What makes me tick
This won’t be a complete backstory, but it will fill in a few big gaps. It includes and expands upon bits from my childhood entries and the ‘about‘ page. This should illuminate my scattered, eclectic writings on this blog. This should spread light on themes that you may’ve noticed and upon which I will now elucidate. This post is actually celebrating a ‘blog milestone’, though in true, chronically-understated British fashion, I shan’t say what that milestone is. Enjoy this revealing expose of inner Sebbiness; I’ll be hiding in the corner over there.
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As I forced the last piece of LEGO into position with a snap I decided then that I would be an engineer; I was only five at the time and didn’t know what the word meant, nor what they did. The only thing I knew was that making things — crafting intricate constructions from simple, constituent parts — was fun. Really damn fun. You start off with a box of bits and amorphous blobs leftover from previous creations, and you can make anything! Well, almost anything, as defined by the rules and mechanics of LEGO blocks.
It was those rules, those axioms, that interested me the most. My parents will tell you that I was never a huge fan of using my hands — I was never the kind of kid to make rickety tree houses or bird tables — they were just a means to an end: to discover rules! Hands were great at pulling apart and unscrewing video machines, toasters and televisions. I had no idea how things actually worked, but God-damn it was fun trying to work it out! I would look at the parts, at the wreckage of my latest interest, and try to somehow divine the magical rules that made them go.
As I grew up my LEGO bricks turned into Technic cogs and Meccano struts, and thus my education continued: I learnt about physics and the inescapable force of gravity; torque and various structural designs to nullify its effects; the fun that could be had with elastic energy! Most importantly, I learnt about the two forces that dominate our current understanding of the world: chemical and electrical energy. Heating mixtures of chemicals and watching in (pained) awe as they exploded into my face taught me the wonders of cause and effect; reactions. Adding electrical motors to my constructions added life. And that was the key: I’d finally found out how to make things happen.
Enter my first computer at the geriatric age of eight (I was spoilt, some might say). This is probably where the tale should take a dark and oppressive turn for the worse but fortunately… it does not! Unless you consider the abject horror and avoidance of all physical exercise, caused by continued computer use, a bad thing. Actually, that’s a lie: I enjoyed tennis and badminton, but only because my arms were so long that I could reach almost everywhere without moving. I won’t bore you with any more from my teenage years, but you can read my childhood entries if you’re really interested.
In short, my teenage years were… OK. Not great, and often introverted. I was bullied for being fat and far too intelligent. Fortunately the bullying didn’t impact my thirst for knowledge, but it did culture my antisocial tendencies. I don’t mean I went around throwing bricks through windows (I did this just once, when I fell in with some bad boys), I mean that I’ve been a hermit ever since. My teenage life wasn’t completely devoid of social interaction. I did have friends. But for example, the only parties I would attend would be those I couldn’t skip, lest I become a social outcast. Being social, for the teenage Seb, was an obligation.
Looking back, it was a sad, lonely way of living. I don’t know if it was caused by the bullying, or just my continued interest in learning. Y’see, I would be great company until I realised that I’d actually rather be somewhere else, learning how to make explosives or program a new computer language. The only friends I did keep were ones that had identical interests to mine, or were intelligent enough that they remained interesting to me. A bit of a pragmatic — some would say selfish — view of friendships. Again, I don’t know what caused it, but my thirst for knowledge compelled me to flit about from person to person and from book to book, devouring anything and everything that I stumbled across in my search for more data.
When you’re a teenager, mixing your friends up a little is a common occurrence — so what if one day you’re best friends with John, and Steve the next? Looking back, I guess that’s why no one noticed what I was up to. And I’m still the same today, though my years at university tempered my hermit-like tendencies and almost turned me into a social butterfly! Still, when it comes to friends — relationships that I nuture and tend to regularly — I still only have two close ones. The first, I talk to once a week if I’m lucky, the second I might see once a year, or less (does that make me a bad friend?) It’s not so easy to ‘bounce between friends’ when you’re an adult; when you’re a grown-up you can’t just chew, digest and unceremoniously dump your friends.
That’s why I travel and I guess… why I don’t have friends.
It feels lame to cite Fight Club of all things, but its popularity will help make my point: I like single servings. The people I meet on trains and planes are tasty enough to tantalise my taste buds without the risk of becoming dull or flavourless. I might only spend six hours with a friend made while climbing over ancient ruins in Turkey, but when you’re thrown into a similar situation together and share the same experiences, you learn a lot about each other, and you learn it quickly. Single, intense servings of personality; more than just a passing acquaintance, but less than a friendship. At the end we can both go our own ways; a single serving with no strings attached.
Finally, we’ve arrived at the contemporary Seb, where I understand enough about myself that I can attempt to define my personal philosophy. ‘Attempt’, because it’s hard to name and qualify thoughts that, without scope or definition, have run around my head for 25 years. So bear with me as I try to put it into some clumsy words: I demand rationality, but not in the conventional sense. As humans, we are exceptionally good at being rational, but only within the confines of a working, true set of data. You can only be as rational as your education allows — if you have been told that the world is flat, it’s rational to assume it is indeed flat. But that’s not rationality; at least not for me. Most ’stupidity’, as viewed from an objective point of view, is (unsurprisingly) caused by a lack of education. The stupid person probably doesn’t know he’s being stupid though — in his head he’s just doing as he’s been taught!
Rationality, for me, is an absolute: not simply a given, limited set of truths taught through nurture, dogma or education.
Rationality, for me, is the neverending search for a body of knowledge so vast, so all-encompassing that, one day, will hopefully allow me to understand the workings of the universe, and those that populate it.
There we have it: one of my most secret and character-definining traits laid bare for all to see. I hope it goes some way to explaining how I look at the world, and ultimately what I write on this blog. I am, in essence, trying to get my head around everything; I’m pulling the world apart, screw by screw, hoping to find the answers. As and when I find them, I’ll be sure to share.
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There are some fun photos to follow tomorrow. They were meant to accompany this entry, but now it seems inappropriate. If you want funny pictures, go and look at the ones of me as a kid…
Related posts:
the Myth behind the man. I love it.
this is one of those times where the phrase “life is lived forwards and understood backwards” comes into focus.
and for the record, it’s never a bad idea to quote fight club.
June 22nd, 2009 at 12:04 pmIt was a close-run thing between simply telling story, and breaking it down into the ‘Rules of Seb Club’.
I’ve only recently started looking back at when I was a kid, and it is scary how… similar I was. I thought we changed a lot as we grew up, our wishes, our grand plans, but I think it’s all pretty firm-set from a young age
June 22nd, 2009 at 12:58 pmMyth behind the man indeed. This sort of made me think of Joseph Campell’s heroic cycle, the whole monomyth “journey of man” thing…. Have you read of it? You need a mysterious birth or childhood circumstance to actually be a hero, but you have the “suffering in a mundane world” part, the call to adventure (the being “different” part) and you could say that the “hero approaches the cave” part is where you go off to university…
Here, read this: http://publishedauthors.blogspot.com/2008/03/heros-journey-joseph-campbell-12-stage.html
June 22nd, 2009 at 2:22 pmHehe, yes, I know of all the ‘journeys’, from my Media Studies classes at school.
I’m well aware of the need for some kind of mysterious birth or childhood circumstance to make my story a proper myth. Unfortunately, I wasn’t beaten by my parents, and I wasn’t left to starve in the attic…
But I’ll be sure to leave a few seeds of mystery for future generations.
June 22nd, 2009 at 2:32 pmYou should ask your mom, maybe Zeus is really your father. Came to her in the disguise of your real father, like Zeus disguised as Amphitryon to sleep with Alcemene (and beget Heracles!)
June 22nd, 2009 at 2:47 pmDon’t worry, I have typically undersold myself, even here in this ‘exposé’. I was a fairly prodigious child. There is enough to satisfy the manufacture of myth, if necessary. I’ll learn how to love myself eventually…
June 22nd, 2009 at 2:52 pmInteresting. I identify so much with the hermit status and only wanting bite sized pieces of other people’s company. I think this is why I’m so comfortable using the ‘net for social interaction… because I can hop in and out without offending anyone when I’ve had enough or just want to wander off and do something else.
I had imaginary friends as a child, and they were far easier to accommodate than real flesh and blood ones. I have been accused by one or two family members of being selfish towards my small group of friends (does 2 or 3 count as a group?), because they do all the running, and are always the ones to make the effort to stay in touch and plan getting together, of which I will only attend if I can’t get out of it. I just get bored talking about the same things over and over again. Which I suppose is pretty selfish of me.
However, if I meet a stranger I can happily talk for hours, because they are totally new to me with a story to tell or information to share that I haven’t previously been privy to. I love meeting new people. It stimulates me. But most of the time I love being totally alone… apart from my dog who is a constant delight to me.
I also have a history of taking things apart just to figure out how they work, and an insatiable curiosity about anything and everything that can teach me something. But I have yet so spread my wings and travel… for some reason that has never much appealed to me.
See you’re not so odd afterall… well maybe just a little!
Mel
June 22nd, 2009 at 5:30 pmForgot to mention… you have a far deeper understanding of what you’re about than I had at your age. I’ve only got to know myself better this past few years (I’m ancient now), but am much more comfortable with who I am these days. I’d hate to be in my 20’s and 30’s again.
Mel
June 22nd, 2009 at 5:40 pmWe sound so alike, you and I!
The more I think about it, I don’t think it’s a rare thing… curiousity. Only most people have it stamped out of them at a young age, either implicitly or explicitly. A slap of the hands, a reproving look. ‘Good boys don’t do that…’
I was discussing with AGD (I think his comment will come later) about what triggers people into becoming either mediocre, or Einstein. I can’t believe it’s entirely nurture, but maybe it is. I’m sure some kind of government has tried to ‘breed geniuses’ by now, or maybe they haven’t. I guess we don’t understand it quite enough yet.
Hm, food for thought.
June 22nd, 2009 at 5:47 pmI get what youre talking about here, being a solitary person doesn’t make you antisocial, just a bit of a loner! I was sociable to avoid being an outcast when I was a teenager and it’s only been a very recent development that I have friends because I enjoy their company rather than to avoid appearing to be the person with no friends. the people I hang out with now are mostly people I really get along with and they’re way rather than people who will spend time with me so I’d put up with them.
I think there are only about two people in the world who actually know me at all though, and i don’t think that’s a bad thing! Opening up too much to too many people puts you in an unpleasant situation where they have a whole lot more power than they realise.
You definitely seem to know who you are and what you want from life, people will be drawn to that, there’s something about someone who knows who he is!
And you’re WAY ahead of me! At 24 I am just realsiing that who I am isn’t who I am, but it might be partly who I think I am overlapping with who I am because the image and the person are not mutually exclusive and have to be teased apart carefully, one you ocnvince me to remove the image and I stop hiding under the table holding onto some semblance of control…
June 22nd, 2009 at 6:26 pmMost probably a combination of genes and nurturing. I think encouragement is key to growth. Be that intellectually, or creatively. But all too often many try to stifle it others. If they don’t understand it they fear it, which leads to repression, and full potential is never realised.
Just my take on it.
Mel
June 22nd, 2009 at 6:30 pmYes, but lot of amazing things happen in the face of adversity. I mean think of those people who have chnged the way people see the world who came rom nothing and somehow made something of themselves with nothing to help them. Yes, being stifled is incredibly harmful, but being over-encouraged is just as bad sometimes. Sure, the williams sisters were ‘encouraged’ to paly tennis as babies, but think of the million of other kds who’ve been pushed just as hard and yes never made it. And ten there are the parents who openly encourage watever their chid wants to do – so the kid ends up taking 2 weeks of karate lessons, a month at the piano, goes home early from science camp because he didn’t have fun… I think a mixture of encouragement and adversity works a lot better – if the kid gets encouragement to pursue certain dreams only after he/she proves that that really is a dream and not just for this week…
June 22nd, 2009 at 6:48 pmAh, I was talking more from the perspective of a child having a natural talent and wanting to pursue it. Some parents want their precious offspring to join everything currently in fashion. This has more to do with keeping up with the Jones’ than anything. They are so busy ferrying their precious offspring to a myriad of out of school activities, they rarely get time to sit down, one on one, and listen to what their child really wants.
June 22nd, 2009 at 7:25 pm’single serving with no strings attached.’ I quite like this. It would make things less complicated and more interesting. Kinda like a no string attached relationship. You meet, you have fun, you share and then everyone goes their own way.
Mhmm, rationality. If ever you find it, do give us a yell : )
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:12 pmI’m really not sure about his use of ‘rationality’. It might help to know what exactly you take to be the usual version to be like. I would take it to refer just to the capacity to work with any information available in a manner based on logical rules and inferences, as well as working out the right means for one’s ends. This would be, as it were, a permanent human capacity, regardless of the quality of the available knowledge.
What you call ‘rationality’ seems a lot more like what would be called “Absolute Knowledge” by Hegel and is a pretty old dream for philosophy. The idea of some systematic account of everything is certainly ambitious but probably not really achievable. Even if we assume, for the sake of argument, that it is, it’s not clear that we could know that we had achieved it.
June 22nd, 2009 at 10:35 pmWhen I was five I decided I wanted to be a mermaid.
It didn’t work out.
Just thought, somewhere in the depths of seriousness, I’d try and make you smile
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:22 pmI think you’re a male version of me! I was bullied too (weight mostly, the fact that I wouldn’t shag any of the boys probably didn’t help either, I suspect that’s where the “fat lezza” tag came from), I’m still scarily anti-social, I keep in contact with friends though. I don’t like going out and partying, but I do like to know that the people I know are safe and well so I keep tabs on them to make sure they are. And when they aren’t, they know they can drop on me XD
Have you ever taken a Briggs-Meyer test?
Mine was “INFJ” and seemed to be fairly accurate, it said I’m an introvert for a start XD
June 22nd, 2009 at 11:38 pmThanks, as always, for the well-informed points of view!
I’ll go in reverse order, because… I feel like it.
I took one of those tests fairly recently, Mental (you need a more personable name) — I was basically a flat line. But tests suck, especially when you know enough about psychology that you know what each answer means.
I’ve often wondered (and the responses here seem to confirm it a little) if those that make a home for themselves on the Internet were the bullied-at-school types. It sure sounds likely — especially those around their mid-20s, as computers in schools and the Internet would’ve just been taking off… We got bullied and sought solace in the computer laboratory… hmmm!
I think Chown (and this is directed to both Helen and the Chameleon too!) that our purpose/calling in life is defined very, very early on. In our first five years of life maybe. I don’t mean such simple things as ‘I wanna be a fireman!’, but… deeper urges. I’ve wanted to be lots of things throughout my (short) life, but the singular, ever-present thread is the thirst for knowledge. I think that urge can probably be broken down into fairly simple categories — maybe as simple as just ‘artist’ or ‘engineer’. Not sure — I need to think about that some more.
(I’m sure you can be a mermaid, if you really wanna…)
I always wonder how I would’ve turned out if my life was full of adversity. People say I’m spoilt and lucky. I tell them I’ve made my own luck. No doubt it’s actually a mix — if I wasn’t born in England, or my family wasn’t as wealthy, things would certainly be different. I wonder if Einstein was bullied as a child and had to hunt for his meals.
AGD — Absolute Knowledge sounds like just the thing. Or, rationality from the scope defined by absolute knowingness. But I know it’s not attainable — at least while we still have forms of energy in the universe that are still undiscovered.
But that’s why I’m excited — soon we’ll understand quantum physics, then we’ll exploit them, and then… well, maybe that’s it? Maybe there isn’t another form of energy beyond that.
I doubt that somehow though…
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:24 amFight Club, eh? Careful who you meet on planes and trains. Check their briefcases.
Anyway, I have probably been a bit more social than you, but I still have some loner tendencies. I think part of it is that I am good at entertaining myself, and part is that I have such a close relationship with my brothers that I never felt the need to hang out with friends all the time. I understand the whole “single serving” thing, but at some point for me it’s not enough. It sounds so cliche but I need to be loved. Maybe if I had a close friend that I could tell everything, I wouldn’t need to pour it out on my blog.
P.S. – Chown Town, when I was five, I wanted to be a mermaid, too! I knew all the words to that Little Mermaid song “Part of Your World” and would sing it ad nauseam. And I got very good at swimming with my legs together. Good times.
June 23rd, 2009 at 4:42 amHegel thinks Absolute Knowledge is attainable but something more than just getting a full catalogue of the different eneries/masses and how they interact. It would include, in Hegel’s version, a complete understanding of the process thought had gone through historically. I thin this means also knowing when you know all there is to know. Not to shill on behalf of my union but, you know, physics alone can’t get us to this, so you’d need metaphysics and/or epistemology (study of what constitutes knowing).
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:03 amI think you’re right, I know I used to hide in the PC lab a lot, became an expert on spotting the science teacher who used to drop in to make sure the computers were being used for educational activities. One minute you’d be reading a DragonballZ fanfic and the next you’d hear “and how is this educational?” in your ear.
As for a more personable name, I’ll stick with Mental for the time being
I’d suggest MS but then that sounds like I’m a rather nasty and painful debilitating disease, and I’m not quite that bad XD
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:34 amEleni, I’m usually the suspicious-looking one that you meet on planes and trains. But, somehow, I still retain some kind of charismatic allure that warms the hearts of children and old fogies alike!
Whenever I tried to swim with my legs together, I would slowly drown…
As I said (and alluded to) in other places, understanding every form of energy is vital to come anywhere close to approaching Absolute Knowledge. The ol’ onion-layers analogy, I guess — peel it back and woah: atoms aren’t like plum puddings, the electrons CIRCLE the nucleus!
Peel back the universal fundament and… well, I can’t wait to see what’s hiding.
MS — you had me until the fanfic bit. Dirty so-and-so.
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:27 pmaw but i already knew that about you
June 23rd, 2009 at 3:23 pmi have a fascination for science too. the books i tend to gravitate towards are science and spiritual books.. sometimes history/politics! i prefer non-fiction!
Eleni – Haha! I did that too! There was a small group of us in the ‘top’ swimming group who used to practice swimming with our legs together, so that we could be mermaids – and I’m with you on the Little Mermaid song as well, but it was worse, I could quote most of the film! :s
Seb – I completely agree. Sometimes we have no idea what we are being pointed towards until we find it, or it finds us and then it’s only when we look back and analyse things that we see all the arrows pointing in the same direction. So, although the mermaid story could be construed as a throwaway childhood dream, actually, if you look at it from a different angle, you realise, it’s another arrow…
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:39 pmI was under the impression that all kids on your side of the world played with nothing more than monocolor wood toys and plastic turntables. I guess BBC and Charlie Boorman lied to me. Legos.
June 28th, 2009 at 1:19 amOh, we did, until after the war when trade routes to the US opened up and we could yet again revel in technicoloured toys.
God bless America.
June 28th, 2009 at 1:26 amAren’t we fantastic!?!?!? And don’t forget, we totally made spelling easier by taking out those pesky extra letters from words like “colour” and made spelling way easier by changing shit around like “theatre” to “theater” and also made things like weight and length easier by transitioning it to pounds and miles rather than stones and kilometers (or is it kilometres?)! However we still love buying spotted dick in a can and Yorkie candy bars (no girls allowed!) and watching Dame Judy Dench movies whilst singing Elton John and using horrible British accents to get free booze from the Irish bartender at Fado’s.
PS….send Yop and Kindereggs…..must haves….and is blood sausage really part of a full English, because I don’t like it….
June 28th, 2009 at 6:20 am