As I Was Saying …

December 20, 2015December 20, 2015 / Paul Manson / 3 Comments

It’s been a while since I have posted here. In fact, it’s been nearly a year …

I couldn’t put my finger on why exactly it’s taken me so long to write. The easy answer is: “because I’ve been busy”. But everyone’s busy. I think mostly it’s because there has been so much new in my life over the last year, and you need to be paying attention when new stuff is happening.

But now it’s time I brought things up-to-date.

The best place to start is last December. Soon after I moved back to New Zealand, I had the incredible good fortune to meet Nicole. We had our first date on December 19th and our connection was instant. A year later, we find ourselves sharing a lovely old home set in an acre (half a hectare) of orchard in Golden Bay, a couple of kilometres from the sea. Over the course of this year there has been a steady diet of “new” for both of us:

We both have found ourselves navigating our new nuclear and extended families.
We are enjoying the (very old) house that’s become our new home.
We are both first-time gardeners, learning how to care for an acre of orchard with lots of old fruit and nut trees, as well as a vegetable garden that’s doing its best to recreate the Day of the Triffyds.
We are both working on new career paths. In my case I’m enjoying working on a fascinating software project with a client who’s also a good friend.
More than anything, we are making a habit of falling in love with each other anew every day.

Our new relationship is paralleled by a totally new lifestyle for me: the only flight I’ve taken in the past 12 months involved a single propellor and a pilot wearing jandals (aka flip-flops). My daily commute is a matter of a couple of meters and just a few seconds’ walk down the hallway. My work uniform consists of several pairs of beach shorts (and usually a shirt, unless it’s a particularly hot day). I haven’t seen a traffic jam or a security queue all year. The relaxed, rural lifestyle definitely seems to be agreeing with me. Over the past year, I have lost nearly 10kg and am back to the frame I had in my 20s. I’m no longer jogging on the beach for fitness, but gardening is good exercise and so is swimming. Whether felling trees, cutting firewood or weeding the overgrown vegetable beds, I’ve managed to keep fit and healthy despite having no regular exercise program. And – of course – being happy is a huge part of being healthy.

Are there downsides to life in the countryside? A few … but nothing you can’t easily accommodate. The local supermarkets have a very limited range of out-of-season fruit and vegetables, and a narrow selection of meats and cheeses at any time of year. But we’re focused on enjoying what’s actually in season, and looking forward with anticipation to what’s coming along in the garden. And even here, it’s possible to obtain more interesting meats and fish: you just have to catch them yourself!

With summer vacations approaching, I’m now able to contemplate my first proper holiday in a couple of years. It’s a different dynamic, working for yourself. Every day off work is a day without income, and the only job security is a belief in your own ability to create value for others. It will be nice to relax for a bit, this summer, and to enjoy together the results of our hard work since moving to our new home in early September.

Paul and Nicole, Jellyfish, December 2015. Engaged

Looking back on the past year, I think perhaps blogging had become something of a solo pursuit. It was “all about me” for a while there. So it has taken me some time to found my voice again, as part of a new “us”.

And speaking of “us”, yesterday Nicole agreed to marry me. Which makes everything complete.

Now, as I was saying …

Endings

December 30, 2014December 30, 2014 / Paul Manson / 4 Comments

As I sit down to write this, I know what I want to say, but I have no idea how to express it in words that won’t seem trite. I’m trying hard to avoid the sickly, over-ripe scent of platitude.

For me, 2014 has been a year of endings. In January I decided to call time on a 24-year career, and also on a 3-year sojourn in France. These had both been fabulous experiences and there is so much I’ve enjoyed about both my company and my adopted country. But in both cases it was time to move on; time to try something new. Then in June, my wife decided to call time on our 26-year marriage. And that didn’t feel the same to me at all. I wasn’t ready for that change; in fact I would never have been ready for it. I couldn’t see past it to any kind of new future. It felt like something much more terminal. An ending. And then a void.

But vacuums don’t easily exist in nature. We can create them artificially, but we can’t sustain a void without enormous effort. As much as I might have wanted to hide from the world, and as much as I didn’t want to look for new love, somehow love found me. And now for each of these endings I can see new beginnings. I find myself in December, living in yet another (old) new country, working on a new career path, and suddenly, unexpectedly, head over heels in love with someone new.

I could never respect the “Harriet Smith” character in Jane Austen’s “Emma”; her propensity to fall repeatedly in love always seemed way too accidental to me; too passive. Yet somehow I’m caught up in a whirlpool that’s simultaneously planned and deliberate, conscious and intelligent, visceral and instinctive, and utterly, utterly delicious. Because someone else has chosen to share that whirlpool with me. And this is just the beginning.

What am I trying to say here? That I could see the potential life beyond the end-points that I chose myself (career and country), but I couldn’t do that when the end-point was not of my own making. But in every case, the world beyond that end-point was the same, whether or not the Ending was of my choosing. The range of opportunities in life is unlimited; what holds us back is our own visibility of those opportunities. Sometimes what appears to be utter darkness is just the result of us choosing to keep our eyes tightly closed. Or an apparent lack of choice is just our decision to focus on one specific option (which then isn’t an option at all; you need two options before you actually have any sense of self-determination). In animals, as in humans, our natural survival instincts cause us to narrow our focus when in fight-or-flight mode; but as we relax, our peripheral vision opens up again and the full range of possibilities and choices becomes visible once more.

I believe we are defined by the choices we make. I choose to begin again.

Happy New Year.

Go Fish

December 3, 2014December 3, 2014 / Paul Manson / 3 Comments

I caught a Snapper for the first time in my life last night. In fact I caught two. And – with a slightly guilty feeling of pride – I posted this picture on Facebook. As you do.

But this morning, a comment on the picture made me wonder why I’d gone fishing in the first place. It’s not something I’d ever thought to ask myself … Fishing is just something that seems to happen to people here in Golden Bay. Like growing your hair long and losing track of which day (or which month) it is.

As I pondered the question, I realised that I really don’t enjoy the physical process of fishing at all. You know, the part where you sit for hours doing nothing much. I can imagine, hypothetically, that some people might find this soothing, or peaceful. But inactivity drives me batty. It’s not like I have the attention-span of a clam, but when it comes to doing nothing, I just can’t get with the program. I’m the kind of person who needs to be doing stuff, even on vacation. Especially on vacation. I’ve always had an irrational dread of waking up to find that I’ve somehow been taken on a cruise-ship holiday. I can’t imagine doing nothing day after day (and of course it’s not like that; there’s presumably a whole lot of activities but I can’t shake the feeling that it would be some kind of hell-on-the-high-seas for me). I can never see past the idleness of the whole thing.

So I’m not there for the fishing itself. Why then do I do it?

Partly, I’m there for the conversations. Somehow, sitting out in the bay in an aluminium tin can gives people an altered perspective. They’re looking back at their daily lives, from the outside, a bit like an astronaut looks back at the earth from space. And that different perspective drives some very different conversations. And different conversations are what I love. Getting past the everyday facade to see some of what goes on behind the curtain. And getting to hear from people who sometimes don’t talk that much on land. All of which means that I can’t even begin to imagine fishing by myself.

Also, I’m there for the sea: I love being out on the water, where the light is so different. As an amateur photographer, I’m a light junkie. I get depressed by grey weather, which is probably why I’ve been happiest living in places where there’s a lot of clear sky. It’s not that I mind rain and storms: I just need the weather to take itself seriously and pour down, rather than pissing around for days on end trying to gather the motivation to precipitate. So by definition, it’s always good weather when you’re out in a boat (because if it’s bad weather, you’d be mad to go out fishing). Ergo, Fishing equals interesting colour and light.

And I’m there for the drama. By nature, I’m the kind of person who used to think he had life under control … that if I paid due attention to life, things wouldn’t go wrong. And mostly they didn’t. Until they did. So I’m normally someone who would avoid drama. But somehow drama at sea is different from drama on land. It feels more natural. Like it’s supposed to be unpredictable, whereas everyday life is supposed to be the opposite. Take last night: we had three Manson Men(*) in a boat, and our collective confidence in the likelihood of catching anything was sufficiently lacking that none of us had thought to bring along a container(**) for the fish. And we never have the right gear: we’ll talk about how hard it is to bring in the set line or remove a fishhook without gloves, but then two days later we’re back out on the boat with none of us having visited their friendly local glove emporium in the intervening period. And there’s nothing better to spark a friendly argument than three people all being wrong at once. Speaking of drama, there’s also nothing quite like running into a sandbar on the way back to the harbour, just before dark. At speed. Twice. Fish tastes better when there’s still some burnt adrenalin in the back of your mouth.

Oh yes. And I’m there for the fish. I knew there was a reason. Yum.

(*)Manson Men are like Mountain Men. Just shorter.

(**)Disclaimer: I actually had brought along a bucket to bring home the fish I needed for lunch guests today. But I’d left it in the car. That’s about the limit of my drama-queen repertoire.

One Month

November 28, 2014 / Paul Manson / Leave a comment

It has now been a month since I began my new life here in in Golden Bay. I can’t believe it has gone so quickly, but I’ve spent most of the time working, trying to make a solid start on my new career, writing iOS apps. I had set myself an internal deadline to have something to show by the end of the first month, and yesterday I submitted my first 3 apps to Apple for review (just Beta Test review, not final iTunes store review). So now I’m in the nerve-wracking phase of waiting to see whether any of the three have a chance to make it onto the iTunes App Store. I’m sure I’ll get better at this, but I also know that I still have plenty to learn about the whole process. And whether or not Apple decides these first three attempts should live or die, I’m pleased with the progress I’ve made.

I am enjoying the privilege of living in a fabulous house by the beach, with one of the best “corner office” views in the world. It’s the most amazing place to work: I’ll sit there staring at a computer screen for an hour or two at a time (as indeed, I’m doing right now), then suddenly I’ll look up and realise that I’ve forgotten the glorious view and I just soak it in for a few minutes. I definitely want to keep on doing this …

Away from the work, I’ve been walking and running on the beach every day (when it isn’t raining), and I’ve loved catching up with family, and with the few old friends who still live in the Bay. Everywhere I go, pretty much everyone here knows someone with whom I’m related or acquainted, and that’s not something I’ve experienced for a long, long time (living in the relative anonymity of Europe). One thing is already clear: no-one who lives here should have any illusions about their “privacy” … we are all

I’ve been making the most of my new ability to grow and collect and catch my own food: we had a first fishing trip yesterday; I’ve collected shellfish a few times; and I’ve been eating my own potted herbs from the beginning. But this week I took it a step further and harvested the first “vegetables” from my new garden: rocket, which in just three weeks has grown to the point where it needed to be picked and eaten. Is that normal? And does the triffid-like growth rate continue indefinitely? If it does, I’ll be serving Rocket and Parmesan salad for lunch every day!

For me, life has always revolved around the dining table. Last night, a few friends and family got together for dinner: Confit de Canard, cooked to perfection by (sister) Fi, with potatoes roasted in duck fat. Just stunning! It wasn’t Thanksgiving Dinner – because this is New Zealand (and we were already a day past Thanksgiving) – but something to be thankful for, certainly. As I drove home to the Beach House last night (with the top down), the night sky was just amazing. I had forgotten how clear the sky is, down under.

While Golden Bay is – objectively – the end of the earth, already I’ve been blessed with visitors from France, the UK, New Zealand and even Tanzania. I’m really pleased to hear so many people planning to visit the Bay. I’d love to be able to host as many visitors here as we did in France or at Blenheim Palace.

So my impressions so far? This new lifestyle is certainly worth the journey … and while I have yet to prove that I can sustain it financially, I already know that I’ll be working as hard as I ever have in my life, in an effort to achieve that.

This is a lifestyle worth living for!

[Photo taken, hand-held, just after midnight …]

Creativity (once again)

November 20, 2014November 21, 2014 / Paul Manson / Leave a comment

While I was “between continents” a couple of weeks ago, I chanced upon a speech by John Cleese on the subject of “Creativity”. It was quite an old video of a presentation to a Video Arts audience, and unfortunately it no longer seems to be publicly available (due to a copyright dispute?) But the audio and transcript can still be found here. [Note: it’s not the only presentation by Cleese on this topic, but I think it’s the most interesting version].

Cleese, in his inimitable style, makes a number of useful points about the creative process. But the one that stuck out, for me, was the importance of “subconscious persistence”: of continuing to work on a problem subconsciously, after you’d come up with the first (or second, or even third) viable solution.

Cleese noted that some of his Monty Python colleagues, whom he regarded as more innately talented comedians than himself, would nevertheless write routines that lacked the spark of his writing.

They were good. They just weren’t great.

He attributed the difference to his colleagues’ tendency to find a solution and to then move on to the next problem, whereas he would continue to roll the problem around in his subconscious mind, polishing and refining the solution it until it shone. Until it made the creative leap from Good, to Great.

The difference is clear, and it’s probably one of the definitive separators between art and science; in science, there’s a clinically correct answer to most problems, and that solution usually looks just fine without being anything special; sparkle or shine is not a requirement. In art, on the other hand, there’s no definitive solution to any problem, but some solutions just look “right”; their intrinsic greatness shines through. And I can see how Cleese’s “subconscious persistence” gets you from Good, to Great.

Cleese admits that he sometimes took longer to complete some routines than his colleagues, but that the difference wasn’t significant over the long haul; most of his “extra” creative work was conducted in parallel, in his subconscious. And no comedian has ever been honoured (or remembered) for writing slightly faster than his or her peers. What’s remembered is the work that took the leap of quality; the work that made it across the line to greatness. The rest dies away, forgotten by everyone but the author.

Now this could be interpreted as a license to procrastinate, but it’s not (I loathe procrastination). The key is to keep up your momentum, moving consciously on to the next problem or opportunity, while continuing to subconsciously polish and refine your art until it shines. To use a sailing metaphor, you need to keep up your boat-speed, adjusting course subtly and continuously in response to changes in the wind and sea. At any moment you’ll likely be a few points off the perfect line, but you’re able to rapidly respond to the ever-changing environment. That’s infinitely better than sitting dead in the water, trying to calculate the perfect course before heading off. Take that approach, and you’ll never get anywhere.

Are these contradictory statements? Perhaps, but they represent the inherent conflict in real art, between progress and perfection.

So shine on … and hurry up about it!

And Now For Something Completely Different …

September 30, 2014 / Paul Manson / 7 Comments

It was already clear two months ago, when I started my search for a new career here in the UK, that there was plenty of change ahead in my life. I fully expected to find myself working in a whole new industry, with new challenges and new learning to be done.

Since then, I have had lots of interesting conversations with recruiters and companies, many of which seemed intriguing and appealing, at first. But the more I talked about these roles, the less I felt drawn towards them. In many cases, it was not so much the work itself as the lifestyle that surrounds it. With the days getting shorter now, and the nights much cooler, I’m keenly aware of what the next 6 months will be like. I honestly don’t think I want to get up in the dark, commute an hour to work, then drive home in the dark at the end of the day. I’ve done my share of that, and it sucks at my soul like one of Harry Potter’s Dementors.

But that’s just how it is in the UK in winter. Yes, there’s a shiny car and an expensive house to compensate for those dark days. But I’m past the point where that compensation has enough appeal … if I had my way, every day would end with me sitting outside on the deck, chatting with friends and watching the sun go down. That’s what Real Life looks like to me. And I came to realize last week that this isn’t what I was interviewing for. The gap between Real Life and “Existence” (albeit a well-paid existence) has been slowly coming into sharper focus.

So over the past month I have been feeling steadily less enthusiastic about the commuting and the business travel that would go along with the kind of job for which I was applying. And to my surprise, I was getting more and more interested in something different altogether …

To keep my brain from going to mush over the summer, I bought an Apple Mac and taught myself to write iPhone and iPad apps, using Apple’s new Swift language. This is something I’d not done seriously for 10 years, and something I’d not been paid to do for over 15 years. I didn’t really have much clue whether I could still do it, or whether I would still like doing it. Turns out the answer to both questions is a resounding “Yes”.

But this was initially just something to keep my brain active. Something creative to do between job interviews. It wasn’t until late last week that it occurred to me that I could potentially go back to writing software for a living.

It will take time to polish my rusty software skills and to build up a profile and portfolio that will enable me to make a living as a freelance software engineer. And in the meantime, it’s not financially smart to be living somewhere expensive during the startup phase. Besides, even without the commute or business travel, I’m still not keen on being somewhere grey and cold and dark for half the year. The occasional holiday in the sun isn’t enough for me now: I want to see the sun most of the year (partly so I can watch it set each day, of course!).

And then I got to thinking: for the first time in history, it’s possible for someone like me to live on a remote mountainside or sit by the beach and work. In fact, it’s practically a moral responsibility to be located somewhere beautiful when writing software … not struggling with traffic and sitting in the dark all winter. Of course, most software people don’t have the luxury of upping sticks and going to live by the beach. Most people have ties of family or other responsibilities that keep them stuck in place. But since June, I suddenly don’t have those ties. And serendipitously, I also happen to know of a home by the sea, in one of the most beautiful places on earth: Golden Bay, where I grew up. The icing on the cake is the opportunity to be near my parents and siblings, who have each spent their own time wandered the globe, but have all found themselves back in Golden Bay in recent years.

So there it is. Something completely different. I had been expecting something different, but not that different!

And in usual Manson fashion, decision turns quickly to action. So it was last Friday morning when I first gave any serious thought to making a career as a freelance software engineer. By Saturday morning I’d done the math and worked out where I would need to be to give myself the (financial, emotional and climatic) space to make this work. By Sunday morning it was all decided. Tomorrow I’m getting the first quotes from the moving companies. And if all goes to plan, I should be sitting (working hard! really!) by the beach in New Zealand at the end of October. Just enough time now to visit friends in the UK, do some last-minute sightseeing and catch up with Alex in Lille before the door of the Airbus A380 closes behind me …

Autumn

September 18, 2014September 18, 2014 / Paul Manson / Leave a comment

There was a different mood around Blenheim Park this morning. A distinct change of air. It was almost as if the earth has been breathing in all summer long, but just this morning it has started gently to exhale.

The leaves on the trees are (mostly) still green, but they know their days are numbered.

The squirrels, who were hardly to be seen at the height of summer, have shaken off their lethargy and are gathering nuts with a grim look of determination on their faces.

Their urgency seems to have affected the other animals around the park: the deer have retreated further from the roads and pathways, and they dart into the bushes with a palpable sense of fear now. The pheasants still coat the hillsides, but the green grass has browned at the edges and their flecked plumage makes them suddenly invisible against the background. They seem to know what’s coming next.

No doubt there is an official “first day of Autumn”, though I can’t remember what date that might be. But at Blenheim Palace, I know that it’s today.

All of which could be interpreted as some kind of metaphor for my own life. There’s certainly plenty of change in the air, with a range of interesting new career options to explore and new experiences to be had.

But frankly, I’m not done with summer yet!

Churchill (Again)

August 5, 2014August 5, 2014 / Paul Manson / Leave a comment

It has been something of a Churchillian month for me. I seem to keep stumbling across the guy’s tracks:

Two weeks ago, we visited Chartwell again. We arrived late in the day (courtesy of the M25 traffic) which was a blessing in disguise, as we were the last people through the house and could linger in each room undisturbed, just soaking up the atmosphere.
Last week, we happened across the spot (it’s a kind of temple … the guy had style!) in Blenheim Park where Churchill proposed to Clementine in 1908. They were to remain married for 57 years, until his death in 1965.
Today, my morning run took me past the village church at Bladon, where all the Spencer-Churchills are buried, so I called in to pay my respects.

The thing that keeps striking me about Churchill’s life is how much of a struggle it was. It would be easy to think that he came from a privileged background and that he somehow lived a more charmed life than the rest of us. Easy, but wrong.

Despite being remembered as one of the most successful leaders of the 20^th century, Churchill’s career was punctuated by failures. These days, it seems a politician’s life is over with their first mistake; a single black mark ends their career. [Which is presumably why so many of our current leaders are faceless bureaucrats who continue to climb the ladder because they never take a stand on anything. But that’s a story for another day …]

It’s true that the world of politics is more transparent than it used to be, thanks to the internet and television. But Churchill’s failures were hardly the kind of small stuff that might be swept under the carpet by well-connected friends. I’m thinking of the Gallipoli campaign in particular, where he failed on an epic scale. Yet each time he picked himself up, drew what lessons he could from his failure, and then strode forward once more.

So it seems to me that Churchill’s distinguishing mark was his spine, his grit and his driving sense of destiny.

There’s learning here for us all. The best learning opportunity of our lives is when we encounter failure and have to make a choice:

We can treat that failure as evidence of an inherent character flaw within us; something of which we should feel ashamed, or evidence that a whole area of life needs to be feared and avoided;
Or we can treat each failure as a growth opportunity, from which we can emerge stronger, better-equipped to take on the next challenge that comes our way.

Churchill wrote frequently about the need to struggle, to persist in the face of opposition and to pick oneself up and march on after a failure:

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”

“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.”

“This is no time for ease and comfort. It is time to dare and endure.”

“Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality that guarantees all the others.”

“I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this government: I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”

And now a quote from me (channelling Winston):

“Anything worth doing carries the risk of failure. And every failure is a learning opportunity. The only true failure in life is not to have tried.”

Beauty

July 14, 2014December 20, 2015 / Paul Manson / Leave a comment

You know the moment when you round a corner and see a vista that literally has you breathless? Or you look up from your coffee to see the most beautiful women in the world walk by? Or you observe a child and a dog having a moment of deep connection as they pass each other in the park?

Those are the moments I live for. Everything else is just life-support for these moments of breathtaking beauty that make life worth living.

We’re not always tuned to these moments … too often we are in a hurry or we’re caught up with thoughts that distract us at the critical instant when beauty chooses to reveal herself.

Which is a pity, because the deep impact of beauty is truly a momentary thing. Stay looking at the same inspiring vista for more than a few minutes and it doesn’t become any more beautiful; give it a few hours and your eyes are ready for another sight, even if it’s one that’s objectively less spectacular. Spend an hour in the company of the beautiful woman and while she’s still just as beautiful, you’ve eventually learned how to breathe again and your initial feelings of awe and sensory overload have begun to wane.

Why is that?

Is it some kind of self-protection mechanism, to avoid the world becoming dull once you’ve seen “the best” view or met “the most beautiful” person or had “the nicest” encounter with a cat/dog/ferret/furry-pet-of-choice?

Or is it just your brain recalibrating? Taking the new information, absorbing it and preparing your spirit for the next exciting, beautiful instalment of life?