Hysteria

How many accusation's does it take to prove guilt, ten, or hundreds or thousands? Point is an accusation is just that, an accusation. Sure a hundred tend to indicate that something was not right and thousands mean that there is certainly something wrong that has taken place. So the media storm surrounding the Jimmy Saville exposure sounds as if all the accusations have been proven. He is guilty as charged, a pervert, a child abuser. It is unfortunate that he is not now with us to defend his name. 

To date the accusations are just that and have yet to be examined as to their reasonableness. Before jumping in on the witch-hunt let us all just pause for a moment. Accusations come in all shades from the spurious, to the 'me to', to retrospective remorse, to the full on corroborated, clear, without a shade of doubt. Before vilifying a reputations of many decades standing it is worth pausing to check how the accusations stand up by applying all the usual standards we use when considering any serious accusation. Is there corroboration, is there a sequence and patten, what degree of abuse from the inappropriate, to the over familiar to the outright violation, was it consensual (at the time) and how plausible are the claims in all the circumstances?

What I think of the man, Jimmy Saville, does not come into it but neither do I hold a candle for Saint Jimmy. I certainly do not want to minimise the distress and years of guilt that lay behind these accusations. What we do all need and want is the full extent of the truth to come out, as best it can, after all these years. Was Saville a solo operator or did he work within a circle of similar predators? Did his fame endorse an over-familiar attitude to the young people his work put him into close contact with? Were (and are) the codes of conduct for 'famous' TV personalities robust enough to deal with the mania of groupies throwing themselves at or worse making themselves available to their target idol? How can a solo operator, or a small close knit group, operate with immunity for such a long period in such a large organisation that I suspect is riddled with gossip and innuendo.  Who else knew and were complicit in his exploitation over so many years?

There is a lot more behind this story than just the vilification of a once idol to millions. Let us avoid the trap of using hindsight judgements of our sophisticated age with regard to minors, sexuality and abuse and not use them in place of the mores of twenty, thirty or even forty years ago. Be sure, place guilt where it is found, but first let us be a little circumspect with all these accusations until we better understand their strength and where they lead us.

Know Yourself

My experience has been that employment agencies look only to find the best fit box to stuff you in that they can then promote to likely employers. Despite all the profiling and other gimmicky that they might surround themselves with, their primary objective is to find that best fit box with the highest turnover and the best commission and then move on as fast as possible. They are certainly not in the business of looking at you as a blank piece of paper to assess the skills and experience you have to offer. All too complicated and time consuming. The best fit box is a fast but dirty way of summing you up into readily recognisable sectors, be it sales, education, health or whatever.

Likewise with your employer, their primary goal is to get you productive and income generating as fast and cleanly as possible. They too are looking for nice neat boxes to put you in, best fitting your past with their operational needs. No niceties, a people person, a problem solver, a task finisher, find and stuff you into the best fit box and get you working fast. Fair enough they need to profit out of your labour. The box you are put into of course only reflects the opportunities and experience's you have been allowed in the past. They are in no way reflective of your actual skill or mind set or where your aptitude really lies, if only you were given the chance. No one has the time or even perhaps the judgement set to gauge how good you might be, but only what you have previously demonstrated. Those boxes you find yourself in you get to carry forward throughout your working life. The chance to breakfree and start with a clean slate, or that white piece of paper, just never comes. You carry your past baggage forward with you, not your choice, not your wish, not your aspiration, it just accumulates and becomes the measure yardstick for all your futures.

You of course know yourself extremely well. Right? Wrong! Imagine yourself in a totally white room, floor, walls, ceiling, no windows no doors, just white sound, white scent and white surrounds.  Now who are you? Not your name, not your history, not your description. But who are you, that inner person? What we are, this inner person, is in response. In response to your surroundings, to the people you last had contact with, with the after tremors of the last physical experience. Your sub-concious and concious responses to these other stimuli are what drives your awareness of who you are. But it is more than this because we too bring baggage. We are not white pieces of paper with each fresh encounter. We bring the past along with us which shapes our reactions this time and moulds the future possibles. Worse still prior experiences limit our range of possible responses and the people we meet recognise and or have preconceptions of your reactions which limit the range of what you can or cannot do in response. We are limited by our past. Not immutable, subtly shifting and adapting, we evolve but within the constraints of what we were and did last time. Not fixed, you could wake up and start out with a clean white piece of paper, inventing a new personality for yourself. Except your physical baggage and all those people you associate with drag you back to what you were. Not you, the who you would like to be, within the constraints of your innate personality. The me that I can be and am, are but reflections of my past and peoples expectations of me.

It is a leap, a small leap, more of just a progression really. How the government views or has expectations of its citizens, directly influences how the citizen sees themselves, how they respond and react. Treated with disdain, suspicion, regarded as flawed, with limit capacity to think rationally or behave with a modicum of decency, they get citizens just like that but pushed to extremes. Regard your citizens with respect, expect the highest standards and they will rise to that confidence in them and often exceed expectations. The we, whether employer, individual or citizen just want recognition and encouragement to do better. Not much to ask is it.

All in the Genes

Very late in my life I found out about my paternal grandparents. Up until then I had interpreted all my personal characteristics within the terms of what I knew about my maternal side. Only just very recently it has become crystal clear that my (and other members of my family) single minded focus and concentration on fine detail counterbalanced with an aloof distancing from anything beyond my direct control, clearly comes down the line from my Paternal GMa. Equally my 'blue-sky' thinking, that gazing eagerly at an unfocussed future together with a passionate deep socialism, not your limp wristed capitalist lap dog Labour Party style, comes staight down the line from my Paternal GPa. So all my past assumptions about family characteristics were so wrong and are now history. I have had to reinvent myself at my age.

So what? Well the more that is being revealed about those genes that we inherit the more it becomes clear that everything, just about everything, from facial features, postures, to skin blemishes, the site for and wrinkle formation, our personality mix, it is all set in the genes we get at conception. The journey to understanding the gene contribution is on its way but it still has a long way to travel. What I am picking up is that hardship endured a couple of generations before will impact on the latest generation. I sense that particular trades accumulated particular aptitudes that fine tuned them for the demands of their work. I can see that a tailor has a different skills mind set from a coal-miner or farm labourer, a skill set that gets passed down the line. Or a weaver has a different take on life than a ship welder. All down to the genes. Sure environment plays a crucial part, emphasising or suppressing characteristics until lady luck gets to play her hand, but only working within that unique blend of genes you to inherit.

What on earth then do people think, when they go in for a donor child, whether by egg or sperm? A child is not a feel good status symbol toy. It is a huge investment, of time, emotion, energy, self-sacrifice, money that last for the remainder of the parents life-time. Not a glib, wouldn't it be nice, choice but life changing with no return ticket. The genes that you pick to mix up with yours are important, not to be left to some vague random factor. Not that I am saying a rapist or a murder passes these traits on in their genes but there are mind sets that clearly could sit very uncomfortably with another. But the genes your own mixes with are relevant and important. The next worst option to a wildcard choice would be to try and select for a particular aptitude. Crufts and dogs springs to mind, we just do not have skills to select for a well rounded human, versatile and flexible to cope with a very uncertain future. What has served us so well in the past is still the best option on offer, mutual attraction. Financial advantage, social status and stability are also runners but often with a latent sting in the tail. No, mutual attraction wins hands down.

Our understanding and conciousness of the ideal mate selection process may be almost entirely missing but there are, nevertheless intuitive processes at work, if only we give them time and a chance. It takes more than a steamy aroused one night stand to suss out whether a soul mate has been found. Conception really is best deferred until there is a solid air of certainty that this mate will be good for the long haul and that prospect, of living together, looks attractive. We have not even scratched the surface of why people develop mutual attraction, so for me, there is no techno fix. Just this belief in an intuitive process at work that rules some potential mates in and a lot more potentials definitely out. A complex process, this mate selection, with all sorts of variable and alternative game strategies. There is only one endgame objective, to find a mate that will care, support and bring up any progeny for the duration. Liking them in the meantime can be a considerable bonus.

So no one-night stands with a lifetime of regret for what might have been, certainly not a donor child with who knows what genes on offer and a categoric no to a technical profiled best gene match until, or if, we get to fully understand the processes. In the meantime just learn to listen to your heart strings.They are the very best thing you have going for you to find the best fit gene match to what you have on offer. Genes matter, it is all in the genes.

ps Have now found out that I inherited an ability to be cold, detached and dispassionate when faced with conflicts from my Maternal GMa. Keeping emotions in check and out of the equation can be a good analytical tool but boy it does make relationships fraught!