Know thy enemy and thyself and you need not fear the
outcome of a thousand battles was the quite reasonable theory of a Chinese strategist Sun Tzu. My enemy is for the moment and has for the best part of my
life been boredom, we’re well acquainted. Through familiarity with boredom I
know myself ever more. People talk about journeys of self-discovery, traveling
abroad to ‘find themselves’ which I’m finding ever more absurd as I remain where
I am, as I do the same thing day in and out.
On a journey we meet new people and learn things about
them and the world where as stuck in place I feel we are better poised to look
within ourselves. Day after day I clean the same rooms in a hotel and day after
day I return to find them trashed by drunks with no regard for the time limit I
have to clean a room set by someone in an office, possibly in another country. This
person might never have heard of Aberdeen or considered the scale of destruction
half a dozen drunken louts can wreak within a room between check in at three in
the afternoon and noon the next day.
While I clean I have a lot of time to think, escaping the
cycle of destruction, restoration and making beds by walking through far flung
realities within my own mind. I have hours to consider my view on any
particular subject that might be raised by the daily papers left next to
televisions I must dust or to learn Polish from my co-workers. Free tutelage in
a foreign language, dziękuję.
I’m in a job I’m overqualified for just as anyone with independent
thought and free spirit would be but my stagnant and stationary self-discovery
feels as valid as any story about a gap year in the third world that I could
never afford.
People moan about the density of foreigners within our
country, immigration’s terrible isn’t it? No. I see the faces of foreign
places, the words of foreign languages and I think how lucky I am to live in a
time where even if I can’t afford to see the rest of the world as much as I
might like to children of other nations will surround me that I might learn
their ways in the comfort of Scotland. I hate the heat of strong sunlight which
makes me sweat which in return causes rashes to cover my oversensitive skin. If
stories of the sunny equatorial regions fly their way to me then why moan about
it? I joy in the possibilities of genetic diversity the present and future hold
with people moving so freely across the globe. Genetic predispositions to
illness or other maladies could be negated with less pedigreed genetic pool.
I have to wonder if the morons who clamour for racial
purity have really paid attention to the portraits of communities in the past.
I saw one a while back while on holiday in a rural region of Scotland, the
portrait of an entire village. The whole image seemed to detail every minute
change you could make to the one face in order to render one individual as
many. Each villager had the same nose, the same shape of face, the same jawline
and ears. If that’s the past we’ve left behind good riddance. Our ancestors
inbred because they could not or would not summon the effort to leave their
native hills and valleys. There’s nothing romantic or patriotic about marrying
your brother or sister and being both parent and aunt or uncle to your
children.
Through this view of not just the advantage but very real
need for genetic diversity which lighten some of the load bourn by our strained
health services by improving genetic health I have been considering once again
the concept of uniformity. Schools have an obligation to educate us in more
than just academic fact but not to set impressionable children bad examples in
terms of socio-politic concept. In this last respect I think any school which
enforces and idolises the uniform fails its pupils at a very basic level. The
purpose of uniform is to nurture a group mentality which may benefit the school
as a unit but suggest a group mentality to the detriment of individuality which
seems unhealthy. We live in a world of individuals, each unique and better for
it. To program us to fit in by wearing the same clothes as school bothers me
for the same reason I hate to be turned away from an establishment for my
chosen garments or hear stories of outsiders picked on by groups with a hive
mentality.
In America all of the gangs have a form of uniform; The
Bloods show their allegiance by wearing red, the Crips wear blue and the Latin
Kings wear yellow. We are better together for certain but can’t that mean the
group is humanity or life itself which is the outsider in an otherwise cold and
empty universe?
We must follow our own path in life, unhindered by the
rest of humanity and equally helping others along their own road. I hear of
depression amongst those who live undeniably comfy lives here, supported by a
welfare state and one of the best healthcare systems in the history of the
world. I hate the days where I feel I’ve done nothing to further my goal of
being a writer/visual artist. I think that anyone with any concept of where
they want to go in life will suffer depression if they no they’re making no
progress. Even those who live without a dream or vague aspiration must strive
for one. We are programmed to grow at every level. There is no limit to our ambition,
we must move ever onward for our own peace of mind.
Narazie