Who is man? Is he a rational animal?

While watching the Adam Curtis doc 'Pandora's Box', I was directed to a speech by Robert McNamara. Here's the text.

Grüß Gott Munchen!

Or rather not. Diddy & Hawkes will be flying offf without me. Remarkably, Lastminute.com's Indian customer services team broke all the rules and gave me a refund, having taken into consideration the circumstances. Thanks.

Reverberation

I am perturbed by all the emails sent to me, promising to give me bigger breasts or a longer tadger. How do they know?

Listening to: 'Kind of Blue' by Miles Davis

'Self-help, please take one' (as seen scribbled above a bog roll dispenser, Reading, UK)

Been watching this via BBC iPlayer. Whether it's 'Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway', 'The Power of Now', 'The Highly Sensitive Person' or even texts like Covey's 'Seven Habits of Highly Effective People', I am dubious. Sure, there are some basic truths in each of them, but I guess I object to them being dressed up and then sold on to those desperate for a quick fix.

OK, so which ones have I read? Well, I never read the copies of 'The Power of Now' or 'The Highly Sensitive Person' I was given by two ex girlfriends. I tried to read Covey but opted to listen to the audiobook version (needs some knob jokes), rapidly returning to Drucker - much of the basic contents of Covey's work can be found in Peter Drucker's 1966 text 'The Effective Executive'.

As part of my MBA, as I read widely (and tangentially) around the syllabus (which includes personal development, Myers-Briggs, etc), I have read 'Jonathan Livingston Seagull' and the dreadfully written 'The Monk who Sold his Ferrari' (the guy should have used a ghost writer, its so wooden). I also read, back in 1994, Dale Carnegie's 'How to Win Friends and Influence People' as part of an in-house training course. I hated every moment of it, although nothing he wrote was fundamentally knobby (apart from the title).

I wonder how many self-help authors recommend writing a self-help book as your path to fame & riches?

But at the same time, I think of Freud, Jung, Frankl, psychoanalysis, cognitive psychology and the emerging field of positive psychology.

As an analyst said in the Yentob documentary, some things work for some people sometimes. So I shouldn't make light of self-help, sorry.

But this is a distraction. I am also thinking about the George Melly documentary last weekend at the same time as I think of my father.

Get thee on a couch Freud, and take me, take me, take me.

Some poems wot I wrote

This one is a nod to the past:

'Almost'

If i'm an enigma,
then you're a mystery,
your epic inner-conflict
serving only to baffle me.

Stalked by GPS and
cornered in a clearing,
I am besieged by
your texts, calls
and friendly fire -
so much for my
stealthy orienteering.

When present I detect
'eau de newcomer',
as your skin seeps
nicotine and guilt;
breaking your cover.

As you talk without
saying anything,
you aim to engender
a false hope -
unaware that I am
silently slipping you
much more rope.

You're no mystery
and i'm no enigma,
as I say to you
that there may be
a reason why we
will never be together.

28th December, 2006

This next one could well apply to last Saturday evening:

'A Lover's Plea'

I don't need you,
but I crave you.

Persisting, as only the
dumb and enamoured can,
I orbit your world, looping,
rolling and swooping.

Baffled by your nonchalance
and bruised by turbulence,
I plead for your hand,
only for you to flip your finger
when I attempt to land.

17th December, 2006

This could apply to the long past, recent past, or my new life as a gay dude:

'A Man Who is Whole'

Ambling along
the secluded trail,
you analyse your pain,
seeking to make sense
of why your love
turns to sorrow.

Focusing on the symptoms
of boredom and loneliness
and zeroing-in on
longing, yearning
as the cause,

you misdiagnose
the cancer that is
your insecurity
and isolation -
exploited by
bit-part players
and hustlers.

Loves purpose
is not to fill
that hole -
that's down to
life and Living,
the kind that may
lead to Loving,
and for that,
you will need
a man who is whole.

24th December, 2006

This is for my father x

'A & E'

I return home to find you in pain,
bathing under a waterfall of sweat;
struggling yet dignified, quiet as always.

After yet another of our imperceptible exchanges,
punctuated by a shortness of breath and a glance,
concluded by a slow blink, an ambulance is summoned.

I mop your brow and frantically collect
your cornucopia of pharmaceutical necessities.
Hugging you, rubbing alternately between chest and back,
promising you it will be alright.

We play cat and mouse, as I try to maintain eye contact
and engage you with a reassuring smile; but you look away,
as if ashamed by this temporary indisposition.

The ginger-haired angel arrives, wheeling you away
with your bride of the last forty-five,
leaving me behind to collect myself and reflect awhile.

Silently suffocating at the thought that you
will no longer be there to hold my hand,
I curse my selfishness.

Picking up the telephone to hail my siblings,
I hesitate, as I hope
that a secret shared
will finally bring us closer together.

16th June, 2007

Such a lot of shit out there

So Castro, who has outlasted several US Presidents, is stepping down, sort of.

The PPP & PML (N) may form the next Pakistani government, ostensibly to try and impeach Musharraf, before they get to eachothers throats (readers may be unaware that Sharif & Bhutto had spent years trying to imprison eachother, so this may well continue between Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari). I wonder what the Pakistani army chief, General Kiani, will say to either of them? Will he acquiesce, thanks to friendly pressure from the Pakistani army's best friends in the USA, who will provide the money to modernise the Pak army?

The price of food is high, terrorism is rampant (maybe, possibly, depending on which news channel you view)...but I don't expect these guys to change much. The track record of the army and politicians in improving the lot of the poor hasn't been adequate since the mid 1960s.

Bridgend suicides - there's a report on Newsnight tonight as to whether the media started the frenzy and encouraged later suicides. I wonder if any of them had heard of Wataru Tsurumi's suicide manual?

Why is depression sold as a disease rather than regarded as an emotion? Is big pharma culpable?

Wondering why: the Royal Berkshire Hospital is stacking incoming patients three-deep today

In an uncertain World, there's Adam Curtis

'The Rise and Fall of the Television Journalist as Hero'

Close but no cigar: wondering why she said what she said, only to do what she did.

Primaries, caucuses and BS

While I am following the USA primaries, I am not too concerned about the outcome as I don't anticipate significant change. But I have found some interesting diversions springing from it.

Firstly, posters encouraging voting.

Secondly - and in line with my love of visual complexity - oil money funding politicians.

Bored with that shit? Want a little entertainment? Try Animator vs. Animation.