I 'spose I'm an introvert, really. But I don't like to shout about it.

~or~ On being unapologetic about wanting to stay in.

Accept yourself

At the risk over coming over all “hey lets all love ourselves and celebrate our differences, you go girl!” – which I try to avoid if possible as it’s not a good look on me – I have recently had reason to accept a part of myself and, frankly it’s a relief.

No, I’m not gay (sorry about that). I have no announcement, no news for anyone who has known me for any length of time... just a few fresh (but quiet) thoughts about something that has come into focus again recently: That I am, fundamentally, an introvert, really.

Now, I’m by no means the most introverted introvert. In fact I have consistently chosen career options that have required me to communicate and assert myself, which may seem odd, but not to me – having spent much of my childhood feeling vaguely threatened and misunderstood by pretty much everyone except my immediate family and closest friends, I slowly discovered that communication was a kind of super-power – to be able to explain yourself, articulate your case and express what the hell was going on in that inner world of yours was a transformative skill to develop, and I developed it rather well.

I still think of myself as shy and retiring, which in a lot of cases I am – but I forget that isn't what everyone sees when, for example, I'm happily babbling and gesticulating away in a violent conversation, or boldly and bolshily schmoozing with strangers as part of the day job. But that I am fundamentally an introvert seems so obvious to me, a fact known practically from the egg, that - remarkably - I seem to have almost forgotten it, or its significance, of late.

"Say baby, what’s your Myers-Briggs type?"

First a couple of important things about introverts and extroverts – the terms have kind of entered everyday language to mean “quiet” and “loud”, but that’s not quite on-the-money. While shy, socially-awkward people will of course be introverts, that doesn’t mean all introverts are shy or socially awkward – any more than all extroverts will be loud and un-thoughtful. Invented by Carl Jung, the terms would more accurately be defined as “internally focussed” and “externally focussed”, and are key in a lot of more modern theorising about personality (not least the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator which, nauseatingly, appears to have replaced “what’s your star-sign” as the dating-compatibility question of choice for the "rational" set).

An introvert is most comfortable when immersed in their own “inner world” of thoughts and feelings – and likely to be uncomfortable and unhappy if they’re not regularly allowed to spend some quiet time “there”. Meanwhile an extrovert is most comfortable focussing on external things – objects and events in the “outside world” – and likely to be unhappy if they’re not regularly allowed to go out, find stimulus and do stuff “out there”. Clearly very few people are all one or the other, and we all experience both modes depending on our situation, the company we're in, activities required of us, etc – but the idea is that most people tend more in one direction than the other.

Underwhelming revelations

Now, I’m wary of labelling and pathologising myself as anything - this “Oh I'm an Aquarius which means I'm just like this and everyone just has to accept it” kind of business is both self-fulfilling and limiting - but in this case I am so very clearly an introvert there is nothing remotely controversial about "diagnosing" me thus.

That is not the revelation. The revelation, in two parts, is this:

A) That somewhere along the line in the past couple of years  - without realising it – I seem to have "internalised" the idea that being introverted is probably a bad thing and I should fight it because when I indulge my introverted tendencies it kinda makes me a loser.

B) That F*** THAT SHIT, in the most robust possible terms. The above unconscious attitude has been contributing absolutely nothing to my life except a vague sense of sense of guilt, vague self-esteem issues (as if I needed any more) and a party-pooping pall over stuff I enjoyed.

Actually, this is less about "accepting myself" in a warm, airy-fairy way, and more about rather selfishly saying: "Screw it - I'm not apologising any more, I'll do what I damn well like". I had allowed myself to become convinced that solitary, internally-focussed activities were kind of worthless, directing one away from the practical and worldly stuff one should be doing. But recently I've indulged myself in a couple of projects unashamedly on my own - and the knock-on effects have made me realise I have been missing something of late.

Purpose is key – this is not about mooching around idly on your lonesome, but using the fabled “me-time” in a focussed and productive way to do things you really want to do. To my surprise I’ve found a sense of re-engaged purpose and achievement that lasts well beyond the activity itself and casts a life-enhancing, optimistic halo into other areas of life – a benefit that was obviously there before, but I must have previously simply taken for granted, and then forgotten.

As alluded to in previous posts, one becomes more "worldly" as one gets older - the practical concerns of society become more and more salient as you get more “adult”. Of course extroverts are much more naturally focussed on both practical concerns and society – it’s their home turf. So society values extroverts more immediately and obviously – despite the fact that society benefits just as much from what introverts produce with their thought and creativity, away from its glaring eye (which, I gather, is what this book is all about, though I rather shoddily don’t seem to have read it yet).

Prejudice against my people

The upshot is, in everyday modern living, it’s easy to get caught up in thinking “I must be more like those extroverts” at all times. Which is a crying shame.

Having gone through an entire childhood and adolescence being constantly asked “Why are you staying in? Why aren’t you out playing football like a normal kid?” one comes out the other side and breathes a sigh of relief, with a vindicated “See? I turned out a reasonably normal, functioning, well-adjusted individual, after all - and there are plenty more like me who are now very successful and cool and stuff cos of their staying in and being a bit weird as a kid". One finally shrugs off all that crap you had to put up with, just to get your drawing done or your book finished, as the well-meaning but ill-informed bluster of people who just didn’t understand...

...only for it to come back, in another form, as one drifts towards middle age, FFS. I’m 37, and again people are going “Why are you staying in? Why aren’t you out travelling, sky-diving, marathon running and downing cocktails, like a normal adult? Life is for living YOLO.”

It’s the same shit. And it’s basically prejudice against my people, dammit.

Yes, maybe I should have got out more when I was a kid – but it wasn’t me. I was never going to be any good at, or interested in, football. In the same way “getting out” and forcing myself into social situations when I’m not in the mood can leave me feeling more distracted, bored, anguished and disconnected than if I’d stayed at home. Extroverts have no idea how much effort it can be for an introvert just to maintain "normal social face" when they just want switch that side of themselves off and be left alone. There is only so much socialising an introvert can take before they need a battery recharge of quality leave-me-alone time. Forcing them out of that doesn’t wean them off being introverted - it just makes them miserable and uncomfortable.

A healthy, balanced diet

I do understand that there is a danger for any introvert of locking themselves away too much, of being too wrapped up in their own world to get things done and grasp all the opportunities the world has to offer. But I at least have some sort of natural barometer of this – I do feel it when I’ve overdone the solitary stuff. I, too, go stir crazy, feel down when I've not spoken to anyone properly or left the house, and sometimes really need to get out. I love socialising and frankly sparkle with it when I'm in the mood. At work I'm almost always happier for having got out of the office, and feel bereft on days when it's empty all bar me - so I'm not a without extrovert needs, and really not the misanthrope I sometimes pretend to be.

But I do have a vivid, active and varied set of introverted interests, too, thank you very much. And when I indulge them, far from feeling like a sad hide-away, I actually feel  more alive and engaged with the world – because my mind is active and I am experiencing, learning, exploring the world in a different way; and doing that means I feel sated, invigorated and fired up with new discoveries and passions to go back into the more social sphere with. It is a balance - a hearty helping of introversion is just fine as part of a healthy balanced diet, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

There are vast rewards to spending quiet time on things alone, that simply cannot be gotten by any other method – whole vistas of intense, mind-expanding experience. But you don’t get introverts telling extroverts “Why are you going out? You need to stay in more, read a book, whittle some wood or something”... Extroverts are always mouthing off, judging us introverts.

Actually, of course, introverts are always judging extroverts too. But we keep it to ourselves.

This did not go so well

I was going to write something tonight.

Because I felt I couldn’t come back after six months with something so thoroughly downbeat as the last post, and just leave it at that - or you, adorable, sage and dexterous reader, would think “cripes, he’s gone a bit shocking”, or even (bless you to the point of sycophantic weeping) be vaguely concerned.

As an aside, what is slightly misleading about the previous post is it makes out that when I was younger I was having a whale of a time as this dynamic free-spirited creative force – when in fact, while yes, my lifestyle was somewhat (but not unrecognisably) different, and all manner of produce did indeed issue forth from my furtively over-active brain and fingers, all the while I was still constantly bewailing the loss of youth, the awfulness of the encroaching world and the certainty of a grey, empty future. In fact, from roughly about the age of 17, and in fact that is what drove quite a lot of the ‘produce’.

I’ve always had a tendency to long-nights-of the-soul about nothing. I look back and think “Jesus wept, you were 19 or 24 or 31 – if you’d just spent less time brooding about what you thought you’d lost or were about to lose or would never have, you might actually have appreciated what you'd gained, got and might yet attain - and enjoyed yourself more.” And of course, I’ll look back on now, when I’m 45 or 60 or 79 and think exactly the same thing. One does grow and change over the years, but there are core elements of personality that remain, and this recurrent wan, nostalgic pessimism, unfortunately, appears to be one of the less palatable ones.

So I was going to write something tonight as I thought I’d better follow that last post up with something light or positive or at least interesting and engaging, but now it’s too late to write anything really, except more of this guff, and that has only gone and given me the ennui.

Mmn. *Sigh*.

This has not gone so well.

Beating up the self ~or~ Habitual self-flagellation over trifling piff-puffs

When you’ve spent the afternoon rattling around in your tin and despite the best of intentions not quite managed to set foot beyond the paving slabs of your front yard; when you have failed get a haircut, to make a number of important (but not urgent) calls, or to really sort anything out that would constitute progress towards making changes in your life that really need to made, but instead have just cooked, eaten and washed up, ironed, tidied and busied yourself with any number of brainless domestic chores you could have done at any time; when you realise then that it’s really too late to make a start on anything, or go see anyone, and the night is tick-ticking away but you’re not tired and don’t really need to be up early so you decide it’s a good idea to have a drink, because why wouldn’t you...?

This is when you like to slump down and enjoy a touch of habitual self-flagellation, just to see the night out.

So, it strikes you, y’know, you’re not really sure you actually enjoy life much at all anymore. How did this happen? You always thought your way was right. You’re always shaking your head and tutting at the follies and stupidity of others and the way they go about things. So let’s look at where being smart and “different” and a wise-ass has got you, huh? Let’s look at what you’ve attained.

You’re a massive success in your chosen field, right? Looks at slippers.

Well, ok, but at least you’ve made some money, yes? Shuffles slippers awkwardly.

Ah! But you’ve done important things that have changed lives? Frowns at wall to the left.

You do enjoy what you do though, more than other people, yeah? Shrugs. Sighs.

Mmn. Well, you’ve made a home for your loving family and that’s what counts, huh? Blank stare.

Nevermind. You’re a bohemian-ish sort, eh? You've always got the simple pleasures of your books and your art, hmm? Faint but perceptible grimace*

*For a good four or five years now it has been clear things on this count are to some extent in decline. It’s a natural and normal thing of course, as one approaches middle age and responsibilities increase – work, families, and just the million little chores of doing the adult life – we all have less time, energy and even money to devote to those purely selfish, immersive pursuits. The days of wiping out whole weekends in pursuit of the learning or the creative urge – which is kinda necessary to properly getting into the zone and completing something impressive – seem long gone. Nowadays getting more than a couple of hours at a time to block out the world and crack on, before you need to attend to something worldly, is pretty rare - and when (like today) you finally get some time, you’re so tired and distracted and out of the habit, you struggle to start anything. You used to be the most prolific producer of creative stuff that you knew, chucking out an unstoppable torrent, and hoovered up eclectic knowledge like a sponge. With a hoover. Your interests and inspirations were varied, your approach oblique, your thoughts never obvious, your path never pedestrian. Life was all about playing, experimenting, learning, analysing, assimilating, re-combining, crafting and throwing something back into the world as a result. Perhaps it was all youthful pretention, and perhaps you were (ironically for someone so averse to cliché) a cliché – but you at least felt like somebody interesting and idiosyncratic, intelligent and insightful, doing things in your own interesting and idiosyncratic way, with something intelligent and insightful to say. Now you just feel like a man. Another adult person. You go to work, you come home, you eat, you sleep, you do your washing, you pay your bills, and you occasionally enjoy the same social activities and entertainment as everyone else in your demographic. Another man, dealing with the demands of every day modern life, struggling basically not to be shit – a shit employee, a shit friend, a shit family member, a shit adult – with what you often suspect is a very modest success rate. You don’t seem to have the time, money or energy to do much else. You still dabble in creative pursuits, and read the odd thing, and still enjoy it, but the last few years you have begun to wonder recurrently – are you over the hill, a spent force? To pretend “your art” is these days any more than a thoroughly unremarkable bourgeois hobby, or that more than a handful of faithful old friends should give a shit about checking out what you produce, is stretching it. To pretend you're still in some way academic, the same. In conclusion: When we were younger, it used to feel like it was us against the world. The world won.

Um... hmm... gosh, now. But, but, but, y’know – ah! But you’re HAPPY, yes? Looks appalled and starts to cry.

And that’s only the start of it, a springboard into endlessly circling worries over money, work, relationships, people, the troubles facing friends and family, health, the future, the state of society, the state of humanity... and soon everything fills you with bleak revulsion and despondency.

You know what you’re doing. It’s what the cognitive school would call a triad of negative biases –

-          Thoughts about the self: anything good about you or what you’ve done is nothing special; anything bad is a sign of your plentiful smorgasbord of major, contemptible flaws.

-          Thoughts about the world: anything good about it is either a mirage or a rare exception; anything bad is just the norm, the way the world works.

-          Thoughts about the future: anything good that happens is a one off and it won’t last; anything bad that happens is the way it will always go. D:Ream were wrong.

It’s a rut, a stuck record. Driven by the misplaced urge to be realistic, to be honest, to be under no illusions, you forget this shit-tainted self-absorption isn’t entirely realistic, honest nor under no illusions - since it’s biased, selective thinking, making sweeping generalisations that just aren't warranted.

Your friend reacted with disbelief to that whole Robin Williams thing (which, whatever your view of the outpouring that followed, certainly got debate going about depression, which is really not to be sniffed at) but your response was not shock, just a sad “Oh no”.

A lot of people were aghast that someone so successful, wealthy and loved could possibly feel worthless, trapped or depressed. But you pointed out to your friend that you both had just spent the conversation wailing and gnashing your teeth about your lots and staring bleakly into the existential void. Such vague malaise may be a trifling piff-puff compared to the crippling, empty, black-hole despair of real depression, but what your friend was saying about Williams having it all – and therefore not justified in being depressed – could equally apply to the two of you, from the perspective of a poverty-stricken, bedridden old man living alone in a shack in Sierra Leone.

The poor old thing would say: “How can you two be miserable? Go cook yourself a nice steak in your nice kitchen, play one of your five guitars, go for a drink with your mates and get out there and do one of the million things you are young, healthy, wealthy and free enough to be able to do.” The point was supposed to be that it doesn’t matter how much you appear to have from the outside, no one knows your inner world, your demons and what it’s like to be you – and no one is immune to depressive, obsessive thoughts.

But the analogy backfired a little because, on the other hand, you’ve got to admit the poor old thing would still be very right.

Goodnight.

F*** Tinder

I am not going to come out of this blog post looking good: I will come off like a tragic loser and an unattractively bitter one at that. So I’m not sure why I’m even writing it, or if I really want you, dear, precious reader, to know about the failed, desperate, furtive goings on that happen behind the curtains of my suave and professional public persona (guffaw). But gosh, dang it, the tradition of painful oversharing for laughs is well established here, and such is one’s chagrin, that what the hellfire – on we go.

Fuck Tinder. Yes, fuck it. It has destroyed my fragile ego.

For those of you who don’t know what it is, it’s a mobile phone app that has been neatly described as speed-dating on your phone, a game of two-way hot-or-not, or a kind of dating game of "snap". You swipe through hundreds of pictures of men or women pressing “yep” or “nah” and if – and only if – you both hit “yep” to each other, it lets you know and you can start chatting. You can select a handful of pictures of yourself from facebook, write a few “about me” lines, set gender, age range and distance preference, and that’s about it. My first impression was one of revolted horror at the shallowness of it all but, of course, one uneventful night in the clutches of a howling gale of unquenchable ennui I thought “Go on - have a look. It’s a bit of fun.” And, yes, it is thoroughly addictive.

This season's themes

Unsurprisingly, it has a reputation as the app of choice for casual hook-ups, so I was kind of intrigued, if dubious, about what levels of seedy decadence I might be about to discover – but there has so far been disappointingly little in the way of shocking or sexy pics or advances, nothing much more racey than endless selfies of glammed-up duck-face pulling types in figure-hugging dresses, proudly displaying their shiny legs and cleavage in the traditional nightclub setting. No – rather this season’s key themes for female Tinderers seem to be sitting at a pub table gurning with a fake moustache, sitting in a festival field with pretty facepaint sprinkled around one eye, Halloween costumes, sky and scuba diving, skiing/snowboarding and horse riding (if posh). Business as usual, then.

A ludicrous amount of pictures contain three or more people which adds the extra cryptic challenge of “who the shit am I supposed to be looking at, ffs?” to the mix, swiping through until you spot which face all five pictures have in common. It’s like a fun family Wii game. Almost as many profiles contain what appears to be a boyfriend in at least one shot, probably a misguided attempt to say “Look, I was desired once – I’m a catch. With baggage you have to live up to. Aren’t you jealous already?” - No. And an alarming amount have simply put up four of five pics of their wedding day, without the common decency to at least crop the guy out. I did think this must be just sheer idiocy, vanity, or a shorthand for “Look, I’m recently separated/divorced – deal with it” - but I rather suspect it’s actually a shorthand for “Look, I’m an adulterer/swinger – you up for it?” - No.

Only about a half put anything in the "about me" bit, but I’ve started all but ignoring it because most tell you virtually nothing and I could largely have guessed the content anyway – Ah, yes, let me see... I expect you think that "life is for living", I expect you just want someone honest and caring, and I expect you love adventure, going out, live music and good food (I, of course, hate all these things). Occasionally the bio will reveal the person is massively annoying or a hideous idiot, but mostly they're thoroughly unremarkable. I suppose I am more likely to like if I find a profile with an "about me" that makes me chuckle or think "That's hellish cool", but these are so rare as to be practically mythological - and I wouldn't expect or demand such a bio from something as superficial as Tinder anyway.

Scything through vast swathes of faces

So, I’m starting to sound ever so choosy and sneery and up-myself, I know. No wonder I’m not having much joy. But, ah! Dearest, beloved, magnificent reader, no, no, no. I have been open of mind, broad of taste and liberal in my Tinder approach – after all, the casual, non-committal nature of it encourages one to experiment. I have not fallen into either the Scylla or Charybdis of only going for instant heart-flutter perfection on the one hand, or only what I think are sensible and appropriate choices on the other. Once you get your steam up on this thing you end up scything through vast swathes of faces and I have spread my yea-saying finger far and wide – from comfortably imaginable matches to “How the hell would that work?”; from reassuringly natural no-nonsense types to the intimidatingly glamorous; from probably too young to probably too old; from the “Hell yes!” to the “Hmm, dunno, maybe, at a push”; and have included an eminently reasonable variety of shapes, sizes and styles that are broadly in the ballpark of my tastes.

I must have liked in the region of sixty or seventy women now. And how many of those do you think have liked me back? Hmmm? How many, dear, majestic reader?

Four

Four.

You heard me. Four. Count ‘em.

One of those was very promising – we got chatting effortlessly over a couple of nights, all fun and no pressure and hit it off well. I asked her out and she seemed excited and nervous and over the next couple of days we started pinning down the details of where and when and what we would like to do and then – silence. I left it a bit, gave a brief prompt and – more silence. And the next day she disappeared.

Another match seemed to be reading off a sexy script and almost immediately asked me to put my credit card details into a webcam site where I could see her "cam". I can't put my finger on it, but for some reason I got the impression she was only after me for my money.

Another one was someone I said “yes” to by accident (it’s very easy to do).

And the other one was a friend taking the piss.

All of these appeared in the first couple of days of using the app. Since then – not a single match, despite ever increasing numbers of thumbs-ups from me. I tell you, the fun addiction soon starts to feel a touch desperate, then like pissing into the wind, and then downright alarming. I mean can it really be? Can it really be that out of sixty-odd mostly appropriate-looking women that I think are reasonably attractive, not one of them thinks “Yeah, maybe, he looks alright”? I mean to say, I carefully selected pictures that make me look more handsome than I actually am in real life, and everything. It’s just an insult. Are things really that stacked against me? Can the outlook really be that bleak?

Hot-sex gigolo lifestyle

This is the point at which I’m sure you – YOU – wretched, blasted, insufferable reader, are tempted to pipe up from the complacency of your stable relationship or hot-sex gigolo lifestyle and tell me I’m doing something wrong, and here’s your advice... well, respectfully, *bullshit* and get-to-buggery with that bollox. There is nothing to do on Tinder, before the chatting starts, aside from select some decent pictures and not sound like a weirdo in the tiny bio, if you do one at all. I’m savvy enough to know what is a flattering picture and what isn’t, I'm self-aware enough not to put up anything that makes me look (too) weird, tragic or shoddy and I have even taken friends’ feedback on my choices.

And besides, people’s tastes, temperaments and sympathies vary radically – surely even the most half-hearted collection of so-so pictures would chime vaguely with someone out of seventy people. Not everyone is going to unanimously swipe "no", thinking “I don’t like his receding hairline” or “That pic is a bit pretentious” or “Ooh, I don’t know about that shirt”. I’m a normal-looking man. I have nice eyes, ffs. Maybe I need a skydiving shot?

Excuses

So what is going on? Other people I know who’ve used it regularly seem to have multiple matches on the go at any one time. Maybe an awful lot of people install it, take a couple of brief looks and then never touch it again. Maybe the further away ones aren’t casting their net as wide, so will never see me. Maybe I just haven’t given it enough time – there are an awful lot of people on there to trawl through. But these excuses only go so far.

I had the (possibly horrifically sexist) notion that because men tend to be more looks-oriented than women – and Tinder is all about looks – the deck may be stacked in favour of pretty females who can pick and choose – in that any half-presentable woman who dresses well and takes a good picture will be inundated with likes from all corners, in a way that a half-presentable man might not – and therefore have a high likelihood of scoring a match in the first lucky handful of blokes they say “ok” to, and never make it far enough into the morass of men to get round to the likes of me. But I don’t really believe that – as long as the amount of looking and liking is fairly even between the sexes, it wouldn’t make any difference what gender you are. And the point of Tinder is that it’s the looking that’s entertaining and addictive - you don’t just stop the second the first person pops up to chat.

The final possibility is that my phone installation developed some bug, meaning for some reason women weren't seeing me or matches not coming through – of course! It is funny that all four (four!) matches appeared within a couple of days and then nothing, isn’t it? Yes, it is. Very suspicious. Ok, I’m going to believe that, lest my ego go foetal in the corner in a ball of weeping mess.

Huh. No. I dunno. All I know is Tinder has been a disappointment. Fuck Tinder. I’ll give it one more week.

Over-used words #4: Efficiency

What it’s ‘sposed to mean: something that is running as lean and mean as it can be, working at optimum, doing its job as simply and directly as possible, with zero faff and zero wastage.

How it’s used: Nothing more than "making savings" rather than actually "making something work better". Excuse me. Before I go on, I should say this one is a little more serious than mild annoyance or pedantry, and as such I am about to lose my sense of humour and get polemical, even political (although, if you notice, all of these "over-used words" posts thus far have been about the [ab]use of language for power purposes).

Serious

I am really talking about how the term "efficiency" is often misused in the workplace, or by government (central or local) - all too often as a by-word for cuts, whether funding or staff. Doing more with less. Getting added value out of the bare minimum. Working smart. Rationalising. And all that good businessman’s horse-sense stuff.

Here’s the thing: Efficiency does not just mean saving money or scaling something down. There is something absolutely key here – to be efficient, something STILL HAS TO WORK. If your service or product is worse after “efficiency” savings, then the word “efficiency” is a misnomer.

An overloaded system is not an efficient one. If you have more coming down that conveyor belt than you can deal with then stuff will back up and fall off, or pass by without being properly processed, or processed at all – and that is wastage, and wastage is not efficient.

Worse, if you’re asked to be in two or three places, doing two or three different things, at once (which you wouldn’t think you'd have to point out was impossible, but people do surprise you) then the system is simply just not working.

And if your new system is a constant stretch and struggle to keep going, it is not efficient either – true efficiency, once up and running, should involve less effort, not more.

Vorsprung Durch Technik

The word “efficient” used to bring to mind (stereotypically) German engineering or the Roman army – something strict, precise, reliable, meticulous, infinitely functional, impeccably trained and relentlessly performing time after time, like the fabled well-oiled machine – it absolutely does not mean over-stretched and under-resourced, running on a combination of corner cutting, a skeleton crew close to burn-out or collapse, and petrol fumes.

Of course, one shouldn’t automatically sneer at the term – it can mean what it’s supposed to: Re-organising something in a way that makes more sense; simplifying needlessly complicated systems; smoothing out blockages; dividing the workload in a more rational, straightforward and targeted way, so every drop of energy reliably achieves something valuable; making sure everyone and everything is placed where most useful, to get the best out of each... Good. If that’s the case.

But that’s not always possible – it still takes a certain investment of time and resources to get there. Yes, austere times can drive a push towards true efficiency, but it’s not a one way-street. Austerity can just as easily screw up things that once worked just fine - by over-stretching them and sending them limping into a slow, sad decline.

Cheery old Nietzsche said “That which does not kill us makes us stronger” a nice observation on the character-building effects of struggle and suffering, not to mention the “thrive or die” efficiency of nature (though not true in every case – a frontal lobotomy doesn't do either) - but then some struggle and suffering does just kill us, even if it takes a bit of time. Cheery old me.

More Business-Speak

When the word “efficiency” is bandied about, I find it useful to think of two other terms and ask if, actually, these are what’s really going on/going to happen. The following are clunky business-speak terms, yes - not the most poetic parlance to slide silkily off the tongue - but I like them, if only as very - yes - efficient fire-power for a business-speak counter-attack:

False Economy: something that may seem like a saving or simplification on paper, but which ends up generating more cost and complexity in the real world – usually because it ignores the fine details or wider/long-term repercussions. The unforeseen cost is usually a result of sorting out the mess made by the original “saving” – like pushing down a lump in one place only for it to pop up elsewhere.

Opportunity Cost: a term known by every A Level business student, yet constantly overlooked in practice. Where your focus on one aspect of your workforce's activity is actually costing them the opportunity to be doing other things - often things that are taken for granted, and hence overlooked - that are actually important to the health and success of the organisation/business. For example an extreme focus on productivity at the expense of the opportunity to think and reflect - ie. show intelligence, solve problems and come up with new and better ideas; or heaping more and more duties on fewer and fewer staff, which may seem value for money, but costs them the opportunity to spend time, effort, care and attention on what they were doing before – which in turn can cost the organisation dearly in terms of the quality of work and good communication, not to mention morale.

Body Pump

The over-use of “efficiency” is a hangover from better, more voluptuous times. It may have been valid when the first cuts were being made and workplaces were bloated with unproductive, unnecessary and unwieldy practices and appendages. Maybe. But for many services and businesses today, at shop floor level, the enemy is no longer waste and sloth, it is paucity and exhaustion. Insisting on greater “efficiency” in an already critically over-stretched system, after the nth round of belt-tightening and redundancies, is like telling an emaciated, starving family they need to stop snacking so much and get down Body Pump. It beggars belief, makes the tears stand out in the eyes - and is not helpful to anyone. At all.

We are not fighting the flab here anymore, we are fighting malnourishment – and unless “efficiency” refers to reducing the workload and not the workforce, it’s just an insult - and a lie.

Ok, that’s more than enough seriousness for one night. Look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29MJySO7PGg

Taste Bigotry

This was supposed to be about the polarisation of people’s aesthetic tastes – with graphs like the one on the left. That graph’s axes are not exhaustive by a long shot – there could also be simple vs complex (NOT the same as visceral vs cerebral), playful vs sombre and so on. I may yet sling up such graphs, filled out with examples, but I’m sure you get the gist. For now this: What turned into a damn essay on taste bigotry, and the tension between the trads and the moderns...
   

Iconoclasts

Earlier this year I had one of those phases where I developed a sudden interest in something and, as is my wont, immersed myself in it for a few months: Modernist architecture.

Leafing through beginners guides to all the various movements, manifestos and Stijls, I noticed, unsurprisingly, that there were an awful lot of “shoulds” and “musts” about the way forward for slinging together some rooms n that.

I got it – the new, young, passionate architects were tired of the same old shit, and keen to lay out their vision, embrace technology, fresh thinking, the new demands of modern living – to make their mark and change the world, which they largely did, hence all the books about them.

But I couldn’t help a wry smile at all the “musts” and “shoulds”, the new rules that must be adhered to – because I kept thinking “Why?”

Technology must not be hidden away, but proudly on display said the futurists; architecture should make use of strong vertical and horizontal lines, all black and white and primary colours, said De Stijl enthusiasts; decoration must be binned in favour of simple, functional forms said the minimalists.

Radical, exciting and seminal ideas for sure, and they have been validated by continued use – but why the “MUST”? Why so imperative? Because that’s the way it’s so often stated – as if EVERYTHING DONE BY EVERYBODY FROM NOW ON MUST BE THIS WAY or dismissed as creaky old bollocks.

Fair enough, it’s only the more extreme exponents who talk like this, and it is the passion talking, and passion is a good thing – but it made me smile because it was all so familiar from looking back through the history of spheres I was more familiar with – in particular “popular” music. The beatniks, the hippies, the punks, synth pioneers, trailblazers of various dance and electronica genres... they all had their share of prophets insisting the old ways were crap and wrong and dead and things SHOULD be done differently now, and here are the new rules.

Basically, the same very-human responses can be found in any sphere that has developed and progressed – everything has its fashions, its iconoclasts and trend-setters, from visual art to literature to philosophy to... fashion itself.

So much for iconoclasts. While I admire their fire, I’m often a little cool on their single-mindedness and short memory. Seems a bit... well... closed, and the emphasis on erasing history a bit... well... Stalin. And it’s got to be said, the attitude that things MUST be this way (while defending a new idea) smells rather reminiscent of the similarly intolerant and diversity-dismissing attitude of the trad crowd (defending old ideas).

Trads

Classic ideas. Time-honoured ideas. Back to basics ideas. Authentic ideas. None of this new-fangled, faddy nonsense. On the one hand the trads can be a bit fuddy-duddy, like your mate’s dad who is baffled by anything outside his own cultural reference points – where all modern art is dismissed as “not real art, can’t even paint a proper picture”, all modern buildings are “bloody eye-sores” and all modern music is “not real music, it’s just talking/shouting/noise, can’t even sing/play, sounds like a drum kit falling down the stairs,” etc etc.

That kind of thinking is easy to take the piss out of and dismiss as ignorant philistinism – but often overlooked is the equally entrenched ideology of the young trads, rediscovering and re-asserting the “real” and “authentic” from yesteryear - from the current antidote-to-throwaway-culture passion for cosy, traditional skills, crafts and way of doing things (baking, knitting, iron-mongery, Polaroid photography, collecting vinyl records) to the perennial muso’s insistence that recording on analogue equipment is just better, that one must use “real” instruments recorded live and no gimmicky effects, that there is a soul in the simplicity of folk or delta blues or 60s jingle-jangle that is impossible to attain by any other method.

There is a clear merit to this as there are a lot of good things that have been, or are in danger of being, lost - and this fights the good fight against the fickle and forgetful march of so-called “progress”. But there is the point at which it tips over into young fuddy-duddyism, a retro-hipster’s snobby wet dream, recoiling from anything new. It can all get so worthy and backwards-looking that it becomes stifling and restrictive – The trad crowd’s accusation that any musical artist who tries anything experimental is “pretentious” is a case in point, and massively ironic. Sure, arty/experimental types may have high-falutin’ ideas that they don’t quite reach, but they often have an imagination, sense of humour and playfulness that worthy trad types lack completely. One of the meanings of pretentious is “takes itself too seriously, thinks it’s more profound than it is” – which for my money describes the “authentic” trad crowd precisely.

Paradoxically, the lets-get-back-to-basics trads are also often iconoclasts. As much as the futurists, they also want to wipe away the status quo and set up a better, golden future, but by harking back to an imagined golden past. Rather like the Nazis did.

Gaps

One of the problems I have is the unjustified leap-of-logic gaps at play here. One is the generalisation from what you like about a specific thing to sweeping, unjustified claims about whole genres, trends and styles.

Now, everyone has tastes. Everyone finds certain themes, moods, approaches and outlooks resonate more naturally with them. If you pay attention to how what you like is put together you will find recurring elements you can pick out and pin down – but the results are sometimes not quite what you thought. It could be as simple as a preference for certain harmonies and chord changes whatever the genre, certain sounds in a certain frequency range, certain materials or colour palettes or geometric structures and shapes. It could be that for some reason some element of an artwork evokes a mood you enjoy, or dreams and aspirations you have. Or it could be something opens your eyes to new possibilities or chimes neatly with your past experience. But it’s one thing to describe these elements specifically when talking about a specific thing, and another to then say everything of a similar genre, or made by certain group, must be “authentic” and everything not, “crap”. But people do that all the time.

Another leap is the gap between “I’m fed up of this and want to do this instead” and “This must be got rid of and everyone must do this”. There is no justification for that jump – it’s a simple case of “Everyone must think what I do, or they are tw*ts”.

We tend to lump radical idealists together but, for my money, there are two clear trends – one of which I have sympathy with and one of which I’m inherently suspicious of.

On the one hand you have the open-minded, expansive attitude: those who say things don’t need to be like they are, or have been – that we can cut loose, man, from old or current thinking, strive for change, try new things and new ways of being. Some experimentation will work out and change the world, some will peter out as naive and flawed idealism, but the point is to try, to encourage innovation and variety.

On the other hand is the closed-minded and restrictive attitude: once the “new ways” have been established something else creeps in – a dismissive, cooler-than-thou sneer towards anyone who isn’t on-board as the enemy to be stamped out. And anything not associated with the “new ways” becomes untouchable, the baby to be thrown out with the bathwater. This is simple bigotry, really, at best discouraging of free-thinking and diversity, at worst downright dangerous.

Bigotry   

Because while it might not seem to matter when talking about the silly subject of art and entertainment, such closed, prejudiced thought processes are precisely the kind of thing going on in the mind of any bigot, just translated into the sphere of politics, culture and society.

The philosophers Depeche Mode (in their sweet-but-cringingly-naive industro-pop hit People Are People) said: “I can’t understand what makes a man hate another man, help me understand.” Well, Martin (Gore, who, I think you’ll find, sings that bit, not lead singer Dave Gahan), this may help. If someone is refusing to acknowledge anything good beyond the tiny cluster of things that make up their single-minded obsessions – and worse, Martin, calling for all else to be stamped out and their vision thrust on everyone – then there lie the seeds of alarming, hate-breeding intolerance, even if all they are doing is messing about with paint. Thank God they’re a penniless artist and not in government, is all I’ve got to say, Martin.

Ok, it may not matter in art and entertainment – but that kind of thinking is still a bad habit and (if I’m allowed to use a “should” of my own) I think it should be challenged when it crops up.

It may seem trifling but sweeping generalisations like “all pop music is throwaway trash”, “all guitar music is boring” or “all electronic music is soulless” are groundless prejudice – that because something has often been that way, that it must always be so. If someone manages to wrestle high emotion out of “clinical” digital software, or creates something genuinely fresh and new out of the old and traditional methods, you are probably in the presence of genius – or at least something remarkable and exciting – because someone has done something that has eluded others. But the closed minded will completely miss such possibilities.

That said, certain ways of doing things have certain features, and lend themselves better to some experiences than others. The mistake is often to judge one type of thing with the criteria of another, and miss the joy to be found by judging it on its own merits. You don’t go to abstract art to see a pretty landscape. You don’t read Kafka for the laughs. You don’t go to a Bauhaus building for cosy rustic charm. That doesn’t mean there is nothing to be enjoyed or enraptured by there.

You don’t go to genre-shattering experimental electronica for emotional, intimate lyrics, nor acoustic ballardry for cutting-edge, rule-book-trashing new sounds. There is joy in both and room in the world for all. And there is room in yourself – to explore a kaleidoscopic variety of moods, tastes, and types of thing. Tying yourself to restrictive “shoulds” and “musts” will only cut you off from whole continents of experience – of what is, what was and what might be. Cut loose, man.

Do Nothing.