The Inconspicuous Transition

I've got to admit, I'm finding it hard to ignore all the talk about the end of the world on December 21st. Despite being incredibly vocal about how I'm a scientist and need some sort of verifiable proof before I believe such far-fetched tales, these sorts of rumours usually result in me getting progressively more worked up until, by the time the day finally arrives, I'm so stressed out and paranoid that the sound of a passing plane is enough to make me crap myself and dive under the table in the hope that half an inch of medium-density fibreboard will save me from cataclysmic world-engulfing fire. Fortunately, I embrace my irrational side despite the fact it's governed by the part of my brain that disregards the scientific facts of NASA and the wisdom of common sense, and focuses instead on messages posted on shoddily created websites that look like they've been developed by a shandy-drinking teen sat in his Nan's basement, with only a loose grasp of HTML for company.

Predictably, the only real danger I face in these sorts of situations is from myself. I should know better, or I should at least learn from past experience. Indeed, in my relatively short lifespan, I have survived three prophesied apocalyptic events, yet each one has tormented me in its own special way. To be fair, I was completely unaware of the third Doomsday prophecy until after it happened. I am, of course, referring to the prophecy voiced by the US preacher in 2011 who was adamant that the world was going to end at 6 pm on the 21st May. Vague, I know *Insert sarcasm here*. Suffice to say, had I known about it, I'm fairly sure that the specificity of his prediction would've limited its credibility in my eyes, but I'm reluctant to jump to optimistic conclusions about my level of common sense just yet seeing as I'm currently wondering whether to treat myself to a budget-breaking packet of Marlboro Lights on Friday given that they're going to be my last cigarettes EVER.

Judge me if you will, but I take my naivety as a sign that my mind is still open enough to consider things above and beyond scientific fact. In short, I take it as a sign that I won't turn out like Richard Dawkins, which quite frankly is the best news I've had since I rediscovered KC and the Sunshine Band on my iPod. So, what's my point? Well, all this talk about the apocalypse got me thinking about endings. No double-meaning intended, so if your mind jumped to a filthy conclusion all on its own, then please drag it back into the daylight and allow me to continue.

Ok, so when you think of endings, you probably also think of beginnings. The prevailing belief is that beginnings are positive and endings are negative, although I'm unsure where this belief came from. Some beginnings (such as the birth of a child) are undoubtedly positive. Others (such as the onset of poor health) are clearly negative. The same is true of endings - they can be positive or negative. In some cases, beginnings and endings are neither positive nor negative, but rely solely on the perspective of the individual involved e.g. is it the end of an era or the start of a new one? Indeed, Shakespeare once wrote "nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so". Deep, aren't I? In any case, it's not beginnings and endings that I want to focus on - it's the void of transition that comes in between. I use the term 'void' because, more often than not, people (myself included) miss what happens between these two points. It's easy to see how this happens. We all notice when something starts because there is a detectable change in our lives that comes hand in hand with the arrival of something unfamiliar. Similarly, it's easy to notice when something ends, because there is a detectable change in our lives that comes hand in hand with absence of something familiar. The transition that occurs between these two points, or day-to-day life as it were, is what slips to the void because it seems unremarkable by comparison -  it is neither conspicuous by its novel presence nor detectable by its sudden absence, it is simply inconspicuous.

This inconspicuous 'middle ground' is central to our existence, primarily because the majority of our lives are spent in this period of transition. In fact, our entire lifespan can be reduced to a single a beginning (birth) and a single ending (death), but if we focus only on these two things, we miss the reason we are here (life). This is an extreme example, and I don't know anyone who does this, but I do know people who operate in a similar way but on a much smaller scale - they set a goal, they reach a goal, they start something, they finish something, they measure their life in units of completion and all the while they miss out on the valuable experiences they could be having if they stopped to appreciate the route they're taking.


Like throwing a stone into still water, if we only pay attention to the start and the finish, we miss the most beautiful part of the process - the ripples that occur in between. The ripples may seem unremarkable, but without them there would be no measurable start or finish to speak of, just a series of disconnected, meaningless events. They constitute the majority of our existence and yet they remain unnoticed. They are conspicuous neither by their presence nor their absence, they are simply an inconspicuous transition.

The Rose-Tinted Avatar

So, recently I've been enjoying the wonders of the Playstation 3. Apart from the very old TV that it's hooked up to, which occasionally turns itself off, it's a virtual dream world. Naturally, the TV always loses picture when I'm right in the middle of shoving my sword through the torso of a bad guy, so I have to pause, move my TV around on my desk until the picture comes back and then rejoin the fray. Now, if you're not a gamer, you won't understand just how irritating this is, but when you're in the middle of combat, it's all about momentum. Once you get used to a particular game, your attacks on the enemy start to look like a violent sort of dance. You dodge and sweep and twirl and jump, and all the while bad guys are dropping to the floor like HSBC cashiers during a bank robbery. It's beautiful, in a savage sort of way. Unfortunately, when my TV loses picture, I miss a step, forget the rest of the 'dance' and, invariably, get stabbed to death in a range of new and exciting ways. This annoyance aside, I am loving the PS3. What I really love is one of its basic, default programmes. When you log in, you have the option of entering Playstation 'Home', which is a place where your avatar (virtual character) can take part in a range of different games and wander through different environments. You can also interact with other people who are online at the same time. However, the first thing you have to do is create your avatar.

Now, in the real world, the way we look is determined by our genes. Genes make us unique in so many ways, and physical appearance is just one of them, an obvious exception being monozygotic twins, who look identical and freak me out slightly, although the latter point is irrelevant. With genes being a primary determinant of our appearance, one would assume that the way we look can't be changed to any significant degree, unless you're dating a cosmetic surgeon, in which case, neither gravity nor age have any real meaning until you're too old to care. Fortunately, the modern world has been kind enough to provide us with numerous ways of adapting our natural image. For girls, this usually involves wearing make-up, buying fashionable clothes and shoes, spending money on hair and nails, a lifetime of Weight Watchers meetings and many years spent investigating the different ways of making rice crackers taste less like feet. For guys, well I don't know. I assume that hair gel and the odd new t-shirt is involved, but who can say for sure? Annoyingly, you get the odd girl who makes no effort and still manages to look like Kate Moss, pre-cocaine. These are the girls I normally avoid, for two reasons - 1) Public drop-kicking is illegal 2) I like to protect my self-esteem from dying on its arse. For the record, my wardrobe is devoid of green. I think we can all agree it's not a good colour on me.

Anyway, the time came for me to create my avatar. Suddenly, I was faced with a world of possibilities. I could essentially etch-a-sketch my flaws and whitewash my image - I was being given a free pass to recreate myself. Naturally, I immediately reduced the width of my face. This was swiftly followed by a change of skin tone, which became a lot less 'Preston' and a lot more 'Puerto Rico'. I also exposed my upper arms and became the happy owner of two new assets that, in reality, are conspicuous only by their absence. I dropped my height a good few inches - no longer a giant - awesome, gave myself brown eyes, chose a hairstyle that I could never pull off in real life and shazaam. Judge me. I dare you. Hell, we're all guilty of the same crime. We all build an image to fit an environment. We don't wear clubbing clothes to work, we don't wear work clothes to the pub, and the way we act around family is not the same as the way we act around friends. Ok, the Playstation example is a bit extreme - a total reinvention of image is not typical of daily life, but that's because it's not feasible in daily life. If you could press a button to delete your flaws, would you? If you said 'yes' you wouldn't be alone. Playstation 'Home' is filled with people who have whitewashed their image. I see this as a sign that deep down we all want to be the best we can be. Of course, we tend to judge ourselves against others, so if we all fix our flaws, we could drive ourselves crazy on a pointless quest to reach unrealistic levels of perfection.

In the end, I made my avatar look more like me. For a little while, she was close to my idea of perfect, but it left me feeling too disconnected. That's the weird thing about gaming - you use it to escape, to cut through the red tape of reality, but if you change too many elements, it loses its personal relevance, and anything that comes from the virtual experience is received only by your avatar and not by you. Surprisingly, once I made my avatar look more like me, I felt more comfortable. For a while, I had a ticket to perfection, and I traded it in to be exactly who I am. People say the grass is always greener on the other side and I think this is true, but people forget what this saying means in the event that they actually get to the other side. It means that in a world where your reality and ideals are divided by a theoretical fence, you are destined to oscillate between the two, and every time you climb over that fence and reach the other side, you realise that what you left behind is actually more valuable than the thing you were trying so desperately to attain. It's a never-ending cycle. With this in mind, appreciate what you've got while you've got it because anything else comes only from rose-tinted glasses.

Child Of Our Time

Tonight I continued my journey into the world of Masterchef the Professionals. Admittedly, so far I have experienced disappointment of monumental proportions on the fish and fruit front, with no 'fusion chefs' attempting to combine salmon and apple thus far; however, the frequency with which I sigh and roll my eyes at the TV screen has increased markedly, for which I am thankful. It's what I live for. In fact, it's given me the building blocks of a truly awesome drinking game. The rules are simple:

1. You must drink every time someone adds fennel to a dish
2. You must drink every time you hear a contestant say they're 'upping their game'
3. You must drink every time a purée makes it onto the plate
4. You must drink every time a contestant takes a spoon and drags it through said puree to make a pointlessly artistic smear across the plate in a manner that suggests they hope the curator of Tate Modern is watching
5. You must drink every time the ice cream doesn't set
6. You must drink every time Michel Roux says 'it's not without fault'
7. You must drink every time Gregg Wallace goes 'oo yeah, oo yeah, that's laaarvely'
8. You must drink every time Monica Galletti says 'my boss would not be happy'
9. You must now go to A&E because your stomach needs pumping. Sorry.

It's number 3 that I have a real issue with. Call me crazy, but I like to chew my food. In fact, humans need to chew their food in order to trigger the release of digestive enzymes that then process it internally. Millions of years of evolution have led to the sophisticated organism that is the modern man, with thousands of tiny genetic mutations slowly working their way into, and out of, the biology of our species over time so that we can do elaborate things like digest our food, and then along comes the pea purée and renders digestive enzymes obsolete. Savage. Of course, I continue to overlook such travesties in Masterchef because I find it funny when Gregg Wallace says things like "I stuck it in my mouth and I just thought, oh my word!" and "it's sweet and sticky, yet clean and fresh at the same time". I admit, when it comes to innuendo, it takes virtually nothing to make me giggle. My mind is well and truly in the gutter, and on the rare occasion it isn't, I'm often wondering why not.

My point is this - I think we all have an inner child; part of us that doesn't know where to look when eating a banana, part of us that still thinks the word 'shitake' is funny, part of us that developed during childhood that we refuse to let go of because it's like admitting to being an adult and letting go of our youth. I know what you're thinking - ahh, but there are some serious people who are mature enough to dismiss all that innuendo. They eat their banana and think only of the good things it's doing to their potassium levels. Bullsh*t. The truth is, we all have an inner child; however, the roles and responsibilities of some people require them to suppress it. Parents, for example, will not usually acknowledge their inner child in the presence of their physical offspring, out of concern for setting a bad example. People who hold an authoritative position at work may also suppress their inner child for fear of losing the respect of their colleagues or being deemed unprofessional. Incidentally, some people without any of these pressures may also appear to be 100% tried and tested mature! However, it is most likely because their inner child is unacceptable to them and they therefore put pressure on themselves to keep it under control, because that's what adults do. It doesn't mean it isn't there beneath the surface - it just means that, like the digestive enzyme which evolved to serve an important biological function, people who suppress their childlike qualities have adapted to the real or perceived pressures of their personal environment by developing psychological mechanisms of dealing with their immaturity. This allows them to survive in their jobs or in their home lives.

If you need proof that the inner child exists, even in the most 'serious' people, just look at the effects of alcohol. When all inhibitions and mechanisms of psychological suppression are removed, the playing field is levelled. We all become children. We become impulsive, have an uncontrollable need for immediate gratification, and show a general disregard for social rules e.g. speaking quietly and keeping our language clean around people we don't know. We also demonstrate a complete disregard for our personal safety and tend to have a naive, childlike belief that anything is possible, in addition to a distinct lack of self-awareness. It sounds pretty bad, right? Well, I happen to love the childish streak in me. Incidentally, mine tends to be present at all times, albeit amplified when I'm drunk. Yes, it makes me slightly stroppy and self-focused, it makes me say controversial things, it means I tend to sit on the fence and wait for others to make big decisions for me, and it means I'm constantly seeking approval from people with more perceived power/maturity. It also means that I'm 28 years old and expect to have no responsibilities; therefore, I am constantly surprised to discover that I do. These are the negatives. However, there are positives too. The immature part of my personality has meant that, despite being faced with some difficult situations, I am able to dismiss them and live my life in a relatively carefree manner. Burying my head in the sand? Naturally. But it helps me to stay happy. I occasionally lift my head back out to see what I've missed and address any outstanding adult issues, but invariably I go back to sandy, childlike ignorance. It means that I approach each day in the mindset that everyone is to be trusted until they give me a reason for doubt, it means that I view everyone as an individual with no thought for race, age, appearance or stereotypes, and it means that in the event of a bad day, one controversial joke about a penis will most likely turn it around.

Take home message? While unleashing the inner child allows me to function in my environment, suppressing the inner child has the same effect for others. All we need to do is identify the pressures in our lives, identify our childlike qualities, and then suppress just enough of ourselves to allow us to function successfully in our environment without compromising our own happiness.

Great Expectations

Today was an interesting day because it got me thinking about expectations. I imagine that nearly everyone who reads this will have watched at least one Disney movie. Maybe you watched Disney films as a child, or maybe you still watch them as an adult. Personally, I'm a big fan of Aladdin. In fact, it's pretty much the only Disney film I like. There are a number of reasons why I like Aladdin - as a child, it was because of the comedy, the songs, and the knowledge that one day I would grow up to look just like Princess Jasmine. I also liked the idea of meeting a Prince with a flying carpet - because all great romances start on a flying Axminster. Now, as an adult, when I look back at those films I'm reminded of my GCSE science classes. In secondary school, science experiments are generally fairly easy. There are two reasons for this (1) you're given the methodology, and (2) you're deliberately given an experiment that has a high chance of success. Whether this is to teach you that science is a fruitful and satisfying career is still unknown, but it definitely teaches you that if you approach a problem in a logical manner, more often than not you will get the results you seek.

Of course, when you get to university and start conducting your own in-depth research into questions that genuinely have no answer, you realise that science is not that predictable and rewarding. On the contrary, you learn that science experiments are repetitive, time consuming, labour intensive and rarely produce the expected outcome. My point is this - as children we are fed so many idealistic notions that by the time we become adults we are shocked and disappointed by so many things. For example, love is rarely forged between princesses and vagrants, a methodical approach to problem-solving does not guarantee positive results, and I'm sure Bernouilli would argue that carpets don't fly. The reason these idealistic notions of ground-breaking love and science never come to pass is because an adult's reality involves considerably more practical issues than a child's. There are more obstacles, more pressures, and experience has usually taken the shine out of even the most resilient of dreams. In short, life is full of complications that Disney movies don't cover and science is littered with variables that early education often overlooks. However, what we're left with can still be rewarding - moreso, actually, because we've usually had to work through a series of obstacles to get it.

Continuing the theme of 'expectations', this weekend I decided to treat myself to a Playstation 3. Knowing that I can't really afford it, I went over to GAME with my old PS2 in the vague hope of trading it in for a discount on the new console. I walked into the shop and immediately tried to offload my PS2 onto the nearest sales assistant. He was having none of it. I'll skip straight to the point - he took it to the till and valued it at £2.50. Are you kidding me? It's worth more than that! I tried everything, including flirting, but nothing worked. After 20 minutes of haggling for a better price, a small queue had formed behind me. I decided it might help to get them involved, hence why I stopped a passing woman and asked if she had any sons who might cherish a PS2 for more than £2.50 - she said she had sons but she didn't know anything about consoles or games. I'm sorry - then why are you in GAME? I concluded that she had misinterpreted the name of the shop and spent the last half hour trying to come up with a 'Plan B' now that venison was clearly out of stock.


To cut a long story short - I didn't trade my PS2. It's worth next to nothing. I still got my PS3 and will let you know how it goes tomorrow when I hook it up. So, how does all this tie in with 'expectations'? Well, I went into GAME with high hopes of selling something dear to me that was once considered a 'must have' item. It was a little upsetting to learn that it's now worth about the same as a block of cheese...or a Sainsbury's ready meal...or six mars bars. Suffice to say, I did the maths. It dashed my expectations and left me feeling disappointed.

On the other hand, once I'd accepted that my PS2 was essentially worthless, I got into a lengthy and enthusiastic discussion about gaming with a bunch of people in the shop. My disappointing trade-in turned into a hilariously unexpected chat with people who shared a common interest. This is where Disney went wrong - Disney often based his movies on extravagant or turbulent relationships between characters from very different worlds. In truth, life is so complicated, fast and chaotic that in most cases we will only stop to invest time in people who seem to be standing on common ground and with whom forming and maintaining friendships feels easy and natural.

Life is rarely as rosy and predictable as childhood leads us to believe. Sometimes our expectations are exceeded by simple things like identifying a shared interest with a stranger and sometimes reality falls short and we're left with is a sense of disappointment. I guess all we can do is hope for the best or, at the very least, more than £2.50.