SatNav for the soul®

First ever, Malaria Death Ring, gig

Phil Kirby at Temple Works called me a few days ago and asked if I could come up with, “something odd” for the after show party, as he had been let down by various performers.

“Like what?” I asked.

“Can you form a band, write some stuff, rehearse it, then perform it in front of a crowd of people? You’ve got 48 hours.”

“Hmm. Leave it with me.”

A couple of  emails and a ‘phone call later, we had the nucleus of, ‘Malaria Death Ring’. Jamie Newman and Nigel Goodwin had volunteered for an insane project. The night before the party we spent twenty minutes writing a thirty minute set, then rehearsing it. Jamie had brought with him, Mark-Antoine, a couch surfer, who was over from Sweden to see a band in Leeds. He observed the creative process with interest whilst sipping his tea. When we felt the material was in a usable state of flux, he declared the alchemy, good.

And so we played at the party. This is the stuff of legend. It was all about the NOW. Something was born slippy and freakish that evening. It is fitting that the iconic Temple Works, should be the experienced midwife.

Des Troy, Jamie Newman and Nigel Goodwin.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs has a list of human requirements usually represented as a pyramid. At the bottom is food and sleep etc., at the top is self actualisation. All the stages in the hierarchy require some kind of forward momentum to achieve the next stage in the pyramid. The need for shelter, for example, is solved through growth, enterprise, innovation, industry.

All except one.

Not many people have reached the final stage – self actualisation – because, traditionally, it was beyond the reach of all but the most talented. Today however, despite what the media exhorts, it is within the reach of most people living in the Western world. Very few individuals make the final stage however as it is unknown territory and there is little encouragement from the media to explore this part of human development. This might have something to do with the fact that not much thought had been given to the subject. But as we hit the buffers on the penultimate stage of the pyramid, we need to address the subject now. That’s because self actualisation dispenses with the apparatus for getting there.

By definition, when we reach the top of the pyramid, we have all the material and emotional things we need to live a fulfilling life. The only ‘growth’ is self development and the encouragement of development in others. So if the whole of society and your entire life is built upon the premise of growth in material goods and consuming those goods, how do you suddenly shift to a neutral or even reverse gear and adopt an entirely different world view?
I keep reminding people that, as a citizen in the western world they are already one of the richest people in the world. A person living on an average income in the UK could easily work one or two days a week and have the rest of the time to themselves if they give up the unnecessary consumerism. But because there is no alternative to consumerism, there is nowhere else to go and so people relentlessly continue forward into the trackless wastes of a materialistic desert. Even the area of self development cannot free itself of the consumerist model – ‘buy this book! Pay for this course!’ et-cetera.

For example, in our time poor society an unemployed person on benefits should, logically be the one of the happiest people in society because most of their time is their own. But if there is nothing to do with that time but watch other people chasing and ‘enjoying’ consumerism, which is inextricably linked with esteem and status, then that free time becomes jail time. The only possible escape is if you have a passion for something which requires very little money but a great deal of energy and skill.

Some people are addressing the issue of an alternative to consumerism and the nascent academic subject of happiness is touching upon it. Similarly, the environmentalist movement is making people consider indirectly, the unthinking profligacy of consumerism and forcing the question “Is that all there is?”

So what’s to do?

• Firstly, we need an infrastructure of community. Historically, the church provided this but as the western world becomes more secular, the churches prominence is declining and nothing is taking its place.
• Secondly we need to educate people about happiness. Make it a subject at school.
• And thirdly, we need to encourage creativity everywhere. The days of processing children in our schools to become good workers in the factories and offices needs to be phased out and replaced with a radical programme of support and facilitation for students’ own talents and passions.

Here is a page from a new ‘agent of change’ publication I have created called, “The drive of your life”. It is in pdf format and takes about one minute to ‘read’. If you would like a free copy, send me an email requesting it.

The money is in the bank. We have shown it can be done.

My mother died several months ago. She left a little house and some money. As a joint executor I was instrumental in all the financial arrangements. My brother organised the funeral and told me he had a solicitor lined up to do the probate. I told him to hang fire with any instruction as I wanted to shop around. My research revealed all the solicitors wanted to charge a percentage of the value of the estate. This irritated me as I guessed the ‘work’ would involve shuffling papers – the same amount of shuffling regardless of the value of the estate. I’ve written in detail about this here. A bit more digging revealed we could do the probate ourselves, so I convinced my brother to do this. Nothing really could go wrong, if a form was filled in incorrectly it would simply come back.

We did the probate ourselves in six weeks.

Next came the house. It was decided to sell it. We got an estate agent in who valued the house well below what we imagined it was worth. I realised the worst thing we could do was sell it in the condition it was in. It was agreed we would refurbish the property which we did ourselves.
When we had finished, the house looked pretty and desirable. We started to think maybe we could sell it ourselves. We got a sign, got a post and hammered our ‘for sale’ sign into the garden.

Considerable interest was shown in the property but the downside was we had to waste our time with the time wasters; an estate agent would have had to deal with all that.

In the end we got an acceptable offer and we sold the house.

As I had done my own conveyancing before when I purchased my first property, I was confident I could do the conveyancing for this property, especially as there was no chain involved and we were selling, not buying (a much easier process). This I did and today I was told completion had taken place and the money from the sale of the house was in our bank account.

So, we did it. We knew what was going on all the time, completed legal formalities in a fraction of the usual time and saved thousands of pounds in the process.

Being self sufficient has a snowball effect as well. I am more inclined to ask ‘can I do it myself?’ and my confidence in tackling something which previously would have appeared daunting, has increased dramatically.

And if I can do it, so can you.

On my return from the petrol station, I was waiting behind a car that was wanting to turn right. The driver’s window lowered and an empty cigarette packet was lobbed out. This immediately filled me with rage and I considered getting out of my car, walking up to his open window and lobbing some of my litter into his car so he could get an idea of how some people felt about this anti social behaviour. I didn’t fortunately as I know from experience that any act which confronts the perpetrator doesn’t give them any room to manoeuvre and they are forced to entrench into their established position, i.e. he would resolve to continue throwing litter out of his window but with more conviction.

As I drove the last couple of miles to my home I considered the issues the incident had raised.

My rage stemmed from the thoughtless lack of responsibility the driver displayed. Not only was he enabling Big Tobacco to continue peddling their evil product but he was inflicting its toxins onto those people who didn’t want it; no doubt his nicotine soaked cigarette end would find its way onto the tarmac several miles down the road following its packet. He must have been aware the packet was litter, that’s why he didn’t want it in his car but there his thinking stopped. He didn’t want the litter so he makes it someone else’s problem – yours and mine. His attitude was ‘there’s only me that matters, you lot can go to hell.’ I am always intrigued as to where these sort of people draw the line; would he have thrown the packet out onto the street he lived on, or on his drive? I can only think this is a small scale example of the kind of thinking that ultimately destroys the world. Had he the ambition, this driver could easily have become George Bush.

So what does that say about me? Am I selfish in some other way and his selfishness reminds me of my own failing? What would have been the correct way to approach it?

I wrote a post about an SUV parked on a pavement a few days ago. After speaking to one of the builders about it in a perfectly reasonable way, no other vehicles have parked on the pavement since. Whether this was coincidence or a result of my request I am not sure because most of the builders seem to have disappeared. However, the point is, my approach could have done no harm. I was being reasonable and I didn’t give any kind of ultimatum which could have involved the ego and macho pride of the workforce.

So with this driver, I should have got out of my car, picked up the empty cigarette packet and either found a bin or put it in my car until I could get rid of it in an appropriate manner. If I had done this cheerfully and without censure, the driver had only one way to go if he chose. He could either stay where he was on this issue (“great, somebody cleans up my mess!”) or he could reflect on why someone would want to clean up his mess voluntarily. This could alert him to the possibility that his actions had consequences and that he could modify his actions to moderate the consequences.

If enough people voluntarily cleaned up other people’s mess it would send out the signal that dropping litter was socially unacceptable. This is slowly happening with dog owners, more and more are cleaning up their dog’s mess. A couple of decades ago, nobody would have even dreamed of doing such a thing.

Admitting you are wrong is one of the hardest things anybody can do.