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via "Les Confessions" on 02/10/05
Frequently, we can trace back the development of our own personality to certain key events. To an extent, this is misleading - the event itself will usually be the culmination of prior deeds, and so while you may have decided to take decision X on such-and-such date, this would have been because numerous things which occurred before this. Nonetheless, it's often tempting to look back at particular incidents as being integral to how things turned out for you.The event can often be very minor. I still remember selecting Geography as one of my GCSE options twenty seconds before handing my course selection form in (it had been History prior to this). My geography teacher was an arse, and eventually moved me down (twice) for various misdemeanours. I failed the course in the end. So what? Well, I think I can trace a lot of my general attitude to education to this incident. I ended up getting suspended for some random stupid reason which in my mind seems somehow linked to this event. Sure, I don't think things would have been very different but it occasionally plays on my mind.
In another incident about five years ago my friends were talking about a game called Planetarion. It was a web-based text game where you sent ships to fight other planets to capture resources (well, indirectly). It reminded me of an older game I had played on BBS's called Barren Realms Elite (I think). I decided to check it out. Five years later, I still post on the Planetarion forums hundreds of times a month. Only last week I met up with some of the regulars from the forums for a drink in Croydon. I was expecting social awkwardness and general shitness, so I got fairly drunk. It was actually very very fun in the end.
The point is, that obviously I could have decided not to bother checking out the on-line game. Or I could have tried to load the page and their server could have had problems. Things would have gone differently. Or perhaps not. Maybe I would have ended up a poor troll somewhere else. But the balance of personalities is different in every community, and I think it's not an exaggeration to presume that my general outlook would have been considerably different had I ended up somewhere else.
Obviously this concept has been explored to death (Red Dwarf, Sliding Doors, Sliders, erm...?) and is of only passing interest. We can't actually do anything to change the past (not that we would want to) so why worry about it?
One of the pivotal moments of the last few years (as I've said numerous times before) was the decision I took to go clubbing one evening of November 2003 (I think). Because of that fairly arbitrary decisions my life now involves things like last night - going clubbing with a good friend of mine who was dressed as a French maid. These sorts of things are kind of the norm now, something unthinkable as recently as 3 years ago.
I've often thought that it would be interesting to meet yourself in an earlier period to actually see how much you've changed, and in what ways. Of course again such a thing is impossible and not worth dwelling on. However, I had a slight insight into what perhaps could be termed the next best thing.
I was in Slimelight last night and in the middle of the cross dressers, the blatant exhibitionists in their tight underwear and unsubtle drug dealers I noticed a girl having an argument with someone over a camera. She seemed immediately familiar, but I couldn't place her.
It's strange, but as I've written before, I am convinced my memory is utterly shit. Certainly visual memory I always presume is pretty poor. There's those people who say things like "I never forget a face" (including a friend of mine, who says he never forgets a face, but loses all associated memories - i.e. names and dates etc - which seems a bit of a waste of time). But I am not one of those people. I sometimes have odd lines of thoughts that I can't remember what my best friends look like. But anyway, after a while, I realised who she was.
I had met her near the beginning of my clubbing experiences. My friends had made a plan to go to Full-Tilt after some drink they were having with their work colleagues. I said I would go along, but would meet them at the club. Now I can't remember what happened exactly but they couldn't make it, and so I was in the club by myself, drinking into the deeper obscurities of drink. I met a girl who, for reasons that currently escape me, I walked home four thousand miles to some obscure and best-forgotten part of North London. I think I gave her my MSN / telephone number but then (because I was a jerk, etc) ignored her until she went away. One of the many lows that makeup my life.
Anyway, I say this was the next best thing because unlike your friends / acquaintances who see you regularly a person who has only seen you once before can give a much more direct comparison with "your former self".
Now, perhaps because I am an optimist in some senses, I tend to dwell on the positives of my development. Today I consider myself a better person than yesterday (not withstanding the fact I have chewed the inside of my mouth to pieces, and feel like I've got a poisoned bloodstream) and yesterday I was a better person than the day before. Things are, and indeed always should be, getting better. Of course, one needs to balance this healthy optimism with the realistic assessment of the ageing process. My peak (allegedly) was some time ago, and unless there is a massive medical breakthrough every year I'll be getting less attractive, less virile (if such a thing were possible) with my vital organs less and less capable of handling what I throw at them.
But you learn to live with this. It's accepted. Getting old is no shame. However, I was curious so during our brief conversation I asked this girl if I had changed since we had last met (two years ago or so). Yes, apparently I had. I was fatter, less attractive and my hair looked more stupid.
Great. I'm an increasingly ugly fatty. :(
So much for getting old. Although, a few moments later I had another conversation with someone else which helped reinforce the notion that all these things are relative (concerning age at least). I seem to start every conversation in clubs these days with "Are you having a good night?" which is generally followed up by "Are you on anything?" (this, to my shame, reveals the one dimensional nature of my clubbing experience). Anyway, the following conversation resulted from one enquiry.
Her : Urgh. I'm too old to take drugs. Too old to dance too.
Me : Erm...how old are you? You don't appear that old.
Her : I'm 36.
Me : Ah. Well, that's not too old - but I feel very old myself.
Her : Why, how old are you?
Me : I'm 25.
Her : Ha! That's not old in the slightest. You foolish boy, that's not too old for anything!
Me : OK, well I fee---
Her (interrupting) : No, no, no. When you get to my age then we can talk....I have four kids you know.
Me : Really?
Her : Yes. My eldest son is 18. He is into Marilyn Manson you know.
Me (glancing at my watch) : Hmmm, really?
Her : I have a daughter too. She's 15. She's really into 'My Chemical Romance'. She dresses kind of how you're dressed. She'd love you!
Me : Well, perhaps we could be introduced? [editors note : This was a joke. Honest.]
(...silence...)
Her : Well perhaps you ARE too old for something's.
Me :
Such is life.
Budgets
I can't be bothered to find them, but I'm pretty sure there are academic studies out there which show that hardship increased in the transition from weekly to monthly pay (for people who stayed in approximately the same level of income). Once upon a time pretty much everyone (outside of professionals) seemed to get paid weekly - certainly no-one from my parents circle of friends used to get paid monthly. Now it's the norm even for the lowly paid in most sectors (ignoring the ever growing army of temps).
Again, I'm not sure of any figures but I suspect most people want to get paid weekly (if they were offered the choice). Someone I am aware of is a courier for Central Government on an old style (weekly-pay) contract and his employers seem to do everything they can to try and get him to swap over (he is the only one left for some reason). He refuses naturally.
Employers have gone for monthly pay presumably for efficiency reasons, but even the welfare benefits system hasn't been unaffected (housing benefit is paid four weekly for example).
I'm reasonably sure people would opt for weekly pay because
a) It makes economic sense. You're not paid (generally) in advance, and thus you're losing out on potential interest in the meantime. Apparently my place of workload would (at any one time) be a £1m better off if Housing Benefit was paid weekly instead of four-weekly.
b) Being paid monthly encourages debt and gives a misleading idea of how much money one actually earns.
c) I'm not actually sure it's "natural" to think a month ahead like that.
(a) & (b) are self explanatory but on (c) perhaps it's worth clarifying what I'm talking about. There's a lot of talk about the evils of a short-attention span, of the ruinous effect of modern culture on people's inability to plan for the future. There's various stories in the media on how Briton's are not sufficiently saving for their future. I know I'm not. Most people I know are still pretty young, but apparently we should be saving for a pension from the age of two years old or something. People who live recklessly are occasionally chastised for being guilty of wanting instant gratification.
But fuck all that. I'm increasingly of the opinion that it is not in our nature to plan in such a fashion. Socially (as communities / social groups) we should of course give great attention to such concerns. But as individuals, I'm not convinced that it makes sense for us to consider such questions.
Some might consider this an odd position to take, given that the "fuck the future" mentality seems very much a modern phenomenon, and not one that is at all "natural" or in-line with our historical experiences. Well, maybe. I'm not claiming to be basing this view on anything other than facts I'm pulling out of my arse here, but consider that prior to agriculture, we probably had a reasonably daily existence. I'm not sure how long meat / fruit (etc) lasted in hunter-gatherer societies, but I'm presuming it wasn't very long (compared to the months or years we can store food these days at least). Sure, once you get to agricultural societies it's a different story, since we're all slaving away at certain periods for future comfort. Or something like that. But prior to that, it seems possible that we led a lot more of a "daily" or immediate existence.
This brings it's own problems of course, in that if the hunt went bad then you might randomly die. But it seems we can try to strive towards to the best of all possible worlds. Consider the familiar pattern of payday => binge spending => brokeness => debt => payday => etc that many salaried employees find themselves. Including, of course, myself.
So my new plan is thus :
1. I will withdraw £155 from my bank account in five pound notes.You see, in an ideal world, I think the amount of money I earn per hour would be beamed into my pocket per hour (minus the hourly proportion of my rent, taxes, etc) giving me a direct immediate incentive to act sensibly. Right now it gets increasingly abstract trying to work out if I'm "ahead" of where I should be. Obviously the hourly pay thing is impractical from a general management point of view, so I'm opting for the daily route.
2. I will take 31 envelopes and put £5 per envelope. I will date each envelope.
3. I will then open one envelope per day and use only those funds to get through the day.
I'll let you know how it goes.
Other minor news :
- I tried Nitrous for the first time yesterday. It was reasonably fun. Faziac's "thirty second mushroom trip" did summarise the experience quite well.
- I have officially failed my MSc. However, they're letting me submit my dissertation next year (which will let me pass the course), so I'm looking at it as a one year extension.
- I keep listening to Chas and Dave and "Irish" music. I think it's a disease. Soon I'll be talking about my roots and shit. :(
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