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5 September 2010
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I don’t remember when I last published a blogge and don’t have the internet at home, so I’m going to assume this is the first since coming back to Kazakhstan. I suppose nobody needs reminding of how fast time goes these days. It’s the downside of progress. We want PCs to go faster, cars, etc, but we overlook that it tends to speed up our reality. I remember the first PC I used/had and can honestly state that something that slow now would have to end up flying out of my fifth floor window. But we have to recognise that as we train ourselves to be so impatient by improving the performance of everything we buy, the off-shoot of it all is that those things we don’t buy become increasingly fleeting, right down to the very core of life itself. I think there’s something to be said for the approach of the few remaining old couples fiercely clinging on to their country cottages without electricity as they refuse to join the modern march to a whistle stop existence. And these folks
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who soon will deservedly receive running water in their homes witness the widening gulf between modern Kazakhstan and their own reality and conclude, erroneously although inevitably, that they lead inferior lives. I disagree.
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Not that I’m known for my patience, like. Just thought I’d philosophise before I hit the superficial.
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I came back to the same flat having agreed to pay a slight increase of rent. It’s not right but as such in my interests as it meant I didn’t have to spend even more trying to find somewhere on my return. The difference in what I am set to pay over the year will amount to about the same as I’d pay for an agent and temporary accommodation, it just wasn’t worth it. So I came back, rearranged my flags, got myself a desk (thanks to Laura) and adorned my bed with a neat drape my mum bought me about ten years ago.
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Almaty is still choked in smog but otherwise perfect. There’s an exhibition of peculiar things down in town this week, although I don’t think that is its stated intention. Yet, peculiar things they are, perhaps containing some kind of artistic charm but to me a hotch-potch of oddness. Aesthetically pleasing they may purport to be, and I am very pleased they are here, but they don’t quite hit the bullseye for me.
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I’ve just rewritten my HMHB page
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in spite of having already said I’d done it, and it reminds me of the misplaced way in which we perceive intelligence. Let me give you an example. I know a guy in England who I see in the sauna. Now this bloke’s no scholar, and he knows that, but to my mind just as brainy as most who are. You can have a damn good conversation with this ex-trucker and when you make a point he’s always got an intelligent response. But I don’t think he’s got much in the way of educational pieces of paper.
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I’m a huge cynic when it comes to formal education. I DO NOT think it has no value, indeed it almost always does, but it has to be meaningful education. I recognise through experience both in and out of the classroom that these educational pieces of paper are very often only pieces of paper. My degree, as I’ve said before is a useless scrap of recycled bog roll I have the misfortune of needing to get teaching work in most reputable schools (arguably then, very important) but I care not one bit about it. Every year in August when the A Level results come out and we get past the trite although correct observations about exams getting easier we are hit with the same interviews with students who’ve passed and are going to some university somewhere to get their own scrap of paper and a massive debt, and then with those who’ve failed and have to look for a job now.
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I usually feel more sorry for the ones going to some third rate uni to leave with more debt than the average South American country and only end up working for those who didn’t make it.
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If you are inclined to the academic, actually need a degree to get to where you want to go (and you know where you want to go), or are lucky enough to get to somewhere like the excellent Oxford or Cambridge we Brits are so proud of, then university is for you, and I say go for it.
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But if not, is it really worth it to just drift through lectures for three years?
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University in Kazakhstan seems to be worth it because it puts students through their paces rather than being a three year holiday, which my course definitely was. As the excellent British writer Nick Hornby put it, graduation from a British university is like Christmas. You hang around for long enough and it’ll happen. And he went to Cambridge. A genius, yes, but proven through his writing, and not his education. Degrees these days have been devalued by the fact that most people and their dogs have got them. Wuff!
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My cousin is at the age where uni is becoming a consideration but he is a talented artist and professional standard drummer, who wants to be an artist and a session drummer (which pays more than most graduates will ever earn). His dad dropped out of uni to get a job and is now the MD of a very successful company. He is not pushing the lad to get a piece of paper and I have made my support very clear.
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Have I made my point? Er... on with the show.
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I’ve had to buy a new dombra because I left my other in England. It was admittedly the plan, but what was also the plan was to go to a master on my return who would make me one for a reasonable price. Shame is, when I went to his workshop, his assistant evidently hadn’t been told what a reasonable price was and thought he could top up his coffers by trebling the price, an ironic mistake in that the money on the table then promptly disappeared. I told him, you asked me for 20,000 because you want 20,000 for this item. You take that or you get nothing! He has blurred boundaries, seems to think 0 is better than 20,000, which I reiterate is what they ask for their products normally.
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What does the word ‘selfish’ mean to you? And have you ever considered that there’s ultimately no such thing as selflessness? Everybody has a square root of one. By this I mean we are all ultimately self-serving. If you take any positive number and press the square root button on a calculator you will get the square root of that number. Press it again, and again and eventually you will get to the number 1.
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Applying this to human behaviour, we notice that every act basically boils down to the same intention, to make the individual feel better. Any given act can be represented by a positive integer. The question, ‘why?’ is therefore represented by the act of pressing square root. Keep asking why, and if the person is being honest, they will ultimately say that it makes them feel better. Why do you drink beer? It makes me feel better. But more indirectly, why do you work overtime? To make more money. Why? To pay the mortgage. Why? To house my family. Etc etc, to the final destination, it makes me feel better. Square root - ONE!
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Obviously the peripheral factors of beneficiary and victim mean that people like Mother Teresa are still seen as highly altruistic and I would NOT liken her behaviour to that of more sinister agents by means of a semi-articulate theory, but at the end of the day, are we not all similarly motivated, massive differences in output notwithstanding?
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I believe the new Billy Ingham adventure is out soon.
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If you are interested in reading it, get in touch and I’ll get you a contact number. In the meantime, I can highly recommend another author detailed at his website
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who paints a thoughtful picture of society with his own intelligent observation.
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Me, well, I’m just trying to fill web space.
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