Mil's Mailing List Mail #47

 

Hello again, my charming friends. Before we continue our post-grad course in 'Relationships: the Cage Fighting Approach', let me first announce that my fourth novel, Instructions for Living Someone Else's Life is released today into the Earth's(1)applauding bookshops. Also, obviously, it's at Amazon.co.uk. Also, if you oddly fancy paying less than the Amazon price, and getting free postage too, it's featured at Play:
HERE
I am aware, of course, that the title, Instructions for Livng Someone Else's Life is repellingly awful. This is a pleasing contrast, as the book itself is - I'm embarrassed to say - really rather splendid. Honestly, it really is. If I hadn't written it, I'd wish I'd written it, and anyone who reads it without laughing, quite frankly, doesn't deserve a throat(2).

OK, let's move on to the subject of today's lecture - Targeting Your Own Foot.

You are by now, dear Listers, experienced scholars of interpersonal skills in the real world, under combat conditions. All of you should easily be able to get yourself into an argument with your significant other without requiring a lengthy build up or any hint of reasonable cause. Such aptitude and intelligence, I simply assume. However, just in case there are a few late-comers here, or some Sports Ed students in the room, let me give a general example.

Margret is driving. I'm sitting in the passenger seat. I'm periodically reaching across to turn the radio up so I can listen to the music. Margret is reciprocally reaching across to turn the radio down to the exact brink of inaudibility. Not off, you understand. Turning it off would be little more than very irritating. No, to turn it down so it's a just barely perceptible twitter - isolated from any residue of satisfaction, but still whispering what's being lost into your ear - that's something carefully, lovingly, precision-made to provoke a murderous rage. This is simply going on as we travel along, however: useful, yes, but we're not putting all our eggs into this particular basket.
"I might have to buy another one," I say (I'm referring to some electronic measuring equipment - this is the conversation that's going on alongside the radio volume dance).
"Why?"
"What do you mean, 'Why'?"
"I mean-" She breaks off mid-sentence and punches me hard on the top of my arm. I look at her. She nods her head, indicating somewhere further down the road. "Yellow car." Explanation over, she continues. "I mean why do you have to buy another?"
"Because I can't use the one I have if it's broken, can I? I need one that works."
Margret Frrrrs at this justification contemptuously. "Can't you just guess?"
"Guess?"
"Yes. Just... guess."
"You know, I suppose I could, now you mention it. And all that time I've wasted looking before I cross the road I could save simply by deciding to step out or not based on probabilities culled from the time of day and historical traffic flow."
"You're going to go on about this now, aren't you?"
"And what am I doing watching films, or the news, eh? Obviously, extrapolating from previous, known narratives takes care of the one, and simple speculation in light of current trends sorts out the other."
"I knew you'd go on about it."
"Congratulations. With one astonishing insight, you've cured Science."
So, it hardly needs mentioning, by the time we've reached the next junction, she's responsible for Creationism, and I, it seems, am "fatally autistic". The radio disagreement remains ongoing in the background.

That, as I said, was merely an example. You're all wise enough to get into a row on your own initiative. Just get one going, feed and nurture it, and raise it to a crescendo of mutual implacability so you'll have the starting point for today's class.

Rightio. Margret and I have had an argument. Not the one above - actually, I forget what the argument involved was. Study Tip: never let concern over one argument interfere with the arguments later built upon it. It dissipates focus. Whatever this argument may have been, it resulted in sanctions. That is, we'd arrived at an utter stalemate - both sides refusing to move from their positions - so the only sensible course of action was to agree to disagree, and then to impose punitive measures.

Now, Margret is unable to sulk. Not even for a week, let alone for a proper amount of time. I think it's partly because, as any fule kno, reticence(3) is a sine qua non of sulking. To sulk, she'd have to spend an extended period 'shutting up': and that is a line she is simply not prepared to cross. Now, because her arsenal lacks the subtle beauty of sulking, she goes more for the B52 route. So, while I or any mature person would have sulked, she decided to shock and awe me by declaring that I couldn't use the car on Sundays. As you'll know from your notes, our car is Margret's. I have a bicycle. This is fine. I'm not interested in cars; Margret is. I don't need a car for work; Margret does. But Sundays are my Achilles' Heel. Due to time-tabling necessities, on Sundays I have to go to aikido and run on the same day. In itself, no problem. It's only a short run on that day, so doing it after an aikido session is fine. But - ahhhhh - take the car out of the equation and it becomes: get up (earlier - gngh) on Sunday morning, then cycle four-and-a-half miles to aikido with my kit on my back, then spend ninety minutes being thrown all over the mat by a tiny Polish woman and, when not by her, by everyone else, then cycle four-and-a-half miles home with my kit on my back, then run for something over four miles. That takes the shine off a Sunday, that does - have to do all that and come tea time you're nodding off during Scrapheap Challenge. Which, of course, is why Margret opts to withdraw my Sunday car-use privileges. (If - I can't imagine it, but if - anyone among you is thinking, "Well, why don't you, say, just not go to aikido, then? Change your routine as result of Margret's restrictions." If anyone is thinking that, then I'd like you to quietly pack up your things, leave, and never set foot in this classroom again. You're wasting my time and yours.)

And this is where the unstudied would end. But, ladies and gentlemen, if you have any hopes of passing this course, you will not. I wish you to graduate not arguing at the prosaic level of the hoi polloi, but as gods.

Thus, when, eventually, you've again dragged yourself out of bed and packed your stuff ready to cycle off into a rain-torn Sunday morning, but then Margret, finally relenting, says, "Oh, OK... you can have the car today," what do you do? Exactly. You cycle anyway. This, everyone, is Targeting Your Own Foot: it is the continuation of an argument, wholly at your own expense.

Those of you with less relationship time on the clock may not yet be quite able to grasp this. Do not despair. Trust me - you'll get there. If you're facing, "Tsss, all right. For God's sake, come in out of the snow now," then you must - at advanced level - walk off deeper into the snow; ideally, throwing away your shoes as you go. There's the possibility of evoking Guilt here, of course. It's not the percentage shot, but Guilt is such a fabulously rare and powerful thing to have in your pocket that it's worth the risk nonetheless. More importantly... well: Schindler's List. You'll recall Oskar Shindler telling homicidal psycho Amon Goethe that real power is not in imposition, but in generous exemption - in effect, that mercy is bigger than punishment. You see? You do see, right? Allowing them to lift the misery from you is a false economy, because it's a tacit admission of subservience; even worse - good Lord, just contemplate the possible ramifications of this - you may even be seen to be in their debt. Take the superficially easy, unstupid, option now, and you could find yourself paying for it in a later argument. You could find yourself in a position where you now can't justifiably avoid having to make - it's an abhorrent word, I know, but I need to say it - a concession.

Essentially, if they've bad-temperedly set you on alight and then they approach with a fire extinguisher, you say, "No, thanks. I'll keep burning."

There will be a question on this in the exam, for which you will be awarded a mark only if you flamboyantly refuse to answer it, on principle.

Mil.

(1) The Earth doesn't include the USA, naturally. Well - only the part of it we call 'Canada'. (Back)
(2) What do you mean, you don't trust me? I'll see you, sir, on the field of honour with pistols drawn. Yes, two pistols - you may bring a sword. But, anyway, because the book's only just come out, the sole review I have is "The jokes are brilliant and the plot zips along but the theme is more serious than it seems" - Eve magazine. Still: yes they are, yes it does, and yes it is. You foul doubters. (Back)
(3) If someone on the nation's once standard-maintaining BBC says 'reticent' when they mean 'reluctant' one more time, I will kill a kitten. Two kittens if it's 'misnomer' when they mean 'misconception'. And if, instead of either 'one of the few' or 'the only', I hear the tautological atrocity 'one of the only' the death-mews will continue until I have no strength left to raise a hammer. (Back)

To leave Mil's Mailing List, go

HERE

then enter your address and click "Unsubscribe."