Sage

Before long, my eldest daughter will start school and my youngest daughter will start nursery. It feels like a landmark. They're not babies anymore. I'm not suggesting that we've finished parenting, but I think I've probably dragged this blog out for as long as I can get away with now. So I'm going to stop it. But before I do, I'm going to indulge my enduring dream of spouting pretentious wisdom, under the guise of imparting profound advice to be enjoyed in the future by my daughters.

Oh, how useful what follows will inevitably be to them. And how impressed by me you'll all be in the meantime. You'll nod slowly and go, "Hmmm," reassured and somehow invigorated by how bloody sage I am.

Ahem. Anyway:

Nothing is simple

There is a natural inclination in all people to see things in black and white; to see them as being straightforward: easily defined and in obedience of simple rules. 'Easily' is the key word here: water naturally flows along the path of least resistance, and humans naturally want their lives - including the ways they think about things - to be easy. So we reduce the infinite complexities of things down to a set of rules we can stick to, in the hope that the world we live in will oblige us by sticking to the same rules.

This is all my own amateurish conjecture, by the way. I've got no proof of any of this. I'm basing it on a simplistic reduction of things down to a set of rules. So it's either a brazenly hypocritical paradox or ironic genius.

The trouble arises when the world around us doesn't oblige, because it's not as straightforward as we want it to be. This creates insecurity, tension and conflict. Some people are so invested in their blinkered views that they get really angry when the subjects of their assumptions contradict them. This is why people whose assumption that their race is superior to another is brought into question overcompensate by treating the other race with violent or oppressive disdain. It's why companies with a lot of money invested in exhausting fossil fuels or producing carbon emissions spend a lot of money denying the existence of climate change, and on irresponsibly convincing others of this denial. And it's why people who have taken for granted their right to a comfortable existence are happy to watch their government scapegoat the most vulnerable members of their society when their economic wellbeing is under threat.

There is little you can do to prevent these tendencies in others. But you can do your bit by always thinking critically; always questioning your assumptions and being prepared to adapt them. This is easier if you avoid investing too much in your assumptions, financially, emotionally or otherwise. Stay on your toes. You may even find that others will be inspired to follow your lead. but most of them probably won't. Life's not that simple.


Nobody really knows what they're doing

Sometimes I get a bit down. Like a lot of people, I let things like self-doubt, paranoia and pride cause me to question my self worth, in relation to my perception of the worth of people around me. So, basically, I see other people as being really good at stuff and it makes me feel like I'm really bad at stuff in comparison. On particularly bad days, this perception is magnified to the point where I feel isolated in a psychological mire of incompetence. I'm the only one in my mire; all the other people are safely stationed on solid, self-assured terrain, getting on happily with their easy lives. And it makes me feel quite unimpressed with myself. It makes me sad.

But here's the thing: on good days I can tell that most other people have bad days too. Pretty much everyone gets a go in the mire. But there's an unspoken convention that you have to guard this fact from discovery; you must - according to this convention - always appear self-assured; you must never let anyone know you're anything but confident; you must let them feel isolated in their own, pathetic mire.

And it strikes me that this is silly. Because we're all left feeling isolated by an insecurity we all feel.

I hope you never have a bad day. But, realistically, you probably will. And when you do, be honest about it. It might help someone else who's having a bad day to feel better. And remember that, no matter how it might seem, you're not the only one. It might help you to feel better.

Nothing is really that important

You are one of over 7 billion people on the planet; one of eight or nine planets in the solar system (depending on how you feel about Pluto), the star at the centre of which is one of an estimated 400 billion in our galaxy, the Milky Way. The Milky Way, in turn, is one of around 170 billion galaxies in the observable universe. And don't forget that there might be an infinite number of universes.

So, in the grand scheme of things. that spot on the end of your nose doesn't matter as much as it might seem to. Try not to worry unduly about the petty squabble you had with your friend yesterday, or the latest Arsenal score*.

If all of this sounds a bit depressing, then you have misunderstood me. Or rather, I have failed to explain my point properly. When I feel stressed or anxious about something, I find nothing more comforting than the sense of perspective I gain from the thought process outlined above. Nothing quite takes the pressure off like an awareness of how utterly insignificant you are.

Just do what you want, really

So far, we have established that there are no rules, that even if there were nobody really knows what they are, and that even if they did it wouldn't really matter anyway. The logical conclusion of all this is that you should feel liberated to trust your own judgement in acting pretty much as you please. The caveat is that your judgement has to be good, and tempered by the knowledge that you may at any moment be forced to change the assumptions upon which your judgement is based. So tread carefully with this, and be realistic about consequences. But consequence is not the same thing as prohibition.

So if, for example, your boss at work asks you to do something you don't want to, then you simply do not have to do it. But keep in mind that you might lose your job. That might be okay, but if, say, you have children dependent on your income, this increases your moral incentive to keep your job. But it is still your decision. Basically we're talking about free will, here. It's up to you whether your reluctance to perform your boss' task outweighs the necessity to feed your children, although personally I'd go for the more conventional response to that dilemma.

Which brings me onto the second caveat: don't cause harm to other people in the course of doing what you want. Apart from being a basic tenet of being a decent person, this principle has more pragmatic applications too, which relate to my final suggestion...

Be nice

Bit of controversy here: I don't believe that altruism is necessary to a peaceful society. For the same reason that a state which distributed assets and services fairly would have no need for philanthropy, people shouldn't need to make any leap of faith - spiritual or otherwise - to be convinced of the need to treat other people well.

Rather, my slightly cynical interpretation of human nature leads me to the conclusion that people are more likely to do something for you if you do something for them. I describe this as cynicism but, actually, I don't think it's anything to be ashamed of. It's really just bartering, and I can't help feeling that if everybody saw the world this way then greed and selfishness would quickly become a lot less profitable.

If you do feel compelled to help others out of the goodness of your heart, then well done. Carry on. But in the more likely event that - as a human - you don't, help others because it serves your ego to be thought of as someone who helps others, or because it comforts you to know that you've increased the likelihood of them helping you in the future. The person you help will still have been helped, whatever your motive.

For example: if I'm brutally honest, I've shared all this profound advice with you mainly in the hope that others will nod slowly and go, "Hmmm," reassured and somehow invigorated by how bloody sage I am. But that doesn't mean it's not profound advice.

Thanks for listening.

*Actually, the latest Arsenal score is one of the most important things in the universe. But this is the exception that proves the rule.

Schools of thought

I was going to pack all this blog nonsense in. I was worried that I'd dried up a bit, so I was going to nip myself in the bud. I had just been putting off my final masterpiece post (masterpost?), not because I couldn't face the end, if I'm honest, but because I wasn't sufficiently confident that it would be masterful.

But hallelujahs and jubilations: I can defer this dilemma for a bit longer, because there has been a development! Like many parents of four year-olds across the land last week, we were informed by the council which school was to be graced by the presence of our child (the other parents were informed about their own children, you understand; not ours). This revelation - as well as its obvious implications for my eldest daughter - has taught me more about myself than I could have imagined.

A few months ago we conducted a logistically quite challenging tour of local primary schools in a diligent attempt to find the perfect place of learning for our firstborn. While we value intelligence, our main concern was always for the environment in which it is nurtured. Would our daughter be comfortable and happy there? Eventually, and not without some fierce debate, we settled upon our three preferences. Our third choice was a charming little village school, with classrooms inventively fashioned from old Victorian offices and a playing field down an inappropriately steep slope. It had its romantic merits, but was a bit rough around the edges.

Our second preference was another small, village affair. Small classes and clearly passionate teachers, shepherded by a refreshingly personable headteacher whose love of the outdoors served only to complement an impressively open-plan, modern building whose quality of light would leave even George Clarke at a loss for which walls to knock through. But it was very religious. I am very much not very religious. Neither is my wife.

Our number one educational establishment was a larger school, most similar of the three to the one I went to, many moons hence. Its academic record was very impressive but, more importantly, it seemed to foster a culture centred around children's all-round development. Despite the potentially overwhelming size of its population, this was a school which really cared about each pupil fulfilling their potential, in whatever direction that took. I felt at home there, and was confident that my daughter would. The parking provision was bloody awful though.

Although we live just outside the standard catchment area of our first choice school, it is still comfortably the closest of the three to our house. So I relaxed my way through the lengthy wait to discover our daughter's educational fate, confident that we would get our way.

The wait ended a few days ago, and it seems my confidence was somewhat misplaced. Our daughter has been offered a place at the religious school. It was only at the moment of discovery that I realised how much my complacency had screened my fear of this outcome. I was struck by profound disappointment. Why couldn't she go to the closest school? We almost certainly did more research than parents who had got their way, I arbitrarily decided; we should be rewarded for our efforts. Could I live with sending my child each day to a place which works on an assumption I believe to be wrong?

After 24 hours or so of this outraged pomposity, a wave of acceptance washed unexpectedly over me. My parents are religious and I love them; I even have regular and rational conversations with them, on a variety of subjects. I have friends and colleagues whose beliefs span a wide range of deities, all without jeopardising my respect or affection for them. I was brought up in a religious household, attended Sunday school once a week and dutifully sang hymns in school assembly every day, yet I have successfully made up my own mind about all this business.

And that's the crux of it: my issue with religion is that it perpetuates itself through the assumed inheritance by children of their parents' beliefs. Well, I'm proof that this is by no means always the case. Besides which, I'd be a hypocrite to enforce atheism upon my own offspring. This is why I want them to draw their own conclusions as I have mine. And I can hardly claim to be encouraging this if I start censoring their influences. So I'm focussing on the lovely, open-plan building with its big windows and the open-minded headteacher and the obvious, friendly enthusiasm of the staff.

And I'm kind of looking forward to it.

Who's the Daddy?

It's been exactly 1,410 days since I became a father. This completely arbitrary milestone has given me cause to reflect upon the effect parenthood has had on me. I can think of no other occurrence in someone's life that has such an impact on the way they live it - either for practical or philosophical reasons - and I'm certainly no different.

The practical alterations to my lifestyle (e.g. forgetting what the inside of a pub looks like) tend to be borne of necessity, and may last only as long as the circumstances that require them. But there are other differences in me which, I think, are entrenched. I'm a new man. Here are some examples:

Crying

The list of films I can't watch without my eyes leaking is an awful lot longer than it used to be. It was basically just It's a Wonderful Life before. Now it would be easier to document things that don't make me cry. Recent examples of things that do include Shrek, Pacific Rim (seriously), and that thing on the internet about the schoolboy who overcomes his stutter. When they clear Iranian airspace at the end of Argo: that set me off good and proper. That is a very tense film, to be fair. I hope I haven't spoilt it for anyone.

Also: absolutely anything depicting a child in jeopardy.

Exclamation marks

I used to be a strict advocate of the theory that an exclamation mark is the written equivalent of laughing at your own joke. I would tut smugly at the merest sight of such garish punctuation, with a vehemence I now reserve only for those who confuse 'lose' with 'loose'. Or 'their' with 'they're'. Or 'its' with 'it's'. There are loads, actually. But the point is, I am now entirely unperturbed by exclamation marks. I even use them myself on occasion, although I often put them in brackets, so I can reserve the right to have been doing so ironically, should the need arise.

I struggle to find a direct link between fatherhood and the softening in my attitude towards this or any other form of punctuation. But I am in no doubt that it, like my increased propensity to weeping, is a symptom of a softer, more sympathetic outlook upon life. It could be that being the father of two girls has encouraged me to engage more readily with my empathetic side. Or it could be the lack of sleep.

Either way, I must still insist that the use of more than one exclamation mark in a single instance is unforgivable. Even if you are a PE teacher(!)

Functional insomnia

Until she was about nine months old, our eldest daughter was really rubbish at sleeping. Then we got tough. A week of us just pretending she wasn't screaming like an angry demon with a stubbed toe in the next room, and she finally accepted that she'd need to learn to settle herself down. Boom. Problem solved.

And not before time. I had started to go a bit mad, fulfilling various cliches to do with being a confused and forgetful zombie. And things were an awful lot worse for my wife, whose share of the nightly burden had been greater. But now we could return to a sensible, coherent life, having bravely helped our daughter to overcome her issues.

Then we had another daughter. After several months of similar nocturnal problems with her, we reluctantly concluded that we would be unable to pursue a similar solution. Allowing her to scream it out would serve primarily to awaken her sister's hard-won, peaceful slumber. So, in desperation to keep our youngest quiet - thus preserving the success we had achieved with our eldest - we began bringing her into the comforting security of our bed. Here, she would settle happily and sleep as well as her sister. Unfortunately, her favoured position in our bed was a perpendicular one which enabled her to kick me and headbutt my wife throughout the night. Still no sleep for the grown-ups. Cliche zombie lifestyles were resumed.

Two years on, this situation has changed in no way whatsoever. Our youngest daughter still spends half of most nights in our bed, where we sacrifice our own rest and comfort so that she can enjoy both. We have only ourselves to blame. And yet, on reflection, we seem to have been surviving; living ostensibly normal lives by day. I have always been a person who values my sleep. If you had told me four years ago that I would play a significant role in raising two children, be vaguely competent at a mentally and physically demanding job, and do other things like shopping, decorating and writing an entertaining blog - all on just a few hours' sleep a night - my incredulity at your preposterousness would have known no bounds.

But here we are. I guess this is simply a good example of people being more adaptable than they think they are. Or more deluded than they think they are about how adaptable they are. I'm too tired to tell which.

Whatever the opposite of vanity is

Much as it pains me to say it, I used to be a bit vain. I should clarify that, in my considered view, there are two distinct forms of vanity: there are people with an unpleasantly high opinion of their own appearance; then there are people whose preoccupation with their appearance stems from the opposite - an obsessively low self-image. I was very much in the latter category. I would spend a lot of time looking in mirrors. Squeezing spots, sucking in my belly, that sort of thing.

Now, I don't really care. It's not that my opinion of my physical appearance has improved particularly (although my new jumper does seem to suit me quite nicely). It just doesn't seem very important. Mirrors occupy my eyes much less frequently. My choice of clothes occupies my thoughts less frequently. I now have a curious, burgeoning pride in my stomach's slightly convex nature.

Of course, this could very well be just a consequence of ageing: I'm in my mid-thirties now, so perhaps I'm learning to accept the limitations to my beauty now that the decline is increasingly inevitable. But I know people my age who go for runs! Even when nothing is chasing them! Draw your own conclusions(!)

I think this change in my priorities has more to do with time. I spend less of it looking in mirrors because I have less of it to spare, what with all the parenting.

Seriously though: you should see me in that jumper.

Courage

I had an argument with a man in a car park the other week. He had deemed putting his car in an actual parking space to be excessively inconvenient. So he had positioned it horizontally, a few yards behind mine. Unfortunately for him, he finished doing so just as I wanted to depart. In my car. A task made quite difficult by this man's selfish actions.

Unfortunately for him, I'm a Dad now. I deal with stuff. I step up. I have grown used to expressing my reservations about the inadvisable actions of others. So I politely explained to this gentleman why I felt that the inconvenience caused to me was not justified by the convenience he had awarded himself. He disagreed. In years gone by, I would never have been sufficiently courageous even to reach this point in negotiations, but the new me pressed home my point with assertive and incontrovertible reasoning.

As I conducted the awkward eleven-point turn necessary to get my car out around his, I reflected proudly that he was probably feeling quite guilty indeed by that point. It had been obvious from the way he walked away from me.

Who's the Daddy?