Tuesday 4 June 2013

Provocation

Against my better judgement, I have been provoked into writing a blog post. Before I start, I should make it clear that I have nothing whatsoever to say, and that what I do say I have said before. Generally it makes unpopular reading, that is to say, it makes me unpopular. It makes me come across as arrogant, right-wing, and a shit. It is probably how I get this misplaced Toryboy image - I speak proper, I work in a bank (though not in the champagne-popping, Ferrari-driving bit as commonly portrayed in the media), and I hate scroungers. That's a shallow way to judge someone.

I was having this conversation with a friend the other day. Well, not exactly this one, but along similar lines. It was basically how I couldn't vote for anyone as I hated them all. Not that I take a great interest in politics, and I could be entirely wrong about some things. Many things most likely. But anyway, and although this may come as a surprise to some, I could not possibly vote for the Conservatives for reasons recently made clear here. Namely that they are a self-serving bunch of walking environmental disasters with seemingly no concept of democracy. Fine, so they're out. The Lib Dems then, are they my natural home? No. They're a load of pathetic ideologists with no hope of ever making a difference other than taxing me out of existence. The Labour party? Iraq. And they're basically Tories anyway. The Green Party? Laudable in some respects, unfortunately so far removed from reality that they're not a realistic choice in the modern world. UKIP? Not if you paid me. The BNP? The day those fascist pricks wield any kind of meaningful power is the day I emigrate. So politics it seems is not for me. There are probably a heap of fringe parties I have failed to mention, but nobody knows who they are anyway, and I might as well walk into my polling station and eat my ballot paper for all the good it would do voting for one of them. But I still hate scroungers, which makes me......makes me what exactly? Nothing. It makes me nothing. I go to work, I provide for my family, I am at this point no burden on the State other than the education that my children receive, but that's where my taxes go. Oh, and to shooting badgers and conducting illegitimate warfare overseas.

As I was walking home from work tonight, at about 7.30pm or so (half day...) I noticed a guy sitting on a bench in the sunshine. I say sitting, really I mean lolling. He looked most contented, and was enjoying a beer and a cigarette. Fair enough, we all like to unwind after a long hard day, indeed I myself was on my way to a bit of unwinding as well, having left the house at around 7am. Except this was the man who for years now has hung around Leytonstone tube station asking for 90p for the bus. I've not seen him for a while, probably because I typically go one stop further up to Wanstead station so as to avoid getting mugged by yet more honest and hard-working folk, and what with rising fares he probably asks for more than 90p these days, but I digress. In addition to being a liar, he's a complete and utter scrounger. He's the kind of person that instantly gets my hackles up. The kind of person who gets to sit around doing whatever the hell he wants (OK, so perhaps not exactly pursuing his dreams necessarily, but you know what I mean) whilst I schlep off to work and indirectly provide financial assistance so that he doesn't have to. He looked really happy, angelically at peace with the world. Of down in the dumpness there was not a hint. I tweeted, as is the modern way, some words of mock surprise. And (thank you Mark) I received a reply. The suggestion was that rather than be bitter and angry, I should go home, uncork a bottle, and toast my luck. A fine sentiment. Live and let live.

Apart from the luck.

I am not railing against the unfortunates of this world. I am railing against the suggestion that in any way, shape or form, the fact that I enjoy a happy life free from many worries and  financial pressure is down to luck. Bollocks. It's down to choices. A friend of mine called Dal, who has had twenty jobs in the same time in which I have had two, frequently insists I am the luckiest person on the planet. Poppycock. Complete garbage. The fact that my life is currently where it is at is essentially due to one thing and one thing only, and that thing is called effort. Effort from the age of about 15. Jobs before school and after school. Jobs in the holidays. Exams. Hard work. Toil. Graft. Going out every day and doing something I do not enjoy so that I can do things I do enjoy on the few days that I am not working. So that, many years down the line, I can buy nice camera lenses I never get to use to their fullest extent. So that I can give my children exciting experiences. So that they can play musical instruments if they so choose. So that they can be members of a cricket club. The list is endless, but so that, in short, I am free to make some life choices. Not everybody gets that opportunity of course, but the point is that nobody came along and handed it to me on a plate, and I didn't win some kind of life lottery that solely and exclusively determined my fortunes. There is a school of thought that talks about the cards people are dealt, and I concede that there is an element of truth there, and that my upbringing was trouble free with loving parents who insisted on education (In case anyone thinks I went to Gordonstoun or wherever, I didn't, I went to my local community college. Whatever). But there are plenty of stories of people overcoming the below-par cards they ended up with and doing just fine, excelling even. The difference tends to be willpower and determination. Some people would call that luck. Crap.

My health is luck. Or at least to a certain extent. For instance is it lucky that I don't wreck my body with crystal meth? Or lucky that I don't do crack cocaine every night of the week, even though I could probably afford it? Possibly, possibly...... who can say what will happen, but at the moment I am healthy and I am thankful. But absent health issues, the reason I do alright is very simple, and has nothing whatsoever to do with luck. I get along in life because I work my socks off. I have not taken the easy way out. I grind it out day after interminable day. I absorb myself in it. I bring it home. I allow my mood to be dictated by it. I think about it day and night. I piss my family off with it, and I am mostly a grumpy bastard because of it. I don't pull sickies, I just get on with it. I expend a huge amount of effort and time to making a success out of it. Luck? Forget it, it's called effort, and anyone who pitches up and calls me a lucky so-and-so is delusional (sorry Mark, I don't buy that one little bit). Is that a Tory attitude? I don't know, and I don't care. I don't give a shit what you label it as, as long as there is a recognition that the reason I am not sitting on a sun-kissed bench swilling premium lager and pulling on a fag is that I have chosen to work for a living rather than waste my life scrounging off other people.

The counter-argument is of course that there are plenty of people out there who put in a lot more effort than I do, work a lot harder than I do, and still end up on the metaphorical bench. I reckon that must just be bad luck.

11 comments:

  1. And that was a party political broadcast from the Monster Twitching Loony Party!

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  2. Are not bankers the biggest scroungers of the lot.? Where do your wages come from exactly?. Oh thats right you "borrow" other peoples money and keep it safe for them, while investing it in various dubious places to make enormous profits that you then keep for youselves.

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  3. I thought about not publishing this comment, then decided I would, mainly because I enjoy sweeping generalisations and this is right up there. Also, it may engender some discussion, which is always good. Hopefully not about your understanding of what exactly my job is, but fingers crossed eh?

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  4. Haven't a clue exactly what your job envolves. Just like you don't have a clue why your scrounger friend lives the way he does. But you're not denying you work for a bank in some capacity are you?, and that makes you part of the machine.

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  5. I’d argue that I know more about him than you know about me. For instance I know that he hangs around the tube station asking for money for a bus fare (he lives around the corner near my kids’ nursery as it happens) which, putting two and two together, he spends on cigarettes and beer. When I call him a scrounger I don’t think I’m being particularly unfair, especially when that was merely the catalyst for my post rather than its actual subject, and I deliberately didn’t even explore why that might be the case. But implying that I am also a scrounger, but because of my job IS unfair on your part. And ignorant. As believe it or not, working in a bank is a perfectly normal job for a great many people, as normal as working in any other office job; it isn’t some great big conspiracy theory, an industry in which only greedy and morally corrupt people work, it’s just a normal white-collar job, and hence I never deny it. Why should I? However labelling me as part of “the machine” is laughable, and exposes only your own narrow-minded view of the world.

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    1. You only see a scrounger on a park bench, I maybe only see a banker. Of course working in a bank is a perfectly normal job, full of normal people. It is your judgementalism and hypocrsy I despise, moaning about a guy blagging 90p whilst others in your industry rip the country off to the tune of millions. As for calling me narrow minded pot kettle black springs to mind.

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    2. I had a feeling you might say that. I suspect that there is little we might ever agree on, so it’s best you keep on despising me and my job (and by extension, thousands of other people, and theirs), and gaining whatever satisfaction comes your way from that. You appear to be a fairly robust example of why you can never please all of the people all of the time, which clearly I never set out to else this would all become very boring indeed. If you don’t like it, it’s very simple; don’t read it – I won’t be offended; in fact other than the reduction in hate mail I might not even notice. I can’t believe I even published all these comments of yours, but as you’ve yet to truly stray into the realms of the offensive (merely the judgemental) I suppose it is fair game. However rather than use my blog as a platform for your sweeping generalisations and love of capitalism, perhaps you might think about starting your own? A word of advice though: never ever express an opinion as it might get you into trouble.

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    3. I shall keep this relatively short as I've already spent enough of my life here. Firstly it's not your job or even you that I despise, just the attitudes that you seem to support.

      And as far as being judgemental, well you may of slightly missed my point, which is in fact the opposite and can be summed up rather succinctly by this phrase which I will leave you with.
      "Judge not lest ye be judged"

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  6. There are millions of people who live life like you Jono, some have a bit more money than you some have a bit less, and some have considerably less, like me, but still think the same. Hard work, choises, (LUCK), enthusiasm, optimism, Everyone has to complete the program. If it all works out, which it has for me really, there is a contentment, I don't believe the scroungers ever find that.

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  7. Well, I thought that was excellent! As with every blog post of yours, a very entertaining read.

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