Category: Updates

Whilst I still wait on my DBS (security check) I cannot directly work but … today I did start with my training so go to meet some of my colleagues.

It was a good feeling. It has been 24 years since I did any paid work … not that I am entirely sure whether I get paid for today but that doesn’t matter!

Whilst laying in the bath I had a thought about a passage from Corinthians … I had to Google it to be honest with you … it’s 13:11 and goes like this:

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I set aside childish ways.

For years that worried me that line. I believed it meant that at some point it was essential to grow up, to quite literally set aside childish ways … that’s a scary thought for someone who loves messing about and having fun with people of all ages not worrying about what others think and then, in the midst of the bubbles my mind worked it out for me. All these years I looked at it wrong. It is not telling me to stop thinking young thoughts, on the contrary, it is reminding me of what it is that children think of. They want to be grown up, it is a dream to be an adult, to have the rights and privileges of being an adult. They don’t want to ‘just’ be children. This is the childish way the passage refers to. It’s an instruction to stop trying to be something we’re not. Stop looking for and expecting that time in our life when we are an all encompassing adult and look within ourselves. Realise that the child never leaves us, who we were is who we are.

Considering this we can move on with life free of worries about how we should be, how others expect us to be, what is the normal we must become. We realise that we always had all the tools we needed to be ourselves. It is not for others to judge us, they will, of course, but they will despite us. Attempting to be someone we are not to please others is to give away our right ‘to be’.

Now this makes sense to me, rather than setting aside my childish ways, I am embracing them, all except for that part of me who wanted to be someone or something else. I am happy and, you should be happy to be just the ever so special people we are.

I am using GTA here as an example but this problem has been around for a while now with people forgetting that those they interact with online are actually real people. It’s a little like picking your nose at the wheel of the car and really believing no one can see you/ Sticking with the road rage analogy, it’s like road rage, inexplicably attacking a total stranger that almost certainly did something totally legal because it makes you feel silly.

I am of a generation where a game could be a game, even Cowboys and Indians didn’t involve actual physical violence though sometimes maybe if the opponent failed to fake die when shot with your pretend arrow but that was rare.

With the advent of computers came anonymity. The ability to pretend to be anyone, hide behind a screen and let loose without fear or reprisal. This was known as the Internet Troll. Their only purpose in life seemed to be to insult and provoke argument.

With the onset of the online game such as GTA we have given these people weapons, the power to truly dominate. They will seek out other players just going about their fun and annihilate them. They believe it’s ‘not personal’ because it’s just a game and they’re allowed to do that, it’s not explicitly banned so it must be OK. Except, generally it is against the rules but these rules are very randomly enforced, it all rather depends on how many people put in a complaint. They have a word, ‘griefing’ which means to constantly take out another player as soon as they spawn, players can and do get sanctioned for it but, again, this isn’t consistent, some get away with it unhindered.

So, it is the fault of @Rockstar, the game company who create Grand Theft Auto or is there a deeper issue here?

I believe it is the latter. It seems that the understanding between fun and respect has been lost.

Let me put this in terms of kicking about a football …. if a good player is playing with a novice, they’ve a choice, either assist the other player to attain a better standard of play and thus have a more equal contest in the future or, totally humiliate them making it abundantly clear how much more fun it is to win all the time and how, if they’re not having fun then, the problem is theirs alone.

This is what happens too often online. The better player plays alongside lesser players and rubs salt into their useless wound by constantly saying how much fun it is always winning and that the ‘loser’ (as the game calls them), needs to just live with it.

When this happens in the real world, he is elected President of the United States of America, we know him as Donald Trump.

It is a researched fact in psychology that when someone brags about their achievements, he loses respect of others, even those with more to brag about. There is a much forgotten quality, the ability to be humble and generous of spirit. Adopting that approach a person easily makes and maintains friendships …. except, not online.

Online encouraged adversarial play. It tells people to kill each other, to show no mercy and yet … what happens when these people are back in the real world? Is the one who won everything still superior? I suspect not so. Would they understand and accept when the tables are turned that they are no longer the popular one or would they think they are being ill served?

If only we remembered, online are ‘real’ people with feelings and emotions, they are not all brainless clones created by #rockstar games. 

One of my aims, if I can kick it off, is to try and turn this around, get others to ‘play nice’. Not sickly fingers down their throat nice but just considerate to ensure everyone in their party is having as good a time as they are.

My Dad always used to say, if you’re not playing to win, why bother? To me, it’s not winning that matters, it’s being equal to others, ensuring everyone is enjoying the same game to the best of their ability so, doing things a the level of all the players, not doing penalty shoot outs when one of the players can’t even kick the ball!

Just think on that for a while

 

How awful is it that a person can corrupt a month in the way that the current leader of the Conservative Party has?

Anyway, moving on.

I applied for a job, I got shortlisted, went for an interview and the bottom line is, I didn’t get it. I didn’t explain myself well enough. I fell short as I was aware that I waffle and might have been in danger of explaining myself too much. The answers I gave were all good answers it seems but because they couldn’t fathom how I got to them, I did not finish as seems to be a common occurrence these days … take that as you will.

To be honest, I don’t want to talk about it, it’s one job, it’s in the past and where it should be. Dwelling on it will prevent me being focused on what I still need to do.

What that is I am not entirely sure right now. I was confident of the one I went for because I knew about it and I do know I would have been really good at it so, my interview skills failed me not my ability to do a job. Had it been my ability then I’d not feel quite so worried, a quick side movement to another type of career and I’d be sorted but, I now need to work out what I honestly don’t know, how to crack the nut of interviews in this decade!

My situation would be helped were I not in a dire financial mess. Quite soon I am not going to be able to hold our heads above water any more, there is only so much moving of debt around I can do. I honestly don’t feel I have time to get a job before that happens which is making it difficult to focus right now.

Add to that we only got 23 months before I have to have a job, actually ‘we’ have to be working and I am feeling the pressure. 

One thing I cannot control is the outcome of the election on June 8th. It looks as though the Tories are going to change the goalposts for future visa applications and raise the bar. It totally depends how high just how much we will be affected.

If I am still a full time unpaid carer then we’ll still qualify except, by that time we will be totally broke so it won’t much matter, we won’t be able to demonstrate self sufficiency.

All I need to do now is find a way to motivate myself and focus.

A lottery win of a substantial nature would certainly help.

As I said earlier though, I don’t want to enter into talks about this. There is nothing I am aware that anyone else can help with unless they’ve a job either of us can do!