A casual friend drew attention to the idea of hyperempathy (there doesn’t seem to be a standard way to write it: perhaps it needs a hyphen?). The idea is that certain people and organisations sense everything about you and respond accordingly. It’s as if, in an emotional sense, they have X-Ray eyes. They want to see your soul.

Imagine a government so sensitive to the needs of each individual that it has a need to ‘care’ for all of them – every minute of every day. ‘Are you in work, are you ill are you..?’ It sounds a bit claustrophobic to me!

‘How’s your love life?’ – You would be justified in saying, ‘Mind your own!’

But isn’t this part of everyone’s experience? Governments really do seem to have got into bed with us, demanding a constant supply of feedback and information. In return all they want is our compliance. ‘We cater to your every need, so fall into line and be grateful!’

Hyperempathy is also present in certain people, and I read a paper suggesting that it’s a key characteristic of narscissm. If someone is extremely self regarding they may (ironically) be highly attuned to the inner lives of other people.

I once knew someone like this: he would offer dazzling personal insights – but in return he wanted to live in my pocket and he was never off the phone asking for ‘a face to face.’ So that’s what you call conversation is it?

It was all about him and his designer drugs, his women his mental landscape, his small intestine. In the end, he wore me into the ground; he was empathic to the point of neurosis: never missed a trick.

In these days of self help books and cod psychology, almost everyone has read enough to know about (for example) the role of the subconscience mind – but hyperempathy is a strange and timid beastie which doesn’t exactly loom large on anyone’s radar.

There are hyperempathic organisations which want to feel your every need and emotion. They are ‘there for you’ like an omnipresent episode of Neighbours. But in fact they are vampiric and they want to feast on your bank account. And you thought *you* were a consumer! Organisations also consume…

As you will have noticed this isn’t an academic paper or a serious analysis, but beware! The hyperempathics are out there, and they want to feel your pain. You might not get a chance to feel it yourself or take ownership of your emotions.

Today is Blog Action Day on climate change, with the idea that the world’s bloggers (an ugly word!) should write about this important issue.

I’m more than happy to join in as discussions on climate change quickly divide people into 2 camps: those who think it’s complete nonsense, and people who accept that human beings are having a dramatic impact on global temperatures. Oh! I forgot the 3rd. lot: the ones who don’t give a buggers.

I belong to the first group, because I’ve been interested in this subject since the mid-80s when it was a fringe issue, likely to get you branded as a fruitcake or an extremist. It seemed obvious back then that something was happening, but few people seemed willing to accept it. Now the issue has gone mainstream – good!

I hasten to add that I’m not a scientist and I have no hard evidence to back up this piece: that would take too long. I have certainly read up on the subject and feel very strongly that humanity is having an adverse effect on the planet, creating significant increases in global temperatures. The polar ice caps are melting, and somehow I find the suggestion that, ‘It would have happened anyway’ rather stupid.

My understanding is that climate change doesn’t always lead to uniformly distributed rises in global temperatures: some areas become hotter, while others may actually cool down. It seems that the overall effect is to create far less predictable global weather patterns. For example, unexpected droughts, anticyclones and flooding are more likely to occur in different regions.

Whenever I read articles written by climate change deniers I suspect that either:

1. they’ve not read any well researched – and unbiased – scientific evidence and understood key messages from this.
2. They have an underlying political agenda (usually right wing) to their view. Just to clarify, I’m a leftist so feel free to say, ‘Yeah, well you would say that wouldn’t you?’. Yes I would! But at least I’ve come clean and you can understand my perspective.
3. They don’t want to face the grim reality of the situation, so they shut down mentally and retreat into a fantasy world.

We’re all individually responsible for changing our behaviour to reduce humanity’s impact on the environment, and the addage ‘think globally, act locally’ seems like a good place to start.

I’m trying to reduce my impact on the environment. I don’t run a car or own a TV (though obviously I have a computer!) and I use low energy lightbulbs at home. I need to recycle more stuff – that’s my weak point because my neighbours are doing more on that front than me.

Please at least consider the possibility that if we don’t face up to the realities of climate change and act NOW, our future on this planet – and the wellbeing of the whole biosphere – is at risk. It’s up to us.

I recently had a conversation with a complete stranger on a train. This is a common experience for me as I spend a lot of time commuting between two major towns in the UK; something which can by turns be exhausting, joyful, frustrating and sociable.

I don’t know his name yet, but let’s call him Joe. He described himself as, ‘a square peg in a round hole’ working in the IT industry ‘on a dying mainframe system’. None-the-less, Joe seemed content enough with his life. This is what he said:

‘These days people have become very fragmented and atomised, but at the same time they are fiercely individualistic and will defend their right to believe whatever they want – sometimes to the death. You aren’t alone in your feelings about this.’

‘I don’t fit in well with the people I work with though. They’re all the right type for that place, but not me. I just carry on as best as I can to get by.’

That’s a paraphrase: my memory is good – but not perfect. In any case, I agree with Joe. He has a mortgage (nearly paid for) a partner (‘She might as well be my wife, but we aren’t married’) and a suitcase full of experiences. Had he been, ‘the right type’ we would never have had that conversation, because such people are rarely interesting or even mildly engaging. That’s the whole point of this article.

Speaking for myself, I rent a medium sized flat in a large city. My flat is located in a red light district: not half as bad as you might think because at least the rent is low. On the other hand, the neighbourhood tends to colour people’s view of me.

‘It’s a dodgy area!’ So therefore – QED, I must also be dodgy; an amateur poet and bedsit musician with a second class honours degree. But who cares? My entire personal history is disregarded – replaced with urban shorthand: you are where you live. You are what you own. You are a commodity; or worse still, an accessory to be bolted onto someone’s life and removed when deemed expedient.

I can’t afford a mortgage (that requires a double income) and I do indeed live in a place with no sense of community. I used to know my neighbours, but not now: the good ones have moved away. I share a small block of flats with four other people, and if I pass them in the corridor they occasionally acknowledge my presence, but I don’t know their names. Not long ago one of them actually grunted at me. I wonder if he realised what kind of signal that sends out?

Although I’m not a Marxist, Karl Marx wrote about alienation, and here I am experiencing it at first hand. It’s not an abstract intellectual concept after all, because for me this means a gradual stripping away of personal identity and spontaneity; the growing realisation that if you were to stand in a large crowd with a basket of stones (or sponge balls if you’re feeling gentle) you could pelt them around all day without hitting someone with a social conscience. Did I say all day? All year! Do I hear any bids for an entire lifetime?

Community has been replaced with naked self interest and greed. There are genuine communities out there, but they seem to exist in isolated pockets around the globe, and I have no idea what it is like to actively enjoy living somewhere over a prolonged period. A strong sense of self is very much linked to shared values and a feeling of belonging; but for me, this is largely missing. I don’t blame myself for this because it’s a side effect of global capitalism.

I know I’m not alone. This year I became involved in a project to set up a brand new housing project called the ‘ Dandelion Housing Co-op‘. This article is not really an advert for our nascent organisation (though publicity is useful) but a group of us are planning to live together.

There are many similar projects dotted around the UK [this is a UK-centric article] because not everyone wants to live in glorious isolation with a mortgage and a divorce/broken heart/mental illness/pet iguana for company. You name it: most of these things are a direct consequence of our modern age. Our decision to disconnect with authenticity.

Cooperatives like ours depend on issues of loan stock (low interest loans issued over pre-determined periods) and grant funding to get started. So far so good: we have a bank account, but not much money. We have a business plan, and we have a small measure of hope.

Many of us are holding out for a better life somewhere other than a dystopian jungle full of fast-food, cheap thrills and apparently empty people. We might succeed, we might fail but we are unlikely to stop trying until we find a place to make a stand and live more balanced lives.

Joe and me stood together, shuddering on a chilly Autumnal railway platform talking; half listening to the animated laughter of a small group of Chinese girls. We shared a half hour journey and nattered about this and that, amused by the fact that two so-called veteran commuters had managed to get on the wrong train, heading rapidly away from our true destination. A metaphor for modern life perhaps? Hell – I might even learn his real name one day.

Absinthe is a very misunderstood drink, and although terrible hangovers are a real possibility, a lot of the real trouble comes from the way it’s commonly served.

It should never be drunk neat, and it should be served in a proper absinthe glass. Ice cold water should be slowly trickled into the drink through a slotted absinthe spoon; and a sugar cube perched on the spoon is essential, so it can dissolve into the booze.

Absinthe is an herbal liquor, and unless the right amount of very cold water is added to it, the drink’s herbal essences will not be released. I’ve seen people in British bars drink it neat, but in the 19th. Century the only people to do this were in the final stages of alcoholism…

There is a myth (which has been perpetuated through films) that you are supposed to dunk a sugar cube in the absinthe on a spoon, then ignite the thing and stand back going ‘Oooooo, how cool is that?!’ Not so. Here is some gratuitous advertising for you, for which I might eventually receive a free bottle of the ‘green fairy’!

Absinthe

If you enjoy an occasional glass of absinthe you will not go mad, you will completely fail to cut your ear off like Van Gogh, and (wait for it… another myth coming up) it doesn’t contain neurotoxic substances. If you overdo any alcoholic drink you’re going to suffer ill effects, so please… keep it real and have a good time.

So what does it mean, this funny little word? Ludic has its roots in the Latin word ludus meaning playful, and it hints at the possibility of living life in a less serious manner. I’m not an expert in this subject (who is?) but I thought it would make an interesting ramble; especially as I have a finely tuned sense of the absurd.

A quick trawl through the (occasionally accurate!) annals of Wikipedia suggests that ludic ideas are linked to anarchism, though I’m inclined to be cautious about this because just about every interesting idea out there claims to belong to a branch of anarchism – including the Internet itself.

After all, the Net can be seen as a creative project put together by a group of largely unpaid enthusiasts. Of course this paradigm cannot be applied universally: the chances are your ISP pays its staff.

So how does one live ludically? I think the first thing is to destructure your life; or at least try to be less reliant on routines. All of us can fall into the trap of repeating ourselves, and once spontaneity is lost life becomes dull.

Children are naturally playful and communal, but as we grow up we are strongly encouraged (and brutalised if we don’t) to conform to a rigidly hierarchical system where we are often measured against spurious benchmarks of ‘excellence’. Petty bureaucratic bores love such metrics, and it is arguably very hard to completely dispense with them.

The next step is to mentally focus on the more surreal aspects of life. Someone once told me that every single day contains a surreal event, but we are often too busy to notice. More about that later.

For example, last week I was out walking when I saw an abandoned car by the road. The front bumper was a wreck, the windscreen was crazed over and the passenger-side airbag was inflated. The car belonged to a driving school and it was easy to imagine a very pissed off instructor standing by the side of the road with a red face and an extremely embarrassed pupil. ‘How was your day?’

Welcome as they are this is not just about belly laughs; it’s more a question of changing your focus slightly. Of shifting it sideways and taking a walk in Surreal Park.

Most people (myself included) are much too busy. Kick your shoes off, open a bottle of wine and cast your worries to the wind. The world can wait for a while. I don’t think it’s wise to put off your responsibilities forever, but postponing them can be as good as a two week holiday. After all, why worry?

So how can we learn to be more playful? The clue’s in the word: by playing! Surely playfulness is a form of creativity, but my idea of ludic living is about a more disciplined form of play. When was the last time you made something? Why not fly a kite, read a book or go to the cinema? Can you write short stories or poems? Can you paint, draw or invent a narrative? Or make a film!

If these things are beyond your reach then try this: buy a bottle of bubbles and take them with you wherever you go. Blow them when you feel like having fun.

To summarise:

• destructure your life as far as possible (I’m not suggesting chaos)
• focus on the surreal/more interesting aspects of life
• try to be less busy
• find as many creative outlets as you can

Please feel free to comment on these ideas and add some of your own. Off on a tangent, my spellchecker does not recognise the word ludic. Perhaps we need to expand our collective vocabularly if we are to have any hope of living better lives in our crazy mixed up world?

I can’t decide, but I do know its been raining for a whole
week and all I seem to do is go outside, walk, get wet and
dry out again. It really saps your enthusiasm and drains
your will.

Some time ago I estimated that in a single week I walk for
about 10 hours. This isn’t for my health, I have buses and
trains to catch – then I have to do it again in reverse to
return home. As you can imagine, umbrellas are important
to someone who spends a lot of time on the hoof.

Ah yes, umbrellas. I remember a time when I thought an
umbrella was just a piece of cloth stretched over a metal
frame, but that’s just for beginners. At first I thought I
could get by with a cheap one, but then the wind blew too
strongly and snapped my cheap piece of kit like a cheese
straw. So I went upmarket and spent some silly money on a
brolly with a fibreglass frame; guaranteed not to break in
a gale.

This was my Excalibur. Something I began to see as more
than just an umbrella: it was a tool! Holding it up against
the wind felt like sailing, even though I was only trudging
along and killing time. You can feel your muscles working
and the umbrella responds against the wind like a kite,
flexing and twisting in your grip.

Sadly I left it in the pub. Most of my umbrellas fall prey
to loss, but in the end I replace them and carry on like
before. There is something sad about a broken umbrella
lying in the street, a testiment to our wasteful ‘just in
time’ consumer society. You can’t beat a good bit of kit,
and a brolly looks stylish, but do they go to Heaven when they die?

I have good reasons for asking this, because several years ago I moved to a very large city. Back then it was a mish-mash of concrete and urban sprawl, and it felt dark and vaguely threatening. Then the developers moved in with their skyscraper cranes, steel girders and eyes glittering with holy zeal. ‘Let us regenerate’, and they did and they saw that it was good.

Unfortunately for many of us, it was less than good: it was destructive and pig-headed. At first I was pleased to see the new restaurants and the space age department stores. I even liked some of the shoppers; though I can’t understand people who wear sunglasses over their hair like UV protective Alice bands.

Then the Dark Side became apparent. I like to hang around rock venues, and often these are small city centre pubs with basement stages. They charge £4 on the door, and you can turn up to hear a handful of unsigned bands at the weekend. They are full of leather clad music fiends, and – believe it or not – some of them are actually friendly. Occasionally I look like one of them, despite being ‘middle-aged’. Who wants to be a stereotype? Lots of people!

But the Noveau Urban Re-generators hate these places because they take up valuable ‘real estate’. Why have a rock pub when you can bulldozer it into the dirt and build a faceless department store on the ruins instead? After all, what people want is a nice clean happy environment, uncluttered by hairy bohos like me. This isn’t just vapouring, I’ve watched it happen.

One by one I’ve seen valuable venues close down, either through the will of the regen. vandals or because a gang of local yuppies signed a petition. ‘We don’t like the noise of culture’ would be shorthand for their views. These are people who install themselves in town centres while the dust is still settling on their new build apartments. Suddenly – because they paid upwards of £150,000 for a brick and plaster box which will fall to bits in 20 years anyway – they become horribly vocal.

I’ve watched two valued venues close down in just a handful of years, and there are more on the way. A friend recently showed me a converted church on Cardiff Bay called The Point: it went bust because people complained about the noise. The venue was forced to foot the bill for sound-proofing, but this proved too much of a financial strain. In my own city, Ronnie Scotts shut down: it’s now a strip club. Another city centre club had to close because of complaints from the pin stripe brigade.

A few years ago this would have been unthinkable. People actually wanted to go to live music venues to socialise, but now music (much like masturbation) has become a solo experience. Of course people still travel to festivals in the Summer, but that’s just in between iPod and MySpace sessions. Music is always at its best when experienced with other people, so I continually wonder, ‘What the Hell went wrong’?

Another reason for hating urban regeneration is that – as predicted by Naomi Klein in ‘No Logo’ – it has led to private space masquerading as public space. When I walk through my city I have security guards peering at me, guarding those valuable pizza restaurants against hairy folk rockers like me. After all, I might get stroppy and say, ‘Good morning’ or something.

Urban yuppies are incompatible with grassroots culture. They stunt the development of our major towns and cities because they are anti-creative, anti-intellectual and self obsessed. They are heeded by local authorities on a disproportionate scale to their personal worth and intelligence, and they should be quitely ignored for the fools they really are.

I love short blog entries: they take no time to read! Here’s something from YouTube:

I don’t claim to be a film expert, but I can’t understand the Western world’s obsession with Hollywood. When you’ve seen half a dozen of their mass produced products you’ve seen them all.

Acting? You must be kidding! There seems to be a total lack of dedication to any kind of craft in most Hollywood flicks. Then there’s the merchandising, the Oscars, the ego stroking combined with the not so subtle subtext of backstabbing and falsehood. It’s not big, it’s not clever and it’s not art. It’s just a machine churning out (not so cheap) entertainment for the huddled masses.

World cinema is the way to go. Did I say ‘World cinema’? Where else are films made? I got into ‘foreign’ films by accident after I decided to borrow a few from my local library. French films are all about relationships: something the French have elevated to a high art. They seem to have a huge amount of categories for this crazy little thing called love. Ever seen ‘Claire’s Knee’? A man becomes obsessed with touching a girl’s knee, and this – for him – is the only kind of contact he craves. When he finally does so, it’s rather touching… Pun intended.

I finally got bored with French flicks, so I tried Spanish films. They’re actually not much different from the French ones because they also obsess about relationships, but with a strong dose of surrealism thrown into the stew for good measure. The erotic charge in some of those films is immense: ‘Sex and Lucia’ is a classic example. It’s not an ‘adult film’ because it’s beautifully shot and it has an almost dream-like quality about it. And it tells a story using a kind of symbolic language which you gradually unravel as you think about the film.

Hollywood simply steals ideas from this huge catalogue of talent and recycles it for the peanut munching morons who actually think Keanu Reeves can act. I respect Al Pacino, and despite my rather acid tones I don’t dislike all American films: just the target marketed ones with coke ads printed all over them. If you want a good independent US film try watching ‘Wristcutters’. Then try finding someone who’s actually seen it; you’ll probably have a long search.

Japanese and Chinese films are also rewarding to watch. Yes, you have to read the subtitles, but it’s a small price to pay for quality. ‘Warm Water under a Red Bridge’ is highly original (many Japanese films appear to draw on folk tales and mythology: this one is no exception) and even a Chinese martial arts flick is vastly superior to Hollywood dross.

How about watching Drunken Master 1 & 2? The acting is terrible, but the fight scenes are pure unadulterated genius. The list goes on, and I can’t capture the essence of truly wonderful cinema in this post. All you have to do is look for them and keep an open mind. Hollywood won’t: its third eye is closed.

Here are some verses from a song called ‘The Hollywood Sign’ by Dory Previn:

You know the Hollywood sign
that stands in the Hollywood hills?
I don’t think the Christ of the Andes
ever blessed so many ills.

The Hollywood sign seems to smile
like it’s constantly saying “cheese”.
I doubt if the Statue of Liberty
ever welcomed more refugees.

Give me your poor,
your tired, your pimps.
Your carhops, your cowboys
your midgets, your chimps.
Give me your freaks,
your whores, your harlots,
your flunkies, your junkies.
Give me your starlets.

A slightly belated Happy New Year to everyone: all 2 of you, as I can see from my blog stats that not many people actually read these pages. Actually the ‘About’ section (possibly the most tedious thing you will read online) has the most hits. I really don’t mind: writing is therapeutic and I don’t post here so much.

I want to say a few words in praise of the Idle Foundation (IF) who have been the source of so much inspiration and moral support over the last year or so. I’m proud to be a member as we’re a small but growing band of online misfits, bohos and creatives. I’m using the word ‘misfits’ affectionately here! Who wants to fit in with an inherently corrupt and culturally vapid system?

Looking back over 2008, I’ve had a very creative year. I’ve written a manifesto, a handful of essays and a few poems. I even wrote a guitar tune, inspired by the late Davy Graham. I hope to get involved in some more writing with and for the IF at some stage, and my point is… without their encouragement I would have produced nothing. I need a kick up the arse coupled with a bit of support before I can ‘put pen to paper’.

Inevitably a blog like this falls short of saying what’s really in my heart, but I hope this will suffice. Thank you, thank you and thank you all again.