You can't have failed to miss the latest desperate plea for attention from the deluded mind of the once great SPM, entitled A SOUL FOR SALE. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
Rol: I'm waiting for Morrissey's reply to my offer. £5.54 and a vegan pastie. Reckon I'm in with a shout.
Ben: I considered throwing a quid at him.
Ben: And a boiled egg sandwich.
Rol: Does a boiled egg sandwich trump a vegan pastie? Damn you for using your insider knowledge!
Ben: That's what they had to eat with him, wasn't it? I think I read an article a few years ago that he made them all eat only boiled egg sandwiches when they were touring the early years in the van. I think it was an interview with Rourke.And he was saying it smelt worse eating the sandwiches than the farts it would make them do.
The 'eaves' business email address has been switched off due to the colossal response to Morrissey's announcement of his wish to pass his "Smiths" interests over to an investor. Although Morrisseys' love for the songs of the Smiths era will never waver, he is tired of the disagreeable and vexatious characters involved in "The Smiths" business. After thirty-eight years of insults and abuse, Morrissey has had enough. All (or most) of the 'eaves' emails will be answered in time.
That's good. I await my reply.
In all seriousness though... those songs are priceless. Such a pity that the one man most desperate to tarnish their memory is their co-creator.
Often, when I'm forced to discuss this subject, I end up quoting the lyrics to Rubber Ring...
The passing of time and all of its crimes
Is making me sad again
The passing of time and all of its sickening crimes
Is making me sad again
But don't forget the songs that made you cry
And the songs that saved your life
Yes, you're older now and you're a clever swine
But they were the only ones who ever stood by you
Today though, this one seems far more appropriate...
Madness in (formerly) great ones must no unwatched go.
When I began the Celebrity Jukebox, it wasn't just for celebs who had passed away. Living legends were also featured. Nowadays though, it's just a place to celebrate those who have left us. Sadly, this means I now have to revisit this edition from 2022. Rest in peace, General...
“Kneel before Zod!”
For most of my generation, our first encounter with Terence
Stamp was as the evil General Zod in Superman II. The Grauniad called him “the
master of the brooding silence”, and he certainly sent shivers down my spine. Gene Hackman’s Lex Luthor was a pussycat in comparison.
I was surprised General Zod didn’t get referenced all over
the place, but only Eminem (who’s the same age as me) was prepared to kneel
before him.
Terence Stamp had been around for a couple of decades by the
time he played that memorable supervillain, making his screen debut in
the movie Billy Budd, an Oscar-nominated performance that obviously made some
impact on a young Steven Patrick Morrissey…
Morrissey also used an image of Stamp in The Collector as
the cover of the third Smiths single, What Difference Does It Make?
Stamp
originally refused permission for the picture to be used, but relented in the
end… possibly after he’d seen Morrissey’s alternative.
Pete Townshend from The Who has a younger brother called
Simon who has occasionally play with big bro’s band, as well as ploughing his
own lonely solo furrow. Here he is with a track called Highness, which begins
thus…
I am what I am
I just happen to be related to the king
…before named dropping Bowie, Eddie Vedder and Rod Stewart,
as well as… yes, you guessed it, Terence Stamp.
48 Cameras are described on their bandcamp page as “Collectif
international à géométrie variable”, which means they come from all over the
place, but mostly Belgium. This is from their 2006 release After All, Isn’t
Tango The Dance of the Drunk Man? It sounds like an orchestra tuning up to me, but what do I know? It's probably art.
There's a track on the new Manic Street Preachers album about Morrissey.
Dear Stephen, please come back to us
I believe in repentance and forgiveness
It's so easy to hate, it takes guts to be kind
To paraphrase one of your heartbreak lines
Songwriter Nicky Wire has gone to great pains in interviews to state that the song has nothing to do with Morrissey's controversial public persona these days, his nasty opinions that have driven away so many long-term fans.
I'm still ill, I'm cursed to stay
Under your spell for all my days
I'm still a prisoner to you and Larkin
Even as your history darkens
Wire claims, “The only moral judgement on this album tends to be about me...”
“The song is about many things and it’s multi-layered. It’s about me critically looking at my own reliance on the past – about why those years were so scorched onto me. It goes for a lot of people, to be honest, but being between 12 and 18, I don’t think I’ve ever shaken them off for the imprint they’ve had on my aesthetic appreciation of music, literature and film. It’s an investigation of that.
“The idea that I had this postcard off Morrissey as well that said, ‘Get well soon’ and I kept it, it was quite a worthless thing that I imbue with so much meaning. It’s about so many different things but mainly about not being able to get out of that, and the amazing comfort and joy it brings. It’s a love letter to my former self as much as it is everything else.”
Which is all very well, and I can see why Wire might want to tow this particular line in the press (particularly the NME), but it's blatantly obvious that there's another meaning to these lyrics, a meaning that goes beyond Wire's past and one that will touch the heart of lapsed Morrissey fans everywhere. Maybe not those who have cut him off completely, but those for whom his work meant so much in our earlier lives, that however we might want to hate the singer, we cannot hate the songs. I'm thinking of myself, of Martin, and of JC particularly here.
The passing of time and all of its sickening crimes
Earlier on in my blogging career, I spent many hours trying to defend Morrissey's slow descent into fascism as a mis-reading of his intentions. I was wrong, and I've got to own that now. But I still can't let those songs go, those songs that meant so much to me, that spoke to me like nobody else's ever have...
Yes, Nicky, songs are about many things and [they're] multi-layered. But this one is clearly saying what so many old Morrissey fans are thinking. Although the very fact that you steal a line from I Know It's Over suggests you know it's all just wishful thinking... too late, was the cry.
More songs and stories about teachers, by a teacher. School's back now after a far too short Easter holiday...
Thank you for your suggestions last week. Our resident Maths teacher reminded of this sweet ode to teachers from Reg Dwight. "I think it is probably very inappropriate," says George. I think, in this day and age, most songs about fancying your teacher would be cancelled... but isn't that just part of adolescence?
I was sitting in the classroom Trying to look intelligent In case the teacher looked at me She was long and she was lean She's a middle-aged dream And that lady means the whole world to me
Meanwhile, The Blogfather weighed with a suggestion based on an artist we both used to cherish... until we all had to cancel him. JC says...
As much as I can't abide what he's turned into, Morrissey did pen a mighty opus about the profession.....turns out some clever clogs has recently made a video marrying the song to very old clips of 'Grange Hill'. Thought it might be of particular interest to you, Rol.
Those old Grange Hill clips certainly bring back memories. How times have changed, eh? Then again, Morrissey's lyrics reflect that...
Say the wrong word to our children...
We'll have you, oh yes, we'll have you
Lay a hand on our children
And it's never too late to have you
Mucus on your collar
A nail up through the staff chair
A blade in your soap
And you cry into your pillow
To be finished would be a relief
Because here (or 1995, when this was written), it's the teachers he feels sorry for... whereas just ten years earlier, he wrote a very different song in which his sympathies lay far more squarely with the pupils.
Belligerent ghouls run Manchester schools
Spineless swines, cemented minds
Sir leads the troops, jealous of youth
Same old suit since 1962
He does the military two-step
Down the nape of my neck
I want to go home
I don't want to stay
Give up education
As a bad mistake
Mid-week on the playing fields
Sir thwacks you on the knees
Knees you in the groin, elbow in the face
Bruises bigger than dinner plates
Please excuse me from gym
I've got this terrible cold coming on
He grabs and devours, he kicks me in the showers
Kicks me in the showers and he grabs and devours
In 1985, I'd be 13, just starting my Second Year in High School. I'd grown up watching Grange Hill and was quite terrified of what to expect when I went to the big school, but as I arrived the winds of change were blowing. I remember an older kid getting the slipper when we were in the First Year, but that sort of thing had gone the way of the dinosaurs only a couple of years later. The schooldays Morrissey recalls in The Headmaster Ritual (and ones many of you may have been familiar with) were already on their way out by the time the album Meat Is Murder was released.
But just because things change... it doesn't necessarily mean they get better.
I've never been anti-American. I grew up on American culture - Spider-Man and Springsteen, Motown and Moonlighting. For much of my youth, I felt more American than I did British. And considering the sorry state of the UK at the moment, I don't believe we're in any state to judge.
This isn't an anti-American post then. It's just an anti-American idiots post. Because the lunatics appear to be taking over the asylum once more, and given recent events, nothing's going to bar their way. "God" help us all.
It's been a particularly busy week and I've been worrying about the fact that I didn't have a post ready for today. I know that's ridiculous. It's really not worth worrying about...
As a follow-up to yesterday's post about the power of boredom, here are some song titles in similar vein. As we've got Barbra Streisand socking it to Ryan O'Neal above, in the 1979 movie The Main Event, I thought we'd let Babs kick off proceedings today...
That one was written by the songwriting team of Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen who also wrote a bunch of classic Frank Sinatra hits including High Hopes, Come Fly With Me and the majestic All The Way. Nothing boring about those guys.
Still, at least Babs only finds love boring. These guys are bored with pretty much everything...
I always admire a title that spills over onto the next line. The Front Bottoms are from New Jersey. Iffypedia explains their name, in case you can't work it out for yourself. They also quote singer Brian Sella: "This is our name. If you don't like it then you don't like it."
Next we have Jason Lytle, with a song he presumably wrote about The Supreme Leader of North Korea...
Blimey. What a bunch of bores. Still, as the aforementioned Manchester miserablist turned dubiously-opinionated bore once had it...
What really lies Beyond the constraints of my mind? Could it be the sea With fate mooning back at me? No, it's just more lock-jawed pop-stars Thicker than pig-shit Nothing to convey They're so scared to show intelligence It might smear their lovely career
King Cnut could not hold back the tide, and I cannot hold back society's full-throttle descent into dystopia. All I can do is watch helplessly from the sidelines, and nod my head sagely when others hold a mirror up to the madness.
We live on top of a moor looking down on the picturesque Yorkshire town jumped-up village of Holmfirth. By the way, before I begin today's rant, I discovered my first Holmfirth song earlier this week...
I do like folk music, but that's probably a bit too folky even for me. And it makes the town village sound even more yokely than Last of the Summer Wine managed, which is going some. We are way more cosmopolitan than the Watersons give us credit for. The police were called to investigate a couple of weekends back because some Huddersfield gangster fired a gun outside one of the local hostile-ries. They shut the road for over 24 hours while forensic teams combed the area for a bullet. I'm not sure they found it, but they probably found lots of dog shit. Clearly we're less sedate than Chatteris...
Car crime's low, gun crime's lower, The town hall band CD, it's a grower, You never hear of folk getting knocked on the bonce, Although there was a drive by shouting once.
Who knew there could be so many songs relating to this particular kind of social irritant?
Do I need to add much more? We live up on top of a moor, and though the road that passes our house is just a link connecting two main roads, the boy racers still love to floor their pedals as they pass us by. I'll never understand this, or why your car needs more than one exhaust pipe, or why you prefer a car that rumbles like a jackhammer. If my car made that kind of noise, I'd be taking it to the garage.
Anyway, the purpose of this post isn't just to whinge about boy racers. It's to highlight another excellent song by Wolves of Glendale. Be warned, I will probably find any excuse to feature this band over the next few months. Those of you who feel that comedy and popular music should never mix, feel free to look away now. The rest of you... well, all I can add is that Louise generally has very little time for much of the music I feature on this blog, but she loves this. Then again, she hates boy racers even more than I do. Here's a tip - don't switch it off until it's well past the 90 second mark...
Oh, would some
Power the gift give us To see ourselves
as others see us! It would from many
a blunder free us, And foolish
notion: What airs in dress
and gait would leave us, And even devotion!
So ends one of Robert Burns' most famous poems (well, the English translation of it anyway, which I'm sure will horrify some of you), in which Burns writes about seeing a louse crawling on a woman’s bonnet in church. At first
he’s disgusted by the sight, though by the end of the poem he turns more
philosophical. If we could see ourselves through other people’s eyes, he argues,
we would lose all our pretensions and realise that no one person is better than
anybody else…
Nice idea, Rabbie, but many of us spend far too much time
worrying about how other people see us. Welcome to FOPO – Fear of Other People’s
Opinions. Here’s a for instance…
Someone I know – we’ll call him Tiberius – finds it hard to
make small talk with colleagues or discuss his life outside work. He can handle
more formal discussions about work-related matters in a relaxed fashion, making
jokes when appropriate, and generally feels like his opinion and experience is
valued in those circumstances. But when everyone starts chatting about what
they did last night, what they’re doing at the weekend, what they’re watching
on TV or what music they like… he clams up. If someone raises a topic he has an
opinion on – say they mention a TV show he’s actually watched or a band he has
some knowledge of – he’s not afraid to chip in. What he won’t do is set the agenda.
He won’t mention a show nobody else has been talking about, and he certainly
won’t tell them he’s been out to see Craig Finn or Lucinda Williams over the
weekend. (In case you’re wondering, Tiberius goes to a lot of the same gigs I
do. We don’t go together because, to be honest, I find him rather tedious company.)
Why won’t Tiberius tell his colleagues about the great time
he had watching Craig or Lucinda? Why would he rather pretend he’s done nothing
at the weekend? Why won’t he ask them if anybody’s watching the final series of
Curb or if they saw Fargo Season 5 – the best one yet? Well, only Tiberius
would be able to answer those questions for sure. But here are a couple of
suggestions…
1. Tiberius doesn’t feel that his own life would be of interest
to anybody else. (There’s a huge irony here in that Tiberius spends a great
deal of his time chronicling said life on a blog that very few people read – I’m
not linking to it, to spare you the agony. But he does that, he claims, purely
for his own mental health, and it’s a bonus if other people read it, though he
really can’t understand why they would.)
2. Tiberius does not wish to be judged by his own interests
or opinions. If he tells people he watches Curb, they might think he’s a sociopathic
misanthropist like Larry David. And mentioning any kind of musical interest
outside the mainstream is a certain way of finding yourself stereotyped or
pigeon-holed, labelled and tagged. You like country music, Tiberius? Yee-haw!
You like ROCK? Do… I… need… to… talk… more… slowly… so… you… understand? You
like Taylor Swift too? Sad old man desperately trying to cling onto his youth
by appearing hip? Bruce Springsteen? I never liked Born In The USA… too
jingoistic for me. No, expressing any kind of musical preference just opens one up to stereotyping, prejudice and general all-purpose ignorance… and the last
thing Tiberius wants is to get into an argument defending his tastes… because
that would just make him look touchy.
Why does Tiberius care what other people think? To answer
that question, I turned to our old friend Mr. Google, who directed me towards psychologist
Michael Gervais at The Harvard Business Review. Gervais has written a couple of
articles that jumped out at me, one called How
to Stop Worrying About What Other People Think of You and one called Stop
Basing Your Self-Worth on Other People’s Opinions. The first of those is a
bit too Inspirational for me – it concludes by suggesting we tackle self-esteem
issues by cultivating our own “personal philosophy” or mission statement… but
then, this is The Harvard Business Review, and Gervais’s clients do include “world
record holders, Olympians, internationally acclaimed artists and musicians,
MVPs from every major sport, and Fortune 100 CEOs”… so what do you expect? (Clearly he's overcome any of his own self-esteem issues a long time ago.)
Still, best
not to consult Dr. Gervais if you're a mediocre loser like Tiberius. His article did
however reiterate something we’ve discussed here before – how the monkey brain
fears being ostracized by the “tribe”.
Unfortunately, FOPO is part of
the human condition since we’re operating with an ancient brain. A craving for
social approval made our ancestors cautious and savvy; thousands of years ago,
if the responsibility for the failed hunt fell on your shoulders, your place in
the tribe could be threatened. The desire to fit in and the paralyzing fear of
being disliked undermine our ability to pursue the lives we want to create.
The second article was more enlightening, particularly when
it discussed the core principles of self-worth, and how everybody judges
themselves by a different yardstick. For some, academic prowess trumps everything
else. For others, it’s physical appearance. It could be financial stability or sporting
ability or just being a nice, caring person… we all have an internal barometer
of success, and they’re all attuned to a slightly different wavelength. Which,
when you think about it, makes seeing ourselves through other people’s eyes a
bit of a non-starter. Someone with an athletically-attuned mindset might look
at Tiberius and think, you’re getting a bit flabby, mate, isn’t it time you hit
the gym? But if that doesn’t match Tiberius’s own metric… he'd rather people thought he was a good writer and a genuine human being... so what’s the point in
even trying to make a comparison?
Other people's lives Seem more interesting 'cause they ain't mine
Gervais gets to the crux of the matter when he discusses “externalising
your self-worth”, in other words, trying to conform to other people’s metrics.
Externalizing our self-worth,
when it works, can yield short-term benefits. We get emotionally and chemically
rewarded when we succeed. Our hypothalamus produces dopamine, often referred to
as the feel-good neurotransmitter. Our self-esteem gets lifted, leaving us
feeling safe, secure, and superior.
But dependency on external validation
and social approval has a dark alter ego that reveals itself over time because
outsourcing our self-worth undermines the basic human needs of competence,
autonomy, and relatedness.
Woah. There’s quite a lot to unpack there. I fear we may
have to return to Tiberius next week…
Nothing too heavy or existential for our final Cynical Self-Help post of 2023, though it is about something our brain does, and I imagine it's something we all experience from time to time... probably with greater frequency as time goes by.
You go upstairs to get something from the bedroom. By the time you reach the bedroom, you can't recall for the life of you what it is you want or why you came upstairs in the first place.
It doesn't have to be upstairs - it can be as simple as going from the lounge into the kitchen. Or even opening the fridge door. Why did I come here? What did I want?
For a long time, I believed this frustrating phenomenon was the result of advancing years. Then again, considering that it's been happening for as long as I can remember (although, as we've just discussed, "as long as I can remember" is a relative term), I've long worried my years actually started advancing at a very early age.
Turns out it's nothing to do with old age at all though... it's what scientists call The Doorway Effect. A series of experiments by Gabriel A. Radvansky and David E. Copeland which commenced in 2006 concluded that...
Memory was worse after passing through a doorway than after walking the same distance within a single room.
One explanation for this effect is down to what neuroscientists call episodic memory...
Episodic memory involves the ability to learn, store, and retrieve information about unique personal experiences that occur in daily life. These memories typically include information about the time and place of an event, as well as detailed information about the event itself.
Simply put: if you have a thought in one room, then try to carry that thought to another room, it becomes harder to remember. You wouldn't have forgotten what it was you were looking for if you'd stayed in the room where you first realised you'd lost it. Of course, that causes something of an issue when it comes to looking for them...
Louise gets very frustrated when she asks me to do a job, or add an item to the shopping list, and the first thing I do is run for a notepad to write it down.
"Why can't you remember?"
At last - I have an answer to that question! But will I be able to remember it when I go downstairs to tell her?
Another potential explanation for the doorway effect involves a slightly more complex understanding of how our brains are organised. BBC Science expounds...
As we move through our days, our attention shifts between [different levels of thinking] – from our goals and ambitions, to plans and strategies, and to the lowest levels, our concrete actions.
That's a clumsy generalisation of the different levels of thinking, but the fact is that our brain switches effortlessly between these different levels throughout the day. That's why we can drive home some days without thinking about the journey (or the mechanical process of changing gear or swapping pedals) at all. Other days though, our thoughts might be dominated by those things - if traffic is bad or our car is making a strange noise.
The way our attention moves up and down the hierarchy of action is what allows us to carry out complex behaviours, stitching together a coherent plan over multiple moments, in multiple places or requiring multiple actions.
They liken this to the old metaphor of spinning plates... but every so often, a plate falls and we can't remember what we're doing or why we're doing it.
Our memories, even for our goals, are embedded in webs of associations. That can be the physical environment in which we form them, which is why revisiting our childhood home can bring back a flood of previously forgotten memories, or it can be the mental environment – the set of things we were just thinking about when that thing popped into mind.
The Doorway Effect occurs because we change both the physical and mental environments, moving to a different room and thinking about different things. That hastily thought up goal, which was probably only one plate among the many we’re trying to spin, gets forgotten when the context changes.
If you want to remember more - stay exactly where you are! (Sidebar: would I have done better in my GCSEs if I'd done all my revision in the hall where I eventually sat the exam?)
No. This is the frustration we feel when we leave a room after an argument or contentious conversation and - too late! - come up with the pithy reply or put-down we should have used at the time. I'm kicking myself I didn't say...
A fire officer came to visit our workplace last week. When he looked at our fire plan, he complained that it wasn't a procedure, it was just a series of actions. I wish I'd thought to hand him a dictionary and ask him to look up the actual definition of "procedure". Too late now...
The esteemed SWC over at No Badger Required asked members of his Musical Jury to vote for our favourite tracks of the year, and I made a somewhat botched effort to offer mine last Friday. Botched because I chose two tracks rather than one (fail) including one that I knew would go down like a lead balloon with the NBR readership (fail) and another track which actually came out last year (fail). It's a privilege to be invited to vote in the various polls and countdowns SWC hosts on his blog, but I always end up feeling like a fraud when I do so. This is a regular problem for me as a member of the music blogosophere. Whenever I'm aware that my own opinions don't match up to those of the cognoscenti (i.e. most of the time), I end up feeling like Wayne and Garth meeting Alice Cooper...
Another blogger who invites regular contributions from the 'sphere is our old pal John Medd. His Photo Challenge gets grander every month, and I'm always happy to send in an old snap or two... though I've never really worried about doing so. I don't consider myself a photographer, and I know very little about angles or composition or light sources, but if I can find a decent image that fits the brief: great. So I was rather surprised to read Khayem's comment this month...
I’ll confess to feelings of Imposter Syndrome - akin to Forest Green Rovers suddenly finding itself in the Premier League - but 2024 will undoubtedly inspire me to practice, practice, practice…
As with most of the other mental health issues I've written about in this series, there's a tendency to believe I'm the only one who experiences them... though the more I do this, the more I realise that's not the case. Healthline.com defines Imposter Syndrome thus...
Imposter syndrome, also called perceived fraudulence, involves feelings of self-doubt and personal incompetence that persist despite your education, experience, and accomplishments.
I wonder why I feel Imposter Syndrome when asked for a musical opinion... but not when asked to send in a photo? I guess music matters more to me... but it must also link to an issue I've discussed a couple of times recently: tribalism.
Imposter Syndrome doesn't just affect me online though.... I've felt this way throughout my entire working life. It's probably another thing that stopped me succeeding as a writer, but even when I worked in radio, I felt it. When I started out, I was presenting (hospital radio) and co-presenting (local radio). Confidence was never an issue when I was on air... off air though, it was a different story. I worried that my voice wasn't as good as other DJs, my Yorkshire accent was too strong, I'd never be good enough to present my own show.
Then, when I moved onto writing adverts, I was fine at coming up with ideas and presenting them to clients, but I always felt other people were better at it than me, and I'd never be good enough to work at a proper ad agency (not that I wanted to as I was pretty certain they were full of wankers... but still, wankers who were better paid and more respected than I was). When I was made redundant, I briefly tried to set myself up as a self-employed copywriter, but nothing came of it.
Verywellmind.com gives the following as a good example of Imposter Syndrome...
You've started your own business; however, you don't like to promote yourself because you don't have the same level of experience or expertise as others in your field, making you feel like a fraud.
And so I retrained as a teacher, with the saying "Those who can, do..." echoing through my mind. I got a job at a college very easily. And I progressed up the ladder quickly. After only a few years, I was a Course Leader, in charge of English for the entire cohort of over 1000 GCSE resit students. How the hell did I get there? Who on earth thought I was capable of doing that job? I spent my entire time looking over my shoulder, certain I'd be found out any second. The only thing that prevented that from happening was a dawning realisation that most of the people above me were even more incompetent than I was. They were imposters too! Except they didn't seem to realise it... or just didn't care. There are lots of people who bullshit their way to the top and don't worry about it for a second. "Fake it till you make it!" they cry, relishing the trick they're getting away with. Oh, to be one of them...
Two years ago, I started my new job, and there were no more course leader or line manager responsibilities... I was just a teacher. I've written before about how blessed I feel to have got this job, but the Imposter Syndrome hasn't gone away. For one thing, most of my colleagues are former school teachers. Not second-rate college teachers. These guys really have survived the trenches!
Actually... I've heard some horror stories about what it's like to work in certain schools these days, but being a college teacher was certainly going the same way... for far less pay. That doesn't stop me feeling like a fraud working alongside "proper" teachers now, even though nobody here makes me feel that way at all. Is it all just in my head?
Work, relationships, being a parent... even being out in society, going to the shops, driving down the road... there's not one area of my life where I don't feel like a phoney. Like everyone else is doing a better job of it than me.
The online experts claim that Imposter Syndrome is linked to all kinds of other mental health matters, including perfectionism, lack of self-esteem and over-responsibility. To find out if you're a victim of Imposter Syndrome, Very Well Mind suggests asking yourself the following questions...
Do you agonize over even the smallest mistakes or flaws in your work?
Am I a pedant? Yes.
Do you attribute your success to luck or outside factors?
Absolutely. I also attribute my lack of success in certain endeavours to bad luck... but also my own incompetence. (I recognise that many people who are successful don't really deserve it - but that just adds feelings of jealousy and resentment to my self-recriminations.)
Are you sensitive to even constructive criticism?
What are you saying?
Do you feel like you will inevitably be found out as a phoney?
Inevitably.
Do you downplay your own expertise, even in areas where you are genuinely more skilled than others?
This really is the worst music blog on the internet. I don't know why you bother reading it.
Well, some days life feels like a play that you have not rehearsed But one thing's true of all of us sharing this universe Is we could all be doing better and we could all be doing worse And everyone you know feels like a fraud
So what can we imposters do to feel better about ourselves? Healthline advises...
Sharing imposter feelings can help them feel less overwhelming.
Hence, this post.
Opening up to peers about how you feel encourages them to do the same, helping you realize you aren’t the only one who feels like an imposter.
Well, there's me and Khayem, at least.
Avoid comparing yourself to others.
Sorry, K.
You may not excel in every task you attempt, but you don’t have to, either. Almost no one can “do it all.” Even when it seems like someone has everything under control, you may not know the full story.
One of Louise's friends told her recently that she didn't know anyone who wasn't either on some kind of mental health medication, taking part in some form of counselling, or on the verge of a break-up. Maybe a lot of people are just better at hiding it?
When imposter feelings surface, ask yourself whether any actual facts support these beliefs. Then, look for pieces of evidence to counter them.
Hmm. Now it's getting trickier...
Offering yourself kindness and compassion instead of judgment and self-doubt can help you maintain a realistic perspective and motivate you to pursue healthy self-growth.
Yes, yes... but can we really change the habits of a lifetime?
I honestly thought this was going to be one of those retro posts of the "Do you remember Tizer?" variety. I mean, I haven't drunk fizzy pop for a long time, so I guess I'm out of the loop, but surely they don't still make Tizer?!?
Turns out they do. And according to iffypedia, all attempts to make it slightly healthier, less sickeningly sweet and artificial, have been failures. In 2007, they tried to add real fruit juice and remove all the fake flavourings, colourings and sweeteners, but the relaunch bombed and they went back to the original. A similar attempt to launch Diet Tizer fell on deaf tastebuds, despite the bus shelter adverts that used a funhouse mirror to make you look thinner. Just when I thought the advertising industry had sunk as low as it's possible to go...
That said, I did approve of the earlier 80s slogan: "You Can Tell It's Tizer When Your Eyes Are Shut". Yeah, because it's bloody awful.
Anyway, despite all this, there are a bunch of great tunes that mentioned "Tizer the Appetizer"... so let's crack on with them shall we? And who better to launch our celebration of this Great British pop than Steven Patrick himself...
I know a lot of people didn't appreciate Morrissey's stand-up routine when Kill Uncle was released in 1991, but looking back, those were the glory days when he still had a sense of humour.
Next, a rather obscure little number from Mr. MacManus, taken from the soundtrack of a 1983 British comedy movie of the same name. Long time since I've heard this...
The last thing I remember I was talking to some fellas
Then she said she'd have a word for me with her good-looking mate
And handed me a pint-pot filled with Advocate and Tizer
And I woke in the flowerbeds of fear and fertilizer
Apparently, Grace were a "neo-progressive rock band" from the mid 90s. I have no memory of them, and Discogs was no help in sifting them out from hundreds of other Graces, but here they are anyway...
And that would have been the winner, were it not for the irresistible combination of David Gedge and comedian Sean Hughes on this wonderful Cinerama tune...
I don't remember when we first met. She was just always there, small and meek, a sly curl about her lips that drew me in. We spent the Summer days in an orange tent in the garden, feeling dizzy in the heat, drinking warm Tizer. Then one day a rush of flying ants flushed us out, blinking into the sunlight, swarming around us as we ran. We tried to lose ourselves in the woods, shutting our eyes and bumping into trees, smelling the wild garlic underfoot. But she always knew the way. Maybe she cheated, but I just thought she was smarter than me.
At the end of my last Cynical Self-Help post, I'd just stumbled onto Cognitive Defusion. This is something I'd seen mentioned in a number of the books and websites I've been cynically surveying, I just hadn't come across that exact name before.
Defusion is a skill or technique that is primarily used to detach, separate, or get some distance from our thoughts and emotions.
Basically, it means if one day you wake up thinking, "I'm a bit rubbish at this thing called life, aren't I?", the way to address is is by recognising that what you're thinking is just a thought. It's not about arguing with the thought, "hey, don't be silly, you're great and you know it!" It's very important that I emphasise that right at the start, because we all know that when you're feeling crap, trying to tell yourself you're not really crap (or, even worse, having someone else tell you you're not really crap) is the worst thing you can do. Let's look at an example of what I'm talking about from the world of popular song...
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?
If I were Beck, I would use defusion like so...
"I see I'm having a thought about being a loser. Thanks for that, brain."
What I would not say is...
"Hey, don't be silly, Beck. You're not a loser. You've had hit records, you've got lovely hair... you even know some Spanish!"
Defusion isn't about arguing with your brain. It's about recognising that thoughts are just that, thereby giving yourself some distance from them.
Let's practice some defusion techniques with a few more insecure pop stars...
Never win first place, I don't support the team
I can't take direction, and my socks are never clean
Teachers dated me, my parents hated me
I was always in a fight, 'cause I can't do nothing right
Thank you, Thom. Your brain's contribution is most welcome.
Apparently it helps if we are sarcastic or take the piss out of our negative thoughts; again - not to argue with them, just to help us see them as little blobs of brain energy that are no more real than daydreaming about becoming an astronaut or marrying Kate Winslet.
Yeah, but you've only got yourself to blame for that, haven't you, Moz?
Sorry, that last one wasn't defusion. Just the truth. There's no helping some people.
Defusion as a technique isn't only suggested for tackling negative thoughts of the self-loathing variety, but any unpleasant thoughts, feelings or sensations that plague us.
That's it, David, you're noticing the sensation and you're questioning it. Good use of defusion right there.
Getselfhelp.co.uk suggests using metaphors to help you recognise that your thoughts are just thoughts. As an English teacher, I whole-heartedly approve. Here's a couple of examples...
Thoughts are just like trains that pass through our heads. We don't have to get on board any of those trains. We can just stand on the platform and watch them pass. Even trains that dawdle around the station, you know that eventually they'll move on. If a train approached the platform that looked unsafe or scary, or the driver looked like a complete and utter psycho, we wouldn't get on board if it were a real station. So we don't have to get on board any of these freaky, disturbing thought trains either. We can just wave at them and let them go.
We learned a long time ago that we can't control the weather. If it's chucking it down, we just have to wait for it to stop. Or if we know the rain's coming, we can prepare ourselves. Put on a big coat, grab an umbrella. And we can also have a good moan about it too. Actually, having a moan about the weather does really help, because when we do, other people generally agree with us and moan back, and we realise we're not alone and everybody gets pissed off by it. (And it's not just the rain - just wait for it to get too hot, then the whinging really starts!) It's actually much easier for us to talk about the weather than it is the thunderstorms and heatwaves in our brain... but the result is usually the same if we start talking about those as well.
Since I started writing this series, I've found it heartening that so many people have shared comments that show they think or feel the same way I do. Although (as I've said before), that's not why I'm doing this. I'm doing it because reading the books isn't enough for me to learn, I need to write it out in my own words, convert it into my own language, process it, understand it, know it well enough that I can put it into practice. But also to challenge it, from a lifelong cynic's perspective. Although I am finding it easier to not be so cynical, the more I do this. Those metaphors above, I might well have turned my nose up at them a couple of years back, or dismissed them with a haughty laugh. Now though, I actually find them useful. It's a slow process, but maybe I am finally starting to train my brain to think differently. We'll see...
Now that we are lonely
Life seems to get hard
Alone: what a word lonely
Alone: it makes me cry
Thought-train set in motion
Wheels in and around
Express our emotion
Tracks up then it cracks down
We've been running round in our present state
Hoping help will come from above
But even angels there make the same mistakes in love
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