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.