Maybe I’m out of touch, but there doesn’t seem to be much discussion or media activity about boys and what they grow into.

The petrol headed, beer drinking football crazy stuff ‘s well documented; less so how to be a dad, a parent, a partner, a mate and a good all round male role model in these post modern, fourth wave feminist, politically correct times.

This risks pissing my daughter off. So whilst here I write as a man and a father, it’s not meant to be at the expense of women, mothers and girls or for that matter all the other disenfranchised and disadvantaged groups facing discrimination: Palestinians, Jews, Roma, disabled, elderly, working class, the list is a long one.

But I reckon there’re more than a few blokes out there labouring for the company, bringing home the bacon, in touch with their feelings, trying to parent, navigating divorce legislation and wondering why they feel enslaved, knackered, uncertain, and disadvantaged. Of course it’s not considered manly to “bleat on”, yet I believe greater awareness can do no harm. I also hope this won’t be taken as an attempt to denigrate the feminist struggle, or deny there is a ruling patriarchy/oligarchy.

How do we move forward together?
Is it really a good idea to ban playing conkers in the playground?
How nowadays can boys and men appropriately express themselves?

I hope this will be a place to entertain and chew things over, rather than get up on a soap box and preach.

GeneralJones

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Appendix I

This addition to the first post is to hide in plain site, thoughts which have grown and matured over the course of fifty nine years. “For the record”, was a working title for recollections and insights, a reference and reaction to the mystery that is/was my father, his family, my mother and my family. More recently it’s evolved into a record of the context and lives that I’ve helped to create, an essay upon the threads that have woven their way through and though.

Because as the years roll by they lend an appreciation to the immutable cycles of life and the passage of incremental change.

It seems important to make this perspective accessible. As besides giving some context and therefore meaning, it may be useful for seeing down the tracks. IMO that the value of history, the opportunity to recognise patterns and trends otherwise obscured by the short span of our lives? Besides, I’ve heard too many old people sigh and say how hey could have written a book about their lives. Though that might be a little ambitious, there’s surely a good blog post from that particular sperm finding it’s way through to that particular egg back in the summer of ’63.

Though what has passed seems increasingly less important than being present today, it’s only natural to be curious about yesterday and one’s place on the great assembly line of life, and to share that perspective. I hope then this’ll be an interesting and kind account, with the caveat that it won’t be “true”. Over the years memories morph. Each time we recollect them the neural pathways that instantiate them in our minds are refreshed into subtly different configurations; each time we remember we change our memories which, even when they were first experienced, were subjective and incomplete.

Reality is an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

Albert Einstein

That said, we do the best we can with what we have and this story will hopefully be interesting enough to require no misleading embellishment.

The world I love, the tears I drop
To be part of the wave, can’t stop
Ever wonder if it’s all for you?
The world I love, the trains I hop
To be part of the wave, can’t stop
Come and tell me when it’s time to

Can’t stop – Red Hot Chili Peppers

A brief stay in the orphanage

The first memory is of being bundled into a neighbour’s car, the second, watching a mobile spin above my hospital cot surrounded by soft toys (The Boys). I was three months old and suffering some trauma in my gut, attested to by the jagged scar etched into my belly. Only weeks before I’d been claimed by my grandmother after my mother had left some things behind to make her baggage allowance for the plane to Canada. That was the story I inherited, a mother who had fought with her mother and moved out to her aunts before moving to London and falling – falling into bad habits, falling in love and falling pregnant, but I never heard her version of events though I felt I had the chance when she visited and took me to London. But at the time I didn’t have the presence of mind to ask.

With both my grandmother and mother similarly born out of wedlock, I was launched as the third generation of bastard, the third child to not know their father. That’s another jagged scar, the pain of which remained anaesthetised until I was twenty four and living in a caravan on a farm back in Colchester. But that’s jumping ahead.

I’m all lost in the supermarket

The Clash

I now see how similar that trajectory was to my mother’s. I ejected from home under duress of my own creation and after experiencing the typical things that young blades are typically interested in, I found myself under a full moon, beside a raging sea. That was the end of a chapter, the dream of hitchhiking to India ended there after three months in France, Turkey and Greece and an unsuccessful attempt to get an Iranian visa (at the time I didn’t realise the futility of a UK national being granted passage through Iran. On that stormy shore, unsure of what to do next I reflected on what I’d done and decided upon nursing. You see

European trained as a psychiatric nurse in the old mental hospital I’d grown up around as a child. As part of that training one of the tutors offered counselling to the students which led to me sitting down on a hay bail at the farm where I kept my van and crying my eyes out. That was the first time I truly felt the pain of abandonment, a wound that had been numbed by endless repetition of my grandmother’s narrative was finally confronted and heartfelt. Humans can deny grief and doing so can even be seen as a virtue. But the English stiff upper lip that helped to get us through the wars also denies who we are and inhibits who we can be. Grief should be embraced as much as the advent of life. It’s OK not to be OK and perhaps by grasping the pain can we understand its cause and acknowledge that ultimately it derives from love.

where I found a welcome and some security after a torrid fortnight of rows and fights at home embarked me on a hitchhike around Europe.

What does not kill me makes me stronger.

Frederich Nietzsche – Twilight of the idols

By feeling the pain of abandonment that had passed through three generations, I determined to be a loving and present father to any children of mine. A simple mission but one which has latterly become twisted. Just because you’re there doesn’t mean they want to know you. Just like a radio our lives come with presets and it’s not easy to find a good tune beyond them.

If you do as you’ve always done, don’t be surprised if you get what you’ve always got

Anon (courtesy of my first charge nurse)

Unlike people in other cultures we are not prepared for grief. Many of the rituals that our psyches need to process loss are lost to modernity and consumerism. Ours is a culture that worships young good looking consumers, youth purchases products at the expense of maturity. At best elderhood is overlooked at worst the other end of life is kept at a discrete distance behind magnolia walls. But grief will touch us all, though in unequal measure.

and advt very well. three generations stirred me to take on a mission to be there for my children. But karma isn’t simple and though I have been here for them they’re not so bothered about having a close relationship. Indeed I’ve spent only a few hours with my daughter in the past ten years. I would it were otherwise and remember them all in my prayers but it is what it is and life has a habit of going on. Because our lives are comparatively short, we are but a brief iteration in a very long chain with much lost between links. So besides context the other motivation for this account is continuity. Besides passing down our genes, the purpose of life is endlessly debatable but I prioritise the stories and narratives it creates which mould and contextualise its characters. Though science has us question the existence of the “self”, I cling to the illusion, the quaint idea that if not master was are influential in our destinies. Surely one has the capacity for kindness and a few good stories inside; surely in lieu of a soul we can be creative and well meaning with the data. Anyway to continue with the story.

With both my grandmother and mother similarly born out of wedlock I became the third generation of bastard, the third child to not know their father and that has been a defining scar. I didn’t fully recognise it as such until I was twenty four when I sat down and wept for my lost parents. Facing into that and recognising a pattern that had repeated across three generations stirred me to take on a mission to be there for my children. But karma is not so simple and though I have been here for them they’re not so bothered about having a close relationship. Indeed I’ve spent only a few hours with my daughter in the past ten years. I would it were otherwise and remember them all in my prayers but it is what it is and life has a habit of going on. Because our lives are comparatively short, we are but a brief iteration in a very long chain where much is lost between links. So besides context the other motivation for this account is continuity. The purpose of life is endlessly debatable but I prioritise the stories and narratives it creates which go to explain and mould characters. Though science has us question the very existence of a “self”, I cling on to the illusion, the quaint idea, that we are capable of authoring our destinies and choosing to be kind.

With both my grandmother and mother similarly born out of wedlock I joined three generations of bastard, the third child to not know their father. That has been a defining scar. which I didn’t fully recognise until I was twenty four when I sat down and wept for my lost parents. Facing into that and recognising a pattern that had repeated across three generations stirred me to take on a mission to be there for any children I might father. But karma is not so simple, and though I have been here for them 2/3 have not wanted a close relationship. I’ve spent only a few hours with my daughter in the past ten years and though I would it were otherwise I remember them in my prayers. Because our lives are comparatively short, we are but a brief iteration in a very long chain where much is lost between links. But the chain holds patterns and information stored in culture, learnings and lore besides molecules of DNA. Relationships and parenting require a diverse skill set and some affability.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
and Wisdom to know the difference.

The version of the serenity prayer sometimes used on the “Twelve step programme”.

So besides context the other motivation for this account is continuity. The purpose of life is endlessly debatable but I’ve come to prioritise the stories and narratives a character can create and the love that can grow and mould it. Though science has us question the very existence of a “self”, I prefer the illusion of Plato’s cave, the quaint idea, that we are authors our destinies and capable of kindness.

An unhelpful sequence which once recognised needed addressing. Some traditions enrich our lives, but some detract from who w. beautiful someIt’s fair to say my fathering has been a reaction to what I felt I lacked it hink that inheritance also carried with it more than our fair share of brains and temper. with a g coincidence and I can see how we all share it has felt to be a cause of or from Edmund to have been conceived out of and so never managed to find out from where half my chromosomes came from. Not the best of starts, but there was love as well as resentment from my little adoptive family.

In a matriarchy a boy child was cherished and my grandmother and I shared an intelligence. I remember how after everyone had retired from the kitchen table she and I would attempt the daily mirror crossword. Though a late developer I quickly became an avid reader and one evening the Encyclopaedia Brittanica salesman came to supplement Enid Blyton’s Adventure series. The fantasies to be found in the latter brought excitement to an otherwise predictable life in a small bungalow on a quiet estate that backed onto an old mental hospital. In hindsight that was a watershed: fiction won over fact.

In those days Severalls was an old school asylum where extensive grounds which were thought to be therapeutic to every kind of mental distress but which, as Russell identified, were the very cause of institutional neurosis. It is no coincidence that mental asylums replaced work houses.

So in hindsight and despite everyone’s best effort, life was dull and in my dear grandmother’s words “bloody hard work”.She was a trooper who would have loved to dance and sing but who’s life was curtailed by the war, children and a dull husband. I remember and thank her in my prayers most very day.

The eveening cousin camp moved to the Sports hall

I abandoned my wife and failed in my duty of care toward my daughter and youngest son. For these transgressions I pray for forgiveness as I hope you will do for me.

The story of the fall is of Adam and Eve being banished from Eden but in reality we choose to remove ourselves from the bounty of the Earth when we immerse ourselves in the digital world, when our attention is seduced by screens.

Question is, where to allocate responsibility for one’s life and actions across nature, nurture, happenstance, karma, yourself and those around you.

Will AI attain enlightenment and what might it’s values be if it does

Living with a personality disorder

“Gotta hold the torch until someone picks it up.”

The sudden loss of memory I experienced was like Ted’s dementia.

Re Employment and nightclubs it seems the stroke made me more aggressive