It’s 6am, and I can’t sleep. I have a growing pain in my right side (which I suspect is not a good thing), so I’m up and wanted to put some thoughts down about what I now think is important, having gone through quite a lot in the last 5 months (and indeed to a degree, nearly a year of what’s been happening overall). I think my priorities have changed a lot (or more accurately become clear) and I just wanted to get some thoughts down here. I have no idea if they are relevant to anyone reading this, and I’m sure there’s no such thing as a totally universal priority. But here’s some things that I think now:
Important Things
- Relationships. This is not solely romantic “relationships” but that with those around you – everyone. This has been difficult to maintain in the last 5 months for obvious reasons, but has thrown them into sharp relief. They are important. I spent a lot of my 20s being lonely. I didn’t realise it at the time, but I was pretty lonely and profoundly sad at the time. I had friends, but didn’t really get on with them at the right level, and shared activities with them rather than time and feelings. But there was more to it than that. I was in a long term on-off messy relationship which stopped me from growing (and possibly did the same with the other person), and certainly stopped me connecting fully with the world around me and doing new things. It took a lot to break from that and be on my own, and pure luck to change friend groups to one where I did fit in (after a sense!) and was free to be myself, and enjoy the things I wanted to. This has been foundational in coming to the place where I am today – somewhere that while I know my health is at its lowest ebb and will go lower, but where I am accepted and loved. I would never have been in a position to start my relationship with T without that base. And that relationship is the most important thing in my life – we have grown together and I know that I would not be here right now if it wasn’t for her (in so many ways that I can’t express remotely adequately), but literally practically as well. I simply would not be alive today. My relationship with my kids falls into the same category. This is a terrible experience for them to go through, but I hope that something good can come out of it for them in terms of resilience, and I hope they see that I’ve tried to be some kind of positive role model in their lives. I saw glimpses of that with Bel and Eddie putting the tent away the other day, and it made my heart shine with pride.
- Honesty. I think this is fundamental. It’s a difficult thing to pin down well – probably integrity rather than honesty is closer to it. Being yourself is important, but at the same time, if you’re an asshole (and I definitely used to be one) then maybe it’s time to change. And doing that is difficult. To see the impact that your behaviour can have on others can be impossible if you’re not looking at it, but to examine it and change takes honesty and integrity.
There’s a line from a Dire Straights song which I often quote – “When you point your finger ‘cos your plan fell through, there’s three more fingers, pointing back at you”. And while it seems quite trite to think of that sometimes, it’s often been true. I hope less so in my later years, but I was a very angry child (I had a horrible relationship with my father which fortunately ended before it could do more damage to either of us), and carried this with me along with loneliness throughout my 20s. I’d been told by some people that I was “scary” and part of me liked that – even though I knew it drove people away. I had a defensive shell that would protect me from horrible situations, and my ideal thought would be to be a xenomorph (from Alien) who was just incapable of being hurt. It wasn’t just a fancy dress dream (that I’ve just realised I won’t fulful!)
It was only when I realised that maybe I was part of the problem that I also became part of the solution. The more time I spent reading books around this area, the better my life has become (and a lot of that has only been the past few years, on something I will hopefully brain-dump on another post).
Part of this has being being honest in everyday dealings (I wasn’t a liar etc, but I definitely distorted the truth sometimes), which has led on to trying to retain integrity as much as possible - Helping other People. This sounds properly ‘worthy’, but I’ve realised looking back that the more I have helped other people with whatever skills or time I may have available, has been repaid many times over. It’s odd – it’s almost as if it’s a selfish act when written down like this, but I’m not in a position to have created a new hospital ward or something like that, but each time you do something nice for someone (that you could have avoided easily socially), I feel that I get as much out of it as they do. I don’t really know what the score is between the two (I’ve not done a survey), but it’s definitely made a big difference being kind.
This is something which I remember very much from a single day helping some people from T’s church in Littlemoor, clearing someone’s house and making it better for them. It gave a profound sense of wellbeing and having improved the world on that day. But it’s also the reason why I started my YT channel for music technology as I felt I could give tuition for free to people. Yes, it did earn me some money, but that was never the reason for doing it. During lockdown, doing daily ‘learn a bit of Cubase from scratch’ videos helped people around the world and me as well. I managed to keep my integrity intact while doing this as I’d been offered (only a few, but still, a few) things to review, and never changed my opinion because people were offering me the software for free as part of the deal. Indeed the most popular one was probably the most controversial as I didn’t give a positive view of much of what others had been hailing as amazing.
There are lots of ways of doing this in little ways, and I think one is thanking people for doing a good job. The workers in the NHS (particularly who I’m dealing with now) work long, hard hours, often dealing with difficult situations (after all, everyone they see is ill!), and I’m sure some go without any thanks for doing what they’re doing for days on end. So I’ve tried to ensure that I thank people for doing a good job (such as when a phlebotomist takes blood and I’ve not felt a thing!). Remember, everyone else is a human and needs connection and love. - Teaching. While I’ve made a living from teaching, the main ‘living’ I’ve made from it is the internal feeling when someone ‘gets it’. I did not have a good experience at school – my school was actually terrible when I look back at it – and I think this led me to try to be a teacher, ultimately. Not because I think I’m the most knowledgeable in my field, but because I want to convey it well and not just leave those behind who are struggling to get it at the first attempt. It took me 5 goes to ‘get’ calculus (and I still don’t get, get it).
And programming is the best outline of this struggle for me. When I was a kit I wanted to be the next Matthew Smith (the guy who created Manic Miner, probably still my favourite game of all time).
So I got OK at learning BASIC from the BBC Manual – I lapped this up at about age 12. Then I wrote programs for my ZX Spectrum in BASIC. And they were OK, but not what I wanted to be doing. So I got the book that I knew Matthew Smith had recommended – “Programming the Z80” by Rodnay Zaks. The cover of that book still elicits some strong emotion in me. I was out of my depth and didn’t get any help at school (for some reason, at school, the computers were thought of at that time for those who were bad at maths, which I wasn’t, so I didn’t get anywhere). I gave up in frustration until I was doing my apprenticeship and at Weymouth College on day release doing PASCAL. I was good at it…. and again hit a brick wall. Left it for another 10 years until I thought I’d try some Windows programming (Visual Basic, IIRC). Same deal again – no support structure, got very frustrated, blamed myself, and yes… gave up again. Tried again in the early 2010s with nothing doing. It must be me that is stupid – everyone else can do this is what I thought. But I knew that computers and programming were fundamental skills that I thought the kids should have affinity with, and to that end I (slightly projected!) this onto Sennen and Eddie – neither of whom are really interested (and I don’t blame them as creating ‘the cat sat on the mat’ when you’re playing games in 3d that are from another planet in comparison would hold no interest!).
But I did this by trying again, this time with Python. And this time…. I got it. Not totally, and not everything, but things started to make sense. There were more resources available for people who wanted to learn on their own, and this meant I could see that while I was never going to be a genius, I could make things that could work. This led me to become more confident in creating little toy programs, which then had real impact. The artwork that’s behing us here (an image of Bel when she was a baby) was created using a program I wrote (incredibly badly!) which knew what shade of keys we had and I made a matching algorithm to get the best use of key colours and create a ‘pattern’ to stitch together. I’ve always known that having a goal to achieve is the way to gain new skills and this was the first example where this was really the case for me, getting an end result. I don’t have the code (it was actually done in processing, not python), but this ultimately led on to me learning python in a more formal manner and finally becoming a video tutor at Real Python – something which I did for years, learned an immense amount doing, and miss terribly. One of the things I have been able to do since January has been programming, and I have created things which have tried to give a ‘legacy’ of me, while distracting me from what’s going on.
I could tell a very similar story about learning the guitar – the two are remarkably parallel. I got to a point where I was a pretty good player at my peak. Not the greatest by any mark, but a decent player who had a few moments of real fluency. But it would be the same story of reach level, try to go further, fail, point the fingers at my stupidity and give up (sometimes for years), and then get drawn back in. Anger and self-doubt can be massively damaging, and not knowing how to work around them (and see true limits rather than self-imposed ones) caused a lot of this. If I knew when I was 20 what I did now, I think I could have become a really good player – and it wasn’t because of lack of effort and dedication, trust me. - Experiences. I’ve known this for years. Sharing experiences with those you love is important. We took many family holidays together (all done on a shoestring), and have seen some amazing things. We’ve been to places we don’t really belong (how many people do you know who’ve driven a Trafic with 4 kids and a trailer tent round the Monaco GP course as closely as possible?), but they are the things that have been strongest in the mind. As some of you know, I always wanted to do rally driving, and have done it in my own small way in as big a way as possible (doing Rally GB in a Skoda 4 times in total). This experience made my friendship with Paul much closer than it ever would be, as we went through highs and lows together, and I learnt huge amounts from him during this – his philosophy when we broke down and didn’t finish in 2007 said it all:
“It could be a lot worse. We could be upside down in a ditch”
This was after months of hard work getting the car ready and a load of money put in. But it made perfect sense, and I’ve quoted it many times. He said it on the spot when we were over time and not going any further.
I spent a fortune on rallying. If I’d saved it all up I probably could have bought a really nice car (or three!) and played it safe. But I wouldn’t trade that for those experiences, and the same goes for the family holidays we’ve taken together or the times I’ve been away with T. They are with me right now all the time in my head in a good way. One of the things I’d hoped to to again was the London-Brighton EV rally (as EVs are something I am passionate about), but that’s this weekend and I will not be up to it. But we did it last year (T and me in one car, Paul in his), and again, the things that happened during it were great. “Location Failure” is a phrase that only Paul and I share, but we know what it is and what it references, and it throws us back to that last night of the event in Geneva, having achieved what many would say was ‘impossible’ in an electric shopping cart.
What is not important.
- Tech and stuff. This will sound quite odd, but about 2 years ago I started to really be concerned about the health of my heart (a lifelong thing from my dad’s side of the family which I have had phases of obsession with).
This (and other tech landscape changes which I shall not bore you with) led me to get an Apple Watch and iPhone. And I love it. I’d started using a macbook years before (when getting into python, I bought a cheap Air off gumtree and was off and running with it), and it all just worked. No discussion needed if you think Apple is overpriced (yes, in many ways), walled garden (if you want a real rabbit hole to get into, take a look into the underlying infrastructure in terms of chips and NDAs and so on for all modern tech, mobile phones in particular) – all of those criticisms stand. And I know I am fortunate to be able to afford them (the watch was a belated 50th present from T as the pandemic killed our original plans which then just stalled).
I thought somehow this would keep me safe. And of course it would do in many normal circumstances. I liked the gamification of health and it kept me honest. I got fittter. If I felt I was having a ‘moment’ with my heart, I could do a self-ECG (I know it’s not medically fully valid), and if I was over-doing it heart rate wise I would know about it. It gave me so much – I really enjoyed it until I became ill as I am now.
But none of this will save you, ultimately. I feel kind of stupid for thinking it, but I thought I had a protective bubble around me that would mean the thing I was most concerned about (my heart health) was OK. And it was. But of course, it can’t protect you from everything, and I could have done all of this with discipline and a £5 HRM from Lidl!
Most tech guy ever? Steve Jobs. Tech didn’t save him. And I’d argue belief in ‘woo’ killed him. He underwent Whipple’s (same surgery as me) but only after a period where believing that diet change alone would save him. And he had a liver transplant (which was not an option for me due to my cancer being significantly more aggressive). I find reading his wikipedia page on this difficult, for obvious reasons, and I’ll leave it there. - Money (above a certain amount!). Once again, I have been fortunate here, as in particular the immense generosity of those around me since my diagnosis and that I have passive income from the books I’ve written means that I have not had to make very difficult decisions that others can face every day in a similar situation (or indeed even without it). Don’t get me wrong, I’ve sold stuff that I no longer needed, and that money has gone towards making sure we are doing OK, but at the same time, no amount of extra money would have done anything worthwhile in terms of quality of life. There’s an old saying from Charles Dickens:
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six , result happiness.
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery”
… and I think it’s as true now as ever. Again, no amount of money could save Steve Jobs from his fate.
I was very fortunate that I took out life insurance years ago, and that has paid out to provide an amount that means I know I have provided a secure future for T and the kids. This is an increasingly rare thing (economics of the modern world does not favour anyone but the already-winning), and I know I am incredibly fortunate to be able to be in this position. So taking care of the everyday and not being in debt is important (and increasingly difficult for a number of reasons), but at the same time I would be just as stuck if I had 10x as much money sat in the bank. It can’t help like any of the important things can do. - Objects. I have been obsessed with objects my entire life. I guess they gave me the security that I didn’t find in relationships (because I didn’t really have any), and I’ve had the typical male thing of owning nice cars and motorbikes – including getting a childhood dream car, a manual Porsche 928 at one point. But since January nearly all of them have fallen by the wayside in some way. Being able to let go of all my vehicles has been an interesting thing, as I’d never seen the drag that they impose on you, with upkeep and future issues. Yes, they provide utility and it’s often not practical to be without one in the modern world, but even the two we now have (Renault Zoe and modern Camper) are both there for their utility, not their status in themselves.
Don’t get me wrong, they still need to be clean and tidy and looked after and serviced as this is part of that, but I now see that I was totally overwhelmed by ownership of things rather than what they might provide for me. I know it’s too late to change completely, but a lighter, smaller path of fewer objects would definitely be an easier road than the one I took. Yes, without any of the objects I wouldn’t have done many of the things I’ve done, but they can be let go much more easily than I knew until far too late.
There’s a lot of stuff I still have in the multiple sheds, and I’m not in a position to deal with any of it, but T has the time and space to do so in the future, and if needs be can just call a ‘man with van clearance’ type to get rid of the lot in one go. It’s just stuff. It can be let go of.
Thanks for reading if you made it this far. This has taken me a couple of hours and I’m sure it’s full of typos etc. And as with everything on here, it’s just my thoughts, but ones I want to get out there for reasons I will try to outline in another post if I can.
