A Story for the Day

Last night I watched the beginning of the news at 10 o'clock. The lead story was Gordon Brown's press statement with his support for the UN to send 19,000 troops to Sudan. The pictures accompanying the story were harrowing and I have no doubt that the situation in and around the Darfur region is horrific. It's painful to watch people reduced to skeletal ghosts, feeling quite helpless to do anything for them...I can only cross my fingers that 19,000 troops will begin to restore the region to some semblance of order and humanity.

I used to work in mental health on the southeast coast of England. One of the psychiatrists in the office was originally from Sudan. I never got his full story but I do know that he said he could never go back, and not because he didn't want to. He kept his story out of my office, so I had to rely upon hearsay. I imagine that most of the world's diaspora would like to visit home, at least occasionally, and that he was kept from doing this must have been painful.

One day this psychiatrist came into my office to ask me to prepare a report. I had had an argument with my SO that morning and I was feeling menstrual moodiness, to top it all off. I started to get a bit teary after he asked me to type up the report - it was nothing in the delivery of his request that set me off, I was just feeling uncharacteristically blue. He noticed that I began to cry and I could see he was clearly uncomfortable. It wasn't that he wasn't used to tears or sadness, after all he was a psychiatrist! It was all he ever dealt with: tears, depression, paranoia, anxiety and trauma. He left my office and I took a few deep breaths, regained my composure and started typing. Moments later, this psychiatrist from Sudan returned with a stress pencil and a smile.

"Aitch," he said, "whistle. You cannot cry if you whistle." He plopped the fuzzy stress pencil down on my desk and I smiled at him. It was a smile that was returned with a sweet and gracious smile of his own. His words got me through the day and, indeed, they keep me going if I'm feeling a bit sorry for myself.

Africa has a lot to teach the world, but the world mainly focuses on its pain. The Sudanese psychiatrist may not ever get back to Sudan. His pain was private and the pictures on my television set inform me of how bad things are in Darfur in an oh-so-public way. I am privy to the spectacle that is created out of someone else's tragedy, all in the journalistic pursuit to draw attention to this crisis. How do I feel about this? I cannot say. It's a toss-up between wanting to cry and wanting to whistle.

A Walk In The Park

Yesterday was glorious and sunny in London. The temps were in the high 70's F, mid 20's C. Nice weather made for smiles all around. My S/O and I had been for a walk in the local park, looking at the latest architectural digs around the terraces of the old Crystal Palace, and taking the dog for a run in the open fields. Our conversation turned, as it often does, to the problems associated with living and working in the UK, how difficult it is to reconcile beliefs of a state that provides a basic standard of living for everyone with the occasional feelings of frustration at having to pay high taxes to help support those who might really be taking unfair advantage of a welfare state. In other words, people who are just too damned lazy to get up and go to work. Should the chronically lazy be made to work for their benefits - isn't that just giving them a job? I came up with something that, I think, ties in somewhat with my post from Friday 8th June.

I'm all for work in the same way I'm all for education. I think it brings about a sense of fulfillment and structure that most people need in order to feel good about themselves and the world around them. I would like to see jobs becoming places where people want to go to be productive, socialise, contribute to a common good (even capitalism can have its benevolent heart) and be supported as part of a team. I would like to see people who stay home to work - as mothers, fathers, carers and service providers - given a bit more respect and some financial support to do that important work of raising children, caring for the infirm or elderly or maintaining land. I believe that those who cannot work at traditional jobs, but want to work, find a way to sporadically volunteer for a charity or church, in exchange for some of their benefits. I'm not suggesting that those who do not want to work a traditional job need to do so out of obligation to pay back the citizenry who is supporting them. That, I think, would be similar to forcing someone to attend university who had no interest in higher education, or, to put it more simply, forcing a square peg into a round hole. Indeed, we might all find ourselves in situations when we need to rely upon the safety net that the state or the church provides - guilt shouldn't really enter into the equation, at any time. Additionally, I would have no desire going to a job and working alongside someone who detests the organization or the work that is done inside. In the same way that compulsory education, at times, brings out the worst in students who would rather not be there and ruins the classroom experience for everyone else. I would hate to have a career where the person sitting next to me was only there to keep his or her benefits. No, I'd rather the person who does not wish to work, not have to do so next to me. Nimby-ism at its finest!!

What's the solution? Maybe it's time to create some more fun jobs! Aren't we all sick and tired of the ratrace, tired of the treadmill and ready to pack in our jobs? I mean, let's make up some jobs that are geared to entertain and inform and inspire! Shouldn't that be the point of going to work - that productive work is BETTER than staying home?

A recent Harris poll of American workers, over the age of 18, found that the majority of people who work don't really like their jobs - 55% reported job dissatisfaction - and only one in five are truly inspired with the work they do. Those are paltry results for what is, essentially, one third of our adult lives. Perhaps Harris caught 55% of the sample group on a really bad day and the results don't actually reflect the true nature of satisfaction - that it fluctuates and is dependent on a variety of conditions. Something makes me think that's not really the case. The following day might find the satisfied 45% feeling disenchanted about work - they're still lousy statistics about how America (and possibly the UK) feels about the work they're hired to do, the environment in which they're supposed to work, or the people with which they share their work.

I am lucky that I have a brilliant job at the moment. It pays bills and it's a good way to earn a living. It's not a 'perfect' scenario everyday - I have off days and times when I wonder about the course my life is taking. However, I know people whose jobs are never a walk in the park and I've been there with my fair share of sh*t jobs, too. It seems that, for them, a benefactor or a lottery win is the only way to stop the treadmill. The Constitution of the United States states that intrinsic to peoples' rights is the 'pursuit of happiness'. Do you think the state has an obligation to provide for people until they find their bliss? What do you think would be the state of the state that provided that option for its citizens? I think it would be a highly improbable programme to support, but a nice one to think upon.