Euan Semple's Blog, page 56

Mindlessness

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When I was a teenager I used to cycle for hundreds of miles in all weathers. Setting off from home I would head into the local moors in all seasons, sometimes straining into the teeth of a winter gale in the snow. There was something about the grunt, the focus, the one stroke after another repetitiveness of it that was deeply meditative. Staring down at the tarmac passing beneath me I could get into a trancelike state.

As I mentioned previously the normally busy road in front of our house is currently blocked off for months and as a consequence is very quiet. I am enjoying rediscovering the same grunt and focus that I experienced as a teenager as I plough up and down that road for a minimum total of three miles (appropriately to Half Way House Farm and back) each day in all weathers.

Staring at the road surface induces the same mindful/mindless state as my step cadence gets in sync with my heart rate (data thanks to my beloved Apple Watch). My racing mind slows down and I feel deeply connected to the countryside I am passing through. It is a wonderful feeling.

Imagine

It is easy to get frustrated at corporate IT. I have ranted as much as anyone against the constraints they place on people at work and their general risk aversion. In fact I am currently ranting as my emails are stuck in a client’s draconian spam filter and it is making life hard.

I remember hearing a hoary old IT pro once saying “If you want to sort out your corporate computing make Unix your standard platform and if the buggers can’t work out how to use Unix they shouldn’t have a computer.”

What if Microsoft hadn’t wheedled their way into the corporate world? What if we had decided that if you are at work you get given “a computing machine” that does what you need for your job and no more? Probably a mainframe with dumb terminals. Totally reliable and friction free. Imagine how many billions, no trillions, we would have saved. No tinkering, no faffing around, no tears, no frustration, just doing your job.

Imagine…

Or

Imagine a parallel universe in which computing was entirely your responsibility. You could choose to use any device you wanted so long as you were able to deliver your work. You had to learn how to use your computer. You had to make sure that any hardware or software you chose would work with everything else you needed to share with, and you made sure it was safe and worked reliably.

Imagine…

The urge to label

[image error]Adam and Eve: Tree of Knowledge

I know I have written about this before but I am often struck by the consequences of our inclination to label the things in the world around us.

As I was doing my walk yesterday through beautiful autumnal trees I was realised again that I have no real clue what kind of trees they are. I have read so many books on flora and fauna over the years but none of it has stuck. Apart from beech trees, which are everywhere around here, the others remain a mystery to me.

And that was the point. I realised that in some ways I appreciate them more as a mystery. Otherwise there is a risk of walking around going “Oh, that’s an oak, that’s a chestnut, that’s an elder” and as a result not really seeing them. Even the label “tree” creates a sense of separation and isolation.

In reality, like ourselves, the tree is an undifferentiated part of the nature around it. Finding hard edges for where the tree stops and starts is infinitely complex. By labelling things we over simplify the world and separate ourselves from it at a fundamental level. This is the biblical story of the fall and and the consequence eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge.

We are still paying a really high price for that fall.

Old friends

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I love my mountain boots. I have had them for six years and they have looked after me in all sorts of dangerous situations. They are what are known as four season boots which means that they are stiff enough to take crampons and rigid enough to kick steps in snow if you don’t have any.

I like the way that their solidity supports me and allows me to yomp my way across rough rocky ground without worrying about my ankles. I love that when I cross a snow slope they allow me to kick steps with the sides of my feet and feel confident. They have even coped with hundreds of miles of road bashing over their lifetime.

But they are coming to their end. Their tread is wearing low and the uppers are letting in water in too many places to make repair worth thinking about. I can’t bring myself to throw them out though. I will keep them for local walks when I know it isn’t going to get too wet or muddy.

I am sure they will be around for many years to come, but for real hill walks where I need to know I will stay dry and safe I’m off to buy another pair. I guess it is testimony to my affection for them that I am going to order the same boots again with nothing more than a colour change.

A technological slough of despond

Been up since about 4.30am faffing about trying to get the iMac working. Knackered and not over yet.

All in the belief that the next system or software will make everything better. Always tinkering, always using betas, always listening to podcasts about the next great thing.

I guess it is my hobby, and to an extent it has enabled my business, but is it harmless? How much time have I wasted and how much have I gained?

A different moment, a different world

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Prompted by my Apple Watch fitness challenge I am walking between five and six miles a day for the whole of November. I do the same loop from my home which has been enabled by roadworks in Chesham meaning that the usually busy main road that we live on is really quiet.

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Doing the same walk each day could be thought of as boring, and I occasionally go for long periods without doing my local walks for this reason, but boring is in the eye of the beholder! Just getting out there and putting one foot in front of the other you realise that boring is just a thought. Even if that thought passes through your head you still take the next step and in moments, boring has turned into fascinating.

On reflection

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Listening to this, while reading this, I catch sight of my reflection in a rain soaked window.

Rememberance Day

I often look at local village memorials where the dead from WWI are recorded and think of all the life sucked from those quiet places.

I ache when I think of parents whose children will never get to live their lives thanks to some misguided political posturing or protection of commercial interests in an unknown part of the world.

And every day, when I walk past Hyde House just along the road from us where burn victims from the RAF in WWII were treated, I think of those who have to live with the scars – both inside and out.

I find much to grieve but little to celebrate.

Bursting power bubbles

I keep thinking of the 70 million or so Americans who voted for Trump and how easy it is to be blind to them or to stereotype them. It was the inability of the media and those conventionally expected to assume power to understand them or relate to them that got Trump elected in the first place.

They are not going to go away. It is going to take a lot of skill and courage to bridge the gap that has opened up in American society.

The same risks exist everywhere. A broadly liberal educated “elite” making assumptions about the rest of the world. You see the same thing watching conservative politicians here in the UK completely misjudging communication around COVID and making assumptions about the people that they are talking down to.

It was different in the old days when politicians had to get out into the world to connect with potential voters. Encountering real face to face dissent and difference. Grappling with the consequences of their actions for real people and not just numbers in polls.

They all need to get out more.

Enthusiasm

There is nothing quite like watching Alby bounding up the garden to say hello.

Now that we have let him off his lead and free to wander he keeps coming back to check on how we are. Sure this might be anthropomorphising but it is hard to see what else it is. He will see us waving at him from inside the house, run the length of the garden as we hold the door open for him, come in and miaow a couple of times, turn around, and go back out again.

I realise that this will come as no surprise to those of you with cats, and those of you who have been extolling their virtues to me for years, but as someone who assumed that all cats were disdainful and aloof this level of enthusiasm has come as something of a revelation.