Conversations Rehearsed in the Mind

A few posts back I talked about my efforts to be less socially awkward. Since then I've found that physically slowing down helps. I'm normally a high energy busy-bee, with the garbled anxiousness to go with it. Anyway, just slowing down works. Like, actually just walking slower. I force myself to walk more slowly before I walk into a room, and, voilà, I'm much more chilled out. The physical translating into the emotional and inter-personal. Of course, it hasn't quite transformed me into Arthur Fonzarelli overnight, but it has helped.

Another aspect of social anxiety I've been thinking about is, "Conversations Rehearsed in the Mind." Everyone probably understands what I'm talking about here.

You want to speak to a particular person. You imagine the conversation you want to have with them. Perhaps when you're lying awake at night, or waiting for the bus. Going over it in your mind. Perfecting the words you want to say. Replete with charming little jokes and witty points. However, when the opportunity arises it isn't quite like that. Almost disappointingly so. And it's not just that you lacked the confidence to say what you wanted to say, though that may be part of it. It's the sheer difference between the fantasy and the reality. The situation presents itself differently. The person responds with different words to the ones you'd imagined they'd say, or they're in a slightly different mood. Or there are other people around, butting it and stealing your limelight, cutting you off. Or just changing the social dynamics of the situation. Or, the conversation just goes in a completely different direction. Leaving you trying to force your pre-scripted points into a scene where everyone else is just going naturally with flow.

In short, reality is so much more complicated and unpredictable than the dreamed-up conversation in your head. You're left feeling like an anti-social oddball. Or again, just downcast and disappointed that your life isn't what you imagined it was.

So, the question then comes:

Should you rehearse conversations in the mind like this?

Would it not be better to stop overthinking things, and to start trying to live in the moment? Isn't this the way successful, confident people go through life?

However, I'm not so sure. I think it's more a case of needing to manage your expectations, and learning how to deal with disappointment or defeat.

It's a little bit like football. Visualising success is important. Obviously, when you're out on the pitch the freekick isn't going to fly into the top corner every time. Yet still, rehearsing the dream in your mind acts as a form of practice. It isn't a substitute for real world practice, but it does help. It also allows you to imagine new ideas and be creative. I'm sure truly successful footballers do this. They'll dream (and obsess) over such things.

It may look effortless on the pitch, but that effortless freekick was the product of lots of mental and physical practice.

A similar, though more boring example, is the job interview. Interviews rarely go how we imagine they will, but thinking about what you might say or how you'll respond to questions certainly helps. And if you really care about the job you'll think about it a lot.

So, how much more can you care about a person. If you can lose sleep over a job or a football match, then surely a person is worth the sleepless nights. It's tiring and stressful, but would you want it any other way. The mountain is high, but the view is spectacular.

Therefore, I think it's more a case of trying to bring your tricks and flicks into the real world. To see the dream as practice for a real world that's much more complex. Instead of hoping or expecting that reality will simply mirror the sitcom in your mind. To prepare yourself for the big game, so that you have the confidence and instincts to be able to express yourself in real time. Rehearsing conversations helps, just be flexible. Perhaps the opportunity for a backheel or a rabona will present itself. But don't try to force it.

For instance, Ronaldinho no doubt did a lot of practising and dreaming - he was certainly imaginative. But he enjoyed himself on the pitch too and operated on instinct when out there. So I think this is probably the way to go. Not to start not caring, or not dreaming. Or to start pretending the things you feel are important are not important ..but to start enjoying the game more.

I think it's also important to remember that everyone has some kind of internal monologue. It's easy to look at other people and to think, "That person breezes through life." However, the reality is, everyone has an inner life. Everyone has their insecurities, anxieties and ambitions. So, if you assume others go through life effortlessly you underestimate their intent and worry, and their own inclination to dream and to pursue the things they want.

There's been a lot of talk over the last few years in online circles about winners and losers. Chads and betas. Especially in regard male/female relationships. With commentators often viewing women as foes to be subdued and defeated. But I think the real winners are the people that just enjoy the game. Cringe though that may sound.

a snapshot

Yesterday, I arrived at work. GB News was on in the canteen before I started my shift. The headlines about the air collision in Washington tapering across the screen. The canteen had a smattering of people. Africans, Poles, English, Indian. Some eating, some watching the screen, some glued to their phone. I remember the first time I noticed GB News playing on the canteen TV. It felt noteworthy. That was over a year ago. Maybe longer. It's standard now. It just plays in the background, like the BBC, or a local radio station. I can't help but periodically think about the noteworthiness though. Someone clicks the remote to turn it on. No one complains. No one turns it off. It feels like a little victory. Like somehow it's a little guide rail, keeping everything on the same cultural track. A kind of crash course in Britishness by daily osmosis.

Rolling coverage of American officials talking to the press about the tragedy runs uninterrupted on the screen. Then, finally, it cuts back to Tom Harwood and a female presenter in the studio. It then cuts to live feed from John Prescott's funeral, where Tony Blair is giving a eulogy. It starts mid-anecdote. A tale about John's no-nonsense working class manner - a refusal to refer to Menzies Campbell as "Ming". Blair then starts talking about "power". John's influence on debates about "what Labour must do to sustain power," and how the Tories "wield power" and find "nothing inherently unprincipled" in doing that. Even with the sorrowful news I couldn't help but inwardly laugh that even at a funeral Blair can't help but talk of power. I then looked at the clock in the screen's corner: 12:49. "I better wrap up, get my hi-vis on and head down to clock in for my shift."

Dreams and Cultural Conflict

Another day, another piece on the BBC News website about Roman Abramovich.

Are we on the path to synthesis and reintegration? A billion pounds might be a hefty slap on the wrist.

The big story today though in the UK is Magica De Spell's economic announcements. I must say, it all feels quite optimistic. We definitely need the reservoirs. So the feelings of optimism I had at the start of the year are continuing. It does feel like everything is on a better path. Obviously, the big thing globally is always war and political persecution. We want a world where these are lessened. Ideally absent. There's always cultural conflict. It does feel like the culture wars have died down a little though, and you'd think the more chilled out vibe would lessen the prospect of real, physical turmoil in the world. A bit of a healing and resynthesis period. So yeah, I'm actually hopeful.

Returning to Magica's announcements, the one that excites people is the idea of creating "Europe's Silicon Valley" between Oxford and Cambridge. Whenever stuff like this pops up I always think about how important the cultural environment is to such potential blooming. For example, I remember as a child briefly stating, "I want to make computer games when I grow up."

Naturally, as a child, I loved my video games, and that love obviously inspired the thought. However, when I stated this aloud the response I got from adults was one of complete dismissal. As if I'd said I wanted to be an astronaut or a Hollywood film star. It was just not on the radar of possibilities. Consequently, the ambition quickly disappeared and was replaced by other dreams and plans.

Had I been encouraged down that path I would've no doubt not ended up being a video game designer. However, it's likely that I could've ended up doing something relating to tech or computing. Some natural, more adult off-shoot of that initial childhood dream.

So, in the UK, back then, it just wasn't a realistic option for people. There was no route. And now, in turn, we have no Google or Amazon.

Also, there were no role models.

ROLE MODELS

Role models are important as they offer a path to follow. They illustrate to the young what is possible in adult life. What's realistic.

We can see this in contrast when looking at a dream I did try to pursue: MUSIC

As a teenager I loved music as much as I loved Super Nintendo games. However, in the UK, in comparison, we did have a music industry. So, even if parents and teachers weren't fully supportive of the idea of becoming a rock star, there were plenty of other adults in the wider culture that provided the blueprint.

Meaning, as a teenager from a council estate in the north of England, you could see, say Noel Gallagher of Oasis, and think, "He's from a council estate in the north of England and he did this - therefore it can be done." It is a real world possibility of a dream being achievable. Albeit an unlikely one. You can then follow that path. "What did he do?" You perhaps read a biography and seek to absorb the lesson. Of course, all these things tend to happen by osmosis. The thoughts aren't quite as clear minded as I present them here. Nevertheless, it is a case of people needing to feel that something is achievable. Otherwise why make the effort to go down that path.

This is likewise why so many young girls get hooked into OnlyFans and stuff like that. It's not that these girls are lazy or fundamentally corrupt in some way. It's that they're ambitious - i.e. they want a successful life, and they don't want to spend a lifetime working in a factory or on benefits. So, they gravitate to (what to them) feels like a realistic path to success. They see other women making vast sums of money doing it, and just like the teenage me, watching indie bands, that real world example serves as a template. An advert that: it can be done.

A realistic dream is offered. A route out of the drudgery and the humdrum.

So, if you want a British Google or Microsoft you really need to understand that the dream is so important. The next generation need to believe that, "Yes, I can make computer games for a living," or "Yes, I can build a robot or go to Mars." And, "Yes, I can be rich, successful and attractive to the opposite sex doing these things."

Now you, the reader, may say, "But this is just silly, these things just aren't realistic." However, this is how inspiration works. You don't create a Google if you start life as a teenager thinking, "I'll just get a normal job that will pay the mortgage like everyone else."

Stocks Deep Sunk ..and other news

We had the big AI stock market correction yesterday. Thanks to the emergence of the Chinese company DeepSeek. Though, given how overpriced things were becoming, I think the Chinese AI provided more of an excuse for the correction than the impetus. I'm no expert though, and we'll see what happens today.

I'm mainly posting as this story comes as part of a raft of stories running today that come with the sense of mood shift. Or, at least a coalescence of where things have been heading.

Above is today's BBC News homepage. The main story is the China AI story - a story that marries the very now themes of China, AI and Trump. This is supplemented with a link to the live running debate about assisted dying, and a prominent article about the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich.

At the start of the Ukraine war Abramovich featured quite heavily. However, in the period since, talk of him (and his steel company Evraz) has dimmed down in the news pages. Now he's back, front and centre.

If we scroll down a bit, we then get another Russia/Ukraine story. Plus another very of the times story about a man benefitting from a brain implant. Welcome to the future. (Oddly we also have a story about '66 million year old vomit' being found in Denmark.)

I'm not sure where this is going, but it all has the feel of: "Okay, here we are. This is where we are now."

Back at the start of the Ukraine war I was a bit slow off the mark in getting my head around it. Now, in retrospect, I think I have a better handle on things. It's always easier in hindsight though. The challenge is getting a sense of things before they happen. Or at least as they happen.

More War? Less War? Where War? Wherefore?

A Money Tree on a Desert Island

The topic of MMT popped up yesterday. Modern Monetary Theory, also known as the Magic Money Tree.

Of course, all the arguments back and forth on such topics tend to get lost in theory. People really do love a good theory. Intellectuals support theories like normal people back a horse or choose their favourite football team. They find one they like, then stick all their money on it. "This one is right - this team is the best. All the others are bad."

Personally, I'm more a 'make do and mend' type person. I don't think any theory can map onto life perfectly, and more to the point, I think when people try to force the real world to conform to a theory - any theory - things start getting bad. So I prefer to look at things from the ground up. Don't get too heady.

Anyway, one thing I like to come back to when the topic of debt and printing money comes up is how what matters are the percentages, and how they are balanced, rather than the ever-growing numbers themselves.

For example..

(I get to use my favourite sandbox once again - the desert island.)

Imagine there are two people on a desert island, and there are 100 notes (bits of money). And each has 50. Then, they decide to print more money. Let's say, another 900 notes. So now they both have 500 each.

The situation remains exactly the same. The still both have 50% of the island's wealth.

Let's say, originally, when there were 100 notes in circulation, a coconut cost 10 notes, but now, thanks to inflation, with 1000 in circulation, one costs 100. There's no real difference. They can still just as easily buy a coconut. A coconut still costs one fifth of their wealth.

It's a bit of a silly example, but it goes to show that the amount of money in circulation isn't the issue. It's the balance. There could be a billion notes on the island, but if each possesses 50% it doesn't make any difference to the circumstance.

Back to reality..

So, in the wider scheme of things, it's about the balance of money. It's about relative wealth. The question should be, "Are things getting more balanced?" Not, "How can the economy possibly keep going with a zillion-billion-gajillion dollars in circulation?!"

Of course, the problems are compounded by debt. Money tends to be lent into existence. So a billion gets injected into the economy, but on the condition that the billion needs to be paid back. With interest. Naturally, the debt is therefore bigger than the injection. You could have zero interest debt, or negative interest, to mitigate this fact. However, there isn't really anything stopping a government from creating new money sans debt. A fresh injection of cash, out of nowhere, that doesn't need paying back.

So you could just stick £100 of fresh money into every individual's bank account to inflate away the ever-growing debt.

Just because this could be done, doesn't mean it doesn't come with downsides though. If you were a foreigner would you hold UK pounds, or accept them as payment, if you knew the citizens of the UK were just going to gift themselves another £100 as and when they liked.

So the debt does serve a function. It's a punishment or cost that prohibits people from inflating.

Again, personally, I think you have do whatever you need to do to balance things, and you need to do it in moderation. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. I'd be open to sticking a little bit of "out of thin air" cash (jubilee money) into everyone's bank account to help adjust the clearly crazy and unsustainable imbalances we have now. However, we're stuck in the middle between idealists. Believers in MMT, who would take this acknowledgement as a green light to print whatever they want. "Hey, we can print money! Let's just fund every socialist dream we've ever had this way!"

And people on the other side of the argument. Who want to go back to the gold standard; who are expecting the dollar to collapse at any moment. The irony is, these people understand the problems caused by inflation very well, and they understand how it unfairly benefits those with assets and not the regular wage worker, but, so wedded are they to the idea that printing money is just plain wrong, they'll never advocate for a fairer printing of money. Where the injected liquidity doesn't just trickle down from the top.

A Dragon Playing With Kittens

Update time.

I feel in a blogging mood at the moment. Not exactly sure what I'm going to write, but I crave some kind of catharsis. Let's get personal.

What's on my mind at the moment are my appalling social skills. I have the social skills of a toddler. If I was being generous I would describe myself as child-like. If I was being fairer I'd have to use the word childish. The calm interaction of the adult world eludes me. Even now, at the age of 42, I'm shy, nervous, awkward. I'm not quite as bad as I was when I was younger, I've made some improvement, but still, it's far from enough.

Partly it stems from a fear of treading on other people's toes and getting into trouble. As a child the importance of being well-behaved was always drilled into me, especially in regard formal situations, such as at school (an attitude I've carried over into work in my adult life). This meant: being quiet; speaking when spoken to; not chit-chatting and messing around; getting on with work.

I'm also very oversensitive to the impact my actions have on others. I can read people fairly well, and can read between the lines, so I instantly pick up on the subtle reflexes. Kind of the exact opposite of the type of guy who has zero self-awareness, so imposes on others without the slightest sense that he's making a social faux-pas or overstepping the line, completely oblivious to the clear distaste on other people's faces. I'm too self-aware. So I always feel like a dragon dealing with kittens. Like I might accidentally scold someone with my fiery breath. I don't like putting people out, or being a burden on people, and heavily sense it when I am.

This is then compounded by the fact that most of everyday life tends to bore me. The routine "he said, she said," conversations. The usual, "Have you tried the latest thing that's been advertised on TV?" things people talk about. I normally just nod my head and listen, ..and if I ever do give my true opinion it's too exacting and jarring for people. Again, that dragon playing with kittens sense that my true self is just too rough and abrasive to be unleashed upon everyday society.

As is apparent from this blog, I'm full of opinions and questions. And I'm always like this, I can't help but observe the world. It doesn't switch off. Most people don't want this in daily life though. It's too much. They just want to watch the latest movie - they don't want it completely dismissed or deconstructed. They don't want the philosophical why. So - unless something is really important - I tend to keep my opinions to myself and give others the floor. I listen and nod. The problem with this though is that it's insincere. I'm listening because I want to do the right thing and be nice. Not because I genuinely want to hear what the other person is saying.

I think going forward I really need to make an effort to actually care more about what others care about. To elevate those little things within myself and not just pay an outward lip service to them. I really want to improve as we go into 2025. I think I need to slow down a little bit too. Not be so busy-busy. Again, like at school, I was so eager to please that I often put the school work before the people I was working with. I'd be in a rush to get my head down and get things done. So too am I like this in adult life. My instinct is to 'not piss about'. I need to be a bit more cool and relaxed.

(There's a reason why we call cool people cool. They're not in a tizz. They're chill, they go with the flow. They aren't stress-heads.

Incidentally, and on a tangent, (see, I can't help but notice these things), in the online right the word used is based. Similarly, there, the word itself comes with connotations of being solid, grounded, down-to-earth. It's a little different to the go-with-the-flow cool, but it likewise gives a sense of being calm and not wishy-washy or in a tizz.)

So I need to be a bit more peaceful.

Dragon's Lair

On reflection, another factor contributing to my childish social skills is my childish status. Still living at home. Still here in my parents' house. So whether a pupil in school, an employee at work, or a child under parents, you're never calling the shots. You're always in someone else's domain.

Like here, on this blog, it's my domain. I can say what I want. I can set the world to rights. I can say to anyone coming here, "Listen, if you don't like it, don't come here. No one's forcing you to be here." I can't really tread on anyone's toes here, because those toes have came here under their own volition and can just as easily walk away again. Here I have a little online kingdom. Or, at least, an online room-for-one that belongs to me. Out in the real world though it's always my toes tiptoeing around in other people's realms. If I give my opinions there, or try to set the world to rights, I'm causing trouble in someone else's space. Annoying people that didn't choose to be in my presence.

I think this is why having your own home is so important in regard the development of a man. We are, to some extent, shaped by our circumstances, so naturally we find ourselves a product of habit. Just as the pampered child becomes spoilt, or the overfed pet becomes fat. If you're always in a deferential position it's hard to become decisive. To be the commanding rock that's anchored against the wind.

Finally, to round things off, these things are also partly a product of our nature. It might just be my natural inclination to some degree. We can't blame all of our personal failings on nurture and circumstance. In 2025 I'm really determined to muster up the willpower to overcome the aspects of my being that let me down. Perhaps getting it down in words will help me do this.

We'll see how it goes..

2025: Stranger Than Fiction

2025. And already so strange. Canada, Greenland, Mexico, Musk, grooming gangs, and God knows what else. Oh, and the Panama Canal.

I watched the full Trump speech from Mar-a-Lago yesterday. I have to say, I loved it. He's doing his thing; setting his stall out. When negotiating he starts hard, to build up maximum leverage. The rhetoric is strong. We get the consequent, "Oh My God, What's He Saying? He's Crazy!" from the myriad normal people and political commentators watching. But c'mon, people should know this by now. We had four years of him before. He talks big, there's a lot of bravado, but he tends to be rather moderate in execution. The polar opposite of the more common sort of politician we're all used to, who speaks in respectable tones, as the bombs rain heavy and the world falls apart.

Still, even I, as I was watching, had to wonder where things were going. Maybe this is crazy?

We are living through strange times, and it's hard to see where things are heading. Greenland. Greenland? Everyone's baffled. What's the big deal with Greenland?

Of course, Trump's mentioned Greenland before. I've mentioned Trump mentioning Greenland before on here. That was back in 2019. In the before times.

It feels like one of these stories where there simply isn't a curtain big enough to hide the magician's backstage area from the public. A jarring window into something we're normally not allowed to see. It's reminiscent of the story that Tobias Ellwood wanted the UK to have a spaceport on Svalbard. Alan Duncan thought that was "bonkers" too.

Here In The Igloo.

Closer back home, it's icy here as well. I'll definitely need an extra layer for work tomorrow. January's always a bit of a strange month. Like the icy white, it feels blank. Consequently, it's a month where I always feel I can get a lot of my own stuff done. It's only the 8th and I've already hit the ground running. The book - the book - the work fiction, is now pretty much complete. The next stage is to start uploading the chapters incrementally to a blog - not this blog, I'll have to set up another (link will be provided when we get there for anyone curious). As I upload each chapter it'll give me a chance to re-read. So this 'uploading' process will also serve as the third draft. A kind of semi-published nearly-there version. The demo version if it was a song. Then, at some point, that will (hopefully) be bound together as an actual book.

So strangely, in spite of all the strangeness and the political hubbub, I'm actually feeling fairly optimistic going into this year.