Greetings, bonjoour, what’s happening. This is the penultimate episode / blog in this series where I’ve been getting stuck into the Meditations book, and writing bits based off quotes from each of the 12 books. If you’re new to this, there’s ten more of this in the archives and one more to come. If you’re enjoying the work, give it a subsribe and if you’re feeling generous, maybe you slide us a bit of dough at https://ko-fi.com/paulcree Nice one, enjoy
Just as those who try to block your progress along the straight path of reason will not be able to divert you from principled action, so you must not let them knock you out of your good will towards them. Rather you should watch yourself equally on both fronts, keeping not only a stability of judgement and action but also a mild response to those who try to stop you or are otherwise disaffected. To be angry with them is no less a weakness than to abandon your course of action and capitulate in panic. Both amount equally to desertion of duty – either being frightened into retreat, or setting yourself at odds with your natural kinsmen and friends.
BOOK 11 – 9
As I’m nearing the end of this series I’ve been writing, one thing that has emerged from reading Meditations, and then going back and banging-out all these pieces, is my need for a solid set of grounded principles; beyond the basics of don’t kill anyone, commit adultery, harm children, interfere with animals and all that. It’s not enough to simply know what to do and what not to do, but I should know why. Wherever something comes up that I’m not sure of; I should test them against these principles.
This probably all sounds obvious, but for me, I think I need constant reminders of it, otherwise my head can spiral off in all manner of directions; like a box of fireworks casually flung onto a bonfire.
Small steps, then, as I slowly put these principles and actions together. Like this one: Not to look at my phone first thing in the morning. This includes listening to podcasts, which I’m probably addicted too; unless it’s one of these philosophy ones that I like (they don’t tend to get the fireworks fizzing) If I can hold off doing that, for the first few hours of the day, whilst being mindful of what I’m thinking about when I’m walking the dogs, my mornings are noticeably more pleasant. It’s difficult, though, especially when I’m tired. I slip back into bad habits, but you gotta start somewhere.
Growing up Catholic, in the UK, in a fairly liberal and tolerant, but far from perfect society, has given me a pretty decent set of principles. To be fair, you can’t knock the Ten Commandants, and the basic idea of tolerance in a liberal society (though increasingly under threat from nutters both on the political right and the left). However, for me, it’s not enough to just abide by these; I think it’s better that I should know why.
In the last piece, I touched on some experiences of racism in the UK that I’d seen growing-up. I’m not sure when, but at some point in my teens, I sat down and actually thought about why racism is bad. I knew it to be bad, but why is it bad? I came to the conclusion: that it is bad, and not just bad, it’s stupid (award me the Nobel Peace Prise, lively!)
I mainly concentrated on how foolish I thought it was, making negative, mass generalisations about mass groups of people; because you can never be accurate doing that. It’s too easy, too convenient, and of course; highly dangerous. There is something to be said for cultural traits, but for every generalised-racist-dart thrown, there is probably a ton of solid examples that prove that generalisation to be in the very least, misguided and at worst, utterly wrong; I’ve seen it too many times.
Being Catholic, a Millwall fan and from a small town in Surrey, I’ve had lots of negative generalisations thrown at me, regarding those three things; most of which, were frankly, a load of bollox; they still hurt or angered me, though. I also realised, that life’s too short to be holding grudges like that. You’re denying yourself all manor of great opportunities to grow, learn, develop and love. They’re all human things, human gifts. Finally, there’s the basic, mutual respect for a fellow human’s life; we aint all that different when you boil it down. Nobel peace prize, lively.
All of which led me to devising my groundbreaking work, what I came to call the safe vs dick-head, test. I thought about all the people I knew, that were safe, and all the people that I knew, who were dick-heads. The results for both groups, in that extensive and scientifically rigorous test, were a solid Dulux-paint chart-mix of white, black and brown and all shades in between. Nobel prize for science, lively.
Though I’ve paraphrased it, I’m quite impressed by teenage Me’s ability to rationally come to those conclusions, considering how much time I dedicated to thinking about sex, beating people up and other such trivial crap that was never gonna happen.
At some point, I also wondered what it might be like to be a high-rolling drug-dealer. Even if you were loaded, the levels of paranoia, every day, must be huge. That world seems dog-it-dog, and without the protection of the law, anyone could come and have a pop at any point. If you’re balling out of control, there’s probably gonna be a lot of pretenders who want what you’ve got, and will do whatever it takes to get it. Being able to simply relax, go to the pub, or put trust in people, must be very difficult. Where’s the fun in that? No wonder Scarface got heavy on the sniff.
However, too many things – opinions, views that I had, didn’t get that level of analytics. So, back to the principles idea. I’ve nearly always been someone who worries about what other people think; way too much. Aside from when I’m being stubborn, like doing Lager Time, or refusing to drink craft beer, it really inhibits me from doing things I want to do. Countless times I’ve not done something, or did something, when I didn’t want too, because I’m too busy screwing about what other people might be thinking about me. When this happens too much, I tend to start thinking negative things about those people who might be mugging me off. Eventually, this internal feedback loop just burns me out; often when no one has said anything, or nothing has happened. And even when people have mugged me off; why does it matter so much? It’s all externals, after all.
There have been a bunch of times, when people have aired negative opinions about something I’m doing. This job for a start; working in the arts. When I was about to make the jump to becoming professional, the amount of people that told me that there’s no money in the arts. The inference I took from such wisdom, was that I was making a mistake, therefore I’m foolish. It annoyed me. Had I made a jump from a lucrative and stable career, I dunno, like a cooperate lawyer or something, they might’ve had a point and thought twice about it. At the time, I was working a glorified admin-job: collecting loan repayments, in the middle of a recession, on £21K a year; most of which went on paying rent, bills, debts, and beers on the weekend; hardly a lucrative and rewarding job. Those sorts of comments still affected me, though. I almost didn’t do it, even when I had nothing else going for me and I was miserable. Why? Perhaps I thought, that they thought, that I was an idiot. Even if they did, why does it matter? I don’t think I’m an idiot, actually, wait a minute…
Similarly, when I started MCing and rapping; I had loads of negative comments about me doing it. Some of them were borderline racist, some were classist, some were questioning my reasons for taking up such a pursuit, some were just casting doubts on any ability I may have had. It affected me so badly I almost gave-up, twice; paranoid thinking people were laughing at me; or thinking I was a moron. First time around, my mate Mickey T talked me into continuing, second time it was my Dad and my brother Will. Interesting with Dad because I assumed, wrongly, that he didn’t approve of me doing it. Those moments of severe doubt were many; I still get them; who doesn’t? Luckily, I had those good people around me, and the simple fact that I enjoyed writing lyrics and rapping so much; because that pure enjoyment is what kept me in it. I went close, though, and wobbled. All because of other people’s opinions; real or imagined.
I work a lot with young people, of all different age groups. When I do things like beatboxing, rapping and poetry with Primary school kids, lots of them, boys and girls, really take to it; or at the very least, they give it a good go and tend to enjoy themselves. They don’t seem to have that fear of what other people are thinking; there’s always shy ones of course, but generally they just get stuck-in and enjoy the ride. When I go and work with secondary school kids, it’s quite often the opposite, especially with girls; even when I come across ones who show some ability in that regard.
It’s easy to judge from the outside, whilst never truly knowing what’s going on, but the impression that I get, is the fear of harsh judgement from their peers, puts many people off from doing it. It’s brutal. Unless you get in a class where the dominant personalities are into it, that tends to give a green light to everyone else; but that’s rare. It’s the dominant ones who are normally pulling everyone else down; as opposed to raising them up.
What makes it difficult to witness, is when I come across those kids who look like they might actually be into it – just for a moment there’s a little flicker in the eyes, a little twitch in the forehead, indicating some cogs might be turning – until their gaze goes in the direction of their class-mates – and the moments over. Even with all the encouragement me, or whoever else can give them; they still don’t. I only hope that in those moments, we can at least plant a seed for a bit later in life, when they feel more confident in taking the plunge. It’s sad to see, though. I was certainly one of those kids.
I can remember enjoying drama lessons, in primary and middle school. I got to perform in assemblies and a school play; and I loved it. At secondary school, that enjoyment became the faint-flicker in the eyes. Drama, and to a lesser extent, music, was not very cool; according to me. I thought that drama was for nobs who loved themselves, and I perceived music to be like that, too. I was a lot closer to music, being that I grew up in a musical family, but perusing it, for a while, just made me think of guitar boys twanging away, hoping someone would hear their divine talent. But really, it was probably the fear of judgement from others, and not having the balls to go and do it myself, which stopped me from perusing it; but I always had the flicker. Regardless of what me, or some other random cynics thought about it, those drama and music kids were probably having the best time. Fair play to them. Whatever it was I was doing; I weren’t enjoying it. I left school and did IT. That worked out, didn’t it.
As an adult, in what for the last few years, have been at times, very politically polarising, I’ve often held back from saying what I think, for fear of being judged; particularly when I feel my view on something is the opposite of what most people around me are expressing. Brexit was a prime example of this. I voted leave. Most people I knew voted Remian. Right until the last minute, I was going to vote the same as my peers, but when I realised I didn’t actually know much about the EU, and in particular how it functions; I did a lot of reading and changed my mind. I learned that both camps, leave and remain, were politically speaking, very broad churches; all of which had valid points to make. It was a close call; but I stand by it. I had a vague notion that the EU was some left-leaning bastion of tolerance and democracy, holding rampant Tories to account; but I no longer thought that. I found it to be quite the opposite, just with a lot of progressive window-dressing, like all these cooperations that fly the flag of whatever social movement is popular at the time.
I knew people would be upset by the outcome of leaving the EU, fair enough, but what I didn’t expect was the aftermath; much of it deeply troubling. There were claims of rampant racism from gloating Brexiters, which I don’t doubt the existence of; though I’m pretty sure at least some of it was either exaggerated or fabricated. For me, with the circles I move in, most of the negative stuff I saw, was a toxic a mixture of obnoxious arrogance, classism, ageism, regionalism (if that’s such a thing) and elitism from people angry about the result. I even heard stories about people being harassed out of their jobs for voting Brexit; labelled racists, xenophobes and whatever else. It was a scary time; so, in a lot of situations I just kept my mouth shut. I hadn’t done anything wrong. I just had the wrong opinion for a lot of people, but it felt genuinely risky to say anything. Regardless of what I saw, if I was to have run my ground-breaking safe-vs dick-head test; both sides of the debate would take up space in both columns.
In all of those examples, what I lacked was some grounding principles that I think would’ve faired me better in coping with those situations. If I was able to test these supposed critical voices, either in my head, or in real life, against some decent first principles, I would have seen how shallow my worries were. So, here’s a little crack at some first principles, which I hope will come in handy in the future.
1 - refrain from judgement – treat people as they com;, as best I can.
Off the bat, really tough this one; being that, my extensive, Nobel Prise winning research in my teens, proved, there’s a lot of dickheads out there. Though probably impossible, worth aiming for at least. Of course, If I’m down an alleyway late at night, and some bare-chested geezer with nazi tatoos comes running down, screaming racist obscenities, swinging a baseball bat, I think I’d be safe in my assumptions of what type of person this is, and scarper out of there; lively.
2 – when I’m worried about something – think it through. Really think it through. What is the worst that could happen? What is likely to happen?
What would really happen if loads of people did judge me? Would it really matter? Would I die or be seriously harmed? Probably not. A bit more achievable this one, again, with a lot of practice.
3 – (I’ll borrow from BOOK 4 – 12 here) change your ground – if there is someone able to guide me away from something towards something better, then change that ground, without resentment or doing it for other superficial reasons, like popularity, or winning Nobel Peace Prizes.
I think this is a good one, especially for a sometimes-stubborn prick, like me.
4 – If someone is mugging me off, for no-good reason - with the potential for de-stabilising me, refrain from anger and resentment towards them and focus instead on doing what I’m doing. They’re probably alright, really.
Another tough one. But one that chimes with my general hunch that most people are decent at heart. We’re all humans after all.
5 – I don’t always have to air my opinions, unless someone really wants to know. Better to listen and absorb.
Probably a good one to have in these tricky political times, despite what I said in the above, and despite all the stuff I’ve been writing throughout the course of this! But I reckon, with all the internal screwing I do, and external talking I do, I’m probably missing on some genuine knowledge.
So that’s five, enough to be getting on with for now. In the very least, it’s good something useful has come out of me airing all these thoughts, for the sake of a podcast, or whatever this is. What a martyr I am. Nobel prise, lively.
BUY-ME-A-LAGER
Love Scripted show, @ Call and response, ACTA Bristol 30th May 2024
https://acta-bristol.com/whats-on/call-response/
THE SUBURBAN BOOK
My 1st book collection of stories and poems
Beats & Elements: A Hip Hop Theatre Trilogy
2 plays I co-wrote plus Denmarked by Conrad Murray
https://paulcree.co.uk/shop/beats-and-elements-a-hip-hop-theatre-trilogy
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