished by the time we reached that milestone.  Obviously, we both struggled to recall very many of the items on our lists.  My friend had always said that she expected to be married with two children by the age of 25 (on reflection we agree that 25 is a mere baby and 30 int exactly old either). 

Like any effective appraisal (for that is what our lunch had unintentionally turned into), we discussed what we had actually achieved; degrees, homes, friends and careers.  The big stuff.  Or some of the big stuff.  The rest would, we assured ourselves, just happen in much the same way as our other attainments have.  It’s not that we were being particularly philosophical; more that we have become tired by the whole “by the age of 30 you should be doing x, y and z.”  I mean, our generation have enjoyed greater freedoms and choices than many that have gone previously and rather than enjoy this simple fact, we are becoming a generating of compulsive whingers.  Rather than celebrate our choices and accomplishments many of us are regretting not having taken the alternative routes through our twenties.  Sure university was fun whilst we were there but wouldn't we have become much more enlightened if we had traveled the world instead?  Maybe starting a family would have been much more satisfying than the job I worked so hard to get.  Who needs a clean house and loads of antique furniture anyway?  Bah.  Contrary to this self-indulgent bellyaching, my friend and I spent a good half an hour slapping ourselves on the back and gobbing off about how much we are actually enjoying our lives.  We then descended into a discussion about our fifteen year old selves….

This particular friend probably wouldn't mind me stating that we were both oddballs (I have withdrawn her legal name just in case she would).  By this I mean that we were both rather young and naive compared to our peers.  I can’t actually remember what sort of stuff we actually used to talk about but I know that it wasn't ever the same sort of stuff that other girls of the same age used to talk about.  There were also the various fashion disasters that are endemic among she-geeks everywhere; white socks with sandals, bad haircuts, perms (I think that was just me) and wearing heals with tracksuits.  Often when I look back at myself as a teenager I cringe, even if reminiscing about these years of awkwardness make for some hilarious conversations. 

It’s really odd to think that at 15 I had literally no idea how things worked or how I myself actually cogitated.  I have often heard it said that you have no genuine concept of self until you leave your childhood and teenage years behind and I think that this certainly holds true for me.  I know that many people would disagree because they had grown and developed their characters when they were still quite young.  However, at 15 I was still a child.  I had not yet met most of the people who would become my closest friends and confidants.  I had not yet discovered my chief motivations, my absolute unremitting passions and my wildest aspirations.  Like many young people I wanted to work in show business.  Leaving aside the fact that I could neither sing nor act and that I had the face of a deformed bulldog, the chances of me ever attaining a career in show business were always going to be pretty slim.  Very few people succeed in this line of business and many of those who do probably wish they hadn't.  Still, at 15 I was convinced that I was destined to be a star and became unable to see any reason why this would not transpire.  Needless to say that this particular dream has not been realised, much to the relief of my 29 year old self!  I’m almost chortling at how much I wanted to be some glamorous actress, whilst conveniently forgetting that it this particular dream was like a soothing balm to an ego that had been repeatedly injured by bullying and social exclusion.  Dreams and delusions were probably the safest and cosiest place for the 15 year old me to exist.  At this present moment it is easy to forget the pain and isolation that I felt as a 15 year old.  It is also easy to idealise my younger days by overemphasising the carefree aspects of my youth.  My anxieties over turning 30 have often led me to wish for a return to my younger days, without paying much heed to the fact that my adolescent years were frightening, confusing and miserable.  I may lament that fact that I now have to worry about paying bills and running a home but I promise you that these things are a definite improvement over wondering whether you will get through an entire school day without having your lunch money nicked or getting spat at by the people in the year below you.  This realisation has been somewhat bizarrely uplifting for me.  I now realise that as a 29 year old I have much more influence over the direction of my life than I did at 15.  It’s not that old chestnut about years buying you wisdom (my wisdom points are probably in minus figures) but more about realising that I have choices.  The 15 year old me was tethered to the life and identity as a social outcast.  I had to share space with my tormentors because our parents were legally obliged to send us to school.  Very few if any of us actually wanted to be there, sharing that space with each other.  We had no say over what we did or where we went.  We were just sitting it out, waiting and hoping that when we finally made it out of there it would be to something better.  Finally, the something better is here and I feel that it should be marked in some way….

Bloody Women

Earlier this week we celebrated International Womens’ Day, which always presents the perfect opportunity to reflect on how far women have come and how far we have yet to go in the long march to equality.  Whilst it is true that we have much to celebrate; we now have the vote in many countries, we have prominent females in many sectors including politics, business and science and womens’ issues are now being pushed up the international agenda, there is still an awful long way to go before we can truly say that we enjoy equality with men.  Nowhere is the lack of equality between the genders more apparent than in society’s attitudes towards women and their bodies.  

 

Women are constantly being appraised, not for their abilities, but for their body shapes and their general appearance.  It is not considered enough for a woman to appear neat and tidy; she must also appear aethetically pleasing and match some impossible cultural ideal, which nobody has a cat in hell’s chance of ever attaining or maintaining.  Women and girls who openly refuse or rebel against this are jeered at and made to feel inferior.  

Girls are taught to feel ashamed of their bodies from a young age.  Menstruation is still never really discussed or represented beyond sex education class and even when it is, it is normally referred to either in jest or using half arsed euphomisms, such as “the curse.”  You certainly never see or hear of it being referred to in popular culture.  It is almost as though this very normal part of female biology just does not exist.  We are certainly discouraged from openly discussing anything concerning our menstrual cycle in public, lest we embarress anyone.  It often feels as though women’s bodies are strictly for the purposes of hetero-male titilation and that any discussion or representation of anything that would challenge this is actively discouraged. 

Since the age of sixteen, I have suffered from horrendous pain, fatigue and dizziness.  It afflicts me for at least one week out of every four and yet social etiquette dictates that I must not discuss this in public, even if somebody asks why I am keeled over and screaming in pain.  Thus, when somebody does ask why I am doubled over I must fabricate some vague lie so as not to embarress them or myself.  Not that I am embarressed.  Fourteen years of explaining these symptoms to various medical professionals is enough to make anyone forget their embarressment.  I am a woman and lots of women menstruate.  We should not have to feel or act ashamed of our bodies, simply because society says so.  Only when we can stand up and say, “this is me and this is part of my life and my biology” will we ever be truly liberated!

Let's Facebook It!

 I have recently discovered that many of my friends have opted to leave Facebook altogether.  Whilst initially astounded at this (I mean, it's quite a handy communication tool and not all that bad, really), I have to say that I am becoming more and more sympathetic to their reasoning.  I have found myself thinking of more and more things that I don't like about being on there.  Admittedly, I am one of those people who use the site most days, usually to repost an article or to update my status.  I have often wondered whether I have become one of those frequent Facebookers who annoy other people simply because I post so much that I am actually needlessly filling up other people's newsfeeds.  I don't know what prompted me to do this but I decided to sit down, have a serious think about my Facebook use and note down the main things that I have come to dislike about using the site.  I must point out that this is only my personal opinion and is in no way representative of other users.

1. It gives a false impression of popularity

Remember when we all first signed upto Facebook and were keen to "collect" friends, even friends who we may have only met once or twice?  Aaaah, me too.  Whilst this was initially a fun way of keeping in touch with people like Mike the intern or Jessica who is the friend of a friend's cousin whom you once met at a party, this game soon got boring.  Why?  Because you also found that you were getting friend requests from people who you either barely knew or wish you'd never met, such as the guy with whom you'd had an awkward snog in year eight.  I am coming around to the belief that there are some people with whom we are only supposed to have a passing and polite acquaintance (clients, for example) and nothing more.  Yet, with the advent of Facebook we were all suddenly supposed to become besties.  Before we know it, we have 748 "friends," many of whom we probably wouldn't say hello to if we saw them in the street.  Furthermore, we are sharing our most treasured moments and lowest thoughts with these people, who probably don't even care. Out of these 748 "friends," there are probably only about four people who we could genuinely count as friends.

2. It makes us socially competitive

OK, so most of us have moved on from the whole friend collecting game. That got boring when we realised the home truths that I spelt out in point one. However, this by no means that the competition's over. We are now competing over who has the best life. Don't pretend you don't have a sneak peek through profiles of exes/ school acquaintances “just to see what they are up to these days” and then get all downbeat when you realise that they are travelling the world/ sitting on the exec board of a major blue chip company/ starting their own school for impoverished school children in Mozambique, whilst you are stuck in your “dead end” job and your rancid rented flat. The thing is that you actually enjoy your job and you love your flat. Or you did until you logged into Facebook and found out that the numpty who made your life hell at school is living the life of Riley. Sometimes there is simply no justice in this world. There, I've hit the nail on the head for you. You are usually happy with your lot until you start comparing it to that of others.

The main problem here is the saturation of information. We can only really compare things if we know what we are comparing, which means that we would need to find out about somebody else's life in order to compare it with ours. Prior to Facebook, we would have either come by this information if we had spoken to the person in question or if we had had it passed to us via somebody else in the know. Now that we have Facebook, we don't have to rely on this information being passed to us simply by chance. Now we can snoop when we most feel inclined to do so and that can often be when we are bored or at a low ebb anyway. It goes without saying that this can lead us to become rather miserable and more prone to just fixating on what other people have rather than on what we want to achieve in our own lives. It's a slippery slope down, folks.

3. People only post what they want us to know

This is closely related to point number two. When we are truly fixating on the reasons why one of our “friends” has it all whilst we are really struggling, we fail to take into account the fact that we are not seeing a true representation of that person's life. I'm not saying that it is all pure fantasy, although there are some people who probably do fabricate their entire lives on Facebook. What I am saying though, is that people manage their online persona in the way that many of us try to manage our offline image. Users will post the statuses, photos and videos that they feel best represent the person that they want to be rather than the person that they actually are. That person who seems to always be down the pub having a whale of a time with friends whilst you're sitting at home watching Gogglebox and eating the remains of last night's pizza is probably no more of a social butterfly than you are. Those photos were probably taken over the previous weekend, you know, the weekend where you were also out having a few bevvies with your friends.

Conversely, you will very seldom find a person that wants to broadcast the breakdown of their relationship or their forthcoming disciplinary proceedings on Facebook. Oh, I know that some people do. But generally most people don't. Things go badly for all of us at some point but most of us prefer to only focus on the positive and amusing stuff, which can give the impression that we are all super happy and amazingly successful all of the time.

4. It kicks off rows in the real world

This has never happened to me personally but I have heard of it happening. There isn't much of a need to elaborate much more with this one. Suffice it to say, that it is really easy to just type a thoughtless comment and even easier for that comment to be misconstrued (or understood perfectly, as the case may be).

5. It negates the need for effort

Hands up, who has assumed that, just because they have sent somebody a message on or via Facebook that this is enough? I know that I have fallen into this trap before and I am now beginning to truly count the cost of this assumption. Why? Because I suspect that the same is being done to me. The difficult thing is that it is not personal and nor is it wilful. The person means well. They are busy but at least they are still finding time to like and comment on your grumpy cat memes. In some ways, the whole concept of Facebook cheapens friendship to a few soundbites and likes.

Here's the thing. As entertaining as your memes and statuses are, they are no substitute for taking an afternoon of your free time and just spending it talking to somebody who you actually care about and want to talk to. To coin my mother's saying “you only get out what you put in” and if all you put in is a generic “look at me” every so often, then maybe that's all you deserve back.

6. It has become a barometer of our self worth
   Again, this one is pretty much self explanatory and risks repeating the previous points but it is still an important point in its own right. Intellectually, we know that we are worth more than a mere Facebook page, which doesn't even have a physical manifestation. However, if you spend too much time on there as I have been guilty of doing, then you can begin to see it as some sort of reflection on you. The lack of responses to posts can become something of a suggestion that you yourself are not an interesting, worthwhile individual. Facebook can be something of a virtual school yard in this respect. Whilst doing research for this post I can across a problem page by a woman who was becoming depressed because very few people responded to anything she posted. Naturally, some participants told her to grow up and get a life outside of Facebook, which seemed harsh and easier said than done. It also made me question whether Facebook was the problem in this case. Maybe, just maybe, this woman already suffers from very low self esteem and her Facebook usage is her way of trying to overcome this by galvanising positive attention. If this is what is going on in this case then maybe the problem isn't Facebook but the user's expectations.
   
   
    By this logic, it would seem that it is not Facebook that is the problem but the way that some of us choose to use it and the importance that we place upon it. I can't tell you why people are choosing to delete their profiles. No doubt there are a whole swathe of studies that can tell you why different types of people have decided to switch off and either move to a different social network or abandon the whole concept of social media altogether. What I will say is this; the problem is not Facebook. The problem is with the individual and how they use it. It can only really reflect life. If you do not feel contented in your life offline, the chances are that Facebook will not make you happy or fulfilled either. It exists as a social network to help you to maintain contact. It will not reconcile you to people from your past who you dislike; it will not make you a better friend and it certainly won't give you better social skills. We need to stop trying to use things as quick fixes and substitutes for taking real and positive action. Whilst you won't necessarily need to delete your profile to achieve this, it might be an idea to limit the amount of time and energy you spend on there if you do feel that using it is having a negative impact on your life.