Welcome to International Noise Awareness Day, a day which seeks to highlight the detrimental effects of living in a noisy place. Now obviously, I like a bit of noise from time to time, but just imagine if every second of every day sounded like a mash-up of these...
Sometimes, you just need a bit of peace and quiet, yeah?
Loud environments don’t just overwhelm the ears. They can raise blood pressure, disturb sleep, and even slow down how well children learn. Many studies warn that constant noise wears down both the body and mind.
Today then is a day to turn the volume down and enjoy something a little gentler on the ears...
Continued from yesterday's post... when I was about 16 or 17, I was invited to join an APA. I had no idea what an APA was and the internet wasn't around to explain like it is nowadays.
"An amateur press association is a group of people who produce individual pages or zines that are sent to a Central Mailer for collation and distribution to all members of the group."
Initially I was just writing individual pages for a zine called Comic Critics Cavalcade, in which letter-hacks from all over the world could share their thoughts on new or old comics or the changing face of the industry.
After a year or two doing that, I was allowed into the inner circle: Inertron, an APA in which a small group of British comic fans made their own zines every couple of months, photocopied a batch, and sent them off to a central mailer for distribution to the rest of the group.
A week or so later, we'd receive a huge parcel containing every else's zines which we then read and commented on. Some of those zines were huge (for anyone who thinks writing this blog must be a time-consuming affair, it's nothing to the amount of time involved in being part of an APA). Yet it was also a lot of geeky fun... otherwise else why did we spend so much time on it?
Not everyone involved was a teenager like me - some of the other contributors were in their 20s, 30s or even older... but nobody thought there was anything odd about that. We were united by our shared love of comics... but also, films, music, TV shows, and life as we knew it. Nobody agreed on everything, but nobody violently disagreed either. We were interested, rather than angry, when someone liked different things to us. Being a part of that group was a natural precursor to the blogosphere - or this comfortable little corner of the blogosphere anyway.
I recently found all my old APAs up in my mum's attic, and I'm in the process of scanning them to digital files for posterity. Below is the cover to the first issue of my zine Rock n Roll, named after the sign off line I used for all my fan letters. At the top of the post is a cover from a later edition. Even though this was an APA for comics fans, we could write about whatever we wanted in our own zines, so music was a big part of my witterings even back then.
Until I found that dusty old box up in mum's attic, I hadn't thought about my time in the APA group for maybe a quarter of a century. I'm not sure why it stopped, but I suspect it was partly that the internet took over. I did find myself quite active in online comics groups from the mid-late 90s, and I suspect quite a few of my fellow APA-ers made a similar leap. I was also spending more and more time producing my own comics by then (not to mention completing my English degree and working in radio) so something had to give. I miss the creativity and community of it all, but other things came along to fill that hole... like writing this blog. I guess I've always felt the need to put my thoughts down and have them read by others, all that's changed is the medium.
In the Cheese Pavilion and the only noise I hear
Is the sound of someone stacking chairs
And mopping up spilt beer
And someone asking questions and basking in the light
Of the fifteen fame filled minutes of the fanzine writer
Snapshots invites you to a Caribbean beach today, all expenses paid. I figured Barry Bloom and the Gibson Brothers would give this week's link away, but I had to avoid the really obvious songs...
(Although I'm fascinated by that last one, particularly the snazzy grey sweater that Billy wears in the video which appears to have a rip in the shoulder. Couldn't someone have bought him a new one for the shoot?)
10. Classical superhero meets Alex The Frozen Chimp in top gear.
I hate dealing with car repairs and mechanics. I always feel
like they’re going to be patronising, supercilious and out to rip me off every
chance they get. Unfortunately, due to the amount of mileage I do these days,
my dealings with car repair “specialists” have increased… and any such
encounter I can drive away from without a hole in my pocket or a bigger hole in
my ego gives me cause for cheer. Actual turn up the radio, thump the steering
wheel, whoop for joy jubilation. Survived another one! Got out with my wallet
and my dignity (mostly) intact!
There were bad times when my tank was running dry And my machine couldn't shift into its gears And on cold days it would stall So I almost junked it all
In her book Don’t Feed The Monkey Mind, Jennifer Shannon
identifies three “assumptions” which our stressed out amygdala loves to
accentuate. Last week I talked about Fear of Uncertainty… this week: Perfectionism.
I don’t think of myself as a perfectionist. I'm too lazy. Of Dr. Shannon’s three
assumptions, this was the one I'd almost ruled out from the start. Until I read
the chapter and realised that perfectionism goes hand in hand with something else
which I am extremely familiar with: fear of failure. The expert explains…
While others find motivation from challenge, a higher
purpose, a promised prize, or simply the joy of doing the thing itself, if you
are a perfectionist, your motivation is fear of failing. Your mantra is: don’t screw it up! Only when you’ve
completed the social interaction or task without making any mistakes will you
be able to relax.
This explains the whoop of joy I let out on escaping the maw
of the mechanic, unscathed.
This also explains why I never asked a girl out in my teens,
and only really stumbled into relationships in my 20s when the green light was
showing and the welcome mat was thrown at my feet.
As I’ve grown older, I have learned to take more risks, step
outside my comfort zone, force myself to flirt with danger if the prize was really
worth having. That’s how I managed to get out of my old job… but I had to be
backed into a corner by the firing squad to do it.
And this is the place where failure goes If your dreams won't die This is where all your hopes survive If they're not a lie This is where all the might-have-beens Triumph and forgive This is where all the star-crossed loves Have the chance to live
Perfectionists hedge their bets, only doing things they know
they’ll be good at. If you do get saddled with something you aren’t good at,
you may just put it off until the last minute, where you’ll have an excuse –
not enough time – to be less than perfect.
The argument goes that really successful people achieve
their goals because they’re unafraid of failure. They fall off the horse... then they get back on and try again. Eventually they get where they want to be. I’ve often argued
that the reason I didn’t make it as a professional writer is that I didn’t push myself enough. Every rejection letter was a kick in the teeth. Many of
my contemporaries who did succeed in that field lost all their teeth but just
kept growing new ones. I don’t believe they were better writers than me. They
were just better at recovering from a kicking, or as Jennifer Shannon puts it…
…relatively few high achievers expect perfectionism from
themselves.
Just everyday problems Find a way of bringin' you down But if you want it bad enough Find a way of turning it around You find a way of turning it around
There's one thing that'll beat failing That's trying If anybody tells you different They gotta be lying
A former colleague (notably more successful than me
in most aspects of her life, but also a major screw-up in certain areas) used
to swear by a popular self-help book of the late 80s / early 90s called Feel
The Fear & Do It Anyway. She adopted the book’s title as her mantra and it
appeared to serve her well. Cynical moi used to pour scorn on the very notion,
but the more I read about the way our brain works against us, the more I’m
coming to accept the wisdom in that mantra.
Oh baby, here comes the fear again, oh-oh The end is near again, oh-oh A monkey's built a house on your back You can't get anyone to come in the sack And here comes another panic attack, oh Here we go again
When we allow for some risk, we give ourselves more choices
and we prepare ourselves for when things go wrong. If we deny ourselves the
privilege of being wrong or failing, we’ll be unable to take the risks that are
necessary for meeting our personal goals. This is why, in addition to anxiety,
perfectionism is associated with depression, procrastination, addiction and low
self-esteem.
Failure hurts though. It’s not just a metaphorical kicking,
it can feel as painful, as brutal, as any physical assault. I remember when I
was applying for my current job. There was a moment when an obstacle was placed
in my way which seemed insurmountable. All the hope I’d placed in this one
opportunity, this lifeline escape from the mental misery of The Bad Place… and
now it looked like it was all a pipe dream. I actually collapsed on the floor
like I’d been punched in the stomach. I remember sitting there in abject
despair… feeling actual physical pain.
Somehow though, I managed to pick myself up and try to find
a solution. I still don’t know where I found that impetus. It doesn’t come
naturally. Maybe for some people, you only get it when you hit rock bottom.
Welcome, Planet Earth, I know you're Hungry Like The Wold for this week's answers... ahem, I honestly didn't set out to make this Duran Duran weekend on Saturday Snapshots, but when I found photos of both Simon Le Bon Bon and Nick Toady Rhodes with cameras, I thought I may as well get them both out of the way in the same weekend rather than inflicting them on you two weeks running.
Suppress your gag Reflex... here come the answers. It was neck and neck yesterday morning between Walter and Rigid Digit - I think RD just scooped the prize.
10. Wake up feeling tearful, with two spoonfuls of sugar.
This is just one of those things you put down to experience...
That's one I remember having to play quite a lot on The Love Zone!
7. Conductor of P.E.
Tough one if you didn't know it... which I guess a lot of people don't. Pretty straightforward clue if you do know the artist though... well done to Lynchie for the late save!
