Which is the best thing to do in your city?
Rochester is a city which has a huge amount of history to boast of. The fact that it doesn’t seem to boast about it means that apart from festivals it isn’t necessarily a crowded city. It’s less than an hour from London and it’s just over an hour from the Kent coast. As such, it’s a great day trip for anyone in the UK’s biggest city or for someone who wants to get inland when the crowds arrive.
The Castle is a Norman construction dating from 1087, the year of the Domesday Book. Rochester Cathedral became an important seat of Christianity in 644 whilst the current building was built between 1079 and 1238. There are two main festivals during the year, Sweeps Festival during the first weekend of May and Dickens Christmas during the first weekend of December. As the second one suggests, Rochester and Charles Dickens are inextricably linked and a walk down the historic High Street will be fairly similar to the walks Dickens himself took 150 to 200 years ago. So, if you enjoy history, culture and a less frenetic pace of life, come to Rochester!
What super power do you wish you had and why?
I suppose all of us at one time or another have wished to have a super power of some sort. When you are younger it would be encouraged by watching films like Superman, in my younger years, or X Men for my children. It’s often the obvious fantasy of flying or becoming invisible, although with my fear of the former the latter was more likely! (To be honest I was never a fan of superhero films and that’s never changed. I have never seen a single film from the Marvel universe and I really don’t feel like I am missing out.) The reason for having a super power are very often selfish, immoral or criminal as those who have the societal equivalent these days of being richer than Midas prove day after day. Every mega rich person that I can think of has gone over to the dark side and become a scourge of mankind not a saviour.
So, what would be my super power and, more importantly, how and why would I use it? My super power would be an ability to help those who really need it. I would instinctively know what they required and how to make sure it happened. So, who would be the people who really needed my help? Aye, there’s the rub as Hamlet said. I would be completely responsible for deciding who to help and who not to. What would I use to help me decide? Social media perhaps, or following them in their daily lives to see if they were the right person for me to help. Both are worryingly easy these days with the Internet and CCTV but it would be down to me to use whatever evidence I found. Then, it would come down to personal prejudice. Would I help someone who disagreed with me on fundamental issues? Almost certainly not. What about if the help they needed would make a massive contribution to their local community by concentrating on those who society ignore? In that case, could I ignore their views? Well, who is to say that mine are better? What would happen if in helping others they also made themselves much richer? Would that change their basic nature over time with the human instinct to be selfish? All these questions would be taken into account and to be honest I don’t want to be the one to make those decisions. If it’s all the same to you I will leave the super powers to other people who are more self assured. However, more self assured people tend to be more dangerous in whatever field they work in so perhaps people like me would be better for the world. Who am I to make those decisions though? That brings us back to the start! On balance I am really glad that super powers are firmly in the realm of fantasy.
What’s a mystery from your own life that you’ve never solved?
There aren’t any obvious unanswered questions from my own life. Lots of what ifs like everyone else as you look back at different events but no family skeletons hanging in any cupboards! My great mystery is the greatest mystery of all. I have been a religious believer, an agnostic and an atheist at various times in my life. It’s something that I was totally convinced about in my teens and twenties and something I was sure was false in my thirties and really from then onwards. Losing my father just as I was going to Japan and then my best friend six months later ended my certainty and since then I have been variously a firm non believer and a questioning non believer.
I am fascinated by the programme Pilgrimage on the BBC, which is probably one of the best recurring series of the last 10 years. In that programme, people from different faiths and people without faith follow Pilgrim trails in different countries, learn about each other and reflect on their own beliefs. It is in depth, challenging and supportive and I always come away from the series questioning my own beliefs or lack thereof. I would be really interested in going on a retreat and may well do because I wonder if it’s in that setting that I might hear that still small voice of calm. I may not hear anything, but even if I don’t I know I will benefit hugely from leaving this increasingly unpleasant and unsettling world we live in behind even if it is just for a few days.
List the people you admire and look to for advice…
I only look to one person for advice, my wife. She is the only person who really knows me and what’s best for me. Anyone else who offers advice gets a polite nod and if I think it’s possibly useful I will consult Janet. Having a group of people who offer advice is confusing and unnecessary as far as I am concerned. I’m all for streamlining the process and by relying on one person for advice I can do that.
When I was younger I took advice from friends and family, and the result was a total mess! They were offering advice to me based on the person they thought I was rather than who I actually was because I was presenting a mask to society in order to try and fit in. The real person is really only known to my wife and that’s the way I intend it to stay. I don’t need advice from any other source and, in general, I don’t need friends in the way I did when I was younger. That’s just as well as life has caused us to drift apart and lose touch, except for Christmas cards in a few isolated cases, so maybe I am trying to make the best of the situation. It’s sometimes nice to reflect on times, places and people who I once knew, but I am aware that in probably 90% of cases they would be no more than sociable and polite if we were to meet up because we would, in all likelihood, mean very little to each other after such a long time apart.
To date I have looked back at the end of each month in this series ‘Life after full time work’. For my May entry, however, I will be looking forward. What lies ahead this year, and how might that shape my approach to this stage of my life?
Well, the first thing that lies ahead is my volunteering as a reading helper for Coram Beanstalk. After a necessarily in depth application, vetting and training period I am ready to make my first visit to the school that will be hosting me for at least the next year. I feel as though I will be a good fit for the role, but I can’t be sure until I am in situ delivering my sessions. I have experience of teaching roles that have proved difficult so I am aware of the signs to look for. At the moment though I am looking ahead in the expectation that this will become an important aspect of my life for the next few years.
This month I will also learn what lies ahead in terms of paid work. I am pretty much guaranteed work with the RCA but I don’t know when it might start and how many weeks it will be for. It’s always a slightly unsettling period because I am well aware that the paid work I do is what will give us the leeway to go on holiday or pay for home improvements or cover unexpected expenses. We can work within our limitations of one income, otherwise I would not have taken the decision I have, but whatever I can contribute will make life that bit more comfortable.
One thing I am going to have to work on is my attitude to this new stage of my life. I can’t shake off a lingering sense of not contributing to the household. Janet is always at pains to point out that I contribute in areas such as healthy cooking and making her time away from work more relaxing, but the capitalist imperative of money making as the be all and end all is very difficult to shake off. I know that I am probably more concerned with this element of my new lifestyle than I should be, and I know that to get the full value from my efforts to recalibrate I need to shake this off, but it’s going to be difficult. I am working on my physical health and using the Calm App to develop my ability to relax, reflect and react with mindfulness, but I can’t help feeling that to some extent these efforts are self indulgent. We would like to go on retreat at some point to allow me to be alone with my thoughts and to allow some element of spirituality back into my life. I feel that doing this would help me to put this period of adjustment into its proper perspective.
Another thing that I am trying to put into practice is a daily or weekly routine, something that volunteering and work will definitely help with in the short term. At the moment I am trying to impose this kind of routine on myself and to be frank it’s not working. Looking ahead I may try to be guided by my instincts a bit more, because I may be working against myself at the moment. The problem with a routine is that it’s a leftover from my previous life and it is not really compatible with my new life. It’s connected to the 40 plus years of life where the work that I have done has been guided by the job I am doing for someone else. Perhaps if I regard myself as my own employer and listen to what that employer wants from me I will be able to make more progress. It would mean accepting that some days will be less productive than others and that I need to be very aware of hints that my mind and body are giving me.
So, that’s where I am at present. It’s quite difficult to look ahead with so many imponderables, but look ahead I must. When I get caught in the day to day I find myself becoming discontented, disorientated and frustrated. When I look ahead I do so with trepidation, confusion and uncertainty. However, I am now convinced that it is only through working my way through all the doubts that I will truly make the most of what lies ahead. Wish me luck!
David Pearce - Popular Culture and Personal Passions 