Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Jane Young
July 2009
We’re square pegs in round holes, operating within industrial revolution legacy
systems. Mass production, mass marketing, mass broadcasting; co-existing with
ultra-connectedness. The truth is out there. Google it. Then apply your newly
honed bullshit filter to weed out the facts from the crap.
Fear-gripped individuals are a sad byproduct of our chaotic times. Having lived
through the media - embracing consumerism as a form of identity - our false
expectations are shattered by a reality that never quite lives up to the star
spangled promises, regardless of a lifetime’s striving.
The identities we’ve constructed through stuff and work have left us emotionally
barren and unfulfilled. Our fears are amplified by the ‘availability heuristic’,
whereby our minds assess the likelihood of risks by asking how readily examples
come to mind. Media hype has bred an unhealthy familiarity with risk - from
financial failure to terrorism.
The pursuit of material wealth in Shetland is not at all high on the priority list,
despite being one of the richest islands in Europe. Millionaire fisherman are
indistinguishable from crofters on the bread line, wellies and all. Consumerism
offers identity tags, but tags are not required when everyone has your mark.
Once the need to self-preserve is stripped away, decorum and reputation coveting
evaporate (reputation IP is a handful of sand when it’s impossible to hide), setting
free the ability to lose yourself; an essential human need we’ve forfeited since
feudal festivities were quashed by capitalism.
Shetland is rife with opportunities to lose yourself; and work is incidental. Some
companies don’t pay sick pay on Mondays. Some send you home if it’s a really
sunny day, at which point folk strip off in the searing nineteen degree heat (!),
head to The Street with decks and speakers, party all day, perhaps jump off the
pier and undoubtedly don fancy dress.
The biggest Shetland festival is Up Helly Aa, a fire festival to welcome in the light
after a long dark winter. Participants (a large chunk of the population), known as
Guizers, form themed squads and spend months rehearsing their acts. There’s a
super-squad, the viking Jarl Squad (who’ve all grown compulsory beards) -
headed up by the prestigious Guizer Jarl (king of the festivities), which leads a
procession around the town, each man carrying a huge blazing torch. Some kids
have trust funds set up to pay for their future role in the Jarl Squad, to cover the
hand-crafted chainmail tunics, brass shields, reindeer-skin boots and helmets
decorated with ravens’ wings.
The spectacle culminates in all the Guizers throwing their torches into an ornate
galley ship, built by the Jarl Squad in the debaucherous Galley Shed throughout
the previous year.
Once the galley has burned to the ground, each squad jumps on their squad bus
and tours the local halls, performing their act... then onto the next hall. More
soup. More whisky. More dancing. The acts deteriorate throughout the night.
The following day, you’re likely to pass big burly spice girls lying on the roadside;
and perhaps see the odd hairy-chested Kylie Minogue and a few disheveled
vikings scattered around the lanes.
When I started my second job in Shetland with a quirky software company, I was
given a laptop. Not a tag conducive to the community’s values. In fact, so
misaligned, that walking across the road with said laptop in hand was enough to
incite passing vehicles to roll their windows down and make mocking ‘Oooooooh!’
noises at my overly businessy-ness. God forbid I should ever possess a handbag.
And a suit? The default response: ‘Funeral or court?’
Scientific studies prove our need for intimacy - our need to be touched. Even
placebo acupuncture makes us happy; or alternative therapies that involve
stroking or any sort of physical contact. The ‘free huggers’ in cities are an attempt
to reach out, touch and comfort our fellow humans, who’ve found themselves too
self-conscious to be spontaneous. This introversion has caused us to grow self-
absorbed - and false, because we’re making up an identity we’ve lost. Our
narrative is veiled with niceties and empty phrases.
Not only that, but resonant objects (whether musical instruments, or people)
usually have more than one resonant frequency (harmonics). We will easily vibrate
at those frequencies, and vibrate less strongly at others. We will “pick out” our
resonant frequency, in effect filtering out all frequencies other than our
resonance.
The ideal life balance - a state of resonance and consonance - may encompass
the intimacy, communal festivities and safety net of a geographically bound
community, with the freedom, opportunity and drive of city culture.
Surfers out there, riding the wave of revolutionary change brought about by our
networked society (and loving it), understand we can stop relying on institutions
and take responsibility for change and quality of life. This responsibility breeds
happiness, because it arises from feeling part of something.
Knock on every door on your street and ask your neighbours if they’ve ever
thought how bonkers it is that there are 40 lawns and 40 lawnmowers… then set
up a lawnmower sharing club. Start a global tribe of like-minded passionistas
around something that matters. Fed up with a crappy council service? Crowd-
source an alternative. Chip in and take it upon yourself. The technology is a given.
The revolution will not be clad in cotton wool, to save us from our deadly
expectations; our fake chase for happiness down roads to nowhere; our
seriousness and decadent independence. The revolution will embrace the real and
the surreal; discard the fake and the auto-pilot. We will triangulate our identities
within a frame of reference that is human, do-unto-others, bold and true.