Mister Hugh's World of Randomness

hi all,

I've just realised what my biggest problem is. At the risk of seeming particularly self-obsessed, i'm going to tell you all about it. As an excuse I offer the possibility that at least some of the people who read this might have encountered the same problem.

"So, what is this problem?", I hear you cry (actually, I have a feeling that some of you might be crying "enough with the sermonising, we want silly stories and photos of people doing stupid things", but i'm going to pretend for today that you're not).

Well, the problem is basically that I never seem to get round to living for today, for the present moment. To paraphrase Yoda, my favourite source of wisdom "always I look away, my mind on the future; never my mind on where I am, what I am doing". He may be small and look like a garden gnome, but the guy knows.

There are many things I dream of, and hope for. This is not in itself a problem, indeed to have hopes is necessary for anyone to keep going, but not to the extent where they take over. But mine do, and the trouble is that many of my dreams are unrealistic, if not unobtainable. I know i'll never achieve most of them; but it's so tempting to live in them, to craft the perfect imaginary life for myself, that i'm sometimes in danger of missing out on what's happening here and now. When I allow myself to see it, i'm already living a dream really; i'm young(ish), free, i know a lot of wonderful people, i've found a job I love (and the fact that it's not paying the bills has not yet cut into my lifestyle), etc. Life should be more or less blissful. But so often the warm glow of these real treasures is outshone by the glitter of imaginary splendours that might lie ahead, and I set my eyes on the future and miss the present moment. Or I lose myself in nostalgia, looking back to the comfort of the unchanging past.

The truth is though that this moment, Now, is all we really have. The future can change in an instant; it is not ours. And likewise the past is only ours through memory, and to live in memories of yesterday is to turn your back on life. But the ever-moving Now, that is ours. And it contains more than we could ever dream of, and is more valuable than our most cherished memories, for it is real.

Yet I dream, for example, of one day making a success of writing, and maybe being comfortably well-off and respected (i'm just wise enough to prefer that to being rich and famous). So I sit here in my room, trying to tell stories of the long-ago and far-away, while the real glories of summer days roll past my window, unappreciated. And the worst thing is that I might some day get to where I wish to be, make it as a writer, and still be unsatisfied. 'Success' in the way that I hope for is a never-ending path; one can always be more successful in this sense. So I might find myself pursuing this moving destination endlessly and never once look around to see and enjoy where i've got to already.

Of course, having spotted this i'm determined not to do follow that path. But it'll be hard to avoid, sometimes. The world we live in today makes things harder; adverts fill us with dreams, with aspirations of riches, power, popularity, a perfect partner, perfect children, a perfect job, a perfect life... and celebrity culture tempts us to worship those who've already got there, though we know in our hearts that we wouldn't want to be like them, that they are just as unfulfilled and unhappy as the rest of us, if not more so.

I'm not saying that we should forget completely about past and future, of course. We should learn from the past, and we should have plans for the future (while leaving room for those plans to adapt to unexpected changes). But there should always be room to see and appreciate what we have right now.

And on that note, if you'll excuse me, I have to go. There's a summer going on right now outside my window, and I think i'd better go and enjoy it before it passes me by.

hi all,

Yesterday I was on the bus on the way to Aikido, and thinking to myself that nothing noteworthy had happened in the last day or so that I could write a post about.

Very shortly after this a bloke got on the bus who, shall we say, commanded one's attention straight away. He was noticable. It wasn't the long, dirty white beard, the communist t-shirt, or the mad look in his eyes (though obviously they left enough of an impression on me for me to remember them). No, it was more to do with the fact that he was maintaining a continuous monologue at a volume somewhere around shouting level. He was talking about capitalism and G8 and big business and so forth (and i'm fairly sure he was against all of them) At first I thought he was talking on a hands-free mobile, and just being a bit loud, but then I realised that he couldn't be having a conversation after all, or if he was the other person wasn't saying much. The fact that he didn't have an earpiece was also a bit of a clue.

Then, of course, he came and sat down next to me. You know that sinking feeling where you see someone you really don't want to spend the rest of your journey next to, and they start to choose a seat, and despite the fact that there's approximately a million other seats they could go to, you just know it's going to be the one next to you? Well, I got that feeling, and I was right to.

Except of course that I shouldn't have worried really. My initial reaction was one of extreme embarrasment, for some reason. I can only assume that, since this guy was clearly simply unable to feel embarrasment, the huge cloud of potential embarrassment created by all the onlookers was repelled from him and settled around me instead. But after a few seconds, I realised that the embarrassment had no right staying with me as none of this was my doing, and so presumably it either moved on to the rest of the passengers or dispersed harmlessly.

Anyway, I then started thinking, as i'm wont to do on such occasions. What was it that was so remarkable about this guy? He was obviously passionate about his subject (as proved by his renditions of "Do they know it's G8 time at all" which he needlessly explained was based on a certain charity song but with adapted lyrics - the new lyrics were best described as 'interesting'). He had something to say, and he was saying it (see my last post!). The only real difference between him and me was that he seemed to lack the internal censor which stops the everyday person expressing all their thoughts to the outside world. Being myself a person who has in the past had too strong a censor, to the extent that I was always quite shy, I found this hard to imagine. That was until I realised that i'm doing exactly the same as he was, except in written form. Blog or book, both are essentially a way to release your thoughts on an unsuspecting public, just as this guy was doing.

I suppose one way to look at it is that, to the guy himself, his monologue was obviously just his version of conversation. When he had something else to say, for example when buying his bus ticket, he would do so in a perfectly normal way, as if breaking off a conversation momentarily. The only differences were that he clearly did not need anyone to respond to him, and that he was not influenced by the reaction of his audience. Most of us, when conversing, naturally and unconsciously monitor the reaction of other people, and modify what we're going to say accordingly. Sometimes this stops us saying what we want or need to say. This guy said exactly what he wished, and didn't notice or care that the people he was talking to were mostly reacting by looking the other way as if to express that the guy was nothing to do with them.

I could go on, but i'm in danger of turning this blog into a monologue (or should that be mono-blog), when I actually do need the response and reaction of people occasionally, to avoid going insane.

Recently I seem to have had quite a few people say to me that they consider themselves "not creative". This is probably something to do with the fact that i'm self-obsessed enough to start talking about myself and my experiences as a writer with nearly everyone I meet. The most common thing people say to me in response is that they could never imagine themselves doing what i've done; often they explain this with the aforementioned opinion that they're just not creative at all.

I think this is a real shame. Personally I really believe that everyone is creative; it's part of what makes humans who they are. No single person i've ever met has been quite like any other, and a large part of this comes from the fact that every single one has different ideas about the world. All that one needs to be creative is to have something to express, and a means to express it. Everyone, because of their unique perspective, has something original to say if they can find the words, or other medium.

I think there are two main things which hold people back:

• A lack of belief in the value of their own creations. As I said at the start, many people seem to automatically assume that they can't be creative and that compared to other, more talented people, their contributions would be worthless. Now i'm of the opinion (like Edison) that so-called talent arises more or less entirely from having enough interest or fascination for a subject that you can dedicate your thoughts to it. Basically, I think anyone can create something worthwhile if they care enough about it and allow themselves to believe that they can do it.

• Getting stuck in a rut. Most jobs these days seem to be pretty stressful and demand increasing amounts of people's time. But more than that, jobs nowadays seem to demand more mental expediture, to require people to think hard, but in certain fairly narrowly-defined ways, for extended periods. People are forced to be too rational, too considered, and not spontaneous. People are not encouraged to develop their ability to express subconcious as well as concious ideas, something which I find both challenging and absolutely central to creative writing, and which is probably equally essential to any other form of creative process. Nor is the overload of bureaucratic detail which comes with most jobs conducive to keeping a wider perspective on life; it's very easy to lose your sense of the wider scheme of things when you're forced to concentrate on minute details all the time.

Now none of what i've just said is at all original (ironically), but I felt like saying it anyway. By the way, those of you who actually read all this stuff might have noticed a strain of seriousness creeping in to this blog in recent weeks. If you would prefer me to keep things lighter and sillier, you could always drop me a comment. Alternatively, if you actually prefer my somewhat pretentious semi-philosophical ramblings, send a comment to that effect. Basically what i'm saying is that the style of this blog is subject to the democratic process, or would be if anyone actually used their votes. In the absence of any guidance, i'll just write whatever comes into my head at the time. Given the nature of some of my thoughts, even i'm quite scared by this prospect.

hi all,

In case anyone is interested in joining me for the mass pillow fight (see post 18th April 2005 "second random life task - mass pillow fight"), i've finally settled on a date for it; 23rd July. It's a Saturday, and hopefully the weather will be good, so i'm hoping that quite a few people will be up for it. The venue will be Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester, and it'll be in the early afternoon probably, leaving just enough time for lunch to settle before we exert ourselves in battle.

Anyone is free to join in. You'll need the following:

• A Pillow, obviously (make sure it's got no zips on it or anything else that might actually injure people - that's not the idea)
• Some way to conceal said pillow before and after the fight (e.g. a rucksuck)
• A sense of humour (if you haven't got one of these you can borrow one for the day)

The fight will last a couple of minutes probably. It's all going to be very friendly, and a lot of fun.

Post a comment or send me an email if you can make it and want to come along. I look forward to your replies. Any suggestions you may have would be appreciated as well.

Theres a quote that says "Civilisation is only twenty-four hours and two meals away from barbarism". There's definitely some sense in that, but I wonder if there's something else modern civilization could survive even less time without; namely electricity.

The other day we had a power cut on our street, and rather ironically it caused the old metaphorical lightbulb to light up above my head. That is to say, it got me thinking.

The fact that it happened in daytime reduced the effects of course, but it still surprised me just how quickly I ran into problems doing all the normal things one does of a day. Admittedly, I was about halfway through shaving using my mains-powered electric razor, and since I tend to shave one side of my face first, before moving on to the other, I was left looking thoroughly ridiculous (even more so than normal).

Within about a minute of clumsily hacking my face to pieces with an old hand razor I had, the inner barbarian was already beginning to show through the thin crust of civilization. There was a lot of blood all over my face, and this combined with the occasional howls of frustration might have convinced a casual passer-by that I was in fact participating in some sort of berserker ritual, which seems pretty barbarian-like to me. Luckily there were no casual passers-by going through my bathroom at the time, but there could have been.

And that was just what happened in the first few minutes. Fortunately I was going out for the evening anyway, but if I hadn't been, I would have been unable to do a lot really. Basically the house just died. All the normal amenities just disappered; lights, heating, hot water (the heating is gas-powered, but without electricity you can't switch it on or off), cooking facilites, alarm, TV, stereos, fridges and freezers, computers etc.

Now imagine if the power-cut had lasted twenty-four hours. I'd not have been able to cook, and would have had to throw a lot of my food away that was in the frige or freezer. For recreation I'd have been reduced to reading and writing by candle-light, had we been able to find any candles. I'd have had to take an ice-cold shower in the dark (not fun!). All in all, technology would have leapt back to more-or-less Victorian times, which isn't quite barbarism, but that's without the consideration of what would happen if the entire country lost its power for the same period.

It's interesting that we call such occurences 'power cuts' rather than just 'electricity cuts'. It's really as if we are literally robbed of our power to operate, in a much more severe way than if for example we lost our gas supply (except that it would shut down all our gas-powered power stations!). In 1937 George Orwell wrote an essay called "Down the Mine" (you can read it here), in which he explains how the civilization of his time was founded on coal. I believe if he'd written it today he'd have written about electricity. He goes on to explain the often horrific conditions coal miners had to live with every day so that the country kept on running, and how he believed that far worse conditions would be imposed on workers if necesary to ensure the supply of coal. So perhaps we should spare a thought, next time we turn on a light or watch TV, for those often unregarded people who keep electricity flowing into our homes every day. Actually you guys had better remember to do it as knowing me i'm likely to forget about it and start taking it for granted again almost straight away.