Recently, I've been trying to re-invent myself, or at least recycle myself. I've been trying to become Me +, Me 2.0. A different way of saying that, is that I've been trying to avoid being a cynical, miserable, middle-aged pain in the ass. At the very least, I've been trying to find my smile (see City Slickers, Billy Crystal, mid-life crisis, cattle drive etc). I thought a good way to achieve this might be to practise leaving my comfort zone.
A drawback of being in my comfort zone is that I can lapse into lazy ways of thinking, navel gazing, and generally moany and whiney behaviour. I can get bogged down in negativity, mired in cynicism, stuck in a rut etc. It's much easier to do this when things become routine, and trying new things isn't part of your regular pattern. Historically, I've often been too afraid to try new stuff, and even when I have on occasion stretched myself by doing new things, like youth work, or going to India, or learning German, I've sometimes lacked the confidence to build on my new found experiences, so recently I thought it might be good to get myself out there and join in a bit more, and also it might help me make up for lost time.
As a result, amongst new things I've taken up lately are mountain biking, eating satsumas and pretending to be a penguin. The eating satsumas thing isn't really a big deal, but I first took up eating them on the Coast to Coast to combat a dry throat from all the dust, and it has continued into the weekend just gone. When I was a child I mostly only used fruit as something to throw at my brother, so it's good to use it for its proper intended use finally.
I suppose I could have taken up doing these new things with friends, but a lot of them are busy doing adult things, like working, bringing up children, mowing their lawns, getting their soffit boards painted (whatever the hell they are), generally caring about the fabric of their homes etc, all things I'm very bad at, and they're not always free to play out. Also, I moved to Leeds recently, so as well as being busy, a lot of my friends are now also far away. Not in the global sense, but a bit too far to pop round for coffee etc.
It's been a lot easier to commit to doing new stuff recently, because a lot of the old things I used to rely on to fill my time, like having a job, a wife, a home etc have fallen by the wayside, partly due to circumstance, and partly due to me managing to turn my life into a giant dog's breakfast.
So, anyway, to keep myself busy, and to get me out of the aforementioned comfort zone, I signed up to do 3 main activities this summer:
1) a Coast to Coast off-road bike ride with 56 strangers in June.
2) becoming a volunteer YHA summer camp leader (the camps are in August, and this weekend just gone was the training course, this time with around 74 strangers).
3) a Land's End to John o'Groats bike ride in September with 18 strangers.
As you can see, a common theme with all these activities is that they all involve boatloads of people I've never met before. One of the good things about people I don't know, is that there are a lot of them around. In fact, they're everywhere, whereas the circle of people I know is quite small. One big advantage I've found that strangers have over the people I know is that they are: a) available. Also, it's meant to be statistically safer to hang out with strangers, as most people who get done in, get done in by someone who knows them. So, for me, it's strangers all the way!
I wasn't always this willing to hang out with strangers. I grew up in a time of hideous carpets and mustard coloured knitted cardigans and bad hair, otherwise known as the 1970s. It was a time when the home phone was a giant beige thing with a dial on which you weren't allowed to use, because why didn't you just go down the road and call for people? A time when televisions were made of wood, and couldn't be stolen because they weighed as much as a house, when a stereo was a sideboard and music was on massive vinyl discs that were so big they were almost too big to bring home on the bus after you'd bought them, a time when the internet was going to the library to read the Encyclopedia Britannica on an evening, a time when there was no point having plugs in your bedroom, because what would you ever need to plug in?
One of the ironies about the 70s, looking back now, is that there were lots of public information films on TV, advising us not to go off with people we didn't know (mostly we were told there would be clues to them being dodgy in that they would want to show us puppies, or buy us sweets). In those days, although strangers weren't to be trusted, TV presenters were. How times have changed! In those days a lot of my good male role models were TV presenters. What we never told at the time was how it was probably safer to hang out with strangers than it was to hang around with 70s TV presenters and DJs. That wasn't in any of the public service broadcasts.
So it's taken some time for me to feel safe around strangers, but as long as you're careful, there's no reason why meeting people you don't know should be any more dangerous than meeting people you do, except for if you meet them in a disco when they're drunk (are they still called discos, probably not?).
Anyway, I've already done Part One of my Stranger Trilogy - the Coast to Coast, which I wrote about here. In terms of encouraging me to be positive, and aspiring to be better, it couldn't have gone much better. It was full of positive people, good role models etc, and was genuinely inspiring. I even got to meet the famous popstar / singer Alistair Griffin who put me in one of his music videos and in time I will become an international superstar on Youtube, just by association (this has not happened yet).
The good news about Parts Two and Three of my master-plan is that they are going to take up most of August and September, which means I don't have to sort my life out until at least October....
Part Two is the youth worker thing, and I went on the training camp for that this weekend. Unlike the Coast to Coast, there wasn't much of a variety of ages, in that they were all the same age (except me). And the age they all were was about half my age, or less. It turns out a lot of people with time on their hands this summer are young people, and although I have some stuff in common with them, like having two arms and two legs, it takes a bit of adapting to. Luckily, I made an early start, like about 2 years ago.
My tendency to start hanging out with young people started at SLC, almost 2 years ago exactly, when I was inducted into Batching and Scanning Team, with a gang of people half my age, ie Joss, Lucy, Gibbo, Rob, Vicky, Pete etc. They may have wanted to spend a lot of time getting wasted on coloured drinks, but at least they had some energy about them. I found that as long as I didn't have to go to Avalon with them, I was fine.
I've found, after having lots of different jobs, some where I was the oldest person around, and some where I was nearly the youngest, that the latter is so much worse. If there's a group that's worse to work with than people who go out till 4 in the morning, and then come into work at 8 looking like the Incredible Hulk (Joss), it's people who've been doing the same job for about a hundred years, and who are now coasting into retirement, or perhaps even sliding into the grave. Their children and their pension plans are a disappointment, the council want to put a bus stop next to their house, kids keep knocking footballs into their gardens, they've found a lump, they need a scan etc.
I myself have had an alarming number of scans in recent years, along with internal examinations I'm not going to tell you about involving latex gloves going into places the sun doesn't shine, and cameras going into places you would think cameras really wouldn't fit into, but even if this is just inevitable side effect of being middle aged, like nose hair, I really don't want to hear about it at work over my morning coffee.
Retired people are even worse. If you ever go out for a pub lunch, never go when the Pensioners' Special is on. All you'll hear are disastrous anecdotes about angina, going down the big white tunnel towards the light before being called back, or at the very least a trip to A&E. Or how they can't eat cheese anymore, even though they love it, and how they really shouldn't eat broccoli because it plays havoc with their irritable bowel. Give me young people anytime! Ones with bodies that just work!
At times these days I already feel like I'm in a Time Travel movie. Moving back to Leeds after 20 years away, I already feel like I'm in Back to the Future Part Two. There's so many big new buildings, the former Odeon is now a Primark, my old school has now moved, the old school buildings are part of Leeds Uni, the rugby pitch I used to play on now has a cycle path through the middle of it.
Then this weekend, spending time with all those young people, training to be a youth worker, I felt like Sylvester Stallone in Demolition Man, like I was a fossil they'd defrosted to help with some unruly kids from the future. Sitting around listening to people talk about taking their driving tests, knowing that they were all born after I passed mine, I felt like I'd just fallen out of cryogenic storage.
Although, to be fair to them, they must have felt like they'd been simultaneously projected into the past. Because we were right in the middle of the Peak District, there was no mobile signal, which made it a lot easier to actually have a conversation. Something I find difficult with young people these days, in fact people in general, is getting their undivided attention, what with them scrolling through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and online betting websites, or looking at videos of cats doing funny things. There was none of that last weekend. We were back in the stone age, in a geographical basin.
When you actually get to talk to most young people, without the distraction of technology, they're actually quite nice. And they're a lot like me. We've all got our hopes and dreams for the future, it's just that they have more energy to pursue them, and less aches and pains. I thought I might get some opportunity to talk to them about my life experience, but in then end, it was me who ended up trying to learn from them. To rediscover something I thought I'd lost. Possibly my youth. I didn't expect to find good new role models amongst the young, but I did anyway.
In that mobile signal desert last weekend, with no internet, running around, playing games, it was like being a child again. And in many ways that was how I felt on the Coast to Coast. I felt timeless and ageless, outside the confines and the circumstances of my normal life. Spending time blindfold pretending to be a sheep, standing around being a statue, literally jumping through hoops, trying to put on clothes that don't fit, playing Monkey football, doing the Penguin dance, trying to put a magic stick on the ground, turning cone shaped things over and over without running directly into people, trying to walk across an imaginary ravine on milk crates that are supposed to be turtles, playing charades.
At one point, and for just a brief moment, when someone got a bottle out I thought. 'Holy shit, we're not playing spin the bottle, are we? If we are I'm off!' Thankfully it was a lot simpler game than that, involving blindfolded hand squeezing.
The people I played these games with last weekend, are the same age now as I was in the period 1986 to 1990. After decades of living out different roles, and following various paths, here I am again, back at the same crossroads as I was then, with no job, no house, no wife, still wondering which way to go.
I suppose the difference is, I've been here before. The good news is, I suppose, whatever has gone before, it's never too late to start again, to press the reset button, to restore the factory settings. At least that's what I'm hoping for....
 |
| Sometimes it's good to break out of your comfort zone |
As a result, amongst new things I've taken up lately are mountain biking, eating satsumas and pretending to be a penguin. The eating satsumas thing isn't really a big deal, but I first took up eating them on the Coast to Coast to combat a dry throat from all the dust, and it has continued into the weekend just gone. When I was a child I mostly only used fruit as something to throw at my brother, so it's good to use it for its proper intended use finally.
I suppose I could have taken up doing these new things with friends, but a lot of them are busy doing adult things, like working, bringing up children, mowing their lawns, getting their soffit boards painted (whatever the hell they are), generally caring about the fabric of their homes etc, all things I'm very bad at, and they're not always free to play out. Also, I moved to Leeds recently, so as well as being busy, a lot of my friends are now also far away. Not in the global sense, but a bit too far to pop round for coffee etc.
It's been a lot easier to commit to doing new stuff recently, because a lot of the old things I used to rely on to fill my time, like having a job, a wife, a home etc have fallen by the wayside, partly due to circumstance, and partly due to me managing to turn my life into a giant dog's breakfast.
 |
| Excuse me, is this the future? |
1) a Coast to Coast off-road bike ride with 56 strangers in June.
2) becoming a volunteer YHA summer camp leader (the camps are in August, and this weekend just gone was the training course, this time with around 74 strangers).
3) a Land's End to John o'Groats bike ride in September with 18 strangers.
As you can see, a common theme with all these activities is that they all involve boatloads of people I've never met before. One of the good things about people I don't know, is that there are a lot of them around. In fact, they're everywhere, whereas the circle of people I know is quite small. One big advantage I've found that strangers have over the people I know is that they are: a) available. Also, it's meant to be statistically safer to hang out with strangers, as most people who get done in, get done in by someone who knows them. So, for me, it's strangers all the way!
 |
| The pattern on that carpet is literally mesmerising - It's like a kaleidoscope of Doom! |
One of the ironies about the 70s, looking back now, is that there were lots of public information films on TV, advising us not to go off with people we didn't know (mostly we were told there would be clues to them being dodgy in that they would want to show us puppies, or buy us sweets). In those days, although strangers weren't to be trusted, TV presenters were. How times have changed! In those days a lot of my good male role models were TV presenters. What we never told at the time was how it was probably safer to hang out with strangers than it was to hang around with 70s TV presenters and DJs. That wasn't in any of the public service broadcasts.
So it's taken some time for me to feel safe around strangers, but as long as you're careful, there's no reason why meeting people you don't know should be any more dangerous than meeting people you do, except for if you meet them in a disco when they're drunk (are they still called discos, probably not?).
 |
| Strangers - Like Friends, except you don't have to remember their birthdays... |
The good news about Parts Two and Three of my master-plan is that they are going to take up most of August and September, which means I don't have to sort my life out until at least October....
Part Two is the youth worker thing, and I went on the training camp for that this weekend. Unlike the Coast to Coast, there wasn't much of a variety of ages, in that they were all the same age (except me). And the age they all were was about half my age, or less. It turns out a lot of people with time on their hands this summer are young people, and although I have some stuff in common with them, like having two arms and two legs, it takes a bit of adapting to. Luckily, I made an early start, like about 2 years ago.
My tendency to start hanging out with young people started at SLC, almost 2 years ago exactly, when I was inducted into Batching and Scanning Team, with a gang of people half my age, ie Joss, Lucy, Gibbo, Rob, Vicky, Pete etc. They may have wanted to spend a lot of time getting wasted on coloured drinks, but at least they had some energy about them. I found that as long as I didn't have to go to Avalon with them, I was fine.
 |
| I've just remembered... I need to go home and wash my socks |
 |
| Joss - if you look in the mirror and you're this green, you should probably stay home... |
Retired people are even worse. If you ever go out for a pub lunch, never go when the Pensioners' Special is on. All you'll hear are disastrous anecdotes about angina, going down the big white tunnel towards the light before being called back, or at the very least a trip to A&E. Or how they can't eat cheese anymore, even though they love it, and how they really shouldn't eat broccoli because it plays havoc with their irritable bowel. Give me young people anytime! Ones with bodies that just work!
 |
| What did I miss? |
Then this weekend, spending time with all those young people, training to be a youth worker, I felt like Sylvester Stallone in Demolition Man, like I was a fossil they'd defrosted to help with some unruly kids from the future. Sitting around listening to people talk about taking their driving tests, knowing that they were all born after I passed mine, I felt like I'd just fallen out of cryogenic storage.
Although, to be fair to them, they must have felt like they'd been simultaneously projected into the past. Because we were right in the middle of the Peak District, there was no mobile signal, which made it a lot easier to actually have a conversation. Something I find difficult with young people these days, in fact people in general, is getting their undivided attention, what with them scrolling through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and online betting websites, or looking at videos of cats doing funny things. There was none of that last weekend. We were back in the stone age, in a geographical basin.
When you actually get to talk to most young people, without the distraction of technology, they're actually quite nice. And they're a lot like me. We've all got our hopes and dreams for the future, it's just that they have more energy to pursue them, and less aches and pains. I thought I might get some opportunity to talk to them about my life experience, but in then end, it was me who ended up trying to learn from them. To rediscover something I thought I'd lost. Possibly my youth. I didn't expect to find good new role models amongst the young, but I did anyway.
In that mobile signal desert last weekend, with no internet, running around, playing games, it was like being a child again. And in many ways that was how I felt on the Coast to Coast. I felt timeless and ageless, outside the confines and the circumstances of my normal life. Spending time blindfold pretending to be a sheep, standing around being a statue, literally jumping through hoops, trying to put on clothes that don't fit, playing Monkey football, doing the Penguin dance, trying to put a magic stick on the ground, turning cone shaped things over and over without running directly into people, trying to walk across an imaginary ravine on milk crates that are supposed to be turtles, playing charades.
 |
| Here's me and my new volunteer friends - doing what Penguins do... |
The people I played these games with last weekend, are the same age now as I was in the period 1986 to 1990. After decades of living out different roles, and following various paths, here I am again, back at the same crossroads as I was then, with no job, no house, no wife, still wondering which way to go.
I suppose the difference is, I've been here before. The good news is, I suppose, whatever has gone before, it's never too late to start again, to press the reset button, to restore the factory settings. At least that's what I'm hoping for....
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