Life, in part, is an intellectual process, a gradual refining of beliefs and ideas which are modified by age and experience and the individual's perception of the world as the world itself changes. What you start out as, as say a teenager when certain values and beliefs are already in place, may not be how you end up. Your beliefs and values may well have changed. Many of mine did.
I was a child in the 1950's when everything was grey. Everyone smoked, it seemed. Women were second class citizens. The 'N' word could be used casually and unthinkingly about black people. Indeed the influx of immigrants from the Caribbean in response to the post-war boom was causing racism to rear its ugly head, though being a child in the North East of England with itstraditionally high unemployment meant that I saw very few people from ethnic minorities and I never even met a Jew until I went to grammar school age 11. I have to say my response to that was simply a puzzlement that Fatty Gordon's family didn't celebrate Christmas and an 'oh well people are strange' shrug. I was aware of the Holocaust (and horrified by it) but simply didn't understand the concept of anti-semitism.
What am I back then? A Christian, believing every word I heard and was taught at the Methodist Sunday school. A boy scout, not a good one, but nevertheless... Following the example of my family, I supported the Conservative Party and believed, again like my family, that I was of the middle classes -we weren't, upper working class at best, just one of the many collective delusions my family held.
For any American readers I'll repeat a joke, of sorts, I heard decades ago. The Republican party is the American equivalent of the Conservatives. And so are the Democrats. (That's it.) Americans tend to strike the British as rather politically naïve (while we are cynical). This did seem to be born out when I watched an elderly American from Maryland describe Obama as a socialist. I nearly laughed my socks off. Your new president is no more a socialist than is David Cameron the leader of the Conservatives. And, yes, like everyone else, I would have voted for him if I could and I watched his inauguration live on tv. Today I've ordered his autobiography from Amazon. Barack Obama has the opportunity to change the way Americans see themselves and how they see the word by opening their minds to alternative ways of thinking. Just as we do, or should do, throughout our lives.
Change is a gradual process built on the measuring of past and present experiences. Everything is built on what has gone before. Darwin, one of the greatest men who ever lived, in part based his work on what had gone before by scientists such as Carl Linnaeus (or so memory tells me, it's been a while). What he did do was the connect the dots in a way that no one else had ever done -such is the mark of genius.
I believe the way that you change is inherently based on your personality. True revelations on the road to Damascus are relatively rare. We are predisposed to certain beliefs, certain ways of thinking. For example, while not of a scientific bent, I was as a child interested in science, in how the world worked so perhaps it was inevitable that, once I started questioning my religion, I became an atheist. I became a librarian and the most satisfaction I got from my work was on the frontline, working with the public, helping them. For all my self-obsession and various character flaws, it is my inclination to help. So it's no surprise that I became strongly opposed to anything which sought to suppress humanity for perceived differences such as being of a different racial or cultural group, being a woman, having alternative sexual preferences, and why I accept political correctness believing it to be merely a form of good manners. It's no surprise too that ended up quite left wing politically (although it took years of gradual change), willing to admit to being a non-dogmatic socialist. My becoming a union steward is another stage in this my personal growth andenlightenment. I'll return to the subject of politics later.
My 20's and 30's were pretty much dominated (and to those who know me, yes this is an oversimplification) by my involvement with science fiction fandom and with writing (not that the two are separate) but I'm not going to go into that here. They ended with me being a chainsmoking borderline alcoholic who'd sold a teenage sf novel.
Then, while attending an Open University Social Sciences foundation course, I met Susan Hardy who changed my life completely and for the better and we got married on 24th August 1988, two months after we started going out and eight months after we first met. And we're still married. Oddly, it wasn't the course that made us click, but our love of animals.
Thus my 40's and 50's were marked by a growing involvement in animal welfare on a local basis. (Again a simplification.) It began with some minor involvement with the local branch of the National Anti-Vivisection Society, Susan and her mother being members. While generally agreeing with this, I did have some reservations about a complete ban, and felt guilty again about having them. Towards the end of the 1990's Susan and I became involved with a couple of local animal rescue groups which ended with us, with others, forming Animal Krackers a charity set up to help local rescue groups but ended up with us becoming one as well. At one point a local government councillor tried to get all the different groups to work together under a new umbrella group. It failed because the chair of the group (me) got sick of doing all the work without the support I needed and it fell apart without really getting anywhere. Animal Krackers has now been going for six years and is well known andrespected in the Sunderland area.
Me, I'm the main cat rescuer/transporter to vets.
I was a child in the 1950's when everything was grey. Everyone smoked, it seemed. Women were second class citizens. The 'N' word could be used casually and unthinkingly about black people. Indeed the influx of immigrants from the Caribbean in response to the post-war boom was causing racism to rear its ugly head, though being a child in the North East of England with itstraditionally high unemployment meant that I saw very few people from ethnic minorities and I never even met a Jew until I went to grammar school age 11. I have to say my response to that was simply a puzzlement that Fatty Gordon's family didn't celebrate Christmas and an 'oh well people are strange' shrug. I was aware of the Holocaust (and horrified by it) but simply didn't understand the concept of anti-semitism.
What am I back then? A Christian, believing every word I heard and was taught at the Methodist Sunday school. A boy scout, not a good one, but nevertheless... Following the example of my family, I supported the Conservative Party and believed, again like my family, that I was of the middle classes -we weren't, upper working class at best, just one of the many collective delusions my family held.
For any American readers I'll repeat a joke, of sorts, I heard decades ago. The Republican party is the American equivalent of the Conservatives. And so are the Democrats. (That's it.) Americans tend to strike the British as rather politically naïve (while we are cynical). This did seem to be born out when I watched an elderly American from Maryland describe Obama as a socialist. I nearly laughed my socks off. Your new president is no more a socialist than is David Cameron the leader of the Conservatives. And, yes, like everyone else, I would have voted for him if I could and I watched his inauguration live on tv. Today I've ordered his autobiography from Amazon. Barack Obama has the opportunity to change the way Americans see themselves and how they see the word by opening their minds to alternative ways of thinking. Just as we do, or should do, throughout our lives.
Change is a gradual process built on the measuring of past and present experiences. Everything is built on what has gone before. Darwin, one of the greatest men who ever lived, in part based his work on what had gone before by scientists such as Carl Linnaeus (or so memory tells me, it's been a while). What he did do was the connect the dots in a way that no one else had ever done -such is the mark of genius.
I believe the way that you change is inherently based on your personality. True revelations on the road to Damascus are relatively rare. We are predisposed to certain beliefs, certain ways of thinking. For example, while not of a scientific bent, I was as a child interested in science, in how the world worked so perhaps it was inevitable that, once I started questioning my religion, I became an atheist. I became a librarian and the most satisfaction I got from my work was on the frontline, working with the public, helping them. For all my self-obsession and various character flaws, it is my inclination to help. So it's no surprise that I became strongly opposed to anything which sought to suppress humanity for perceived differences such as being of a different racial or cultural group, being a woman, having alternative sexual preferences, and why I accept political correctness believing it to be merely a form of good manners. It's no surprise too that ended up quite left wing politically (although it took years of gradual change), willing to admit to being a non-dogmatic socialist. My becoming a union steward is another stage in this my personal growth andenlightenment. I'll return to the subject of politics later.
My 20's and 30's were pretty much dominated (and to those who know me, yes this is an oversimplification) by my involvement with science fiction fandom and with writing (not that the two are separate) but I'm not going to go into that here. They ended with me being a chainsmoking borderline alcoholic who'd sold a teenage sf novel.
Then, while attending an Open University Social Sciences foundation course, I met Susan Hardy who changed my life completely and for the better and we got married on 24th August 1988, two months after we started going out and eight months after we first met. And we're still married. Oddly, it wasn't the course that made us click, but our love of animals.
Thus my 40's and 50's were marked by a growing involvement in animal welfare on a local basis. (Again a simplification.) It began with some minor involvement with the local branch of the National Anti-Vivisection Society, Susan and her mother being members. While generally agreeing with this, I did have some reservations about a complete ban, and felt guilty again about having them. Towards the end of the 1990's Susan and I became involved with a couple of local animal rescue groups which ended with us, with others, forming Animal Krackers a charity set up to help local rescue groups but ended up with us becoming one as well. At one point a local government councillor tried to get all the different groups to work together under a new umbrella group. It failed because the chair of the group (me) got sick of doing all the work without the support I needed and it fell apart without really getting anywhere. Animal Krackers has now been going for six years and is well known andrespected in the Sunderland area.
Me, I'm the main cat rescuer/transporter to vets.
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