Carpentry or Masonry

Woodwork is a place where people disappear.
They can be gone for a very long time; curled up like hibernating rats.
In the darkness they bide their time and keep a watchful eye
A beady, disgusting little gaze on the outside world.

Then when the conditions present themselves they crawl out.
Slimy and toxic they ooze from every nook and cranny in the every day oak.
Was it the change in temperature?
Was it the departure of a predator?
Was it just an inborn body clock or similarly horrific system that told them:
Now it is time to return.

I'm more for stone.
Cold throughout and hardened.
Weather beaten.
I'm sure I remain porous because a little amount of precious water passes through my veins.

I can take the weight you put on my shoulders.
I can take the weight you put in my head.

In the right hands I can be apart of something special, something big, something grand.
In the wrong hands I can bludgeon everything into a pulp, unrecognisable and dead.

I can be unmoving and unmoved; solid and unshakable.  I can defeat time, sink ships and stub your toe.
I can be rolled, dropped and thrown; create ripples across a great lake that will carry beyond your sight.

...but I can be melted down and malleable.  It takes immense heat.

Just as some creatures come oozing out of the woodwork, some fall back into it.  One cannot do without the other.  One vacates and the other inhabits.  I'm not sure which I despise the most; those that retreat into the woodwork or those that come out of it.  I'll give them one thing though; their timing is impeccable.

So I shall retreat beneath my rock and wait for the season to change. 
The wind blows in an ominous direction these days. 
The moon is in a dangerous phase.

I'll wait for it to pass
and the creatures of wood will cycle their retreat.
But time is something only I can defeat.

The Loneliness of the Long Distance...

  The last foothold was a tricky one.  The rock was damp and dotted by patches of moss undoubtedly feeding off the gentle sweat of water emanating from the stone and earth above.  I really didn't come prepared for this but then no one was planning to be this deep.  It started as a trip out to see the local cave systems deep beneath the limestone Karsts but the gentle slopes and winding tunnels ceased and opened up into a breathtaking space.

  Stalagmites and Stalactites gnashed like teeth and where they met, monumental columns had formed like an ancient Greek temple, rising toward the vaulted ceiling.  The ceiling was spectacularly beautiful; more so than any Sistine Chapel.  At the centre of this cavern, a crystal had formed and developed over millions of years and now hangs like a Chandelier in the deep.  We were very deep and the air was almost as scarce as the light of day; some of our group felt faint and turned back to the surface.  I stared in wonder at the shimmering crystal; it seemed to be pulsing with some life or energy that I could not explain and gave off a faint glow, the source of which remains a mystery.  Furthermore, from the ceiling fell fine threads that sparkled with drops of moisture caught on them; the product of some subterranean silk worm.  Oh I wish I could show you all!  They were like stars glittering in space around the icy body that loomed above.  I think to this day it will be the closest I ever come to feeling like I was in space, struggling to breath and hurtling down to an icy grave.  Our numbers dwindled as the lack of air and stifling heat began to take its toll on our crew until it was just me, our guide and a friend.

  "Do you want to go up special way?" our guide whispered in the gloom and it echoed around the walls.  My friend and I shrugged, he seemed happy with the idea just as I was.
  "Which way?" I asked.

  Our guide pointed up to the ceiling and slightly to the right where, in one corner the darkness became deeper in a small opening I had not noticed before.  We climbed toward it over piles of loose stones and earth; before passing into that dark gate I looked back for one last time into the depths of space, the stars, the moon.  Then it was gone and we plunged on into the dark.  We struggled in places to find suitable things to grip or to squeeze through tight spaces.  Luckily I was wearing hiking boots with good grip but my unfortunate friend was wearing an ill advised pair of sandals.  I'm pretty sure he was regretting the choice right about the time our guide indicated a near vertical wall that we needed to scale.  I was carrying a small torch that I gripped between my teeth; dog and bone.  Then we started to climb.

  Half way I stopped to catch my breath on a small outcrop.  My shirt was drenched in sweat as the humidity smothered me.  I took a few greedy swigs from my water bottle and began again.  My footing was steady and sure; mistakes could not be afforded at this height and in this place.  The land of smiles is not synonymous with health and safety.  No ropes means the very longest of drops.  I wondered where the others were; in the light of day enjoying a cold drink and some lunch no doubt.  Strange that I gave no thought to my safety as I climbed that cliff face.  I'm usually so reserved and careful at home but for some reason, perhaps the lack of oxygen I was drunk on life and just went for it.  It seemed a good idea at the time and to this day I stand by it even though I was one slip away...

  I just kept going; no looking up and no looking down.  In the moment.  My heart was pounding out every second of my life like a drum and my muscles ached or burned, or both.  My mind was blank but for the basic but all consuming movements of my body to just keep going.  Above me the guide called out words of encouragement and not a few jokes about foreigners and their inability to climb.  But I was there, the summit was within reach, if I could just twist my leg over to the next platform and launch my body up over the top.  But it was a struggle and although my foot rested on the rock I wasn't sure.  Of course I went for it none the less and pushed myself away from the rock.  My arms shot up searching desperately for that last rock.  My hand was seized by an iron grip; my guide and he hauled me up the rest of the way.

  At the top I planted my back against the nearest rock and slumped to the earth.  My body was throbbing with adrenalin and exhaustion.  My guide pulled me up once more and urged me onwards.  This was the moment when I realised there was sun light once more.  It was bursting in through the mouth of a cave ahead of us and bleaching everything.  I had thought the white spots in my eyes were because I was so tired but they were in fact my retinas dotted by the first sight of sun light.  I staggered forward into the blazing heat of a Thai afternoon.  The rush of air drowned my lungs and an electricity filled every inch of me.  I felt like I'd been purified.

I sat in the mouth of the cave and looked out over the tree tops.  We must have climbed quite far because we had been underground and were now quite high up.  Trees and plantations stretched as far as the eye could see, broken only by limestone karsts jutting out like the jaw of a broken old man.  The silence was overpowering.

  In that moment I couldn't think of anything.  My mind was blank and at peace; a smile was on my face and my eyes were open wide.  I had the sense that I was alone in every way.  No one knew what I was doing or where I was; in this cave, risking my life to climb it and looking out at the endless countryside in this far off place.  I was for once my own man and for my own sake.  The next week would bring my 25th birthday and I would spend it far from friends and family but I didn't feel sad.  All of those feelings of loneliness and isolation filled me with pride and an excitement of independence.

  I have never felt so free but my legs ached for days afterwards.

Got Any I.D.?

  I can’t serve you if you haven’t got any identity.

  As usual regular events have collected, drawn together by some strange gravity.  They have orbited me throughout this week until I had no choice but to notice them.  It is almost uncanny how these issues have presented themselves to me via different and disparate characters on my life’s stage.  It began with a question from someone who I work with who is also studying to be a teacher.  The question was: what is identity?

  The answers she received were very varied; ranging from the way we view ourselves to the way others view us.  The idea of nature versus nurture was also raised in a very basic way.  I then had a similar discussion, completely by chance with one of my closest friends.  We discussed the idea of evolutionary theory, genetics, determinism and fate.  These ideas, along with many others that have been thrown my way this week have caused me to write this blog.  It’s a tough subject so might be a little dry for some of you but I will be as succinct as possible.

  There is a theory by a French psychoanalyst called Jacques Lacan, which discusses the idea of the development of identity in infants.  The theory is based on research of the reactions of infants to their reflection in a mirror.  On a basic level it proposes that identity is formed by the relationship of an infant to its reflection.  The infant begins life unaware of itself; or perhaps it is better to say it is only aware of itself in a primal, sensation led, physical way.  The infant is the purest version of itself.  Upon recognising its own reflection in a mirror the infant is able to point at the image and say (not literally you understand) ‘that is me’.  However, the very instant the infant does this it is creating its own identity.

  Of course the image in the mirror is not the infant, it is something other; it is merely an image.  This paradox creates a split within the child whereby it has two ‘selves’ – the primal, pure self and the projected image in the mirror.  I love that idea; in my head it’s almost cinematic.  The child well project the image for the rest of its life; building and shaping it over the years.  This image is the child’s identity but not the child itself.  Identity can only ever be assumed.

  But identity can be a complex matter.  It might begin with the way we perceive ourselves but can it also be enhanced or magnified by the world around us?  It seems reasonable to say that we might create or embellish certain aspects of our identities to affect the way we are perceived by others; most of us have done this at some point in our lives.  However, it might also be argued that the people around us and their perceptions have their own influence on our identities.  How many of us have ever felt swayed or pressured into behaving in a certain way by our friends or families?  It is not through our own choice that we change our behaviour – there is outside influence.  Is it then a two way street, a dialogue between ourselves and the people we live with that shapes the veil of identity we use to shroud the primal entity within.  The entity that first banged its fist against its own reflection in a mirror, knowing on some instinctual level – it can’t be me because I am me.

  This leads onto yes another problem.  If there is indeed a dialogical relationship between us and the world around us that is shaping who we are, it raises questions of the nature versus nurture debate.  This debate questions the extent to which we are a product of our surroundings (nurture) or if we have an in built character that is almost genetic; in the same way we might have blue eyes, so we might have inherited a talent for dancing, or music, etc (nature).

  The idea of Nature is popular right now among psychologists, particularly when referencing phobias.  They would argue that someone might have a fear of spiders as an in built response to a potential predator or danger that has been carried down from when we were ape like creatures, living in caves.  As evidence they might point to the high percentage of people who are scared of spiders and say it is clearly a primal instinct overly manifesting itself.

  Someone who believed the concept of Nurture to be more important might argue that we are conditioned to be afraid of spiders throughout our childhood.  Perhaps seeing our parents flap and scream at a house spider, or perhaps a television show or film featuring a rather nasty eight legged critter; all spider related events might influence us as we grow up.  Evidence might be the varying extents of fear people feel toward spiders; some are terrified so that they can’t move, others merely don’t like to see them in their home.  Also, many of us aren’t afraid of spiders at all; does this mean we have lost that instinctual fear?

  I personally do not like the idea of Nature and this is why; it reduces the idea of free will to a bit part player.  You are who you are because of everything that has come before you were even born and that will define who you are whether you like it or not.  You have brown hair because your father did, you are likely to have heart issues because it runs in the family, you will enjoy spy novels because your grandfather did, you will be afraid of cats because your mother and her mother were also afraid.  You can see the trouble in this way of thinking I hope?

  How far can we think Nature shapes us before we hit the wall of determinism?  Free will be damned, we are cursed or blessed to our fates.  And fate would be the right word, along with destiny or fortune.  You do not have a choice in the matter, it’s already been decided.  Does that frighten or comfort you?  It terrifies me.  That the course of my life is to a certain extent set in stone.  If I wanted to become a scientist, would my talent for science be nothing more than a dominant gene?  What if it were recessive?  Would I be resigned to fail in all my ambitions?

  There’s an interesting idea:  Failure is a recessive gene (not a statement, just a cute turn of a phrase).

  Nature or Nurture, part of me will always be angry and un-resigned to any fate or determined way of life.  Rage against the dying of the light said Dylan Thomas in a poem to his dying father.  Do not accept your fate.  Create it.  You once looked in a mirror and said “that is me”.  You created yourself once, isn’t it about time you did it again?