Set a watch before my mouth

In the search for a conversation

I was considering the other day how my ease in making conversation through small talk, witticisms, and self-deprecation presents an unguarded moment of saying the wrong things about myself.

In the main, I think I am generally optimistic and tend towards the affirmative than the negative. Yet, you find yourself saying things absentmindedly about what you cannot do, how you cannot see, where you cannot go, or how you suffer.

You find yourself reaffirming what you do not intend and reinforcing the unfortunate for the sake of making conversation. Then again, I cannot suggest I am good about boasting, I would likely be bashful before I break out of the shell of a reserved Englishman and display the exuberance of those across the pond.

Putting a bridle on my tongue

I guess the quest to be seasoned in speech is a discipline as much as it is a longing without losing the ability to strike up a conversation on more wholesome things than the declining of self to express oneself and make a connection. Maybe, I do need some help and where do I get that? Take control of what I say, O LORD, and guard my lips. Psalms 141:3 (NLT)

I know that I have in a determined way rid myself of inflections in speech, mannerisms, and certain usages that I decided could be better expressed, on the harder bits, I might just be less quick to speak so that when I speak, I am speaking well about myself and things.

Men talking helping other men talk

Sharing a private matter

I am just listening to a programme on BBC Radio 4 – Room 5 where I think people talk about life-changing diagnoses of personal consequence. Today, it was about Jon, tall, successful, nice young family and ticking all the boxes. [BBC Radio 4 – Room 5 – Jon]

He was at Peppa Pig World with his family a couple of years ago when he discovered something wrong with his body, secretions from his penis that his GP first treated as a rash or basic infection, then he was referred to a Genitourinary Medicine (GUM) clinic where they determined he did not have a sexually transmitted infection. Now, I already suspected what it might be.

Anyway, after researching online, he found a consultant that diagnosed that he had penile cancer and it had spread to one of the lymph nodes, it was advanced, but also treatable and so they arranged the programme of treatment that has now put the cancer in remission apart from making Jon a totally changed man.

Time to be expressive

I share this story because it has resonance with me in many ways that I have written about before. As men we find it difficult to take about health issues, an irritation in a private place with the accompanying discomfort that we dismiss as trivial even as we are caught up in the embarrassment and tongue-tied when it matters.

Men are dying of conditions that are treatable if caught on time, prostate cancer especially, but also penile cancer and breast cancer, yes, men get it too. We need to cross that barrier that stops us getting help. Only you can properly explain how you feel for a doctor to begin a proper diagnosis or set you on a course of the treatment that would give you that best outcomes, you need to have your voice speaking loud, clear, without fear, shame, or embarrassment.

On sex and sexual organs, the words describing them should not be taboo and move out of the category of profanity. Penis, arse hole, scrotum, balls, buttocks, breast or whatever colloquialism or vernacular gives meaning to what you are referring to need to be words you can use freely in a describing how and what you are feeling as your life might depend on it, it is no time to be coy or shy.

You are going to be touched and prodded in places you have never been touched before or where you have not intended was touchable. Heck! Your life depends on touching the right places to feel and see what is wrong. You can’t play offensive when a situation has made you defensive.

Where my manliness was foolish

In early 2009, I allowed what appeared to be athlete’s foot to develop into a stinking sore half-aware that it might be related to a much earlier HIV diagnosis. That sore turned out to be Kaposi’s sarcoma, a kind of skin cancer and a manifestation in my own case of full-blown AIDS. My condition was that serious that at diagnosis in September of that year, I was given the prognosis that it was treatable if I could tolerate the treatment, else, I had only 5 weeks to live.

The treatment worked because there was a body of knowledge and experience garnered from people and many of whom had not survived that became the canon on which specialists could claim and assert confidence to tackle my condition. I was put on antiretroviral (ARV) drugs that I am still on and seven sessions of chemotherapy over 5 months to put the cancer in remission and reverse AIDS to the point where I have had an undetectable viral load of HIV for over 12 years.

Responsibility and acceptance

I know I contracted HIV through reckless and unsafe sex practices, I have come to terms with the responsibility and consequence of my own actions, however, I do not live in guilt or regret of that, I have a life to live and I intend for whatever time I have left to live it well. In the process, I have learnt to speak freely and liberally especially with medical personnel about how I am feeling, promptly, directly and without mincing words.

However, many diagnoses are not of commission or omission, they are accidents of nature bringing adversity, infirmity and challenges with them. We are left with ourselves and the help we can get to face these situations with the hope that we might surmount them and get to tell a better story.

My voice for my choice

To a team, I once had so say, “It’s my body first, before it is your guinea-pig.”, when I was challenging the determination for intrusive treatment not long after my ordeal with chemotherapy. To another, when I was seeking treatment for another condition, I was blunt about being aware of my mortality as a result of co-morbidities for which immediate action was taken. When I was asked to change to medication that gave me no quality of life, I presented the daily dairy of recorded side effects and contra-indications, and at my request, I was put back on my original drug regime.

I am in my knowledge and understanding as good as my medical notes, if not better. It comes from genuine self-interest and awareness along with the freedom and willingness to talk to address any medical situation I am facing. Then, I encourage the invitation and sitting in of medical students on my consultations, I believe that not only can they learn from my condition, that experience can also go into helping others. I would normally engagement them to appreciate what areas of study and research they want to specialise in.

All the help available

Obviously, for the outcomes I have had, I have to thank the open-minded, professional, considerate doctors in their humanity who have listened, understood, helped, and encouraged me on my path to wellness, their expertise applied with respect and consideration has been lifesaving in so many ways.

To us men, when you feel something, have it checked out and follow the full course with all the advice and help you can get, speak up, speak loudly and if you are not getting the best outcomes possible, challenge the orthodoxy. It is always your body first, before it is anyone’s guinea pig, no matter how good they are at what they do.

Thought Picnic: Just like a baby, I have not talked

Should we have talked?

I have a compendium of blogs that serve not only as reference material, but time capsules of a situation or state of mind when I wrote those pieces.

Those blogs are somewhat journals of my discomfiture and sense of discomfort, betrayal, annoyance or some other ill feeling that I have decided to write about to help me deal with the issue at hand.

Sometimes, I do wonder if some of those things will have been better dealt with if I had addressed the people concerned directly.

Just like a baby I could not talk

Then I realise that though I could quite bold and forthcoming in some situations, in others I could as shy as to become literally dumb that my only outlet becomes my blog.

Yet, in writing that blog, it becomes a very cerebral exercise, rarely one in which ones spleen is vented with vehemence but something that I attempt to with a sense of English reserve, cryptic enough not to be direct and obvious enough as to make the point.

I’ve been hurt, aggrieved, maligned, belittled, disrespected and abused by too many to mention, some so close as fraternal, maternal and in the clan, the offences rarely dwell on my mind but things can be recalled with a trigger, at a confluence of circumstances sometimes completely unrelated and yet quite palpable.

For silence is still golden

There are reasons why I ignore many things, it is because I do have enough on my plate even if others do not realise that I have my one unique circumstance though I might not have the same kind of responsibilities we should all bear our burdens stoically with dignity and self-respect.

I then went over one of those blogs written over 6 years ago and realised that a very recent interaction of sorts brought to life an unresolved conflict and there are many of those lurking in memory, ensconced in a dangerous pressure-cooker situation that once again for the fact that a lot can be said, the wiser counsel is that silence is golden except for when another blog of obfuscation can be written to assuage the unrest.

There is a certain sentiment expressed in the video, maybe we should talk for a minute.

Thought Picnic: Exploring Therapy

One only alone

Single people can so easily get isolated from the kind of setting and community structure that allows for them to get help with ease and communicate issues before they become complicated.

The benefits of independence when able are quickly dispensed of when one is vulnerable, there are times when the presence of someone to chat to after the social hours is necessary to help unravel and probably sort things out.

In my circumstances, I have found that the openness I am able to express in writing is not that characteristic of my personality, I am somewhat reserved, secretive and private; my mind simply churns like a heavy industrial plant all the issues as I play protagonist and dissenter in my head trying to think through the circumstances.

Reaching beyond yourself

I have found many good solutions and amazing inspiration but there has always been something so amazing about sharing some of those issues with others and their perspectives just seem to ease the burden and show new insight that your self-assessment has never considered and if it has usually not with any persuasion.

Today, I rode out to see a therapist, whilst I am not sure of what I will gain from it, there is need to unburden myself on a number of situations as surviving cancer, the effects of long-term illness, returning to a standard and quality of life that one once knew and the way one projects oneself after having been through all those situations.

The analysis of self

I have just had the feeling that a lot of this I have in some ways brought on myself and then with some stoicism tried to manage myself but you wonder if you still have the strength to keep on keeping on despite the odds and latching on to the great hopes that give you the assurance that your better days are ahead and not in your past.

Would I lay in a couch? Do I have a bit part in Analyse This!? I do not know, but it is not madness to seek the company of professional strangers to think things through, I must divest myself of the cultural reluctance to seek therapy, I hear, it could be very helpful.

Thought Picnic: I think I need therapy

The rough seas of life

Beneath this sometimes affable and suave exterior is a man, flesh and blood, emotional, sentimental, feeling and affected, much as he can be objective, logical, clinical and almost unaffected.

The battles that rage in the mind between the obvious circumstances and the crazy optimism waiting to erupt out to overwhelm the issues that encircle, you wonder.

You wonder do you have the strength to weather the storms; do you have the resolve to stand the test of the times?

These times have to be temporary or all hope is lost, but what length of time is enough for a man to endure?

The edges of time

Before the fears envelop you, that reinforcement rises from within like a niggling awaiting the time to persuade you that the fight is really in you and many a time you have met with seemingly dire situations and come through.

But the time that dulls the pain is also the time that chisels at those things that make you confident, able and extrovert in the things that make up your force of personality.

That is the time that you realise you might be vulnerable, the issue of mortality is in the background though every indication is one’s health is holding up really fine.

I think I need therapy

It was 11 years ago that I found that chatting to an occupational psychotherapist might just give some perspective on my situation which was assumed to be suffering a mid-life crisis 10 years early.

I think I need to chat to a professional, I need to get a lot of stuff off my chest, I need to talk, in other words, I need therapy – the question is …

Thought Picnic: The therapy of talking

The one man

The man defined by his stoicism in the face of his tribulations bottles up everything with the stiff upper lip and resolves things will turn out right.

What burdens of great weight are shouldered in a mind that could be overrun with the billions of permutations of thoughts and solutions to the myriad problems that surround.

Yet, a man is but one person, one mind, one head, one and alone as he grasps and grapples so desperately with the hope, the belief, the faith, the doubt and the wars in the spiritual.

Can one walk these roads alone? Can one survive the sudden fall into the valley of the shadow of death? Does one know if it is the shadow or the reality, the sound of the roar or the presence of the lion?

The need for another

The mind plays tricks on you to the point of disillusionment and despair and you wonder where your help comes from, but there is always present help in the time of need.

One person needs another for support, one mind needs another to curtail the madness, one head needs another because as they say, two heads are better than one – there are persons, minds and heads of value and importance out there for the man who will open up and talk.

In talking, one finds ideas, concepts and insights, some reinforce things known, others originaland inspired; opening new ways of resolution and possibilities that almost always elude the singularity of man on his own, wandering in his own wilderness seeking respite and succour.

Learning anew

In all one finds an interesting insight, the fact that one never really integrated in a host society because everything seemed to be fine and then when things took a turn one was left clueless about how things really work where one has been for almost a decade – that probably defines an alien or rather a typical Englishman interestingly.

Amends will be made and knowledge gained because there are rights to be appropriated and benefits to be gained, meanwhile man when considering all is in deep gratitude for the amazing support that comes from that simple step of talking to someone else about those things that have been bottled up in that overactive almost exhausted mind for ages.

An opportunity to make friends - with Syria

Syria, the pummelled

Syria for a while had become the poster child for what is wrong and unsettling about the Middle-East from the American perspective.

Having been implicated in the gruesome and explosive assassination of the ex-Prime Minister Rafik Hariri leading to the reluctant but coerced withdrawal of Syria from Lebanon, then their support for Hezbollah and the brick bats they received with Iran regarding Hezbollah’s attack of Israel, they have every right to be indifferent about American issues.

Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General visited Syria recently and extracted a cooperation where Syria would impose an arms embargo on its Hezbollah ally and even allow troops to patrol their border with Lebanon – my point – it is good to talk.

Syria, the brave

So, some cack-handed terrorists poorly executed a plan to bomb the US Embassy in Damascus – Yes, the US is accorded diplomatic recognition in Syria though with no one at ambassadorial level, despite what they have to endure from America – the Syrian security personnel spirited foiled the attack in which one of their number was killed.

Ironically, this “supporter of terrorism”, be it the insurgency in Iraq or the Hezbollah in Lebanon is a fighter of terrorism on its own land even if it pertains to the endangerment of life and property of it chief accuser, America.

America could not but acknowledge with grudging gratitude Syria’s efforts through Condoleezza Rice though that was soured with another comment from the White House that Syria should play a more constructive role in the war against terrorism – take a deep breath of despair.

To Teheran with love

Then switch to Teheran and it is Assyrian/Persian hugs and kisses between Ahmadinejad and Al-Maliki, the Iranian President and the Iraqi Prime Minister respectively.

The Great Satan (America) would be completed miffed with this visit to a possible abode of three – Iran in the Axis-of-Evil.

Despite all the American views about Iran stirring up the Shiite insurgency in Iraq, Iran has offered to cooperate in ensuring Iraq security and stability along with other extensive cooperation deals on oil exploration and export.

With all the American lives being lost in Iraq, the government does have to chart its own way and they are showing that regional cooperation matters regardless of who America counts as friend or foe.

As far as the Middle-East is concerned, Iran and Syria after the Hezbollah skirmish in Israel are the new brokers for regional hegemony in that region with Israel now being exposed as more vulnerable than they thought they were.

Talk and communicate

It is really time to start talking rather that flinging hateful words and vitriol from the White House and State Department like intercontinental precision ballistic missiles.

It is time to try and become friends and talk though your differences, this whole idea of the guarded self-importance of the President of America precluding him from meeting with other people just in case he offers them clout, recognition or legitimacy is self-conceited to the extreme.

It would do well to engage in high-level talks according each other a modicum of respect and courtesy; that said, it is not a team that should include John Bolton even under sedation.

Insincerity of a non-purpose

A cause without a rebel

As one comes to the end of another project, one is in a quandary about how much has been achieved in the last few months.

My suspicions of the sincerity of purpose linger without respite.

As one was hired to help introduce a best practice methodology for a scheme that was implemented by personnel whose knowledge and experiences of an earlier version beclouded their ability to see the new features of the later.

That is excusable until the pressure of usage reveals tell-tale signs a sophisticated old version or a poorly implemented new version.

That management had identified part of the problem was significant and laudable, at least that is why one was hired.

Sacred cows for roast beef

However, once the job started of analysis and recommendation, endless meetings of consensus seeking validation stifled progress mostly through the resistance of the earlier implementers whose sacred cows were about to be massacred.

My candid opinion was that the system as it was could be improved upon and there was no need for a radical overhaul and design.

Others were hell-bent on a complete redesign, whilst the incumbents had the agenda of trying to revalidate their failing implementation time and time again by bringing in the vendor to vet all documents.

In the end, we have a repository of position documents, logged hours of debate and analysis but changed not one single thing – 5 months down the line.

Just talking the talk ONLY!

My questioning of the sincerity of purpose stems from the fact that a rationalisation is already happening without having put anything in place.

It looks like management is seeking to have some modicum of due-diligence done but have no intention of implementing any change.

Meanwhile, the lessons one has learnt would go far and can be codified into the following lessons.

• Never offer your organisation up to be an early-adopter of any technology; you end up having to do it all over again 18 months down the line.
• Master the technology at hand before implementing alternatives, other experts might wonder at your lack of fundamental knowledge.
• Just because you are good at an automation process does not mean it would work for all applications.
• The debate about implementing technologies once concluded at management level in terms of strategy and financing should be left to experts to carry forward.
• Once a technology is adopted, decisions should have expert delivery not democratic consensus.

Documentation is not completion

There are more lessons to learn in terms of the pace of change, but there is a delusion that documentation is fulfilment rather than it being the first part of an agreed process.

It is very likely that this time next year, the same old issues would still be the issues being discussed.