Hot off the line

019 - Citroen C1
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

You know the feeling - the lights turn green and the middle-aged, middle-class business type whose total contribution to achieving rapid take offs is his or her investment in an expensive driving machine. They have, as it were, bought a heavier right foot than you. If it were some lad in a cooking and aging near-future scrap yard material it is not so bad, it's what you expect - young and desperately pushing.

Why then, is my 1 liter Citroen C1 in standard trim almost always the first across the junction?

If you find yourself at the front of the queue at the lights, do not stop on the line but instead something like a meter before. Road regulations usually state something like you are not supposed to cross that line except when the lights are green - so you need to be rolling forward on amber in order to cross on green, hence you must first have stopped before the line.

When the light has been red for a while it is time to slip the car into first, lift the clutch slightly, hold the car stationery on the handbrake / parking brake with that little button pushed in, and your right foot resting on the gas - not on the brake. When the light turns amber / orange, start moving forward, the exact timing will depend on how long your set of lights spends on amber before turning green.

You will be surprised ho much advantage being moving makes, and you do not have to burn rubber to achieve it.

Tradition for who?

016-Tradition for who?
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

This picture was an experiment, hence the odd looking angles of the 'children', although i am not concerned because it meets my 'pure Art without Craft' specification - in that I could have spent the time improving my craft to get the camera angles 'right', but in doing so would have lost the Art, which is in the message and how i produce that message.

Being born English and living in Poland means that I am surrounded by people, possibly people like you, who are continually trying to strip away elements of me and replace them with 'Polish' elements. I am under pressure, even from the nicest of people to conform, simply because that increases their comfort. What is the problem in accepting people as they are instead of trying to forever ram them into shapes that they do not fit? It is nearly Christmas, and we will have a small pre-Christmas party at the office, where people expect me to either bring some Polish or British Christmas food, the latter for the 'ooh' factor and because many obviously believe that living the British tradition is what I most desire. Why can I not bring something from a third culture or, may i be burnt at the stake for contemplating it, something that is not of the standardised version of any culture's Christmas tradition? Well, I will be bring white bread, a toaster and some marmalade - that is what i want and, since few people here have ever had such a combination, I want to share it with them - and sharing is supposed to be a core element of the Polish Christmas tradition.

The sad fact is that few people even bother to think about the meaning of tradition, and by such a lack hurt people from outside their vision without even understanding they are doing so. What partly makes me me is the ability and care I have in thinking about things, so in the case of the Christmas party if they want to bring what they consider to be traditional then fine, I will be happy for them, but why can they not be happy with me?

The answer is that they have too tightly moulded their tradition - it no longer serves its purpose but instead is a mere passage to oppress more people in the future - and my ego is not so large as to insist that future people have to live by my custom. So what if they do forget all we do now, will there lives be any less for it, or will they indeed have enough people of talent to create new traditions?

Penjection

014-penjection
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

I meet a lot of people who are book junkies, partly because I work with translators and teachers of language. Although bristling with advanced degrees in linguistics, a great interest in consuming books, few have the the courage or the conviction to turn their back on their professor's preaching and find their own place in this world of words. The result is that they largely remain passive consumers of words, ever-looking for that next fix but never really taking all that knowledge anywhere.

Society generally encourages people to collect things, as long as they are safe things like stamps, ornaments, paintings - things with a secure tradition as collectables, but for what purpose? To meet people with similar interests? An archaeologist is also a collector, but does not collect to amass an impressive array of object, to meet people of similar interests or to learn what is known - the archaeologist instead wants to deduce the unknown, to write the books that other collectors to define their possessions.

Book knowledge is similar, if you only seek to learn what is known then become like a silent partner in a conversation - offering nothing but silent disapproval of any error in grammar or vocabulary.

When I was at primary school I always had to use a pencil, as my handwriting style never achieved a level deemed by the teacher good enough to warrant one of her cartridge pens. At schools here in Poland they are taught really fancy forms of lettering and insist that they are used - nothing but hell for students like me who lack the skill in forming fine letters inflicted by teachers without the ability or vision to know how to teach me any different. Our niece is able to form these letters, but she has dyslexia, and the teachers have no skill in dealing with her problem.

Even scarier, many of the linguists teaching at university here will downgrade students work for poor calligraphy - so what would they do with me in an exam, as I have arthritis and on some days find it difficult to form letters even to my normal rough and ready style?

Writing is an ill-taught skill, with little understanding of how to encourage the art in writing. We are told that presentation is very important, which is a pity as potential employers must get as tired of well-presented trash as they do poorly presented quality.

Things to do with Ladders

011-Things to do with Ladders
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

Continuing my exploration of Bond-M-Q personalities, here are three aspects of me with the 'Bond' in ascension. I store the images I use here on Flikr, and back in the summer i got involved in a group that takes photos every day on a chosen subject, and built up quite a following. These days I spend little time there and as a consequence the popularity of my images has fallen drastically, largely because many people count as their friends those people who admire them - you get feedback as long as you continue to admire, and you are much more understandable. Looking at work that is not going to generate some feedback is of much less interest. Spend you time in bond mode and you will generate much more interest, be beautiful and people will want to be seen with you for comparison (like having your photographs being shown alongside those of a famous photographer).

OK, fair enough, but where does this leave people unable to be beautiful of engage their bond? The answer is, too often, alone or unable to demonstrate their full ability. I quickly get bored by bonds and the beautiful, while they impress early it is not long before their smiles wear out their welcome, I am much more interested in people who have to struggle to achieve anything, I look for that hidden potential and try and draw it out.

This photo is for all those people who are alone, not for those who have many friends and a reasonable job but are merely dissatisfied. You can achieve without expensive equipment, learning how to do more with a little can help you to focus on position, layout and the relationship between people and objects.

How to drive - around corners

I thought, since it is Friday, why not talk about something less serious and yet still useful. When I learnt to drive, most cars available still didn't steer or brake very well, and, luckily, generally didn't have that much power either. These days though it is easy to buy a new or second-hand standard car that is equivalent or much better than the 'fast' versions of standard production cars of back when I was a lad, especially in terms of the potential to get around corners or to stop. With a very tired and ageing 850cc Mini, I had to learn how to drive merely to keep up with the traffic, let alone get past it, but i had to learn through practice and thinking, as publications on how to do it were effectively non-existent, while techniques that did get passed around were often wrong.

At the moment the roads are wet, not as slippery as they were a few days ago after a night's worth of snow, but still interesting, reminiscent of the couple of weeks I spent with my brother, David, in northern Italy driving around with our friend's stock Mini 1000. We were there as part of a charity Mini event, and it quickly became clear that despite how much many people had invested in the engine and suspension departments, they simply had no idea how to drive quickly except in a straight line. So, what were they failing to understand in getting their cars to go around corners quickly? The answer, I feel, is still of relevance, because i still see people driving very capable cars incapably around corners.

First we need to establish some terminology, a toolbox of words and concepts we can use to describe what we and our cars are doing when going around corners. Imagine that you are driving around a roundabout in the wet, that your car was rear wheel drive, and you had any anti-whatever system switched off. It would not take you long to discover that if you put your foot hard on the gas pedal you would end up facing the roundabout as the rear of the car broke loose and tried to overtake the front of the car. This is 'oversteer'.

'Understeer' is the opposite. If you drive a standard front wheel drive car around the same roundabout faster and faster, eventually, no matter how hard you turn the steering, the car will just drive off the roundabout. Many accidents are caused in icy conditions where the steering does not seem to work and the car ploughs on ahead and off the road - this is understeer, generally.

'Sliding' is the third condition, where all four wheels loose traction. It is quite hard to slide sideways, more often you end up in understeer or oversteer (and spinning the car), but it can be easy to lock up all four wheels while braking in the straight ahead direction while on ice - a very dangerous thing to do.

My Citroen C1 will slide gently sideways on very wet or slightly icy roads, and I can make it do it well enough that the passengers and onlookers generally do not notice. What is important is a small piece of philosophy: you will find frequent references to 'car control', an internet search on this phrase will dig up lots of references to car safety, skid pans and the police, but it is the wrong perspective. You cannot control your car, and attempts to will result in stiff 'learned techniques'. It might sound dumb or pedantic, but you really need to achieve is 'car management' - your car is a powerful tool, and like any tool, advanced users do not control the tool, but manage the effect of the tool. That gnarly old craftsman points his tool in the directions he would like it to go, and lets the tool do its work under his direction. There is no struggle for control. My Citroen C1 drifts gently and unnoticed because i am the only one listening to the car, I am the only one who has learned to feel where it is going - and because I have learned to listen to my 'tool', observed it, I have been able to learn how to direct its energy. Zen? maybe, though why listening, feeling and observing should be limited solely to a far Eastern religion, I fail to understand.

Oversteer and understeer occur because if there is a significant difference in 'traction' (how well the tyres/tires stick to the road) between the front tyres and the rear tyres while driving around a corner. If there is less traction at the back than at the front, you get oversteer. If there is less traction at the front than at the back, you get understeer.

My Citroen C1 is front wheel drive and can easily be made to understeer on the icy roads around the garages and car parking area near our flats, and so I drive extra carefully there as I have no wish to hit anything, car, curb or person. If I had a rear wheel drive car under the same conditions it would be easy to get it to 'fish-tail' where a little too much gas and the rear end of the car begins to slide out sideways, you overcompensate and it slides out the other way, and so on, a very scary experience, and one to which my old 1973 Vauxhall Viva Coupe was highly prone!

You can get a front wheel drive car to go into oversteer, you 'merely' have to engineer a situation where the front wheels have more grip than the rear wheels, and there are a couple of ways of achieving this. Traction depends on the friction available on the ground (is the tarmac wet, dry or icy, or dusty?), the tyres (cheap/expensive, hot/cold, new/worn out), vehicle speed, and the vehicle weight on the tyres.

The weight on the tyres is very important. Get a bicycle and strap the brakes so that they are locked on and try to pull the bicycle - it will drag a bit, bounce a little, but you can pull it. Now sit someone on the bicycle and try to pull it - probably impossible to move it unless you have used a small child or you are uncommonly strong.

If you drive down a straight, dry road and hit the brakes hard, you can feel the front of the car go down, and the rear of the car rises. This is called 'weight transfer', and it increases momentarily the load on the front wheels while at the same time removing the load on the rear wheels. Anything that you do that alters how 'nose up' or 'nose down' your car is, will effect the traction on the front or rear wheels. As an example, if you accelerate hard in a straight line, you can feel the front of the car rise and the rear of the car drop, which is great for a rear-wheel drive car as it gives you more traction on the driven wheels, but not so great for front-wheel drive cars as the driven wheels (front wheels) are more likely to spin.

Imagine me in my C1, drifting gently sideways in the wet, how do I manage it? well, first you have to be doing some speed, not 5 miles per hour (mph), but first time out not more than about 30 mph. The C1's natural tendency if you corner hard will be to understeer, so you need some way of increasing the traction at the front, or reducing it at the rear. You could try pulling the handbrake on hard - that will lock the back wheels up, but it is not the most elegant method and has the disadvantage that you have to take one hand off the wheel. The handbrake is a worthy tool for altering the traction of the rear wheels, but mostly its use is for fun situations because of the problem of having only one hand on the wheel.

The 'trick', if you could call it that, is in the steering. One way of escaping understeer is to reduce the amount of steering you have applied to the steering wheel - basically, back off the steering towards the straight-ahead position until the front wheels point in the direction the car is sliding. Instead of sliding, the front wheels will start rolling again instead of sliding, and you will have regained some control. More to the point, unless the surface is pure ice, you will rapidly have more grip at the front - the tyres will bite and tend to pull the front of the car down, and transferring weight off the rear wheels as it does so. What is more, if you balance a ruler on a cup, say, and push gently down on one end of the ruler, the other end will tend to lift, but if instead of pushing you tap the end of the ruler then the other end of the ruler will jump up. If you suddenly get more grip at the front, it will pull the front of the car down quite quickly and the rear of the car will be momentarily left with little weight. A lot of grip at the front and little at the rear will put you into oversteer, it only lasts a moment but can result in a significant sideways movement at the rear of the car, helping to rotate the car in the direction you are trying to turn it.

Quickly apply more steering, let it go into understeer for a moment and then back off the steering again to get that rear end oversteer. You end up 'sawing' at the steering wheel, moving it about 30 or 40 degrees, back and forth. Get it right, and the car will appear to float, drifting in the direction you want, facing in the direction you plan to exit the corner.

It might sound a little unlikely, but down in the Alps in a standard 998cc Mini, I once did it in the straight ahead position as I waited for a good moment to pass the car in front - the front wheels were actually spinning faster than the road speed, the car rotating gently left and right, until I stopped sawing on the steering wheel, the car sank and the Mini accelerated remarkably rapidly.

On another occasion, to test the theory, I kept up 50 mph into a right-hand bend that tightened up significantly as you drove around it, until the Mini went into understeer. A quick left-right, the rear end stepped out and we were suddenly pointing in the exit direction.

Go out and find yourself a nice damp road with good visibility, no traffic, and plenty of safe run-off area, start off at about 40 mph and play with your front wheel drive car and see what you can do with it!

When you don't know HOW to trust

010-When you don't know how to trust
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

A few blogs ago i talked about Classical Success, where you study for a long time to gain knowledge and then become erudite in the that subject. Well, today I want to explore one of the major problems with the Classical Success model, which is the failure of books to teach social patterns of success.

Imagine this: you are an only son or daughter and you are encouraged to study, spending time that other children use to socialise to instead study books. You go to university, and by now you have become addicted to high grades and that important job you will achieve afterwards.

Well, the truth of the matter is that the more 'classical' the field of study, the more likely you are to end up unable to deal with other people, there is a great chance you will be arrogant and unable to trust others to do your job. Linguistics is such a field, it is often becomes an introverted subject telling other people in society how they should lead their life (use language, in this case) when they themselves have barely partaken in that same society.

If every one holds on tightly to their tasks and does not communicate progress, control of the total process collapses and there are frequent delays while one person finishes their task. indeed, the tasks are often not well planned in the beginning and again time is wasted, or their are frequent arguments as people with little experience in planning try to apply 'tradition' as a planning model whether that tradition has any relevance to the subject or era.

This is just one of the many problems with Classical Success, but the major theme running through it is the inability for the believers to adapt to changing circumstances, even though it is apparent to society that we no longer live in Ancient Greece.

Why Poland sells so few newspapers

Despite having a well educated population, Poland has a very low rate of newspaper readership. One might trot out the reason being that in the past the choice and the allowable choice of subjects was so narrow. But that was a whole generation ago, what steps has the Polish media made to improve its image and readership? Well, actually, not a lot, despite a number of new titles being released.

The effect of the minimal effort can be seen in the quality of writing, and even I, with my liberal attitude to grammar, am shocked by the appalling way that texts are, eh, let's be generous here, 'created'. There is a key that sees a surprising amount of use on the average Polish journalist's keyboard - the hyphen. A paragraph of speech might go something like this:

- It turned out that information had surfaced in Poland that Russia wanted to eliminate him as their agent - Jan Kowalski and to be more precise that they were personally interested in stopping him – added Kotlarz.

When you look at the paragraph as a whole it can make sense, but, assuming that you are a Pole and you know that the hyphen is used as speech marks, it is so easy to assume that it is Jan Kowalski who was being quoted, but no, it also functions as brackets, markers for extra information and so on. The number of reversals you have to make in a single report can be phenomenal, and that is just the start.

Why don't I write a paragraph like a journalist.
I feel no reason why I should bother to connect one sentence to another. The clock has no hands. I might start a new line. There is continuity in my thoughts that I can see as clear as the day is long.
And that is why it is so.

Continuity is a fun thing to play around with, but not when writing to a broad audience who want some light entertainment and to learn what is going on in the world over breakfast or on the way to work. As a consequence, few people want to bother to read such badly composed gibberish, it would be better to wait until one gets to work and then read someone's blog.

Ah, but there are some well-respected newspapers there, in Poland, one might say - but only respectable in terms of the 'writing style thieves' at the top are not as bad as those underneath, working for local papers. The sad thing is that many of these same journalists put in a lot of hard work in their research, it's just that writing is not the same as speaking, it lacks body gestures and vocal inclination, so you cannot write as the words would tumble out while speaking.

Death by Tradition

008-People We Know
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

Continuing on from the previous entry, we decided to show you how people we know of our age dress: it was a difficult task as Ania has little of the kinds of clothes we needed.

Some of the media bang on how bad it is that there is so much pressure to appear young, but care little about the pressure to conform to dressing to suit one's age, ensuring that one is not judged for who you are, but the age you are.

Middle-age, Middle-class (f)Arty: As our home city here in Poland has several universities, there are large numbers of the Polish middle class and middle-class wannabees who, once over 40-45 abandon any sense of style and dive into the 'elegancka' , with beaked hat, scarf thrown over on shoulder, shapeless trousers (usually black), moccasin style pumps and a straight sided coat down almost to the ankles. Indoors, the coat and scarf come off to reveal pearls and either a blouse or a twin set. They gather at theatres, symposia and other social events and bore you endlessly with their talk about money, the spending and saving of it.

the Nun: dark, shapeless colours to conceal a body society has taught them to be ashamed of. The clothes hang off breasts encased in a too-small bra that is too loosely fitted. The neckline, well, that is known as a 'decolletage'... Rather than concealing the body, the hard-edged shape makes the wearer look bigger, unless one stands in a darkened area. Black, we hear, makes one look younger - but it emphasises silhouette and ensures that any wrinkles stand out.

Grandma: The essential ingredient is the blouse, preferably well buttoned up. here we present the festive version, red instead of the uniform white. Hair is best put through the roller treatment and never more than collar length, or pulled hard back. Long hair, we hear, makes you look older - but instead you can estimate how old someone is by the shortness of the hair. Note the amber necklace.

my Wife. Hair to soften her features, cleavage to distract, the right size and properly fitted bra, modern necklace, cardigan to emphasise her curves and stay warm, and a smile.

007-That Special Woman 1

007-That Special Woman 1
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

My wife, Ania, is my James Bond, and I am her Q. This combination leaves little room for authoritarianism, which is part of the reason we leave in a flat that is moderne in style instead of some mock-baroque or twee pretend manor house type of flat. We do not need to surround us with signs of comfort, we can do that well enough in our heads, and simply by being together.

The sad thing is, at around half a century a worryingly large proportion of our generation here in Poland are in a slow dive to the grave, having long ago given up on the will to explore - they were convinced that they knew enough, but life moved on and new ideas have replaced the old, consigning our generation to the scrap heap of society. This is reflected in the way that they think, and the way that they dress.

Ania, though, is like a diamond among them, she can see outside the box that we all live in.

Partner

006-Partner
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

Life is a continuum, but what we often chose to write about or show are the highs or lows, the exceptions from the continuum. Here, then, is a snapshot of the continuum, as my wife waits while I set up the camera, thinking about what we are about to do next.

She has just finished a set of poses that I failed to capture, and is about to squeeze her boobs. You would never know any of that from this picture, just as those special situation pictures never show the continuum on either side of the recorded moment.

If you were to regularly photograph your own continuum and the images all turned out all pretty similar, what would it say about how you feed your mind? perhaps we should spend more time observing how we survive the time between the highlights, learning to enjoy all that time more.

The Three Faces of Man

005-Three Faces of Man
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

I have a theory that we all have three facets to our personality, with a fluid relationship between them that varies depending on circumstances, age and experience. We do not always get the personality we would prefer, and it can be a struggle to give the most appropriate part of our personality voice.

Somewhere in there is a selfish being, another with complete faith in eternity, and a final one who really believes in other people and their works. A common theme in western thought is the importance in a belief in oneself, a mistake in many ways simply because people have not taken into account the consequences of choices. If you believe in yourself, then what you produce will be yourself for yourself and, as a consequence, impenetrable to others. It will be hard to help you and your weak areas (and there will be plenty of those) will absorb far too much time, time better spent on the areas you are good at. If, on the other hand, you believe in others you will be giving them the one thing that they really need - your trust. You already know that many people will fail, so at the beginning in believing in others you are already prepared to meet some failure, you will be less blind to their weaknesses than your own.

What are your proportions? Do you believe more in yourself, a higher being or in mankind? Not sure, well, look to how you treat strangers and people who do not figure large in your life, the answer will be in their faces - but you might have to look very carefully.

Men - Apes in the Bathroom

004 Men - Apes in the bathroom
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

Men often do not communicate very well about personal grooming, and many have to learn by themselves, alone in a bathroom full of mysterious bottles and creams. Where is the instruction manual? The men's guide to grooming website when you need it?

I love to spend time in the bathroom while my wife applies her make up or applies some cream before she goes to bed. I can ask her why she does the things she does, and maybe even have a go myself. If only I had had the courage to talk to other people in such situations years ago!

So, this picture is dedicated to all those poor souls who never really learn to get the best out of their bathroom, and if you know a man who is a bit limited in their grooming repertoire, perhaps now you can understand why they are they way they are.

Who is in control - and why?

003-Who is in control - and why?
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

Further to the last post, I wanted to show possibly the most typical situation in a two person relationship, where one takes the traditionally defined male role of decision maker, and the other takes the equivalent female role of social controller.

The male sees a need for change and attempts to either enforce that change or engage in dialogue to achieve the change. The female may agree, but after a lifetime of playing social games is adept at appearing to agree to anything without actually doing so, the ultimate poker player. For the male decisions have to have some durability, you cannot plant beans in March and then rip them out in April to grow carrots.

Dialogue is everything, but it is not just the male of the species who has to change, it is time for the female to learn that controlling a relationship is to put that relationship on the road to divorce or internal separation where the couple stays together but essentially leads separate lives.

Grandma Matriarch

002-Grandma Matriarch
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

I have long been interested in why the matriarch is such a poorly observed yet strong feature of Western society. Imagine living in a village several centuries ago with only a limited contact with anyone from outside the immediate environs of the village - where a trip to a market or fair in a town some five miles away might only happen once a year.

If were male and a farmer, a lot of your work would be outside, physical and requiring a fair amount of problem solving as things broke, the weather affected the crops in different ways and animals did what animals do. The further you work from the farm, the more you would have to rely on the tools you took with you and being creative with what was to hand if a new situation occurred.

If you were female and lived on a farm then the working environment would be smaller and consequently more predictable, and you would be surrounded more by finished products such as clothes, furniture, pots and pans, knives etc. Help in terms of people and products would be closer on average than for the equivalent male, the value of social manipulation would be much greater because you would be living in an environment where you would have a greater chance to practice it.

Of course, this is a great simplification, there were many males like shoemakers and blacksmiths who worked much closer to home, but whenever did the exception mean much to social commentary anywhere when creating traditions and the model of the ideal? Even today, boys are brought up to travel far on the bicycles, climb trees and play with toys, like Lego, where you can build something of value and then the next day take it apart to create something new to meet today's needs. And girls? How many still play with variations of dolls, where you are given a set of clothes and you spend your time dressing and undressing using the same set of clothes and very little new, where the real learning comes in trying to control one's friends.

Ania's sister is now a grandmother, and she has gone from being a social rebel to a control freak, unable to trust anyone with anything she values, unable to be effective in the position of the family's matriarch. This is not uncommon, but it is very destructive in a society where you can live at a distance. It is also very lonely being in control, being able to make all the important decisions sometimes is not enough when the action takes place far from you. Ultimately, though, no one really likes a control freak, the controlled people either stay near and remain frustrated or move out of the area of control. In the end, if no one can trust you not to control them, they are not really going to like you.

Here is a normal situation where Ania attempts to take one of her sister's grandchildren out on a treat; it is punctuated by repeated calls. You would hardly believe that Ania is a doctor of language, and for the past quarter century has been teaching and been responsible for late teens studying Polish at the university where she works.

For the love of figures

001-For the love of figures
Originally uploaded by gingerpig2000

You know when you are in your M when you do that extra task to improve your position in a hierarchy at the expense of your family, friends and community. We mall have that M moment, it is the equivalent of the Q moment when you are suddenly hit by inspiration, both can be equally inspiring - but only the Q moment is worth sharing with anyone else.

There can be a problem with bringing work home from the office, but how does that compare with taking time out from work and doing something non-work related? For many high achievers, bringing home work fro the office is routine, but since education for the achievers involves a lot of homework, are we not setting the trend for work-at-home for the next generation by mixing their school life with their home life. How can they ever learn a distinction if we blur it for them? Are we, as the adult generations, not guilty of creating future strife and even divorces by maintaining a society where work-at-home is taught as a norm during childhood?

Strong M meets Strong Q

Yesterday I had an interesting exchange of emails with a contributor, Ela, to a prominent UK feminist website and blog, interesting not just in its subject but in the how I came to recognise the type of person who I was corresponding with. In an earlier blog I outlined my James Bond theory of personality, where we all contain varying amounts of Bond (dynamism), M (belief in hierarchy) and Q (belief in change), and I freely admit that I am a strong Q with Bond as my second suit. Although the format of James Bond seems a little strange in terms of feminism, I used the Bond characters because most people have at least seen some of the films rather than by Bond’s gender or views on women. The interesting thing is that the personality traits I describe are equally shared by men and women; they appear relatively impervious to the influence of society.

OK, so as a Q I believe that change will happen and that it is best we accept this and learn how to manage it, and even use it to look for competitive advantage where necessary. However, all changes are basically changes to how we as humans think and act, although on the surface they may only appear to be a change in technology. To the Q, the human is the basic element of society.

To the M, the basic unit of society is the hierarchy. Ms want their view of hierarchy to be maintained so that they can climb it to gain power, and they will quite happily kill, maim, or just be completely unpleasant to people they see as threatening their hierarchy. If their hierarchy of comfort is not the one in power, they will seek to destroy the competitive hierarchy and replace it with their own.

Anyway, here is the email exchange, I have merely changed names and tidied up the format a bit: first up is my comment on a blog entry dealing with a men’s group complaining of sexist adverts from a group helping survivors of family violence.

Oh no, not the 'violence in the home is instigated by men' thing. I am a man, and I have been the target of violence from my partner. All I could do was escape, with nowhere to escape to because who was going to take my predicament seriously? Eventually I was able to leave permanently, but how many more men are there out there who cannot because they are surrounded by male and female bigots who cannot accept that violence knows no gender.

Here is Ela’s reply, explaining why my comment would not be published:

Subject: New Comment Added to ‘News today'

Dear Geepig

Thank you for your comment on The Femini, unfortunately I won't be publishing it. I absolutely acknowledge your bravery in speaking up against female violence against men and would seek to support any person who has experienced domestic violence. However your comment ignores the decades of research on relative rates of domestic violence which show it is largely male violence against women. I note your mediation of this in relation to "instigation" and assume you're referring to the argument that "women start the fights, men end them". Sadly we live in a country were at least two women a week are murdered by current or former partners so even if that argument were correct (which research suggests it isn't) then that's no justification for the end result. Women's Aid have some really useful statistics on this (see Link1 : Link 2 : Link 3 ).

What we do know is that domestic violence accounts for between 16% and one quarter of all recorded violent crime. (Home Office, 2004; Dodd et al., 2004; BCS, 1998; Dobash and Dobash, 1980) and 45% women and 26% men had experienced at least one incident of inter-personal violence in their lifetimes. (Walby and Allen, 2004) ) – however when there were more than 4 incidents (i.e. ongoing domestic or sexual abuse) 89% of victims were women. In 2007 there were 27 murders of men by their partners (including gay and bisexual men with male partners) and around 110 murders of women by their male partners alone.

I do want to point you towards some helpful organisations though, as it seems you still have ongoing issues around your experiences. There are useful resources at the following sites:

Link1 : Link2 : Link 3 : Link 4

One thing I would say is that patriarchy disempowers both men and women and issues around male survivors seeking help are often connected to the feeling their masculinity has been somehow damaged by abuse by a woman. This is just one way men are disempowered by patriarchy and feminists have long worked to challenge this.

I hope you find the helpsites useful and do continue to contribute to The F Word.

Ela

Right, there is a lot of statistics in their, I thought, and a bit of a shotgun approach to links – which is a fair response as there it is highly likely I will not answer and this would then be her only shot at supplying help.

I was a bit surprised at "women start the fights, men end them" as I had only stated that a woman had started the violence and I had responded by attempted to leave. My belief is that violence only leads to more violence, and my response is always to run.

Secondly, I wondered what was the root of this comment: patriarchy disempowers both men and women as in my experience, matriarchies do exactly the same – unless you are an M that has climbed that particular hierarchy.

Subject: New Comment Added to ‘News today'

Hi Ela,

Thank you for your taking the time to respond even though I am sorry that you will not be publishing my comment, although I wish I could say I am surprised. However, you do realise that in doing so you have put yourself in the same position as, for example, publishers of the 19th century who would not publish work by women? ;)

Anyway, that aside, I think you might find it useful to learn more about my viewpoint. First of all, I do not feel that rhetoric like 'women start fights, men end them' nor quantitive assessments about who suffers most helps in any way at all, in fact they block one's understanding about what is really happening. You are an individual, and if you suffer violence it does not matter what sex you are, just as it does not matter what colour hair you have, that fear is very personal, and it is you, as that individual, who needs help. You look for help or simply a place to share, but no, there is no room at 'my' inn because your face does not fit. By looking at people as men or women, you are damaging your own humanity, you are seeing certain kinds of people and not the similarities in experience. I am a man, therefore I must have x and y views. Are you not, therefore, ignoring decades of research on how individuals think and feel?

Whether or not we live in a patriarchy often becomes irrelevant. I live in a world where I am not seen as a human being, but as a walking set of classes - man, engineer, husband, psoriasis-sufferer, alien-in-Poland etc. Inside, though, I am a human, where my gender is about as relevant as my height, hair colour, or native language - none of which I had any choice in, and none of which I reject. To accept a woman's view and not a man's view based on the quantity of incidents would be like rejecting comments concerning violence against dark-haired woman because it is less common than against light-haired woman (assuming we had statistics that showed violence according to hair colour , of course...).

So, are you content that you have rejected me based on gender and incident count and not on the quality of my experience? Does my basic humanity count for so little? Would you prefer if I just moved along, away from the doorstep of your consciousness, and stayed with people of my own class?

Good luck with work,
Geepig

So I thought, if she can push her views, let he be subject to mine, I will give her some data on my world view.

Subject: Re: New Comment Added to ‘News today'

Dear Geepig,

Thanks for taking the time to respond, we do welcome dialogue at The F Word.

> However, you do realise that in doing so you have put yourself in the same position as, for example,

> publishers of the 19th century who would not publish work by women? ;)

I would disagree - publishers in the 19th century refused to publish works by women because they are women. I decline to publish your comment because it was factually incorrect and our Charter clearly states we will not publish comments which make assertions which cannot be evidenced.

> You are an individual, and if you suffer violence it does not matter what sex you are, just as it does not

> matter what colour hair you have, that fear is very personal, and it is you, as that individual, who needs help.

I'm afriad I have to disagree - in terms of the person yes the fear is real, justified and individually help must be provided (and I've been working with groups seeking to start refuges for men for a long time). However you cannot dismiss the social trends data - take the analogy with education for example. Policy makers are talking about a "crisis" in male education at the moment based on the gender differential of achievement between boys and girls at different Key Stages. Would you also argue we should actually be saying "achievement is an individual matter and therefore we should dismiss the quantitative research evidence"? What about, returning to domestic violence, the statistics were reversed and it was 1 in 4 men who will experience DV in their lifetimes and around 110 men a year killed by their female partners? Would you still say this was an individual issue? Plus the notion of this being "individual" is closely aligned to the arguments, often made, that this is a "private" issue between individuals rather than a social one. But there is a good evidence base as to the social and economic costs of domestic violence including lost productivity, health services costs, policing costs etc. If we eradicate domestic violence (against all genders) we lessen the policing workload by 16% based on the latest figures. This isn't just an individual issue, it is a social one.

> By looking at people as men or women, you are damaging your own humanity, you are seeing certain kinds > of people and not the similarities in experience. I am a man, therefore I must have x and y views. Are you

> not, therefore, ignoring decades of research on how individuals think and feel?

My humanity is fine and dandy thanks. I see the people I meet as individuals, I see the collected data, both qualitative and quantitative in terms of trends by gender, race, class, sexuality and other social divisions. That doesn't mean I assume x group has y view - that means I see that x group is experiencing a phenomenon mpre than y group. I agree there are some similarities in experience between male and female DV survivors - but there are also major differences in that experience. Just as I see similarities between heterosexual male and bisexual or homosexual male DV survivors and also major differences.

> Whether or not we live in a patriarchy often becomes irrelevant.

Only if you have privilege in that system which, given your identification as a professional white man is undoubtably the case.

> To accept a woman's view and not a man's view based on the quantity of incidents would be like rejecting

> comments concerning violence against dark-haired woman because it is less common than against light-

> haired woman (assuming we had statistics that showed violence according to hair colour , of course...).

I am not sure of the assumption you are making here. Is your argument that we should count number of incidents reported by the victims and the perpetrators and compare them? How does that further the issue when in actuality one is too many?

> So, are you content that you have rejected me based on gender and incident count and not on the quality of > my experience?

That's not what I've done. I declined to publish the comment because it was factually incorrect. Your gender is irrelevant (in exactly the way you are asking it to me) - read more of the site and you'll see we publish comments from all kinds of commenters not just women. If however you want to make the argument that being a man therefore makes you a "special case" I don't see how that fits with your gender neutral argument - either men are subject to the same rules of factual accuracy as our women commenters (or indeed as I view it factuality is the issue not gender) or they are a special case. Unfortunately you can't argue it both ways.

Ela

…and she has responded with lots of facts – lots and lots of them, but she is not accepting that I am a human, I am a minor statistic, and as a minority I have no real standing in her view. It seems that violence against males will have to wait until someone can show undeniable statistics that 110 men are dying every year, killed by their partners, before even one male deserves respect.

Ela is a strong M, and as a consequence her care and help are nothing more than notches on the bedpost of her career. Humans as individuals have no meaning, her real interest is to see her vision of hierarchy is instigated without one thought what the consequences might be.

As a strong Q, I can see that change needs to happen, but I also know that replacing one hierarchy with another just because it suits one power group is not the way to do it. Society needs a new hierarchy – and one that is neither a patriarchy nor a matriarchy, but one that does give equal opportunities to all human beings.

Subject: Re: New Comment Added to ‘News today'

Hi Ela,

One day, when you see me chained up to the railings outside your place of work, perhaps you will realise that to understand statistics, first you have to understand that they only express what you seek to measure, and not what you have yet to realize you need to measure. I am a suffragette for humanity, not merely one of your statistics, and the more links and statistics you throw at me, the more I can see that you do not really see people as human beings, your classifications have eroded your ability to see.

If you were to reject those comments that cannot be evidenced, you would have to reject over 90% of the comments that have already been accepted. I am sorry that you cannot see me as a human being but just the class you have conveniently fitted me into, because it will forever distort the help you believe you are undoubtedly giving.

By the way, who said that I am white?

Geepig

Subject: Re: New Comment Added to ‘News today'

Dear Geepig,

I don't engage with writers who resort to ad hominem attacks - it's a sign of the weakness of someones argument to do that.

Ela

‘ad hominem’ is Latin for ‘without evidence’, and is a sign of weakness to use terms your respondent may not know.

Subject: Re: New Comment Added to ‘News today'

Hi Ela

Well, I am sorry that you feel that way. I work in innovation, the domain where evidence does not yet exist in the formal sense, so I feel your denial of my attempts to present my existence as a human and as a thinker as a double blow.

I am sorry if you feel offended, it was not my intention, and I hope that your future is full of verifiable data, it sounds like a comfortable place to be. ;)

Geepig the inconvenient

A strong Q meets a strong M - what we really needed was a good Bond :)

The scary thing is that most organisations are riddled with Ms, they are the ones who are attempting to beat other people based on statistics and quantities - while the essential human element of 'quality' is ignored. Strong Ms really do fear other hierarchies and anything which looks like an attempt to damage their own. Find a group of people and mention 'grammar' and you will see who is an M because they are the ones talking about how the teaching of it was better in the past and how in the future everyone will be stupid because they will not be able to use the language properly (even though language has spent most of its long life without the 'benefit' of education).

Statistics: Hype'n'fantastic

Statistics are everywhere, everyone is doing them, and there are a whole bunch of tools to help you produce them and then present them as pretty little charts. They give a report a certain standing, and they are eminently quotable at meetings, and they are evidence of the work that has been put in, quite the stamp of research. However, do the mean anything?

Sadly, statistics have three essential problems:

- They represent only the data that has been included in the research or calculations
- People tend to believe them over the reality
- The calculations themselves ignore certain kinds of data

Since statistics are most often applied to supersystems, when you gather the data, some of it will not fit, if not today, then when someone tries to repeat the test. If you are not aware of this and try to tighten down the tolerances of the calculations to give more exact, repeatable data then what you get is a set of answers which varies from week to week, from test to test. This might be a brilliant way of generating more reports, but it can actually make understanding the results much more difficult. If you get a better trained statistician to try and help you refine the process, they will not understand the significance of the data they are seeing. Statistics are nothing more than a guide, and the best way to prepare results using them is to remember that you should be generating insights not definite answers.

Because statistics seem so authoritative, they are seductive in their believability. If you want to use results presented in this way for anything beyond an opinion, you have to learn more about the situation and the conditions under which they were taken. Generally you will find a ton of special circumstances that invalidate the statistics for other situations.

The main thing I want to focus on here is ignored data, the greatest problem for people who apply statistics, and I see uncountable numbers of scientific papers where I have major questions that are left unanswered because the researcher seems unaware that there was a problem.

If you look at data relating to people during their lifetimes, you have a great advantage - no one existed before they were born, they continue to exist throughout their lives, and never return after they die - yet. Statistics works well with such life-cycle data. However, imagine for a moment that you could die when you were forty and get reborn when you were fifty? If this were possible, it would completely invalidate life-cycle statistics, because you could not predict when, where and for how long people would be dead, and so the number of 'living' people you use to calculate the mean, for example, would be false. Luckily, people do not tend to die and get reborn, but a similar kind of thing does occur in other data. I have read of a report where it was observed that dandelions remove heavy metals from the soils, but failed to analyse what happened to heavy metal in the dandelions that died or the weight of dandelion mown or eaten and so removed from the parks in questions - and completely invalidated the monitoring of heavy metal in those soils.

Statistics can also be applied to continuous systems, such as flow in a pipe or the grading of translated texts. Again, a good use - as long as the pipe does not leak between testing points or you do not have new translators beginning work and others leaving. I have seen both of these problems ignored in scientific papers written in the relevant fields of engineering and linguistics. There are uses elsewhere: I remember my father describing how, as a Royal Engineer building roads during the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya, they would count the locals they employed in the morning and then at the end of the day - assuming that if the latter count was larger there were some Mau Mau infiltrators in the group. However, it could not possibly measure any Mau Mau replacing workers, or any change in sympathies during the working day, and as such it was a dangerously unsafe methodology.

The kind of data the straight application of statistics ignores are, therefore, those little datalets that enter and leave the system unobserved. Rarely do I see checks for this kind of problem since too often their is overconfidence in the use of statistics, too much effort in their application and a consequent lack in the assessment of likely data leaks.

So, next time an authoritative reports thumps onto your desk or into your inbox, spend some time thinking about what might have happened to the tested quantities between observations.

Supersystems: So what about me?

How you use the concept of a supersystem to help you learn is dependent on you, because not everyone's brain works in quite the same way, you might be a Data Acquisitioner or a Conceptual Integrator. Actually, I just made up those two names, what I really mean is: do you, that's you personally, learn best by memorising lists of facts, by experimenting, or by soaking up events and allowing understanding to happen somewhere deep in the recesses of your mind? This is something you need to work out for yourself, and it is important. I am hopeless at learning lists, and even if I do then what I learn is not of particular importance unless I have some exam to take, I experiment with data by playing around with concepts in my mind, and if the data is numerical I might enter it into some kind of spreadsheet and play with it on there to see if I can see any patterns in the data.

If you learn by memorising, or perhaps you believe that this is the only way to learn even if you are not successful at it, then there is one thing you must understand - facts/knowledge/data is essentially random. You can learn as many as you like and it will never be enough, rather like preparing yourself for some quiz where you know that there is a good chance that you will not know the answers to certain questions. I remember back in the 1970s there were a number of different kinds of gameshows on TV in Britain, and then one year they decided to organise a competition between the winners of several of these gameshows. The winner of this super-competition was the winner of a gameshow involving working out solutions, and the one who came last was the winner of a gameshow that was a pure memory quiz.

Facts by themselves are essentially dead things; they lead nowhere. If I asked you what was the capital of China, you would probably say "Peking" or "Beijing". Great! But where does that lead us to? Is this anything that I could not have got out of an encyclopedia or other fact-based book or knowledge source? I have a very small car, a Citroen C1, and yet when the lights go green, most times I am across the junction first, and without spinning the wheels or revving the engine hard. The facts like 'press the gas pedal to go' and 'go when the light changes to green' are all available to everyone, even to that guy in his powerful car who kept creeping forward, impatient for the lights to change and who is now having to accelerate hard to get past me. Facts are easy to teach because they are like bean cans, always there on the supermarket shelf. Teaching how to use facts is much harder, because use seems different every time, and future use is something you do not know now. Teaching, therefore, works best for what is known, and wrks worst for what is not known.

When I leave the lights ahead of the pack and my wife is in the car withn me I make a joke and pretend to say 'bye' to the other drivers, making her smile in this way is just one of the many benefits of learning about what is not known. Knowing what many other people do not know can be very satisfying, and if you create it yourself then it costs nothing more than some time and does not take up room in your car or at home, and the only dusting it requires is simply to remember it from time to time. To make my C1 so fast I gathered all the facts I could think of and which seemed relevant, and then arranged them in some order. I tested that order and then adjusted the original order, added some more facts that I had accumulated, and tested this second concept. The key was to understand that getting across the line quicker was not just about getting my car to go quicker - that would mean investing in another car or in making this car quicker, something I was unwiling to do as it would consume my time and other resources. No, my car did not need to go quicker, I had to waste less time moving from one event to the next. Make sure car was already in the right gear, right foot already pressing slightly on the gas pedal, left foot already with the cluitch pedal partly raised, one hand on the handbrake waiting to release it, other hand on the steering wheel, eyes watching traffic, pedestrians and lights, and brain with the course already plotted. When the lights begin to turn green, assuming it is safe to proceed, I lift the clutch, press the gas, and release the handbrake together. That's all it takes, it works, and you can practice it every day and still have a good car to sell when the time comes to replace it.

Interestingly enough, I have now converted my concept into new knowledge that you and anyone else with a car can use. Concepts created in real time convert to knowledge, and they seem to fill all the available space. What other knowledge do you need to know? At this point you need to stop and realise that cars-at-a-junction are a supersystem, and this is one model we can apply to that supersystem. As such, we know it is only going to work some of the time. What happens when the person in the car beside you has also read this text, but has a much faster accelerating car and quicker reflexes than you? What if you are not at the front of the queue? Well, this junction is just one of many, and today is just one of many, perhaps instead of listening to music you could start watching how other drivers typically respond to different situations. I have a whole stack of knowledge models I have developed to deal best with many different situations, because I have devoted much of my time in cars to observing how other drivers react, and how I react.

Time and devotion are essential to creating new concepts, as is the belief that you cann develop them. Society tries to pressure us into the belief that the answer lies in learning more facts, in copying what others have done, but perhaps the best answer lies within ourselves. Once you have gained knowledge in one area, you can apply it to another. Having developed the 'be faster at the junction' model I began to apply it elsewhere in my life. After leaving university I spent seven weeks working nights in a meat factory to earn some money for a vacation. Most of the time I worked the grills, char-grilling burgers for microwave meals, working alongside two women who had been using the grills for years. In such a short period I had no real chance of honing my reflexes to match theirs, and I know that they chose to use the better pair of grills. Once I learnt the basic techniques I spent every night trying to minimise wasted time, optimising burger layouts on my grill - learning the hot and cool spots, and all the rest. I never was able to match them for speed, but I was 90% there, far better than anyone else. Was it worth it? Of course, the grills are the only warm places at a meat factory, everywhere else is cold so that the meat does not start to go off.

I stated earlier that facts are random, which is not quite true. If you were to go to a zoo and saw a zebra you are likely to think 'black and white stripey animal, like a horse, from Africa', an amalgam of facts based on observation and prior learning. Have you ever looked closely at a zebra's eyelashes? Are they like a horse's? What about zebra feeding patterns? Observation is limited to survival traits, interest and comparison to previous knowledge, which takes some of the randomness out of the knowledge we acquire, but in terms of the universe it is still fairly random. Take cats, for example, many people do, they have been living close to us for thousands of years and yet people still believe that they are independent creatures despite the evidence to the contrary. Cats go off when they want to, but so do children if they can get away withn it. Oh, they don't tell you when they will be back, isn't that a typical problem with children? They don't take orders? Well, who do you know who does if they can get away with it? They go live next door? Hmm, if you were my friend and your neighbours cooked better lunch I might spend more time their too. Cats are like God - you have to notice them first, and being small and easily abused by big humans, it is up to us to prove we respect them first. Cats are very communal, and generally have lots of friends they like to hang out with, including us. When the day comes that all our friends are comfortable sitting on our laps, maybe cats will trust us a little further.

Knowledge being essentially random means that they are only some facts and they are not necessarily the ones that will be most useful to us, and some facts may not be as true as we imagine. Since in any one subject we do not have all the facts (knowledgelets), what if we were to place all our subject knowledges on top of each other in some kind of trememdous sandwich? This is what encyclopedias do, in a way, you may well find 'cat' on one page and 'Catherine the Great' on the opposite page. What would happen if, instead of reading the entry about cats as a complete unit, we read the first line of the 'cat' entry' and then the first line of the 'Catherine' entry, the second line of the 'cat' entry' and so on? This might sound silly, but if knowledge is essentially random, and most people gather information in similar ('normal') ways, then by applying a non-normal acquisition method we might discover something new.

Two of the biggest blocks to non-normal acquistion are 'what would the neighbours say' and the 'three wise men'. Discovering new things automatically is doing what the neighbours would not do, unless your neighbours are already busy doing things differently. There are elements in any society which attempts to block change, so you might have to practice being an innovator in private or in forums where your neighbours do not go. The three-wise-men block is the conviction that someone greater than you has already plotted the best path, has already maximised quality, method or whatever. However, the point of supersystems is that there is no Holy Grail, no ultimate method, not wise person who has a handle on the best method. What the wise person knows is what works best for them, not for you. Grammar Hammers are a good example of people relying on the three wise men, 'someone' in the past has created a system of language that is 'right'. This makes innovation in written language very difficult, because you know they are going to start telling you your grammar is wrong, you have used the wrong words etc.

So, find that quiet place away from the people who you feel are blocking you, and practice there.

Even then, you are unlikely to make a world-shattering discovery in the first forty minutes of trying. I like to use the time in my car or on a bus, when I know I am stuck there for the duration and there is nothing else I can do. I have pretend arguments with people, where I have to take each side in turn and often either demolish my own arguments or learn something new from the second person's viewpoint.

A bus or a train has many opportunities for thinking. Often when it is dark and cold, and I am sitting shivering on a poorly heated bus in the wintertime, I shut my eyes and try to imagine where we are every second of the way. This quickly shows you how little you remember about your surroundings, even though they seem familiar when your eyes are open. Not all memory is accessible, the brain does not deem access to the 'familiarity' memories as being particularly high, and it takes practice to lever that particular door of your mind further open. Hypnosis is another way into this particular memory store, and it is known that this particular type of memory is particularly open to suggestion, perhaps because the brain has to continually edit it as trees grow, buildings get built, we redecorate our rooms or just plain get older. Whatever it's advantages or disadvantages, using the imagination in this way pays off -it gets easier to build and modify whole new concepts in your head.

To conclude, knowledge is essentially dead, random and partial, and what is important is to examine this knowledge from different perspectives. It is this practice of looking that educates our minds into being more innovative, but to do so means fending off the social pressure to conform in all aspects of our lives.

Supersystems: when your logic is not enough

if you check out the meaning of 'supersystem' you are likely to come up with the definition that it is a system made up of other systems, but this is a back-to-front view. All systems are part of our universe, everything eventually connects with everything else: you sneeze today and it moves the air in front of you and, like the ripples on a pond when you drop a stone in, the effects of your sneeze will reach the limits of the universe, imperceptibly, some time in an unimaginably distant future.

A supersystem is one small corner of the universe that is big enough for us to comprehend that it is a system, but too complex for us to understand its workings. Our brains are a good example of a supersystem, we apply a range of simplifications to try and understand some of its workings, such as 'vision', 'hearing' or 'memory', which makes them sound as if they are separate systems (subsystems) in our brain, while in fact they are interlinked and share many operations. If your memory and vision were separate functions, for example, no one would ever shut their eyes to help them remember something almost forgotten or to hear a recorded message clearer. Vision consumes huge amounts of your brain's resources, and by shutting your eyes or staring into space you free up lots of resources for thinking, and vice versa - if you drive you probably can remember a number of times when thinking about problems has resulted in a delayed reaction to events on the road.

All systems are supersystems in practice, but some are easier to think of as simple systems than others. If you balance a book on the edge of the desk, small road-traffic or wind vibrations on your building are not going to affect it noticeably - you pushing it or putting some other object on top of it are about the only things that will decide whether it remains on your desk or falls to the floor. You already know a lot about balance from a lifetime of experiencing the effects of it, and although it is only a simplification, this assuming that things with small effects can be safely ignored is one of them most important precepts underlying that mathematical subject of calculus.

Better still, our brains our able to analyse supersystems so complex that, if asked to describe them, we would be unable to do so. You can watch the branches of a tree blowing in a wind and understand exactly what you are seeing and what will happen if the wind becomes stronger or weaker, or if someone throws a ball towards you then you have a good chance of catching it even though its flight is effected by gravity, trajectory, spin and wind. We can do this not by learning traditional mathematics, but by accessing a system that is much older, one that is built into our brains.

We do not have direct conscious access to this part of our brain, as it mainly deals with things like coordination, but we can train it and we can access it indirectly in many ways. In our conscious thoughts we generally try to classify everything, so we might say that we are bad at maths and good at languages, and use this to condition our career choices - becoming a translator rather than a mathematician. We use this idea to create our education systems and then, lo and behold, translators all tend to be alike, mathematicians all tend to be alike, and translators and mathematicians tend to be different. However, this situation only happens because we all get used to allowing our initial classifications define our social systems, and as a result we come to believe that the skills required to be a mathematician or translator are different. This, though, is only a social belief, albeit an extremely strong one.

Advanced linguistics (the science of languages) is much like advanced mathematics - mathematics is only another human language that attempts to describe numbers of things, while linguistics is yet another application of mathematics. The more we push forward our understanding of linguistics or mathematics, the more the methods and results we learn in these fields come to resemble the systems already built into our heads, moreover, they come to resemble the same systems.

Thousands of years ago we understood little about the environment that surrounded us, other than as a set of in-built and trained responses to the way we lived in that environment. Sometime in our early experiments to test how the universe worked we decided that we were separate from the universe, and that by gathering more and more knowledge of the outside world we would come to understand it. This has conditioned the way we perceive the world, that mathematics and linguistics are separate fields that perhaps overlap at the edges. Today we are beginning to understand that everything we know are nothing more than variations of the same things - linguistics and mathematics are but two names for the same thing. The only difference between them is that they are two different ways of looking at the same thing, like taking a pumpkin and carving 'mathematics' and 'linguistics' on different sides - while the pumpkin may appear different when viewed from different directions, it is still the same pumpkin.

Linguistics is really the way the brain processes a particular group of information, in this case a vast databank of sounds. The brain is not like a dictionary of words, we only think of it that way because our education presents them that way as a convenient method of dealing with making readable symbols of our language. We are at our most inventive linguistically when we are about the age of eight or nine, when our brains are good enough to conceptualise but not yet old enough to have succumbed fully to common social beliefs about language (such as that of 'vocabulary' and 'grammar'). If you can still find someone intelligent who has not had the 'benefits' of education, their concepts of language are likely to be very different to yours, even though their language use is as rich as yours. Most of our vocabulary is learnt by observation of other people's usage, and we can readily create new words and fit them understandably into the 'pelonia' (I just made that word up, as a replacement for 'language').

So how can we use this to help us think? Ah, well that is the subject of a later blog, I have covered quite enough for one day! Suffice to say that supersystems are those too complex for us to analyse rationally, although our brain can usually figure them out subconsciously. All supersystems are basically the same, as all are by-products of the way our brain understands the world.

Czestochowa: For your salvation

If you were wondering where the centre of religious life was in Poland, and I am only talking about the Roman Catholics here, then should go to Czestochowa. One of the most interesting times to go is the 15th of August for the Ascension of Mary holiday, when people arrive from all over the country on foot as part of large pilgrimages. Well, everyone needs a 'local' place to make pilgrimages to, they are such a great way to escape from the reality of daily life and to spend time with other people with similar aims.

My only visit to Czestochowa was in 1995, and when I arrived on my own I only had a basic guidebook knowledge of what I was supposed to find there. Those were days before the internet took off, when one had to scour the shelves of the local library and then probably illegally, certainly irresponsibly, take a book with you on your trip. I sometimes wonder how many travel books made frequent trips to the places they described - some of them may well have been more seasoned travellers than I was. The city was a bit of a disappointment, a rather drab looking monastery on toop of a worn grassy hillock set amongst a sad district in that Socialist way. Once inside I found myself among a group of believers at the beginning of a mass - for a moment I nearly turned round and left by the nearest exit, but then I decided that nobody would notice me, a foriegner, among this group of strangers. There was not much fuss, and from my position at the back of the church I could hardly see the star of the show, the Black Madonna, although what I could see of this early painting left me puzzled as to why they had dressed it up in jewels. I believe that God cares for me as an individual, and that he is always there, whether he wants it or not, but I am aware that I am surrounded by people who are happier believing that their god is elsewhere, safely concealed from observing their actual life by a thick barrier of priests and idols. Maybe that helps explain why I have low levels of jakraj?

On the walls of the monastery church, which since my Polish was almost non-existent I had plenty of time to examine, were covered in crutches and all manner of silver and gold medallions, many given to the church by grateful former sufferers of a wide range of diseases. Perhaps their god cured them, perhaps my God did, or maybe the actual time spent focussing on hope of a cure did the work all by itself. After leaving the monastery, I was mooching around on the hillock, wondering how I could fill in the next four hours or so when my train was due to leave. At this point I met a couple who were sitting on a bench nearby, they were Polish, but living in Sweden. We went back to the apartment they were staying at, loaned to them from some of their friends, and spent the evening eating blueberries from a huge bowl and chatting.

Faith, then, is a remarkable thing, and not something we are going to understand in the near future as it remains as undefineable as it was to primitive man. Having something to believe in can make the most remarkable of changes to your life, although you having one belief is no justification for insisting that anyone else in the world has to have the same one. I recently read of some research where they showed a picture of Mary to a number of Roman Catholics and athiests, and then applied electric shocks to them. The Roman Catholics felt less pain after being shown the image of Mary, and that is the power of faith, and useful for more than warding off stray electric shocks. There are other alternative faiths, even for Poles, even for Roman Catholic Poles.

I have on the table here a booklet in English and German advertising a honey from the deep and ancient forests of Bialowieza... I know of dozens and dozens of small farms and individuals producing honey in my region, some of them also producing mead, but since it still lacks much in the way of support don't expect to see much in the way of Polish honey in your local store. The Polish word for honey is miod, and the English name for the honey-based fermented drink is mead, just another example of how words have always drifted from nation to nation.

Back to the booklet, it has four pages describing the honey product and its benefits, then one page as a welcome letter, followed by a dozen pages of excerpts from letters sent the honey producer. Personally, I would have preferred the welcome letter on the first page, more information about the product with perhaps some history and something about the bees, hives and the plants the bees use, and then far fewer grateful letters. Well, that is what I would have preferred had not the translation been so bad that it is often hilarious, like "I have two children who frequently catch diseases." leaving you wondering how many they have who don't catch diseases, or "I have a pleasure to inform you that since my children started eating your Honey, I do not need to visit doctors any more." - I wonder who would be cured if I started eating the honey?

The truth is that with such miraculous products as this honey, sorry Honey, on the market, who needs religion? Given a choice between sitting in a cold church every Sunday where no one will talk to you and sitting around a warm table eating Honey with your family and friends, I know where my preference lies. Seriously, if faith in Czestochowa is matched by faith in Honey, what value does religion have, except to those who are allergic to honey or who simply do not enjoy its taste? With all the manpower that religion can wield, why can they still not surpass a few hives of bees? Ah, you may say, but religion also includes some valuable afterlife options, and you would be right to an extent, except that the Roman Catholic church in Poland focusses its parisioners energy on the miraculous in the present and prayers for the already dead, and puts as many barriers as it can to prevent parisioners understanding enough of their religion to make any intelligent decision that will improve their chances in the afterlife. You are, it seems, better off putting your faith and your money in the Honey to solve your problems in your current life, and simple faith in your god for your afterlife, religion having nothing better to offer either way.