Do you trust your instincts?
I would never trust my instincts as they have been wrong on so many occasions. I think that is partly down to being on the Autistic Spectrum. We don’t tend to read people very well, so now my ‘instinct’ is to be incredibly wary of anyone new. We used to be told when I was growing up that if you were nice to other people then they would be nice to you. That’s nonsense. If you are nice to other people they will look for a way to take advantage of you, nine times out of ten. So it’s much easier to assume that this is going to happen and be pleasantly surprised if it doesn’t.
People are generally only interested in, and outwardly nice to, others if it is to their advantage. Unfortunately I have never been able to work like that, at least not effectively. So I don’t assume that anyone has my best interests at heart and that’s a fairly safe basis for life. Freud saw instincts as an expression of the unconscious mind, perhaps spotting Micro reactions or being attuned to body language. I don’t seem to be able to spot either, or if I do I don’t act on it properly. Therefore I ignore them if they tell me that what I see is what I get, and, until proven otherwise, that I have to be very careful not giving hostages to fortune. I suppose this is what lies at the heart of my view that as a species we are basically bad, and that is one thing I do trust my instincts about!
What’s your favorite month of the year? Why?
It will surprise no one who has read this blog, even occasionally, to know that my favourite month of the year is December. As a Christmas fan, how could it not be? It is a month of anticipation and a month of magic.
You have music that’s different from any other time of the year. Now, I realise that not everyone likes Christmas music, but it’s music that is tonally different, both in terms of the instruments and the lyrics. For me, the really special thing about the music is the way it brings memories of Christmas Past flooding back. When I hear Slade or The Wombles I am a kid again, looking forward to the wonder of Christmas morning. When I hear Band Aid or Shakin Stevens I am a teenager who is absolutely obsessed with music and I remember drinking and singing with my friends. Now, as I hear my children word perfect on those same songs I feel like I have done a good job in passing on my enthusiasm.
Advent is a special time of the year too. Opening those doors on the calendar and seeing the pictures was always a massive part of the month for me. I prefer pictures to chocolates. There’s so much more simplicity and beauty to a different picture every day than there is to a piece of chocolate. I am not a huge fan of chocolate in any case, but when you eat it, it’s gone, whereas the picture is still there to look at. It was always special to open that last door on December 24 and know that you were just one day from the big day of the year.
Christmas Day itself can be fun, it can be stressful, it can be sad, but it’s a time to either celebrate or to get off the treadmill and attend to your own needs. Yes, those needs can involve shutting yourself away and trying to reconnect with who you are, but Christmas Day and Boxing Day, and New Year’s Eve can give you that opportunity. Even if you don’t like the festive season, you can take that once a year opportunity to take stock, either to count your blessings or to think of ways in which you might be able to improve things in the year ahead.
There is so much in this world that is bad and getting worse, but Christmas is a time when people around you seem to be more reasonable and more relaxed. Even commuting up to London as I did for 20 years in and around Christmas, you saw more smiles or at least fewer frowns as we all looked forward to the much needed break from work. Here, I want to pay tribute to those people who work during the Christmas season, keeping our hospitals running, keeping us safe and keeping others cared for when they are in mental or physical ill health.
Finally, it is the time of year when we think of others and we donate to charities more often than we do at other times. Any month that opens our hearts and our wallets so readily can’t be all bad, can it?
What is your favorite place to go in your city?
I live near Rochester, a city in Kent. Well, technically it’s not a city anymore, but that was due to administrative incompetence, a sadly common element of modern life. Anyway, it has a Cathedral so it is, in ecclesiastical terms, a city and has been for about 1400 years. I don’t have a favourite place to go in Rochester, but I definitely have a favourite time, Christmas! In a few weeks time, on the weekend of December 6 & 7 the Dickens Christmas Festival will be taking place. I genuinely cannot recommend it highly enough. I have been going to it for 20 years with only two breaks, one for Covid and one last year when it was cancelled at less than 24 hours notice due to a weather warning. As it turned out, the damaging winds didn’t happen so it didn’t have to be cancelled at all. Mind you, the local council in Medway are seemingly desperate to end the festival by any means possible, despite it bringing so much business and prestige. End of rant! For that reason you should get along to Rochester on the first weekend of December to experience one of the best festivals anywhere while you still can.
When you visit any new place you should get out at the first opportunity and explore on foot. Just look around on your first afternoon or evening and see what takes your fancy. Guides to a city are useful, as is the local knowledge of people who live there, but nothing beats walking round a corner and seeing something that takes your breath away. I have made so many of my favourite discoveries this way in cities around the world. This evening my wife and I will be in Salzburg for a few days and the first thing I want to do is to explore the old town and see what I want to do and to see during the visit. Yes, we have ideas for the holiday, with the Christmas Markets being the reason we are going this week, but I know that some of the things we do will be because we have seen something and visited it on a whim. Expect blog posts about the trip with recommendations, but don’t take too much notice of them. Explore for yourself and make the discoveries unique to you.
What’s the first impression you want to give people?
I discount the first impression that anyone gives, for the simple reason that it is almost certain to be heavily curated to show the particular side of that person that they feel is to their advantage. Perhaps it’s my innate distrust of human beings or the fact that I am on the Autistic Spectrum, but I don’t believe that what you see is what you get.
How many times have you met someone and thought they were very nice, only to find out that they are anything but? So many bosses fall into that category, but then again their whole job is about giving a selective impression of themselves or their company. On the other hand, how many times have you met someone and thought that you weren’t going to get on with them and then found out that they were completely different once you got to know the real person.
We all wear masks. The premise of the question acknowledges this. Often the mask hides a myriad of unpleasant characteristics because the person is all show. Sometimes the mask hides their many pleasant characteristics because they are nervous and they find fitting in immediately extremely difficult. Whatever the case, a first impression is basically useless, because it’s almost always going to be false. When you are on the Spectrum you often hide yourself behind a mask of passive or active fitting in with what you think people want.
If I learned one thing during 30 years of teaching it’s that you never see the real student before reading week (half term) at the earliest because they are settling in, learning the lie of the land and trying to suss out what kind of teacher you are. The students who are loud and apparently enthusiastic tend to be the ones whose behaviour deteriorates over time. The shy ones can either be studious and excellent or completely lost and it takes a while to find out. For that matter, they have never seen the real me before half term, because I don’t start off with any preconceived ideas and therefore I have a one size teaches all approach that I steadily adjust. I did, in general, know if I was going to like a class as a whole quite quickly, but even that instinct deserted me in the last couple of years as I got more tired and more jaded.
I don’t care what first impression I give to people or what first impression they give to me. What counts is the real person behind the mask.
What book are you reading right now?
There is no time of the year quite like Christmas. Those of us who celebrate it have our traditions, both personal and cultural, which mark the festive season. I have CDs I play, DVDs I watch and, books I read every year. My current book is always the one I start Christmas reading with in early or mid November. I first read it in 2010 so this is the 16th time I have read it. So what makes it such an integral part of my Christmas build up?
A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks
As the title suggests it is a novel set across one week from Sunday December 16 to Saturday December 22. It follows seven characters from a range of backgrounds whose lives intersect in a variety of ways. The subjects that the book covers include finance, the book industry, football, mental health and religious beliefs. Whatever the subject, Sebastian Faulks has a way of writing about it that gives it both a universal and a personal angle. The humour throughout the book frequently makes me smile and occasionally laugh out loud. The anger with human nature and the way that the world works is palpable and occasionally breathtaking in its intensity. Often the two combine to brilliant effect. However flawed the character is, Faulks has a sympathy for them and explains the situation that has led to their behaviour. The one exception to this is the greedy and ruthless John Veals who runs a hedge fund that is part of the financial system that, a year or so before this book was published, completely upended the world and plunged us into a situation that is still affecting us financially, politically and personally to this day. He is the epitome of everything that is bad in the world and the fact that he and his kind are in charge is something that Faulks reflects and bemoans.
Every year I read this I find a new appreciation for it. The satire is always current because human nature never changes and the institutions that controlled us then still control us now and make our lives worse. The sympathy for the characters reminds even someone like me that we are often victims of circumstance doing our best in life. The way that the writing moves apparently effortlessly from religion to finance to online games via law, psychology and genetics is quite incredible.
My favourite strand is the connection between Jenni Fortune, the tube driver and Gabriel Northwood the solicitor who is handling the case in which she is involved. In many ways I see Gabriel as the narrator of the novel as much as he is one of the main characters. He has a very good appreciation of the influences working on us all and explains them to Jenni as their relationship deepens.
If you have never read this, I can only recommend that you find a copy. You may not take to it, but if you do I really think it could become a favourite novel of yours as well.
David Pearce - Popular Culture and Personal Passions 