Listening for Therapists.

I went to jazz night school for a year or so and from the beginning the teacher stressed the importance of ‘listening to the other players’. I thought OK, I can do that, I have ears. So I listened, I kept in time and followed the chord changes and thought that was listening. I then played bass and drums with my friend John and we moved away from tunes into something more free-form. Without the constraint of a tune there was far less obligation to ‘be right’. Trying to ‘be right’ was replaced by ‘being with’ and I suddenly realised what the teacher had meant. Listening took on a whole new meaning. Without a tune all I had was what I was hearing from John. As we continued it began to be even subtler. I stopped hearing what I was playing as ‘my’ response to what he was playing and began to hear and in a way play in the whole sound. I was no longer the individual playing bass but a part of a drum and bass whole. A guitarist joined us and we continued in this fashion. 

I raise this point in regard to therapy because therapists are also invited to listen and I wonder if this subtlety is understood. Do some consider the client is playing a tune that the therapist must join in with a get right? Do some consider themselves as a separate individual responding to the playing of the client, or do some cease to be either and listen to the whole, perceive themselves not as an individual player but a part of a whole? And is this analogy appropriate? Often the client sees the therapist as the expert that might help their need, which ‘fits’ the therapist’s awareness of their own training and expertise. Often the therapist makes the client the centre of attention, bowing to the consideration it is ‘their’ time and they are paying a fee for it. And often the therapist needs to maintain a stance that protects his or her own personal safety. All these militate against the sort of listening I experienced playing jazz. Another aspect of this jazz listening was, in apparent contradiction to what I’ve just said, there was no merging or loss of individuality. Each player contributed his part to the whole without losing himself in it. I sense this integrated listening to the client/ therapist whole, where the therapist hears both parts mingling into one sound, where one loses one’s individually considered contribution in favour of one’s essential contribution to the whole has some merit.

Nice When it Stops.

Whilst musing about being in bed with several naked women I realise I’m not like that, I’m more a ‘nice when it stops’ person. Not for me the laissez-faire debauchery of Freddy Mercury, or Freddy Star for that matter. No, I seem to be drawn more to challenging activities that, whilst rewarding, are better enjoyed in retrospect. While I’m entertaining friends with photos of my recent kitchen renovation and tales of particularly difficult plumbing problems Russell Brand will be writing his third Booky Wook of exploits not unlike my musings. In short my Christian upbringing seems to have drawn the line of acceptability just above my pain threshold. Instead of grabbing the moment I wait till it’s passed and become thankful I survived it. Skiing, cold, sailing, wet, DIY, painful, and motorcycling, cold, wet, painful and scary. That must be why I like the last one best. Oh and camping too. I mean it’s not altogether bad, I get a lot out of them, but bulling in a china shop just for the instantaneous pleasure of breaking plates is something I need to allow in from time to time. I mean the world won’t miss the odd saucer will it? I realise this is how I know myself, how I am acceptable to myself. If I could somehow feel acceptable just for being me rather than what I am capable of I might give myself permission to, well just be me. OMG that’s scary. I mean what would the several naked women think? I could be in all sorts of trouble! No, perhaps it’s best I keep me under wraps and focus on the noble self-improving, being useful, ever competent, things to do, lots to learn person I am. After all no need to be vulnerable if I can work around it. 

The Dreadful Truth is.

Brene Brown has studied us for ten years as a social scientist and come to the conclusion that we all need to show vulnerability provided by a sure knowledge that each of us as an individual is ‘enough’, enough in our own perception of our self. That’s not to say I think I’m going to win the human race but that I’m sufficient to warrant being in it. To be vulnerable is to be open and to be open is to feel connected, and to feel connected is the essence of being human. When we bluster, judge, measure, contain, justify or require we suppress our need to be vulnerable in favour of the pretend security of disconnection. With this fresh in my mind I watched BBC News. The newsreaders were in a sense trainers in disconnection, contained, urbane, and unbiased with an appropriate degree of practiced, utterly false pleasantness. I began to see the rest of TVs output in a similar way. Soaps showing ordinary people as emotional failures, acted by stars of course who aren’t, reality programs showing the same, adverts showing our need to be fulfilled by products. It appeared the whole rational of TV was to promote a feeling of ‘not being enough.’ Could it really be true that the nation is subjecting itself to four hours of disconnection training per person per day? It appears so. So if you feel yourself to be an irrelevant, disconnected and unfulfilled emotional failure dependant on some product for a little satisfaction, unworthy of touching some star’s red carpet hemline you know where you got it from. 

Cameron continued.

Important Points

 (A) Entry-level wage adjusts the level of employment and the total expenditure on additive tax. As the UK is currently competitive internationally it’s likely this isn’t much less than current minimum wage but lowering it will boost viable employment.

(B) Net wage at B) MUST have a rising gradient to give employees incentive to move towards better pay which in turn gives incentive to employers to pay more to retain good employees. If this region is flat additive tax will be seen as a simple government pay supplement to maintain a living wage for unviable jobs. It’s vital that these incentives make this region an equally viable part of the jobs market as a whole.

(C) The notional ‘living wage’ is the pivot point of the whole system, the crossover point from additive to subtractive tax. Adjusting it gives the government the opportunity to achieve its required tax revenue.

(D) The gradient of paid wage and net wage at any point on the curve adjusts the incentive of employer and employee to increase the paid and received pay respectively. Intermediate tax break points (D) allow control of the shape of the curve in accordance with statistical evidence of requirement.

(E) Extreme high pay must be curbed to avoid social unrest. This applies to any society, so though the super paid can threaten to leave the country they will take with them this element of social unrest. To avoid unrest wherever they end up the general the population will rebel or demand a reasonable differential i.e. a lot more, which will destabilise that countries economy. Any sensible country will limit extreme high pay by consensus for the good of all concerned. The current emotional debate about bankers must be replaced by a rational one. To this end the extreme end of subtractive tax (E) must act as a disincentive to even higher pay. 

There feels to me to be a kind of hysteresis quality about this approach to tax, but what do mice know about hysteresis? 

Cameron's missed Opportunity.

Cameron’s recent revamp of social welfare payments just tinkers with our basic problems. When there are no jobs, making welfare less economically viable than work simply reduces welfare. Our problems are far wider.

1/ the national minimum wage limits employment to a particular level of viability.

2/ our separate systems of taxation and welfare creates two unrelated zones.

3/ there is no logical or justifiable interconnection between high and low salaries.
4/ we desperately need to create more jobs.

There is a far simpler and more widely effective solution often referred to as 'Negative Income Tax.'. 

Abolish unemployment payments and create a lowest tax band of additive taxation. That means one ‘receives’ a positive tax payment if one is paid below a certain agreed living wage to raise one’s net pay to it.

The graph shows a wage based ‘tax supplement’ on left and a normal subtractive tax on right. The thick line is the paid wage; the thin line is the net take home pay. This approach integrates tax and benefit together into one continuous system allowing wages to begin at say £2/hr, a level at which many more jobs become viable. From £2 to £6/hr additive tax would raise net pay to the living wage, and above that subtractive tax would be levied in the usual way. Thus virtually full employment would result and end the social damage of unemployment, and promote growth, skills and experience. It gives the government the flexibility to find a viable, internationally competitive wage level whilst maintaining an acceptable living wage. One’s initial fear that employers would pay peanuts and rely on the government’s additive tax would not happen because full employment would create a sellers market for labour as each employee moves for better pay. As net pay always rises it matches the employee’s aspirations and peanut employers would be perennially stuck with the poorly performing monkeys. At the top end of the wage scale it’s recognised that over a certain ratio of max/min salary social cohesion becomes fractious and damaged. If government were to conclude this ratio to be 50 say then Nx, max net pay, must be limited to 50 times x, min pay. In this way the total additive tax could be set against the total subtractive tax to give the desired tax income to the government. The government has total flexibility to create employment, limit the highest salaries and collect the revenue it requires, all at a fraction of the administration cost of tax and welfare. This system was suggested many years ago and has had much investigation. At one time it only narrowly failed to be adopted by the US under Nixon and is the current policy of the Australian LDP. 

Just a Passing Cat.

What if I am a soul entity? Some people believe we have a soul that goes to heaven and stuff when we die, and some believe we reincarnate and have another go at this life business for eons till we get it right. Some believe in past life experiences and karma and we probably all believe in god when we’ve had a really really bad day. My take is these are all interesting ideas but how do I fix the bloody radio aerial on the Merc? Well not quite as narrowly practical as that but today’s the day I am currently trying to cope with. Am I feeling remorse for having stabbed someone in the eighteenth century? No. Anyway as I recall I don’t think I did, but then last week is a foreign land to me. But what if I am a soul entity? Down here for the n-th time cocking up as usual. I mean if I am I need to look at the bigger picture. If one only ever sees a sliver of a cat passing a crack in the fence it’s quite difficult to imagine there’s a whole cat back there especially if one doesn’t know what a cat as a whole looks like. So am I just seeing a sliver of my ongoing soul existence in this brief lifetime? Is fixing the Merc aerial that important in this somewhat broader context? Well yes, because it’s what I’m doing this afternoon; it’s not soul stuff, I just want to get the thing going up and down so some areola doesn’t break it off again in an idle moment like they did the last one. But on the other hand it is, or might be, because of how I do it. Maybe I can look at everything I do and am in terms of the progress of my soul. I’m not talking about Dave’s suggestion of using a 5volt zena diode to pull the signal wire down to earth but rather an awareness of my existential swim in the river of time. Am I struggling against some ever circulating eddy or stationary on the bank enviously watching it flow past, or am I lying on my back, sunning myself in the midst of the bubbling current effortlessly floating towards nirvana? Is death just a heart stopping waterfall over in a moment and followed by a rest in a tranquil pool? It’s good for mice to think about these thing every once in a while.

Schooling in incapability.

Today a friend posted on Facebook a video of a little boy, around three and a half, conducting to a classical music recording. He captured every nuance and powerful climax every bit as well as Simon Rattle. He seems to have been schooled by his own observation, either that or portraying a past life awareness. He continued fearlessly through a period of itchy nose wiping and finished by sprawling on the floor with the joy of it to the sound of his mother’s laughter. He had no concept that he couldn’t or shouldn’t be able to do it; he just did it. And he did it wonderfully. It reminded me of Andraemouse’s friend so well schooled in his own incapability. It would seem strange in the extreme to actively train young people to be incapable but it does seem we are very accomplished at inculcating in them the fundamental belief that they are. The mechanism, whether gross or subtle, is based on a single principle; that one is the arbiter of their performance. Whether by constant scalding and derision or gentle direction and ‘help’ the result is the same. They learn to dance to another’s tune, to become poorly responding puppets of another’s wishes. Yet how can we not hold our own wishes for our offspring’s as parents and teachers? Wouldn’t it be equally absurd to appear not to give a damn, to not give guidance when it is patently obvious it’s needed? For me at least the answer is joy and a quite strict adherence to certain demarcations of intent. One can share one’s experiences and one’s own wishes for oneself. One cannot require others to conform to one’s wishes ‘for them’ because that requires judgment that eats away one’s joy of them and imbues in them fear. One’s joy, even in joyful reprimand, will bring growth much greater than one might wish for. That’s enough, I’ll get back to talking about donkey poo. 

The Belief of Uselessness.

Whilst forking out a six inch layer of compacted cow shit and straw Andraemouse tells me about his friend. Early twenties, currently living with his gran because he was thrown out of his last flat and completely unskilled. He was asked to leave his call centre job for only coming in when he felt like it and lost another for bone idleness. He lasted a day at the farm in which he did precious little work. He thus can’t provide a decent reference and refuses jobs that are beneath him. Likewise he can’t find a girlfriend that reaches his elevated standards. He does play the drums though. Andraemouse, me, and probably you by now, will be considering this guy a complete future-less waste of space but the conundrum is how come he doesn’t realise it? I mean 2 and 2 equals 4 right and this guy’s failure is about as simple to understand. You could write it in a flow diagram. ‘Are you skilled > no > go to crap job. Are you lazy > yes > lose crap job. Have you any money > no > lose flat. Have you a job, a flat, money > no > girls not interested.’ But there’s a phrase, a magical get out clause that will always come to the rescue, “Yes but…” It replaces the logical practicalities of life with a fictional creation that somehow makes sense in one’s own cognitive universe. Change will occur without change occurring. It’s the wonder of imagination. But before dismissing him entirely there is a deeper rational to consider. Our conscious mind is just a post justifier of deeper decisions, implicit givens, made away from our conscious sight. Once a decision is made our conscious simply fluffs it up with presentable justifications. So what might this guy have unknowingly decided or been taught a long time ago? That he is pretty useless. My equivalent lesson has been that I can do pretty much anything with a bit of application and learning. I set about any new situation with a sure knowledge I can master it so that every opportunity becomes a possible source of enjoyable fulfilment. Truth is I can be a pain in the arse if I let this hidden imperative take over. But if my lesson had been the opposite, like him, I would see new situations as a sure fire way of showing up my uselessness. I wouldn’t want to learn or work because of the same consideration. Consciously I would have grand aspirations and a ready answer to other people’s condemnations, and be quite unaware of this deeper motivation. Ask me if I think I’m useless and I’d say no. So t’s quite likely this guy isn’t useless at all, only a hidden belief that he is, which unfortunately is enough to make his belief come true.

Prophets and Losers.

I’m sorry but there’s no getting away from it, prophets are troublemakers. OK they may be good sorts and well meaning but having a direct line to God must be a very tricky business. Jesus and Mohammed have caused a thousand years of wars. Not their personal fault admittedly but they forget the rest of us are heathens who will use them to pin all sorts of beliefs on we decide are worth fighting for. 2,000 years on and Protestants, Anglicans and Roman Catholics are just about talking to each other, and 1,500 years on Sunni and Shia Muslims are still killing each other over who should have succeeded Mohammed, his friend or his cousin. Apparently Sunnis wash before prayers and Shias wipe while I imagine Sufis twirl. Can we focus on the bigger picture people! God must be totally pissed off with the human race. It tries to get its message across and we say, “yeh right, good stuff, now I can go and cut people’s heads off.” “But didn’t I just said that was wrong.” “Yes but these people are getting right up my nose.” “Isn’t you nose a rather stupid way of judging other people?” “But I’m doing it for you.” “Well don’t you stupid arsehole. If you want to do something useful strap on a bomb belt and stand over there all on your own and …. Heaven awaits my son and all the virgins you can bonk. But remember, I work in mysterious ways.”  

Green Bay Day.

So Green Bay have won the Vince Lombardy Trophy to become the World Champions of American Football. I guess by that score I’m the Pingo Pingo Champion of the World having just invented it and finished my first game. But I can’t take anything away from these amazing athletes. It’s not apparent when watching how big these guys are. The lightweight running backs are around 16 stone, 6 foot 8” while the defensive linesmen are 20/26 stone, 6 foot 6”. Edmouse tells me George White, defence, basically threw an 18 stone offence player at the quarterback. When I can barely throw my 11 stone self out of bed in a morning that’s impressive! But what is impressive about Green Bay winning is they are the only team in the league owned by their own fans, which if you think about it is a great statement for the power of democracy. So here’s hoping Egyptians can find their way to a government owned by its own fans. No religious of political faction fighting, just twenty odd stone of athletic people muscle owned by their own populous: The sort of democracy we can only dream about. 

Don't talk to me about Torture.

Don’t talk to me about Torture. I’m a DIY’er extraordinaire. I mention this because yesterday whilst stripping wallpaper together with the thin plaster layer, which was more attached to the paper than the wall, I energetically rammed said plaster layer up under my thumbnail. Did I call Amnesty International? No. Did I accuse the Americans of extraordinary rendition? No. Well to be fair they weren’t involved. No, to a DIY’er it’s all in a day’s pain. I just carried on to the next job, subjecting myself to intolerable levels of noise breaking up the old cast iron bath. Add to that the nasty ‘black man’s pinch’; sorry that’s the only name for it I know, on my right hand and several electric shocks over my DIY history I seem to have subjected myself entirely voluntarily to something akin to Abu Omar’s experiences in an Egyptian jail. To be fair the old mains cable to the antique bathroom heater mercifully did not find its way into my trousers. Oh and let’s not forget water boarding was invented by DIY sink fitters in the first place, and torture victims don’t have to try to get a spanner on the tap connector in the ridiculously narrow gap behind the bowl whilst it’s being done to them. No, if you want a terrorist to talk get him to refit a bathroom. After a week he’ll be reading the Sun and completely cured of any anti western propaganda.

Tummy Slipper Warmers.

I’m notoriously difficult to buy Christmas presents for. It’s the time of year one realises one’s closest and dearest don’t actually know one at all. Either that or in order to achieve a certain utility at a certain price point one sacrifices both. Even socks, and everyone uses socks, are either too woolly, too gaudy or the wrong size. And who in their right mind will spend their long winter evening happily entertaining themselves creating ‘magnetic sculptures’ or macraméing a head scarf from a lavishly packaged ball of string? Next year I think I’m going to ask for fruit. One can usually eat the packaging and entertain oneself spitting out the pips. This year Tommouse thoughtfully gave me some ‘Warm Slippers.’ Simply put them in the microwave for a couple of minutes and vwala, furry foot warmers. Nice idea right. I won’t mention the colour, a delicate shade of violet, obviously aimed at WAGS not ageing sober malemice. But the downfall of this utility that doesn’t immediately come across from the packaging is the sole of rice one is forced to walk on. One is instantly introduced to perpetually walking across a permanently hot lumpy beach. They’re more like Mediterranean virtual reality footwear than a boon to winter mornings. That and the fact one of the cats has made off with one of them though has brought about a happy conclusion. I now have a lovely warm slipper discretely stuffed up my dressing gown keeping my tummy warm. So thanks Tom, I now have two convenient winter warmers I can place anywhere about my person to keep the chills at bay. Anywhere but my feet that is.

Some things aren't funny.

I rate Jeremy Paxman as generally sensible, even handed and forceful but this evening he was uninformed when talking to a moderate young man who heads up the English Defence Alliance inferring his organisation was similar to the BNP. I believe at least the young man was voicing a common concern that English society has against a particular reading of the Koran. Where one reading is much like Christianity and sits well with the laws and norms of this country it can also be read as being aggressive and barbaric. That’s because the Koran is not just a religious document, it also contains a fifteen hundred year old social code as embodied in Sharia Law. Sharia law still sanctions stoning to death, honour killings, fatwas, the death sentence for blaspheming against Allah and anti feminine codes of conduct, which definitely do not sit well with the norms of this country. Our English social code of AD600 was probably similar but we no longer drown witches, cut people’s hand off for stealing or brutalise non-believers. Where we have moved on the Koran is unchangeable and still sacrosanct in its original form. When the young man said that the majority of Muslim clerics were trained in countries like Pakistan Jeremy failed to recognise the implication that they teach not only their religion but also this ancient social code. When the young man blamed the grooming of young girls for sex parties on men from Muslim countries Jeremy countered by saying ‘but white men do it too.’ Well yes but out of 56 reported cases 53 were by men from Pakistan and Asian countries and only 3 from the white community. When the young man made the distinction of accepting Muslims but being against the Koran Jeremy failed to see he accepted the religion but decried the social code as ludicrously outdated. Surely it’s not for nothing that Hindu India, Taoist China, Catholic Latin America are fast developing countries and the Christian west is developed whereas Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan and other middle east, largely Muslim countries are in either poverty or turmoil.

My fear is that if we don’t listen to moderate voices of both English and Muslims now the more barbaric Islamic norms of Pakistan will be allowed validity and cause greater conflict in the future.