On… Email

31st May 202330th May 2023 godley93Blog, Comedy, Communication, Email, Humour, Instant Messaging, On..., Positivity, Social Media, Topical, WritingLeave a comment

It is difficult for my generation to understand how the world worked before emails became a thing. As a 30-year-old, I remember what things were like before email was so prominent, but it was during a time when I wouldn’t have really used it anyway. Despite the fact that many young people now have smartphones before starting puberty, I suspect that few of them are using them to check their emails. Email is a boring medium with minimal intrigue to the Tik Tok generation. They don’t realise how good they’ve got it – having access to relentlessly addictive short-form content, which burns through brain cells like wildfire. When I was young, we had to play with Tamagotchis to get our digital fix, and we’d only speak to each other when we were physically together in school.

Email reminds us of a simpler time when we were grateful for any medium of communication which allowed us to speak without a delay of 3 days or more. Although the letter is often romanticised as a beautiful medium, it is annoyingly slow. It is also error-prone. Letters are easily lost, and they cannot be traced so easily. Emails build on each other, documenting what came before, making it easier to remember what the hell you said when you hurled that email over a few days prior. When reading a letter, you basically have to re-write your letter in your head as you read the response, or it won’t make sense.

Deleted emails go into a ‘Bin’ folder, so one can mull over the decision for a few days. The equivalent action in letters would be burning the paper, which probably feels more cathartic, but is frustratingly permanent. Deleting emails is anti-climatic in comparison. Burning letters contains drama and suspense, whereas you can scroll through your emails ticking little boxes then archive the entire set – how very boring. It is one area where the letter excels in comparison to email. Even setting the computer on fire won’t erase emails. They’re like the Freddy Kruger of communication.

Just as burning a letter is permanent, so are the etchings you make on the paper (assuming you are an adult who uses pens and not pencils). For the perfectionist, writing on paper is like walking a tightrope. Each successful word and sentence formed only adds to the tension, as a single mistake can lead to the undoing of the entire piece. No one likes to see a letter or word scribbled out, but there is no way around it when writing a letter. Your inadequacies are hung in front of your like fairy lights, illuminating the fact that you can’t spell ‘necessary’ correctly, always adding an extra ‘c’ and leaving out an ‘s’.

I created my first email address when I was about 11 years old, and it was something like down-with-kevs@whatever.com. ‘Kevs’ was a synonym for ‘chavs’ when I was younger. Wikipedia defines a chav as “a young person of a type characterized by coarse and brash behaviour.” I was a skater when I was that age, which meant that I used to hang out at different spots around the village all day, being really bad at skateboarding, but still enjoying it all the same. The chavs were seen as the enemy. They were the other group commonly seen hanging around, but we had a good reason to be where we were – we were skating and it was functional – chavs seemed to be there primarily to antagonise others. We were the easiest targets to antagonise, as they were usually older, and had a hunger for thuggery.

One time, when I was out skateboarding, a big group of chavs walked past us and kicked a ball at us. It hit my flip-phone out of my hand and I shouted, “Why the f*** did you do that?” They didn’t like this. Three of them walked over to us shouting some stuff. It was like the hyenas from The Lion King emerging from the shadows in a small pack. One of them grabbed me by the neck with one hand and tried to take the phone out of my hand with the other. I wouldn’t let go. Frustrated, he punched me in the head and walked off. The rest of the group were laughing. I was about 11 and they were at least 16, if not older. From then onwards, I had a potent dislike for people who I classed as ‘chavs’. So, of course, I had to use my private email as a political statement in protest against them. It deeply affected their image in society, and you seldom hear the term ‘chav’ used anymore, thanks to me. My email address single-handedly eliminated the group entirely, and they’re now considered a fringe group at best. You’re welcome, world.

I didn’t grasp the purpose of an email at that age. I can’t remember how much I used it, if at all, but by the time I was actually using my email and signing up for accounts on websites and other services, I realised that I needed to create a new one. My new email address is a variation on my name and some letters – very vanilla, just like an email address should be. No one is hiring down-with-kevs. Down-with-kevs isn’t winning any online giveaways or being put forward for any Nobel Peace Prices. Dan Godley isn’t either, but ‘down-with-kevs’ Godley definitely isn’t. The more successful you are in whitewashing your individuality, the better off you’ll be in the world. Create a boring email and use it to apply to boring jobs so you can earn boring money. Learn to loathe marketing lists, but never enough to unsubscribe from them. Welcome to adulthood – now check your email!

It is truly difficult to imagine how the working world worked pre-email. A hustle of people sat in offices, accosting each other at desks and feigning over endless stacks of paper. ‘Working from home’ was probably considered an oxymoron; something only possible in Sci-fi novels, in the same category as aliens or deadly mushroom viruses that turn people into zombies. Now, most of our working lives revolve around monitoring our inbox in one way or another. Though, there is a disadvantage to email… It leaves a paper trail more permanent than paper even manages. Paper is barely worthy of being included in the phrase ‘paper trail’ with how easily paper can be discarded forever. Paper has the advantage of conveniently going missing when the right people want it to. Most of us have watched a Netflix real crime series covering some untoward case, usually in America, where the key evidence went missing from the evidence room, or where a standard procedure wasn’t followed, but no one seems to know why, as the reports have all gone missing. Emails can be retrieved, to the detriment of corporations and dodgy folk everywhere.

I recently read a piece on Steven Cohen, the man who founded S.A.C Capital Advisors. In 2013, S.A.C was fined an astonishing $1.8 billion for allowing insider trading at the firm. Steven Cohen perpetuated a culture where insider knowledge was considered getting an ‘edge’ over your competitors, both inside your organisation and outside in other organisations. He encouraged the behaviour but recognised that he shouldn’t encourage it, so was notorious in the organisation for not wanting to do things over email. He preferred other, less traceable means of communication, such as a swift whisper in the ear, or a chat over a fancy meal, which probably cost more than the average person’s monthly wage. Still, even Steven Cohen’s despise for email wasn’t enough to stop the emails from doing him damage. Emails exchanged within the organisation were used as evidence in the case against S.A.C. Eventually, he was forced to close it down, but don’t worry, Steven transferred the business to a new name – Point72 Asset Management – and he isn’t doing too badly. In 2020 he purchased the New York Mets. I wonder how he feels about email now… angry, I assume.

My best friend Luke went through a period where he decided that he was going to “bring emails back.” I’d frequently look at my inbox to find an email from him, containing various images off Reddit, and a few updates on his life. He was refusing to use smartphones at the time, but couldn’t resist the cultural drift into the modern age. “There must be a way to share these memes I look at all day,” he must have said to himself, before realising that email could solve all of his problems. Then, my friend George decided to do something absolutely amazing, and shipped his motorbike to Alaska in North America, to then fly out himself, meet his bike, and spend the next year or so riding it all the way south to the bottom tip of Argentina. Along the way, he logged in to a plethora of free Wifi services, ranging from hotels to cafes to superstores etc. Not wanting to use his own email, he decided to use Luke’s. Much to Luke’s dismay, he started receiving a steady stream of “Thanks for registering for the Wifi service” emails. It was a nice way to keep up to date with where George was, but he still receives emails from random establishments in South America and probably has scammers crawling over his emails like digital cockroaches. He has since got a smartphone and has given up bringing emails back. Now he is obsessively wearing dungarees instead.

Despite its shortcomings, I like email as a medium. It is much less obnoxious than its instant messaging counterpart. Email has a natural stagger to it. We seldom send an email and expect to receive a response in a matter of minutes. At best, we give it an hour, and even that is quick. Email is naturally asynchronous in a way that instant messaging is not. Instant messaging seems to tap into some social faculty that is defunct in our brains, one which readily believes that someone hates us if they don’t message back within 5 minutes of receiving our message. Sometimes, if I have something that I think is really important, I’ll send it on Whatsapp, then sit and watch the screen, wondering why I’m not receiving a response, as if that person is physically sitting in front of me and is ignoring me. I have to remind myself that it was my decision to message them and that they have no obligation to get back to me in any timeframe, let alone 1 minute. Email strikes the right balance – you’re there and you can respond, but no one is pressuring you to. It’s all chill – send an email, have a coffee, read a magazine, check your email again – no response; no problem, I’ve got Whatsapp messages to attend to –

“WTF!!!!!!!! I’VE EMAILED YOU FIVE ENTIRE MINUTES AGO AND YOU HAVEN’T RESPONDED. AM I NOTHING TO YOU? DO I EVEN MATTER? DO YOU EVEN CARE ABOUT ME?”

Emails combine the speed of digital communication with the penance of thinking about what you say, not just throwing out whatever you feel like at any given moment, which is what instant messaging services seem to encourage. There is a hint of drama when you refresh your inbox on your phone. A ‘whodunit’ moment, where you wait to see whether your parcel has been delivered, or if someone has added you on LinkedIn. It is a magical few seconds where anything is possible, which is quickly deflated when the only things that appear are marketing materials for a clothes website you purchased a present from 4 years ago. When you’re feeling brave, you can venture into your Junk folder and read about the penis enlargement surgeries, then run away from it again because you’re worried that you’ll accidentally click on the dodgy link. Your inbox is your fortress of communication, from which you command the world. You might have even received a link to this blog in your inbox, which makes it all the more exciting to write. If you didn’t receive it in your inbox, perhaps you should subscribe to it… just a thought…

On… Memory

17th May 2023 godley93Blog, Emotion, Humour, Memory, On..., Positivity, Thought, Topic, Writing1 Comment

Josie, me and Keiran and Glastonbury – 2019

I’ve always had a bad memory. I can’t remember if it was bad when I was really young, because I don’t remember being really young, but I’m sure it’s been a problem for a while. When I hear people say that their first memory was when they were 4 or 5 years old, I assume that they’re lying. I’ve even heard people say that they have vague memories of being even younger than this, but I outright refuse to believe such nonsense. How can someone else remember being an age where their entire diction was no larger than 200 words, yet my first memory is of being 28 and being diagnosed with cancer? But in all seriousness, I think my first memory is probably when I was about 10. Even that might be generous. It really is that bad. I have vague feelings that I remember things, but they don’t translate into anything useful. I think I remember going to school in Hemel Hempstead when I was probably 5 or 6, but if I’m being honest with myself, I think I’ve just seen a picture of myself from around this time, and am misinterpreting my memory with the scene in that picture.

A few years ago, I read a book (I can’t remember what book, and that isn’t another joke) written by the man who holds the world record for reciting the most numbers of Pi accurately from memory. It I remember correctly, which I probably don’t, it took him over an hour of standing at the mic and calling out number after number before he got one wrong. The story blew my mind. Not because I was impressed that someone could do that, although I was quite impressed, but because it was even a thing. If your memory is that good, shouldn’t you be using it for something useful? Why is remembering Pi useful? Why is creating an entire event around it useful? I guess not everything has to be useful. If I could remember something that well, I’d want to make a spectacle of it. I bake cake after cake at the minute and I’m diabetic, so I eat very little of any of them, feeling too guilty to do so. That isn’t very useful. It’s fun, though. He probably thought reciting Pi was fun… It probably is fun when you can do it that well.

Fortunately, we don’t have to remember anything these days because we have Google. For example, I just Googled ‘Book man recite most digits Pi’. If I waffled like that to a stranger in the street, they would assume that someone had been filling my water bottle up with Absinthe. Luckily Google understands me, and according to its limitless knowledge, the book I read was Born On a Blue Day, by Daniel Tammet. I can hardly remember anything about it now. It begs the question – was it a total waste of time to read it if I don’t remember anything from it? Well, hopefully not, as I don’t remember most of the books that I read. Additionally, I don’t remember a lot of things that I have done in my life. If everything I don’t remember is meaningless, then I am notionally disregarding 99% of my life on the grounds that I don’t remember it, so it was irrelevant. Even people with phenomenal memories, like Daniel Tammet, would be disregarding a good 90% of their lives based on this principal, so I guess remembering something isn’t what gives it meaning. The important things probably directly influence you, in a way that is material and tangible, but everything else just helps to shape you in a more subtle way.

That leads me to wonder whether there are things that my brain has gone to great lengths to forget. Sigmund Freud would have emphatically told me that it has, as has everyone else’s. He is a little more successful than I am, so I would tend to agree with him. With regards to one of his more controversial ideas, the Oedipus complex, I’d be a little more cautious to agree. That theory seems to have not stood the test of time quite so well. Sometimes we reject something because it is too truthful, and could present us in a particularly bad light, one that we don’t like to admit about ourselves. Our sense of self-preservation kicks in. We may struggle to accept criticism or, upon hearing someone say that we are a depressing person, for example, we may kick back, telling them that we couldn’t possibly be a depressing person, because we hate depressing people, as if that argument is a tour de force which cannot be disproven.

I can think of times that I have had some negative trait pointed out to me that I have displayed, a trait that doesn’t necessarily agree with the image I have of myself. That has lead me to reject it and tell the person that they’re wrong about me. I’ll then think about it all day, obsessively playing scenarios from throughout my life out in my head, and thinking about how it actually supports what they have said. All of a sudden, the things that I am remembering all concur with what the person said, and I’m forced to admit something that I don’t like about myself. I hope that it has had enough of an impact on me to make me change, and I’ll frequently assess the way that I behave in situations against that critique, but over time I lose focus, and perhaps don’t improve as much as I’d like to. Other times I have, though, and I’ve managed to curtail a behaviour enough that I think I manage to reform it for the better. Other times, I really don’t believe that this person is correct, and I find amusement in their suggestion.

The problem with this method of self-improvement is that memories are notoriously difficult to accurately recall. How we feel during that second that we are thinking about the memory taints it, and our interpretation of it can change from moment to moment, day to day. A memory of a time spent with a significant other can bring plenty of comfort for years. Then, the breakdown of that relationship may cause that memory to taint, and it can be difficult to remember it without feeling a lot of sadness, anger, regret. Sometimes it takes years to look back on it with any fondness at all. Sometimes we never do again, and it will forever hold a negative place in our lives. Those happy memories haunt us, becoming the opposite of what they once were to us. If this is true of the memories that we are conscious of, who knows what becomes of the memories that we’re unconscious of, but that continue to impact our every thought, reaction and motive.

What makes someone like Daniel Tammet’s memory so good, and mine so bad, though? I have an idea of what may have negatively impacted my memory… As a teenager, my modus operandi when “socialising” was to drink myself into oblivion. “Pacing yourself” was a concept that I was aware of, but only came into my life in the form of a flippant joke, as I downed another can of something and became slightly less aware of how much of an idiot I probably looked. Sure, there were a lot of fun times, but I seldom remembered them. They live on in tales told between my friendship group, and I vaguely recall tiny snippets of these memories, probably constructed more from the narrative told than the experience itself. This was my approach to drinking for the best part of 8 years. It was a hard cycle to kick. In some ways, I think I was an alcoholic, but the fact that I established a healthier relationship with alcohol perhaps suggests otherwise. I assume that a true alcoholic can never have a healthy relationship with alcohol. Perhaps it is dependent on the personality type, or the specifics of the abusive relationship with alcohol, or a combination of those factors, and more. What I do know is that my memory is terrible, and I’m willing to bet that excessive drinking played a part in that.

Yet even my memory, plagued with blank spots and steep cliffs, will trigger upon smelling a certain smell, or hearing a certain word. Sometimes I’m not even sure what the memory is, I’m just sure that whatever triggered it means something to me. It’s a strange sensation. I wish I could think of an example, but that would contradict my point. Perhaps it is a familiar smell, one that I smelt during some significant event, but it isn’t enough to trigger an actual memory, it just conjures some emotion or feeling. There are fewer things more powerful than it. It is like that scene at the end of Ratatouille, when the food critic asks the mouse to make a meal for him, and the mouse chooses to make him ratatouille, a standard dish, and one that is not necessarily impressive on its own. But, upon putting the food in his mouth, the food critic remembers being a young boy and eating his mum’s ratatouille, and it brings a tear to his eye, then he announces that this mouse does indeed belong in the kitchen, against all health regulations, because he made a damn good ratatouille. Sure, why not. The central point of the scene is poignant, though. Smells and tastes can evoke a strong feeling. So strong that fast food companies apparently create the smell of their food in a laboratory; it sounds made up, but the smell seems to travel a fair distance from the restaurants, and it does seem to have its own defining personality, one that reminds us of all the other times spent there – with family and friends, through hard times and good. I don’t fall for it, but my memory is so bad that I don’t remember any good times in McDonalds, so I don’t fall for their trickery. There are other smells which evoke powerful memories for me.

The smell of wood being cut really reminds me of my grandad. He was a carpenter and had a cellar filled with big machines and devices used to carve wood. When I was in primary school, we made a model of an aircraft carrier out of wood together. The detail in the model was impressive, with little gun barrels poking out of the sides of the ship. They probably don’t even have turrets there, but I think my grandad was letting me be the creative director on the project. He clearly did all of the hands-on work. After finishing it, we painted it all a monotone blue colour, with no other detail whatsoever, and it looked a little bit unfinished. His field was carpentry, and it held a clear boarder for him. Decorating was a different department.

The smell of incense reminds me of going clothes shopping when I was about 10 years old. At the time, I was obsessed with skateboarding. My dad used to take me and my brothers to a shop called Dazed (I think that’s how it was spelt), and the shop always smelt strongly of incense. I didn’t know what the smell was at that age, or for a long time afterwards. I’m not sure when I eventually smelt it and made the link, but it was years later. “THIS SMELLS LIKE DAZED,” I shouted out once whilst at a friend’s house, after he started burning some. They didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. The sentence came out of my mouth almost involuntarily, and I had to explain to a small crowd what I was talking about, realising as I spoke that it was far more interesting to me than it was to them, or anybody… a little bit like the topic of this post? I’ll make next week’s extra stupid, I promise. If I remember…

My sister Josie claims to remember everything. She will constantly recite back things that we did when we were younger together. I respond with a blank stare, reminding her that I don’t remember anything from 2018, never mind when I was 8 years old. I’m convinced that she just has a more creative mind than mine, and she simply believes that a lot of these things happened because she can see them in her mind, but that they didn’t actually occur in real life. Perhaps that is me being cynical as it is so hard to envision such a world where one actually remembers things, when the one I am used to couldn’t be more different. We’re from the same family, after all. Shouldn’t we have the same propensity for remembering? I guess not. I can’t even remember why I started writing about this in the first place…

On… Commuting

10th May 20239th May 2023 godley93Blog, Comedy, Commute, Commuting, Happiness, Happy, Humour, Lifestyle, Positivity, Topic, Writing3 Comments

Early on in my career, I realised that half of the battle in staying happy in life is learning to enjoy your commute. If you find peace during that 45 minute journey, where you’re sat in stand-still traffic or pressed up against the inside of a train door, then you can do anything else in life with vigor. It is the key to inner happiness. When we think of Monks, we assume that it is their connection to their God and their studious nature which brings them inner peace. Although this is a nice theory, I believe it may be wrong. Monks spend their lives in monasteries, where commuting is a dystopian concept. It isn’t a coincidence. They’re probably unaware of the entire concept of ‘dystopian’ with all that peace and tranquility. To some of us, a monastery seems like a concept reserved for dystopia, but I’m sure everyone agrees that the lack of commuting is anything but. Perhaps I should become a Monk, come to think of it. Na. I like buying things too much.

‘Commuting’ is an elastic word. Although it is commonly used to refer to the regular act of leaving one’s home to get to one’s place of work, it could, in theory, refer to any journey that is made regularly. If I had regular piano lessons, and I travelled there every Saturday at 08:00 to arrive at 09:00, could I refer to this as my ‘commute’ to my piano lesson? I might. It might even be acceptable to describe it as such. It is certainly acceptable according to the Wikipedia page for commuting, where the following is stated:

Commuting is periodically recurring travel between one’s place of residence and place of work or study, where the traveler, referred to as a commuter, leaves the boundary of their home community. By extension, it can sometimes be any regular or often repeated travel between locations, even when not work-related.

Notice the use of the word ‘even’ in that paragraph? “…EVEN when not work related.” What exciting lives we lead in the modern world. It makes me think of the interview with then british Prime Minister Theresa May, where a reporter asked her what the naughtiest thing she had ever done was, with the slightest hint of sarcasm in her tone, but still said very professionally. Theresa May responded in a babbling fashion, trying to buy herself time to think of a realistic yet relatable answer – “Oh goodness me…. Erm, well I supposed the… Gosh… I’m not sure… No one’s ever perfect are they… Well, I have to confess, when me and my friends would, sort of, run through the fields of wheat…well, the farmers weren’t too pleased about that.” You can’t watch it without covering your eyes and cringing. I think Theresa May might have written the Wikipedia page on commuting, based on her response that day. I’m surprised it didn’t come up after that question was put to her.

Reporter: “So, Theresa, what is the naughtiest thing you have ever done?”

Theresa May: “Well, erm, I guess I’ve, erm, been a little aloof with my siblings in the past. I EVEN described my journey to my brother’s house for Sunday dinner as a ‘commute’ because I was doing it every week. He didn’t appreciate that.”

After she said it, you could sense the world collectively groan back at through their TV screens, before immediately changing the channel. It would have actually gone down better than what she said – at least it would have hinted at the fact that she had a sense of humour.

But I am not talking about the type of commute where you frequently make some nondescript journey. I’m talking about that forced journey that you make at the worst time of the day, during rush hour. When everyone in the world looks miserable because they got out of bed earlier than they wanted to, to go to a place where they’re constantly scrutinised on their ‘performance’, whilst making someone else a lot of money, which they only receive a small percentage of in return. That morning slog to your place of work.

If you’re driving a car and you’re unfortunate enough to meet another person’s glance as you’re sitting in traffic, you see the same misery that is painted over your face in theirs. You both quietly acknowledge it, before quickly looking away and pretending that you aren’t still wondering if they’re looking at you. What else are you going to do? Think about work? Gaup at another car? There’s nothing better to do. Just stare forward and try to think of nothing.

In London, on the underground, making eye contact with someone is considered assault during rush hour, and it is to be avoided at all costs. There are reports of people actually turning to stone upon making eye contact with each other on the tube in rush hour. I haven’t seen it happen myself, but I’m not willing to find out if the stories are true or not. Here is a little run down of my daily commute on the tube…

As soon as I enter the train carriage in the morning, I run for the only seat that is still available and throw myself on it. Then, I take out my book from my bag, ensuring that the only place I look is down, before opening it up at any page at all (I don’t care where, so long as I am too busy to engage with anyone around me), and that is where my gaze stays until it is my stop. Then, I put the book in my bag, immediately produce my phone from my pocket, check my emails quickly as the train pulls into the station and, when it stops, I finally look up, stand up, and leave the train. A sigh of relief involuntarily leaves my mouth, and I start to shake the hands of every person around me whilst staring them straight in the eye, like a politician, congratulating them for successfully making it through another commute. Then I realise that I have a 20 minute walk to my office from the station, which means that my commute is technically not over yet. Horrified at this realisation, I repent to the commuting Gods and ask that they forgive me for my transgressions, for daring to look another commuter in the eye. Then I nervously run to my office, purposefully barging into people in the street to make sure that they know that I am a commuter and I will damn well act like one, with my eyes fixed on the pavement in front of me and a total disregard for anyone or any thing that isn’t me. Later, when I get a notification from my bank telling me that London Underground have charged me for the journey, I am reminded that I actually pay to do all of this, and the indignation weighs heavy on me for a while. Then I get the tube home and forget about the whole thing. Same again tomorrow, I guess.

Commuting seems to drive people clinically insane. When I used to get the tube from London Bridge, in central London, to Canary Wharf, I would always take the Jubilee line. If it is running to schedule, there is a train every 2 or 3 minutes. It is quite impressive. Despite this, sometimes I would be walking towards the platform, where a train would be sitting with people alighting from it, and I’d accept in my head that I’ll just get the next one, as there are too many people around to allow me to sprint at it, and there will be another train in 2 minutes anyway, so why would I? Next thing I know, Tom in the Blue Suit is bursting past me from behind, as if this train was the last train to heaven and if he didn’t catch it, he would immediately be damned to the train to hell and nowhere else. I’m sure in his head he has a scene from an action film playing, and as he dives towards the train doors, the bell ringing out to signify that the train is going to leave and doors are closing, he thinks he has made a fantastic decision. Then, as he dives through the closing gap, the entire world probably goes into slow-motion a la Matrix style, as he narrowly slips through the gap, the door closing on the heel of his back foot. “Please do not obstruct the doors,” says the train driver through the tannoy, in a frustrated tone. Tom pulls his shoe from the gap with great effort as the doors angrily clap together behind him. He then smiles to the hordes of people crammed into the train, some of which he has just shoulder barged on his way in, then continues to look down and assume his position as unassuming commuter #235987245897349683045892034729845938460395863. Well done, Tom, you saved yourself 2 minutes. Enjoy getting to work earlier you absolute moron.

Of course, the recent wave of Working from Home has seen a decline in commuting. Whether working from home (stylised as ‘WfH’ or ‘WFH’) is a positive thing or not seems to split opinion. I feel like most people that I know are in favour of working from home, but I know a few people who are ardently against it too. In my experience, the answer seems to be in balance. Covid-19 presented us with a rare opportunity where we were forced to stay in our homes, and work from them all of the time. We had to do everything from them. I even had to do my family Christmas from my own home, via Skype, because Boris Johnson announced another lockdown about 2 minutes before I was leaving to get the train home for the holiday. Bah humbug.

Commuting became an ideal of the past, a distant memory of a world not plagued by… plague. One where it was common to see groups of young professionals outside the pub at 18:00 on a Wednesday, armed in suits and drinking beers, and where it was a given that we’d all be travelling into work the next morning, assuming it was a week day, but we all thought nothing of it. We all had more stamina then, and going out for mid-week drinks was part of the job. How life has changed.

Working from home was a benefit that I had experienced at my old job, but it was something that you had to beg for, and have a ruddy good reason for asking. Then, the pandemic happened, and all of a sudden the world required everyone to WfH all of the time, or risk death. We all started judging each other on how willingly we wore masks in supermarkets. I remember someone pointing out that all of the youths that used to love wearing masks in public were now refusing to wear them in an act of defiance, an apt observation which I thought of every time I saw a group of bustling teenagers in a shop, not wearing masks and staring you out for daring look in their direction.

I now go into the office twice a week and I have to say, it is quite enjoyable! It is nice getting out of the house, putting on some nice-ish clothes, and seeing people face to face. The whole thing feels quite novel. Yet, now there is more of an expectation on us to do so, the office is the worst thing ever again. There are no winners. Humans are destined to be unhappy – that is my takeaway from it all. If there is something to be dissatisfied with, we’ll find it and we’ll milk it dry. When we were working from home, we wanted more money to cover the extra heating bills, but now we’re back in the office, we begrudge having to pay the money to commute.

But I have lots of positive things to say about the pandemic AND about post-pandemic life. The pandemic actually presented me with a few rare opportunities, of which I will forever be grateful. I was living in central London when it hit. During my long runs on a Saturday, I’d run along the Thames path right next to the river, through central London and around Southbank. There was a time that I was running over the Millenium Bridge, the bridge which crosses the river next to The Globe theatre and leads you straight to St Paul’s Cathedral, and I couldn’t see a single person anywhere. It felt like I was in a zombie film. No tourists, no commuters, no street performers. Just me, the Thames, and an eerie sense that the world was ending. The world wasn’t ending. In fact, there were images of fish in the canals in Venice, and wild animals venturing into the towns in Wales… the world was actually doing better and we were the problem all along – who knew? But it was a peaceful time, and I’ve never experienced a London like it in all my time of living here.

So, I’ve tried to make something of my commute, as it is the only thing standing in my way of enjoying my 2 days in the office… I try and use it to do something useful. I’ve been reading through all of Patrick Radden Keefe’s books, an investigative journalist who writes incredible non-fiction, but has such a smooth writing style and finds such interesting topics to talk about, that makes you wish that the commute would never end. I’ve started writing on my commute on my phone too, or I’ll respond to a bunch of texts that I’ve been sitting on (apparently, a side effect of having had cancer is that you get really bad at doing life admin). I feel like it is reforming my opinion of commuting. It does help that where I live now is a little quieter on the commute, and I usually get a seat… I wouldn’t be spinning a positive ending on this if I still lived in London Bridge, that’s for sure. And I stand by what I said at the start of this – if you can find a way to enjoy your commute, you will probably be a much happier person overall. I feel like I’m moving past a notional concept of enjoying my commute, though, which is what I used to have, and am actually starting to enjoy it for real. If I see Tom in the Blue Suit, though, I’m going to trip him up and laugh to high heaven as his train departs the station without him!

On… Ennui

3rd May 20232nd May 2023 godley93Blog, Positivity, Writing, Social Media, Humour, Bored, Words, Language, Technology, Social, Media, Comedy3 Comments

There is a popular saying which states that ‘only boring people get bored’. I’m assuming it is popular. If it wasn’t, I doubt I’d have heard of it, but I can’t seem to attribute it to anyone in particular. Boring people presumably do get bored, but I think other people might get bored sometimes too. I’ve felt bored loads of times. Am I a boring person? Maybe.

When I’m bored, I like to find an over complicated word to describe something commonly referred to by another name, then drop it into conversation with someone, and act stupendously shocked when the unsuspecting party does not know what it means.

“What does ennui mean? Why it means ‘bored’, of course! You should read more; you’re falling behind my level of repartee [banter]!” There’s nothing like talking down to a close friend or family member for your own amusement, and the experience will pay dividends in keeping you anti-bored. You can think about it for days, weeks, months, even years. You’ll laugh to yourself, thinking, “Oh I got them so good that day. I wonder what they’re up to now? They don’t really speak to me anymore. Come to think of it, no one does.”

Boredom is the modern day plague, being passed from indifferent subject to indifferent subject. Our toxic boredom leaves us believing that there’s nothing left on Netflix that is worth watching, that our phone’s limitless capability is incapable of keeping us entertained, and allowing quick-fire apps like TikTok to flourish, because it removes the inconvenience of ‘thinking’ and ‘focusing on a single thing for more than 30 seconds’. We can’t even be bothered to have a favourite news outlet anymore, so we let social media tell us what news articles to read. Gone are the days of ‘journalistic integrity’, whatever that means. It’s all about clicks, clicks, clicks. Loyalty is just an archaic word now. We just open whatever is thrown onto our newsfeeds, moving seamlessly from one to the next, allowing the algorithm to dictate what we do next. One minute you’re reading about the Kardashians and how they wore clothes to something, the next you’re in the bowels of an extremist apologist page, finding yourself agreeing with the discourse, yet not realising that you’ve slowly been inveigled [persuaded].

We trust the algorithm of social media websites so sincerely that it is a shame it is a faceless, lifeless entity. We’d probably rather be friends with that than most of our real life friends; definitely our family – we don’t even get to choose them, so we’re bound to not like them. Besides, the algorithm takes time to learn what we like. Damn, it even tells us what we like. Over time it actually decides what we like, and it is far more adroit [skilful] at figuring it out than we could ever be.

But we like that, don’t we? I don’t have enough time to decide what I actually like in life anyway, so I’d rather let AI do it for me. That way I can dedicate more of my time to having nothing to do. I can maximise my boredom even more efficiently if I start to ask Chat GPT to write my blog posts for me, then get it to answer the comments from the community too, then hopefully, in time, it will attend my family Christmas meals for me, and make friends with my colleagues, and even do my work. In the future, it might even be a good husband to my wife for me, freeing up even more time for me to do absolutely nothing. I’ll have so much time to be bored – it’s going to be terrible. I can’t wait!

Boredom is promoted in our society, as the antidote to boredom is buying more things, going on more holidays and disliking others more for being less bored than you. That creates an environment where evil can flourish, the type of evil that is above boredom, and is ready to pounce on those negative feelings. Sure, we can eat grapes all year round thanks to globalisation, but that isn’t enough to feel happy, is it? No – we’re bored of all of that. Yet, while we sit bored, Putin is invading Ukraine, Amazon is the only company left in the world and James Corden still has a career, despite being a despicable human being who would pander to an autocratic psychopath if it would advance his career in any way possible. Avarice [greed] is held in high-esteem, whilst being satisfied is looked down upon, as if one is never supposed to feel content with what they have.

Yet even I, with my erudite [learned] understanding of ennui [boredom], occasionally fall into the trap. I’ll be sitting at home, too tired to read and the evening still too young for me to go to sleep, and I’ll think to myself – “isn’t life boring?” I wait for a response from the universe… nothing. Knew it; that would be too interesting. The mind can enter a free-fall mode when it is in this sort of defeatist mood. Everything reinforces that negative feeling; you message a friend to see what they’re doing and they don’t text you back for 30 minutes… well they obviously despise you and think you’re boring and don’t like you and are probably sat talking to someone about how annoying you are right that very second. You get off the sofa and try to cook something, but you’re out of that one spice that you need… so you plan on going to the shop, but the shop closes in 20 minutes. Besides, they never have that ingredient anyway – they’re always sold out of it. You’re always walking up to the shelf just as the last one is snatched up by someone better looking than you, right in front of your very eyes. Then you hate them for taking it, and for being better looking than you. They probably never get bored.

But there are people in the world who have a curiosity which pays dividends. Simple things can deliver a world of intrigue and pleasure, if allowed. For me, I like to find interesting words and write them down in the Notes application of my phone. I’ve got a long list of interesting words, with a short definition next to each, so I can trawl back through them when I’m sat around drinking my coffee in the morning, and recite the ones that I particularly like back to myself. Sometimes the sound of a word is pleasing, such as the word ‘vexatious’, which is defined as ‘causing or tending to cause annoyance, frustration, or worry’. Other words have a pleasing definition, such as the word ‘syllogism’, which is defined as ‘an instance of a form of reasoning in which a conclusion is drawn from two given or assumed propositions’.

(Vexatious actually sounds cool to say AND has a pleasing definition, but I couldn’t squander an opportunity to use ANOTHER word as an example).

Well, I am declaring war on being bored. My promise to myself is to never be bored again. Not by burying myself in social plans and never being alone; no. I’m going to become a master of being alone. I am going to abandon my loquacious [talkative] nature, which demands that I seek out large groups of friends and make them laugh until their jaws hurt (which I am an expert at on my good days, honestly). I’m going to watch paint dry for so long that I am engaged in it’s story, like watching Breaking Bad, or the first 5 seasons of Dexter (and strictly no further). I’m going to read the dictionary for fun – riding the pages like a rollercoaster, until I slam the back page closed and wonder where the time went. I’ll read the dictionary with such enthusiasm that my sobriquet [nickname] will be ‘Dictionary Dan’! My dictionary will be my closest confidant, never to be read sub rosa [in private].

Aiming to be Less Aimless

27th April 202228th April 2022 godley93Blog, Cancer, Coca Cola, Coke, Drugs, Health, History, Lifestyle, Objectives, Pancreatic Cancer, Positivity, Recovery, Writing5 Comments

The ‘C’ Word

I remember being in primary school and making jokes about Coca Cola having drugs in it. At the time, I’m pretty sure it was only based on the fact that ‘coca’ was in the name which sounded a bit like ‘cocaine’, not on any research we had done on the brand; we were about 10 so I’d be more concerned if it was based on research. Come to think of it, it’s strange that kids were making jokes about cocaine at all but I think when you’re that age you are good at sensing what feels ‘taboo’ and leaning into it. I remember it also being the age where we started to indulge in swearing. There was a teaching assistant at the school who used to giggle at us saying mild swear words like ‘crap’ and the occasional ‘shit’. We had a lot of fun with her.

Since then, I’ve heard it said that the drink used to have cocaine in the formula. I’d never really looked into it or thought too much about it, but I’ve been sceptical every time someone has said it. It smacked of an old wives’ tale based on the brand name. Today, for some strange reason, I looked at the logo for Coca Cola as it sat on my television screen during an advert and started to really wonder where the name does come from. Time to do some research.

It turns out that the first recipe was created by a man called John Pemberton in 1885. John was a Confederate Colonel in the American Civil War, during which he was injured and became addicted to morphine. His intention was to create a substance which would cure his morphine addiction. A classic tactic to recover from an addiction – finding another substance that you deem less bad and getting yourself addicted to that instead. Like quitting smoking by becoming addicted to vaping.

In the original recipe were the ingredients Coca leaves, the plant used to produce cocaine, and African Kola nuts, which provided the drink with caffeine. These key ingredients formed the brand name. It was originally created as a tonic wine so was alcoholic, however the following year prohibition was introduced, so he changed the formula to make it alcohol free. Don’t worry – there was still plenty of coca in there. And Kola, presumedly.

Coca and opium tonics were becoming all the rage at the time, with people like Sigmund Freud claiming that consuming them can provide significant health benefits. Two of the ailments they believe it helped to cure were impotence and depression… How wrong they were about both of those things. I was surprised to read about Sigmund Freud’s love affair with cocaine, but then I wondered why I was surprised. I know hardly anything about the guy, other than the fact that he was seen to revolutionise the field of psychology, I believe. He wrote an essay titled ‘Über Coca’ (translates to ‘About coke’) which is both incredibly satisfying to say and also reminiscent of most of London’s streets on a weekend – lots of Ubers around and lots of young professionals with moon-pupils climbing into them, looking fidgety.

By the year 1900, cocaine use was much more widespread in society. This meant that the negative effects of it were also becoming better known, and in 1903 the Coca Cola company caved to public pressure and removed the coca from the drink. I wonder if they knew that a legend would be born that day. The old wives’ tale that is actually true. So true, in fact, that it remains part of the brand name to this day – a brand that is one of the most recognisable in the world.

So, cocaine wasn’t only in the drink, but it was actually seen as appealing enough to stick in the brand name itself to make sure people knew that they were getting coca when consuming it. I find myself more boggled at how many times I have seen the name Coca Cola in my life and never looked into it. It goes to show that we become acclimatised to the world around us. Huge brands like Coca Cola are so omnipresent in our experience that we barely even notice them. Worse, we probably feel comforted by them. I say that this is ‘worse’ because we stop really seeing or trying to understand the damage they are doing. We welcome the Coca Cola logo like a good friend as we walk into a bar whilst on holiday. Some people I know really do only drink things like coke and claim to not ‘like’ water. It’s absolutely crazy.

I read that the brand is now sold in over 200 countries. I then Googled ‘How many countries are in the world’ and Google responded with “Well, curious Daniel, there are 197 countries in the world.” I then Googled ‘How many countries is coke sold in’ again just to double-check and it really does say it is sold in over 200 countries. Not so smart now, are you Google. The fact is that it is sold in almost every country in the world, and I read online that the ones they do not directly trade in, local businesses import it to meet local demand. You can’t go anywhere without seeing it; every time you see an article about oceanic plastics, there’s a cover photo with a coke bottle or can in the middle of the pile floating in the sea. It’s quite depressing.

So, how am I attempting to relate this to my writing? I’ve been approaching the blog in a way that feels a bit aimless recently. It has been my assumption that so long as I am living and breathing, I’ll find things to write about and it’ll be fine. There’s also various ‘series’ that I contribute towards such as The Chemotherapy Diaries which provide a regular cadence of posts. I had hoped to do a bit more writing for other sources as I have been approached by a few, but none of these have come to fruition yet. As a result, I haven’t been writing too often for the blog. Sitting there reading about the history of Coca Cola, I realised that there are always things to write about if you’re looking for them, and if I’m interested enough to continue reading, others will probably be interested in it too.

And it is true too that you can become so familiar with something that you stop appreciating the depth of the issue at hand. Coca Cola may have got rid of the coca from their recipe, but they have kept the reference in their brand name. There aren’t many people who think twice about it now. It is so recognisable that it is considered irrelevant to most people what it means. It has become its own meaning, without needing to be broken down into smaller parts that explain the nature of the product. When it was made, it was appealing to the consumers to remind them that it contained coca in it. Only 20 years later they already didn’t want to drop the brand name, despite the namesake ingredient being removed. Now nearly everyone in the world know what the name Coca Cola refers to – it’s a mysterious black liquid that dentists and doctors warn you off during the day, then kick back and enjoy at night (probably). The most common thing I read in my research was that the recipe is secret and only a few select people know it; I wonder if they still get the caffeine from African Kola nuts… Who am I kidding, they obviously grow caffeine in labs now.

It’s coming up to 6 months since I was diagnosed and I’m nearly at the end of the 12 sessions of chemotherapy. The current routine has all become very familiar for me and perhaps, even, normal. I’m able to analyse a chemotherapy cycle and decide whether it is bad, good, or somewhere in the middle fairly quickly. My condition seems to finally have stabalised of new symptoms popping up too which is a relief – I was getting tired of raising new symptoms with my oncology team and hoping to be patient zero for that particular side effect. The jaw locking was the closest I came, but they shrugged it off as another muscle response to temperature. I’d always be excited to bring my new issues up during the check in calls, seeing it as a game where I was trying to find just one symptom which seems to shock or worry them in any way. “My nose has been bleeding again and I never used to get nosebleeds,” I enthusiastically say during a check in call. “Your platelets are lower than usual so it isn’t a surprise,” they reply in a monotone voice, thinking about whether they want a sandwich or soup for lunch. Damnit, I really am just another cancer patient aren’t I – a realisation even more degrading than getting the cancer in the first place.

The end of chemotherapy will certainly constitute a shakeup to the normality of the current situation. If I am told that I am going for an operation it will constitute an earthquake in comparison, in both a positive and negative sense. Positive because I will have finally been approved for surgery. Negative because I will have been approved for surgery – has anyone ever been excited at the prospect of surgery? Whatever happens, it’ll be the next phase. I’m learning to embrace progress instead of always hoping for improvement.

With the writing specifically, I’m going to try and establish a core aim when I am writing, instead of my current ‘freeflow’ approach. Although it is fun starting writing and not really knowing where you are going, it wasn’t the approach I had when I first started writing in the blog. I thought it may have just been a development in the way I write, but if I’m being honest with myself, it is probably more out of laziness. Perhaps a little bit down to not being confident enough in my writing too. Sitting and researching something to write about is something that actual journalists do – not Cancer Dan with the Cancer Blog. I’m not sure why I’d see this as some sort of barrier to entry. In typical fashion, I’m probably worried more about how things are being perceived and how I may be judged for then, as opposed to concentrating on just writing things I like and want to write. It’s annoying and I need to stop thinking about it like that.

So, things you’ve (possibly) learnt in this article – coke is for drug addicts, Dan can’t write coherently and this blog post talking about aimlessness has a real aimless feel to it. Voila. Like any resolution, I’ll start abiding by it next time I write.

A Newcomer to Writing

2nd April 20222nd April 2022 godley93Fiction, Health, Improvement, Lifestyle, Novels, Positivity, Skill, Writing6 Comments

The ‘C’ Word

As I’ve said a few times, writing is a new thing for me. Although that is true, it’s also a bit of a lie. Maybe ‘lie’ is a touch strong… ‘inaccurate’ is probably a better reflection of the reality of the situation. I have written a lot in my life, but I am new to writing for fun. I’m also very new to writing fiction. It isn’t something I had tried before I started the blog, but in recent months I have started to dabble in it as more of a pastime. I need to go back to my school days to discuss my history with writing properly.

In school, I always seemed to do well in English, despite putting in little to no effort at all. My immature philosophy throughout school and into my first year of university was that you are either good at something or you aren’t. The idea that you could practice, commit time and get better at something, didn’t register with me. I thought that was just talk to motivate people who were bad at things, in an attempt to make them feel less bad. When I saw professional athletes, I assumed that they had put in very little effort to get to that level of skill. “They’re just good at it,” I thought to myself, whilst acknowledging that it wasn’t the thing I was good at. It doesn’t mean I thought they were lazy and didn’t have to work for it, but that they always knew they were good at it and were always bound to be if they backed it up with some effort. It was easy to put effort into something you were good at; I knew that from playing the guitar, something I considered myself naturally good at.

This ‘master of none’ mentality did very little for me, and likely robbed me of a lot of valuable experience early on in life. Looking back, I wish I’d played football more, for example. The few times I tried and wasn’t very good at it told me that it wasn’t for me and I was bad at it. I hadn’t seen the time and commitment everyone else had put into getting to their proficiency, so I just saw it as a natural talent that I didn’t possess. That stopped me from trying at it, and I never really put any time into it. Nowadays, I wish I played it more because it seems like a good hobby to have, but I’m not overly fussed. Not enough to actually get out and learn it, anyway.

I bumbled through school and sixth form, never realising how lucky I was to be an A*-C student without really trying at all. There was something more in English, though, and I knew I liked writing the essays for some reason. When it came to selecting university courses, it was a no brainer for me. English was where my skill lay, English was what I’d do. My predefined personality, characteristics and attributes assigned my fate to English, so I walked that path with very little critical thought or second-guessing. The same philosophy applied to the idea of going to university – that was just what everyone had to do if they wanted to get a job, I thought. Everything is predetermined; what is the point in fighting it. It’s a very anti-entrepreneurial approach to life, but it’s easy.

I went to university and studied English. My love for writing essays continued, really. Throughout school and university, writing essays was my favourite part. When I did my MSc in Management at Bath University, the story was similar; my favourite part was writing essays. When I had to write a 15,000-word dissertation, I couldn’t wait to get stuck in. I finished it with months to spare and got a mark of 76% in it, which is a really good grade for such a large, convoluted piece of work. Despite these signs that maybe writing was something I should try and indulge in more in my spare time, I didn’t. I never really thought that I was naturally good at English because I enjoyed writing, and that was also what helped me in all of the other subjects where exams were largely essay-style questions.

Eventually, I realised that I had actually spent a lot of time writing essays and that it must be at least partially responsible for my level of proficiency. My time at Bath studying for my master’s also showed me that by committing some time to a new subject, I could do well at it too. It was a bit of a breakthrough for me personally.

The mentality didn’t change overnight, and I can’t put my finger on the main catalysts responsible for it changing, but it really has changed. I don’t ascribe it all to the fact that I studied business for a year instead of English; there were lots of things going on in this period. I was maturing and learning more about the world – it was harder to view things through such a simple lens. I remember reading the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell and now think that was a bit of a turning point. He essentially breaks down a list of extremely successful people and discusses how they benefited from not only dedication and skill but also a level of luck and circumstance. It was the first time I’d seen someone paint a bigger picture of success, properly analysing some of the external factors which can play into someone becoming more proficient and successful in a key area.

It is incredibly empowering to believe that you can do anything if you put your mind to it. I don’t mean that in the cliche way that teachers or parents would use it. I simply mean that you can ‘do’ something, persevere through the tough stages, and build upon the foundation to a level of proficiency that is better than you would have started at. Early on is usually where you see the biggest improvement in a skill if you stick with it, in fact, so this stage is where you usually see the biggest and most noticeable changes. That was how I felt with guitar anyway. The first few years you improve a lot, but then you hit a bit of a ceiling where it takes a lot more time and effort, to achieve much smaller improvements in the margin of skill. It’s a fulfilling thing, but it takes a while to ingrain in your mind and behaviours. There are days when it feels like a chore, where you question whether you should be bothering and where the overwhelming emotion towards it is that you want to give up.

I’ve quipped to friends that I find the writing I do for the blog to be quite ‘cheap’ and ‘easy’. I think this is true, but it may sound more negative than I mean it to be. It isn’t that I’m not proud of the writing on the blog or that I think it is bad per se. It doesn’t really include any ‘characters’ or plotlines, though, making it easy to write. All I have to do is sit down for an hour or two and throw together some thoughts. Sometimes it takes a little longer to write, but generally, it is low-stress, easy writing. It makes it very enjoyable most of the time. It’s sort of like a therapy session; it feels like you have a captive audience simply wanting to hear your thoughts and how things are going for you, or this is how I approach it anyway. It is maybe arrogant to claim to have any audience at all, let alone a ‘captive’ one, but you know what I mean.

Having said this, I had a down period with the blog recently. I had quite a few drafts on the go but didn’t feel I was getting any of them in a place where I was happy to post them. This made me avoid writing because I didn’t know how to progress the pieces I was working on, and I struggled to feel inspired to write anything else with so many drafts in progress. They also contained a lot of ideas that I was really happy with. It seemed a shame to just delete them, but I couldn’t find a way to make them work in a way that I was happy with them. Overall, though, the blog posts are really enjoyable to write, and it is a welcome distraction from everything going on (not mentioning the ‘C’ word).

I’m still learning to enjoy fiction writing. It isn’t that I don’t enjoy any of the time I spend writing it or don’t want to spend time doing it. The difficulty comes in piecing together the narrative, figuring out the best way to portray things, writing the scenes, developing the characters etc. They’re all things that I haven’t tried to do before, and it comes with many frustrations. The whole process really plays into the hands of the critical part of my brain. I’ve always been quite self-critical, and I think I try and hold myself to a high standard. Sometimes you need to just press on for the sake of progress, though, and this is the part I am slowly learning. Instead of fretting over every word, sentence, or paragraph, sometimes you need to just write a thousand words and not care about it until later. That way, you establish a framework to operate in.

My new approach is to write out a plan on pen and paper about who my characters are, the main scenes I want to write and how they fall in the plot’s timeline. It has helped me fight through some of the more frustrating parts of writing, but I have not had a significant breakthrough with the technique. It hasn’t transformed my writing process yet, that’s for sure. I still haven’t finished a single short story that I have started, and the novel has not been progressed for a while. It is all a process that I am learning more about. I already had a lot of respect for authors, but it does give me a newfound respect. When you read a novel and everything perfectly fits together, you don’t think about how that person has built this world from nothing. They’ve agonisingly formed these characters that appear as natural as if they walk and talk in front of you when done well. You seldom see a sentence produced by a character in a book that looks out of place. That is a difficult thing to do.

I sense that my current situation in life (not mentioning the ‘C’ word) provides me with an ‘outlier’ moment. Writing is becoming an important part of my life, and I wonder if there is any way I can make some sort of career out of it. I’m not sure what that would look like, whether it would mean writing novels or doing some form of writing for more corporate purposes, such as copywriting, but I’m hoping I can do something with it. If nothing else, I hope it sticks as a hobby. Yesterday, I found out that my Dear Cancer letter had been accepted by the magazine. It will be in the June edition of the magazine. That will be the second thing I have had published in a magazine, the first being my 206-word story Hunter-Gatherer. These small successes give me hope that I may be able to turn it into something more significant than a hobby, but we’ll see.

Dear Cancer

30th March 202230th March 2022 godley93Blog, Cancer, Challenge, Chemotherapy, Health, Letter, Lifestyle, Treatment, Writing14 Comments

This was written for a competition I saw on Twitter. The brief was simply to write a letter to cancer. I thought I’d do it as it sounded like an exciting concept and a fresh take on a subject that I have obviously tackled to death in this blog. Writing in a letter format was a bit of a struggle for me, and it felt pretty jarring with my natural writing style. I also wasn’t sure how to address the ‘cancer’ as a subject and struggled with the best way to approach this. That also made it a nice challenge, though. I’m reasonably happy with the end result, I think. It was nice to just try something new. I’ve also been looking for inspiration in my writing, and these sorts of competitions add a pinch of excitement. Upon entering, I didn’t see any conditions that mean I cannot share it on my own blog, so hopefully, it isn’t a problem. I can always delete the post if I need to and claim ignorance.

Dear cancer,

In November 2021, I was diagnosed with you after five weeks of hospital appointments, scans, and blood tests. I was 28 years old. I’m 29 now and eight cycles into chemotherapy, with four more to go before the next progress scan.

I’ve learnt to facetiously refer to you as ‘The ‘C-Word’ because of how people react to your presence. Some people tune out as I talk about you, probably choosing an ‘ignorance is bliss’ approach to the topic and assuming it’ll never happen to them. Others can’t bear to face the reality of it. “You’re young; you’ll survive.” It can almost feel callous when people say words to that effect, but I know that isn’t their intent. The fact is that you are scary. You’re the diagnosis that no one wants to hear, the one that everyone fears – the great equaliser. Every time I see a headline that a celebrity has died at an unusually low age, I reluctantly scan the article. Your name is commonly there. Sometimes the word ‘pancreatic’ proceeds, and my stomach sinks even more.

Many people, medical professionals mainly, express how unlucky I am to be dealing with pancreatic cancer at my age. Statistically, I am very unfortunate. I have heard several figures quoted as the average age of someone diagnosed with my ailment, all of them over 70. I’m a touch younger than that.

The week after I was diagnosed, I purchased a lottery ticket. I’m not a superstitious person usually, but I couldn’t help myself. I was confident I’d win something. How could I get pancreatic cancer at 28 and NOT win a simple lottery? It was easy compared to what I’d managed to achieve with you. The day came; I checked the Lottery app to see if I had won. Not one number. You have my number, though, and I’m left dealing with the consequences.

At first, that consisted of much existentialism. Immediately after my diagnosis, I spent three days in the hospital. Sitting in the bed as I waited for a procedure that afternoon, I thought about how long I’d be alive before I finally succumbed to you. Maybe three years. Maybe one. Perhaps I’d be cured; no, that last one couldn’t possibly happen. It’s undoubtedly a matter of time now. Better face the reality of the situation than delude myself with hope, a dangerous thing.

The ‘doom’ phase lasted a few weeks, sparked by the leaflets, and fuelled by some pessimistic doctors. “In a small number of cases, chemotherapy will reduce the size of the tumour,” I read in a leaflet titled ‘Pancreatic Cancer and Diet’; I thought this would be the least risky leaflet to read but even this contained harrowing information. The doctor had told me that I really needed chemotherapy to work if I was going to survive. I’m currently classed as inoperable because the tumour has spread to a major artery. I not only need chemotherapy to shrink my tumour but also to shrink it away from the artery, something which is down to potluck, apparently. Without the artery being healthy, I can’t have the operation. Without the operation, I can’t get rid of the cancer. Upon reading the sentence, I sat crying in my hospital gown and wishing I could just opt out of the whole thing and die. At the lowest stage, I thought about a train crossing I used to cycle over where the locomotives came flying through at speeds of up to 180kmph. That’s where I’d do it.

I’m happy to say that you’ve given me far more to be grateful for over time than to loathe you for. Reading has always been a big hobby, and I’ve always wanted to try writing, but I didn’t think I had anything interesting to say. After starting chemotherapy, I created my blog called Ebb and Flow. It doesn’t get a massive amount of views, but it is far more than I thought it would get when I started it. People comment on the quality of the writing, which makes me feel more accomplished than anything I’ve achieved in my job as an IT consultant. I participated in the Run 40 in Feb campaign for Pancreatic Cancer UK, raising over £7,000 for them; my campaign was in the top 1% of fundraisers on Just Giving in February. I’ve also asked my girlfriend to marry me and have spent more time with my parents than I ever thought I would again; I had to move back in with them as I couldn’t afford to live in London anymore whilst undergoing treatment. Every cloud has a silver lining, and I’ve found my fair share of silver linings over time.

None of these achievements mean as much as this final one, though… I’ve proven that I can fight you, cancer. I remember seeing the adverts for Cancer Research UK before I was diagnosed and having so much admiration for those fighting against you. “I could never do that,” I said to myself. I really believed it – I couldn’t even have a blood test without feeling like I would pass out. At the three month scan, I found out that the chemotherapy was proving effective and that we had almost halved you. The tissue around the artery is looking healthier, too. There’s still a long way to go before I can say that I am cured. The surgeons need to approve the surgery, which may take other methods such as Radiotherapy and Nanoknife to achieve. Then I need that surgery to be successful. After that, I go into the stressful stage of remission, constantly fearing that at the next progress scan, I find out you have come back with a vengeance, lurking like a shadow, dormant until detected.

It’s a long road, but it’s the only way out of the woods. I’m tackling it with my head held high, surrounded by loved ones and holding onto whatever hope I can. The worst that can happen is you win, and I die, but at least I’ll know I gave it a good go and found plenty of happiness doing so.

Hate and Prejudice

23rd March 202224th March 2022 godley93Blog, Journalism, Lifestyle, Novels, Politics, Self-Improvement, Writing7 Comments

The ‘C’ Word

I’ve been slacking on the ‘C’ Word posts recently, either by not writing them at all or by writing them but speaking about the ‘C’ Word in them, going against the entire point of the series. Let’s hope today’s post will be a return to form.

I was scrolling through my Youtube feed tonight when I stumbled across a video titled ‘Do you hate the US? 100 Russians‘. It is by a channel called 1420, a ‘street journalism’ channel based in Russia. I found it recently as I was searching Youtube to try and find content that gives an honest reflection of Russian civilians’ opinions on what is going on in the war in Ukraine. The videos are centred around asking random people on the street a question, which is usually used as the video’s description. It seems that the channel has existed for quite a while, so it hasn’t been created in response to the war in Ukraine, but the current situation makes it an extremely interesting format to be engaged in making.

I don’t know the ins and outs of Russian law, but I do know that any form of journalistic endeavours there put the perpetrator at great risk of being on the wrong side of the government. There was a recent video of a woman holding up a sign with writing on it, which translated as ‘Two Words’. As soon as she unfurled the sign in front of the camera, she was detained by police officers. Quite incredibly, another woman then started to berate the cameraman asking if he is willing to interview people who agree with the war too, to which he responds that he is. She is then also detained by police. They must have assumed she was also pushing rhetoric that was considered ‘anti-government’, or just didn’t care what her opinions were but saw speaking into a camera in public as enough of a crime in and of itself. You can watch it here. It is almost comical until you remember that these are real and ordinary people being detained for stating their opinions peacefully in the street; in this particular example, they weren’t even expressing opinions, they were just daring to express anything. The reality is bleak and, unfortunately, though we kid ourselves that our society in the United Kingdom is very different, one which we are sliding closer towards with some of the reforms in protesting laws that are being pushed through here too. I do hope it could never get to this stage of ludicrous, though.

I have incredible respect for the people who run the 1420 channel, as they continue to record and upload this style of video despite the risks. I’m unsure if they feel at risk, and don’t know what their personal opinions or political leanings are, but that, if anything, should show what a great channel it is.

The ‘Do you hate the US’ video is quite long and I haven’t made it past about 2 minutes due to me not liking to dwell on war news for too long, but luckily, most people definitively say no. Or they at least say that they don’t hate the US population, but do not like their political system. I felt a huge rush of relief as I watched it. I have met a few Russian people in my life and I have always found them to be very open-minded and intelligent individuals, so I wasn’t necessarily surprised by their answers. It still felt good to prove to myself that there wasn’t a majority of people in Russia willing to state on camera that they hate another continent of people and hope their government would hurry up and nuke them; that is the sort of irrational thing you can start to think in such charged times and which, on a large scale, can lead to tensions rising to an unpalatable level. Russia has a rich history of culture, with many famous plays, operas and novels being written there. Their people are strong-willed and intelligent. I can’t claim to be an expert on this, but I was made aware of it through a rather random connection with the US.

I went through a period of only reading novels by the American authors Charles Bukowski and John Fante. I particularly enjoyed the protagonist in Fante’s series of semi-autobiographical novels called The Bandini Quartet. The main character’s name is Arturo Bandini and the series of novels follow him from childhood to old age, as he finds his way in the world as an aspiring, then (somewhat) successful author. He always has an arrogance in his own abilities and regularly goes on tyrannical rants to himself about how good a writer he is, whilst also comically idolizing people around him, such as an editor of a magazine who paid for a few of his stories. His absurd style has greatly influenced my writing in these blog posts, and I haven’t laughed as much at any other novel I’ve read. Dreams from Bunker Hill and Ask The Dust are both incredible books in the series and continue to be 2 of my favourite novels to this day.

Bukowski famously said that ‘Fante was my God’. He randomly discovered Fante’s work whilst trawling through a library shelf one day. You can see the influence on his work if you read a novel by Fante, then a novel by Bukowski. The auto-biographical form and dark, over-indulgent humour are evident in both, although Bukowski took the latter to an extreme that Fante did not. Seeing as I had found Fante through Bukowski, I started looking into other writers that Bukowski was influenced by, which was when I heard the name, Fyodor Dostoevsky, a Russian novelist. I started looking into other influential Russian writers and found there to be a long list of names, including people like Mikhail Bulgakov. It forced me to recognise a side of Russian history that I had been totally unaware of, one of free-thinking, innovative writing which was recognised across the globe. It made me address some bias that I obviously had towards Russia, and it challenged my perception of the country. I had never realised this about Russian history.

This is why I breathed a sigh of relief as I watched the video of Russian citizens recognising that feeling ‘hate’ for an entire population is ludicrous and that any ill feelings should be put towards whatever system is governing that population. US culture has dominated the world in my lifetime, and I wasn’t sure if Russians may feel a lot of hatred towards them. The video showed that they didn’t. I’d be interested to see what result you’d get if you asked the opposite question to 100 Americans. Hopefully, it would produce similar results.

Hate is a powerful emotion. If hate is successfully conjured up in a population against another population, then that is an extremely worrying situation to be in. If you have ever dealt with a truly hateful person, you’ll see that they are vacuous individuals who are extremely unpleasant to be around. That’s not to say that hate is never an appropriate emotion to feel, and it has its uses in the world. Powerful emotions force us to act in the face of extreme situations, helping us survive. The problem is that powerful emotions cut off the reasonable and analytical parts of our brains, and result in us engaging in extreme acts with little ability to evaluate them. Tactics such as identity politics are used to force us to feel powerful emotions towards a situation and/or population, which then allow for extreme acts to take place. I read a book on the Rwandan Genocide a few years ago, and that was an example of where drumming up hatred led to acts so horrific they seem to be a thing of dystopian fiction. One day people were neighbours, the next they were enemies.

Ukraine is currently being invaded, and the Russian government are engaged in all sorts of propaganda games with their population, the same way that our governments in the west are engaging in an information war by influencing us that what Russia is doing is evil and that what we are doing is successfully fighting back against it, in an ‘appropriate’ fashion. The difference between the West and Russia is that the west have enough journalistic volition to critique and challenge what their governments do. My worry with Russia is that the government’s total control of the media results in the population believing and supporting whatever schemes their government is engaged in. the 1420 Youtube channel offers a fly on the wall style look into what the citizens of Russia really think, and reassures us that they are very much the same as us. Some likely buy into extreme opinions on both sides, but most of those interviewed seem like reasonable individuals, with balanced opinions in spite of what their government tells them. It almost sounds patronising for me to say that, and I really don’t mean it to be, but we are lucky enough to have the technology now which prevents these types of smoke screens from being effective. Russia’s government can say they are engaged in a special operation to liberate Ukraine from extremists, but when they see videos online of Ukraine cities that have been raised to the ground by Russian shelling, they likely start to question whether their government’s ‘special operation’ is really benefitting ordinary Ukrainians. It allows people to draw their own conclusions about a situation and hampers their leader’s ability to influence their population. This also hampers their ability to drum up hate in their population for another people, as videos of their suffering humanises them, and helps Russians see that they are similar to each other. Normal people’s lives are being ruined by their armies in Ukraine; there are videos of the damage all over the internet.

Although I can honestly say there are very few things in the world I actually ‘hate’, I have used the word many times in my life in the colloquial sense. For example, for about a decade, any time I saw fennel on a menu or it came in a conversation I was involved in, I would emphatically state that I hated fennel. This was usually followed by a rant that I don’t understand why anyone would feel anything other than hate towards it, that people who don’t hate it clearly had something wrong with their brains, and that any emotion other than hate expressed towards it was inadequate. I recently found a recipe for pasta bake that used a bit of fresh fennel and reluctantly decided to try it, and now realise that if you balance it well in a meal, it can actually be very delicious. The conclusion that I drew from this is that being closed-minded to anything, even something fairly trivial, may prevent you from experiencing whatever is potentially positive about that thing. It will at least prevent you from understanding what someone else’s positive experience is from that thing. If I shut down any conversation about fennel with a rant about how much I hate fennel, I’m unlikely to be susceptible to changing my opinion or hearing out others on why they don’t hate it. My good friend Dan told me that eating fresh fennel soon after it has been picked is something he has treasured since childhood. I was in utter disbelief about this when he told me, but it has made me curious to try it. I’ve also had a very nice tea that uses fennel root to sweeten it. Look how far I have come… This leads me to my final point, another one about strong emotions and how it is easy to be swept into them.

In the past, I’ve been guilty of disagreeing with people on subjects that I know very little about and, in fact, don’t feel passionate about in any way, shape or form. I’ve spoken about this before I’m sure, but it really is worth emphasizing again. There is something about engaging in a ‘disagreement’ (which innevitably moves into an argument once the disagreement gets out of hand) that I used to find irresistible. The topic could be almost anything and I would come in with the opposite opinion of the person speaking, starting off as ‘devil’s advocate’, but soon assuming the position as a gatekeeper for an opinion I don’t hold, over a topic I don’t understand.

I remember a particular example where a colleague brought up flat earthers, and I quickly dismissed him and said that people who believed it were stupid. He then asked me how I knew it wasn’t flat, and if I had personally proved it to be round. We then engaged in an argument that lasted far too long, went far too meta and was never going to produce any winners. Alcohol played its part too of course, but the whole thing got extremely heated and, frankly, embarrassing. I remember that as a pivotal moment for me – the moment I realised that I don’t actually need to engage in these types of ‘disagreements’ and that they never resulted in me being any happier. I don’t mind a discussion now, but I try and approach them with more of an inquisitive attitude, as opposed to obsessively trying to be ‘right’ or to see everything as a competition where I need to be the winner. I stop myself from getting to the stage where I am blinded by strong emotions, which prevent me from learning anything or thinking critically.

It made me realise that all of the people that I knew and respected most were people who tried to stay calm, looked to engage with others over differing opinions and allowed their prejudices to be challenged. The people who were always desperate to be right, desperate to be seen to be the most intelligent and ready to engage in any argument were not the ones I idolised at all, yet they were all traits I easily identified in myself when I evaluated my past behaviour. It is my interest in evaluating these types of human behaviour that led me to the 1420 channel, and that inspired me to write this post.

Dan Ran 40 for Pan Can

2nd March 2022 godley93Blog, Cancer, Fundraising, Health, Lifestyle, Scan, Writing6 Comments

Lucy and Me in Bed on a Bad Chemotherapy Day

The Run 40 for Pancreatic Cancer UK challenge has officially finished! My Just Giving page is still up here if you are yet to donate and would like to. I thought I’d write some reflections now that the challenge is over and use all of the positive adjectives to describe the amazing, fantastic, incredible, awesome, wonderful, tremendous amount of support that the campaign received.

As I write this, the campaign is on £6,653. The original goal of the campaign was £250. I hoped to raise more than that original goal, but I never imagined it would get as high as it is now. I’ve seen so many names in the donations that I recognise from various times throughout my life; people in my year at school, people I used to work with, friends of friends I have only met a couple of times. There have also been an astonishing amount of donations from names I don’t recognise and many from the secret ‘anonymous’ society. My siblings have been touched by some of the donations they have seen from their old colleagues and beyond. It is truly amazing how far it seemed to reach and how generous everyone has been. Thank you so much for all the donations and for making it feel so special for me.

The support was so great that I was contacted by the local paper, The Chronicle Series, who wanted to write an article about it. Unfortunately, I never saw that article come to fruition and have not heard from the journalist who contacted me. I haven’t chased him either; I just figured it would come out eventually in the month of February. It is perhaps too late to expect to see anything now, and I fear I may never get my newspaper clipping to frame and put on the wall… I’ll have to think of another scheme now, damn it.

A local clothes shop called Wall Street kindly put up information about the campaign in their window. They also made flyers which they were putting in shoppers’ bags. This was all done without any prompting from us. The owner asked my mum if it would be useful, and then they did all of the work to create, print and distribute the materials. Every time I walk past the shop, I see my face in the window, and I awkwardly try not to look for too long. It feels like I’m being vain just by doing so, which is probably an incredibly strange reaction to the situation. That was another incredible gesture, though, and one that my mum especially appreciated. She has been shopping there for years and was very touched that they were willing to do this for her, as am I.

The most donations came after the link was shared in a few local Facebook groups by my friends. This sparked a chain reaction of donations and well-wishing messages. I felt like a celebrity as my phone ‘blew up’ with notifications from Just-Giving. For 24 hours, it barely stopped flashing, and the total amount just kept creeping higher and higher. The only person managing to check the donation amounts quicker than my phone could be notified was my mum, who sat reading every donation, every message, and puzzling over every anonymous; she has been absolutely obsessed. I think she could reel off every name and comment by memory now.

On a more general note, the campaign really helped to focus me throughout February. I was always looking towards the next run, planning a new route, fighting harder to get out of bed each day and get out running. I may have underestimated just how much it did for my motivation last month, and it is now only becoming clear as I am in March and struggling to hit the same level. Even during the storms, I managed to get out and run, no matter how little I wanted to. I did also get fortunate with the chemotherapy cycles for most of February. It was only towards the end that I really struggled to get out running because of the chemotherapy. Luckily, I had already completed the distance by this point and was only aiming for more for my own ego. I wanted to get the total to 60 miles, but I only managed 53.64. This was mainly down to a bad final week where I struggled to do anything; the 2 runs I did manage were some of the hardest I remember in my life. On my final run in February, a 5K with my sister Josie, I had to walk about 3 times and felt like I was going to pass out at one point. I was not in good shape from the chemotherapy. Luckily, I ran yesterday, and I seem to have recovered from the worst of it now, but it has taken a long time compared to my ‘normal’ cycle.

Now that the campaign is over, I need to find something else to keep me going. If you read this blog regularly, you likely know that this is a tough week for me. Tomorrow I will receive the results from the CT scan I had on Monday. It will be the first update I have had on the tumour since November, and when I find out if the chemotherapy is working at all, and to what extent. My tumour is locally advanced, meaning it has not spread outside of the pancreas, but it has spread to a major artery. As a result, I cannot undergo surgery. Without surgery, I can’t be cured of the cancer, and it will kill me. Luckily for me, I am very young to have pancreatic cancer. You may be wondering why I used the word ‘lucky’ in that sentence… My youth and fitness mean that my body can take a lot of punishment and still recover relatively quickly. My oncologist warned me that there may be a lot of steps to take to get the tumour in a place where they can do surgery, but that I should be glad that those steps are available to me. Many others are diagnosed at a point where nothing can be done or are at an age where they are too vulnerable to have the full extent of chemotherapy, radiotherapy, nano-knife, and whatever other techniques are required. My age doesn’t guarantee me anything, though. I still may have a long way to go to get surgery, and it may never get to a place where it is possible. Tomorrow, I’ll discuss how the tumour has responded to chemotherapy and the next steps with the oncology team.

So as you can imagine, this isn’t a great week for me to understand how I am feeling about things. I am focusing on getting through tomorrow, then I can try and enjoy my birthday on Saturday (despite being in the hospital for chemotherapy). Next week I can decide what big schemes will keep me busy for the next few months until I finish chemotherapy in May (assuming the scan doesn’t change the treatment plan entirely). I’m hoping to get some more writing work for Pancreatic Cancer Action, and maybe some other charities/organisations, but we’ll see. I’ve also started to work on a few short stories and a book, but the progress on them is slow. I still struggle to actually sit down and just write. The blog has more direct purpose as I write it and know that I will upload it for consumption. I’m still not in a place where I feel any of the short stories, or potentially even my book, is for a bigger ‘purpose’. If I knew it would be published and that people would be interested in it, I may feel more motivated to do large writing sessions. Unfortunately, I haven’t convinced myself that any of it is for a purpose right now. I know that the right mindset is not to do it for any purpose, but just do it because I enjoy writing, which I do. I’m still new to writing, though, and it is easier to write things where you get quick and direct feedback from people reading. It’s all a process and I’m getting somewhere with it, I hope.

One last thank you to everyone who has donated and followed the progress on the Just Giving page. If there is anyone else you think may donate, please share the link with them. It’ll be open for a few more weeks yet! Today’s song is appropriately titled ‘Endorphins’ as that’s the best part of exercising – those juicy endorphins. The song also has quite a mix of sombre sounding lyrics whilst also being somewhat upbeat, a nice analogy of how my mood seems to be this week.

Hunter-Gatherer

1st March 20221st March 2022 godley93Competition, Fiction, Horror, Short Story, Shortlisted, Writing4 Comments

The below short story was entered into a call by Bag of Bones. They provided a brief requesting that the entries be exactly 206 words as this is how many bones are in the human body. The genre had to be ‘horror’, but they said you could be creative other than that.

I do not read any horror and it is not a genre I enjoy indulging in generally. As the story was so short though, I figured I would have a go whilst sitting bored during chemotherapy. The result was Hunter-Gatherer.

Unfortunately, the story did not win. It was shortlisted, though. The full anthology, including the 6 winners and all shortlisted entries, can be purchased here from Amazon. If you are into horror, it may be worth the investment. I did not realise quite how many were shortlisted – it makes it feel slightly less special but oh well. Still nice to see my name in the contents of a publication!

Hunter-Gatherer by Dan Godley

“How do you know which ones are safe to eat?” He kicked his boot into the lifeless corpse and sniggered to himself. The body was cold and responded as enthusiastically as a bag of sand left out in the rain.

“Look at the tongue. If it’s got red spots or green gunk on it, you should stay clear.” The words read out like a script. She was sick of saying them.

“What if they don’t have a head?”

“They all have heads.”

“This one doesn’t.” He picked up his shovel, wielded the handle with both hands extended above his head, and ploughed it through the neck. It went in at an angle and seemed to get caught around the shoulder blade as it slammed through the flesh. She wasn’t amused as she watched.

“They were people, you know. Same as me and you. They suffered the same way we suffer. Probably more. Have you seen em when they start to get ill?”

“Fuck em. They’re disgusting. I’d rather not eat.” He was trying to pull his shovel out by putting his boot on the half-severed head. They could hear the bones crushing as he struggled.

“Seen this?” she said, swinging her shovel straight into his cheek.

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The ‘C’ Word

The ‘C’ Word

The ‘C’ Word

Hunter-Gatherer by Dan Godley