Dyspraxic?

At the age of 16 I was delivered to an educational psychologist, sat down and took a test, various tests actually. I had forgotten all about it until I read an article today in the website of the Guardian's Comment is Free. The headshrinker told me that the reason I hadn't been doing well at school was because I was dyspraxic and that I needed to organise myself better. I ignored him, didn't really know what he expected me to do and more than anything didn't really believe it mattered as if this was the case then I still simply had to live with it.

Now I am feeling the strain. I have felt it before but didn't associate my feelings of frustration with my own performance at work with this so called "dyspraxia". I miss things, obvious things that are easy to spot, I find it hard to deal with coding and I feel...like there is a block on me when it comes to carrying out certain tasks. Frustration is the word, it's a really descriptive word for how I feel. I find myself zoning out when I am supposed to be carrying out certain tasks. Like when it comes to remembering short term things I...forget, so I write things down (after being told to by my more than patient boss....cheers mate) but then forget to check the list. I forget more than that, when I am in the middle of a task I forget what that task is. It takes me some time to remember once again what it is. It frustrates me.

The tasks at work are really simple to be honest. Once you know what you are doing you wouldn't have any trouble carrying them out. Yet I do, even the most simplest of tasks. It makes me angry with myself, even writing an email in the correct format turns out to be too hard more often than not. I get in trouble when I get it wrong and I have no reason or excuse.

I am reminded of other jobs I have done, most notable a couple of months at Jane's. I had problems there too, I couldn't seem to get things right they had a system for saving articles on the computer but I kept getting it wrong. I kept making the most simple of spelling mistakes and submitting work with elementary problems which I had missed despite checking sometimes several times. Their patience with me was limited, my strongest memory was returning home and throwing things around in my anger. Anger mainly directed at myself.

Then there was school, by the age of 15 I regularly bunked sports lessons unable to explain to the other kids how it was that I often missed the football when attempting to kick it, they were arseholes about it, I hated myself for it. Now I miss the golf ball instead of the football and refuse to play any kind of sports in front of anyone, but it's only as I write these words that I put all the pieces together.

So now I know that I have trouble fir the reason of a little known learning disability. So what? I still have to go to work tomorrow and for the rest of my life. I can hardly go in there and say I am unable to work. Which is kid of a catch 22 because who is more likely to read this than my workmates anyway? (hi guys).

The real problem is it feels like laziness or making excuses for doing shoddy work and I'm really not sure how to correct it. People have been very, very patient with me but that patience won't last forever and I am going to have to figure out a way of overcoming. Or becoming rich through my writing. Were I a cynical man I would comment on my ability to put together this piece without a single mistake in it.

Maybe I am just making excuses, maybe I am just too lazy to work properly.

The Bigger Man

The clothes spin around and around but I'm not looking at them. Instead I am buried in the adventures of Sherlock Holmes marvelling at Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's ability to suck me into the story with such speed and skill. There is nothing interesting going on in Dizengoff Square, as is normal. Laundry always makes me feel lonely, though I have never quite understood why.

A man walks past, glass bottle of Tuborg in hand, hair tied back in a pony tail. He leans down which is why I notice him. He has stopped not 2 meters away from me and has leaned to see what I reading. He looks directly into my eyes. "You look like a dick" is the heavily accented voice that emanates from his mouth. He is still standing there, still looking at me. I am looking back from my seat, I say nothing.

He turns and moves unsteadily on, the adrenaline is pumping through me, I stare at his back as he slowly makes his way along the square. He turns back and I drop my eyes, refusing to make contact with his. I am tempted to shout but I don't. Thoughts of running after him and challenging him are not running through my mind...not yet. My thoughts go back, to how I felt the last time I was in a fight. Then it was I who was drunk and it was I who was filled with shame the next day. I immediately determined that I wasn't going to challenge this man. I felt under attack and I didn't respond. The waves of adrenaline flowed freely still though I neither fought nor took flight. My wardrobe was still swimming it's way around and around and around.

Be the better man Marc, I say to myself. I know, intellectually, that this is the right thing to do. I know that if I fight this man, whatever the outcome, I will have lost. Should I win, best case scenario, I will have pummelled a fellow man for merely uttering the words "You look like a dick". Worse I know that I would feel remorse for my actions and worry endlessly what's wrong with me that I can't even do my laundry without being in a confrontation with someone. If I lose I will have taken a battering which could have been entirely avoidable and my self esteem probably would have plummeted.

In the end I know that fighting is the wrong thing to do but...why is it that doing nothing feels so disgustingly cowardly? My mind rages with should have's...Should have attacked him like a lion, pounced, destroyed, roared. I should have established my dominance as a man, should have shown him that no one can insult Marc Goldberg!

I have done nothing, though I can't help but abandon my route home and follow the direction that he walked away in. Perhaps he was still lingering...

Jews Nazis Nazis Jews

I have been thinking about comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany since I saw this post on Harry's Place. It's difficult to comprehend how people can get so carried away, though I think I have gotten to an understanding. It's all about the lens through which we view the world. When we view the real world as a pantomime we must cast the hero and the villain. When the villain enters on stage we howl and roar, when the hero enters we cheer. For some Israel the hero for others the villain, both sets of supporters follow the same ritual.

The villain has to be the villain, there is no room for shades of grey. Everything is devoted to preserving this refracted lens through which the world is viewed. The villain is evil absolutely and the hero forgiven his sins, should he ever have committed any.

And so here we are with Israel and Nazi Germany. The latter the most clear definition of evil in modern times and Israel the pantomime villain. All the good Israel has done as a State is cast into irrelevance, such as in Haiti. All Israel is at fault and the fault lines running through the country and society are irrelevant, worse, utterly disregarded. To admit that there are parts of Israeli society that don't meet the formula of the pantomime villain create problems for the refractive lens and are therefore the truth is discarded in favour of a simpler vision of the world. One where the problems are easy to solve and the villain obvious to all.

And so Israelis are now Nazis in the eyes of those looking to live in this simple world. Gaza the Warsaw Ghetto. None of this equates into any change for Palestinians but as long as people can pat themselves on the back and pretend that they are doing 'something' to correct the evils of the world they don't really care about reality now do they?

i'm wandering off somewhere no one can find me. I'm taking to the hills to find the meaning of life and to quiet the burning in my soul. I'm running away somewhere no one can find me. I am running away to see who will notice I am gone. I'm setting my soul loose to ease my pain, closing my eyes and pretending that the rest of the world doesn't exist. I'm closing my mobile phone and burning my computer to prevent the world from getting in. I am ignoring the people around me to prevent them from hurting me.

I refuse to like anyone ever again so afraid I am of the blades of their words against me. I give up. The weight of the world has crushed my slim shoulders and nothing remains of my shattered heart. Loved but never loved back. Hated and scorned in equal measure, traumatised and traumatiser, stalker but never stalked, speaks but is never answered.

Sometimes it's just too hard, sometimes it all just looks too bleak. We can but try to fulfill our dreams with no guarantee of success and failure stalking like a rabid dog there are too many ways to fall and no paved road to success.

I wish my soul didn't burn quite so much

Wolfie

The cobbled stones of Shabazi Street ran red with the blood of a 15 year old Arab boy named Salim. Wolfie stared briefly at the flow of blood that gushed from the hole in the boy's head that he had created, London would not be pleased.

He shook slightly and then busied himself with the business of searching through the boy's pockets for what he knew must be there. His robes had many folds and in one of them he found a cheap dagger which he immediately discarded. When his methodical search of the still warm body turned up nothing of any value he began again. This time unable to maintain his previous air of calm he patted the body down with increasing desperation to be met with absolutely nothing. Looking around him he picked up the blade and casually walked away from the scene of his crime, carelessly kicking away what had once been an irrelevant stone but had within the last few moments assumed a far greater importance as a make shift murder weapon.

The shadows of narrow, cobbled street had hidden Wolfie's face and his terrible deed from the attention of any of the night people who may have sought to navigate through Shabazi Street on their way from the Jewish area to the Arab or vice versa. Though he could already hear muted sounds of alarm as the body was discovered he wasn't overly concerned. He was both a British and already too far gone for any of the Fez wearing Arabs or denim clad Jewish settlers furtively wandering through the night to discover him, even if they had wanted to. "Your move Richtofen" he thought to himself as he moved in the general direction of his favourite pub, "I may not have found the documents but I just killed your favourite courier you bastard, your bloody move."

These were the last coherent thoughts he would remember the next day after awaking with the usual hangover.

Rabin's Dead and his Peace Plan Died With Him

So here we are, a little over 15 years after the great man was gunned down. All mourning his passing and remembering where we were when we found out, remembering our shock that it was a fellow Jew who killed him blah blah fucking blah.

The truth is no one really remembers him. Not you, not me and certainly not those who succeeded Yitzhak Rabin, the least popular Prime Minister Israel has ever seen, right up until he was killed that is. It cannot be that he is mourned with anything but crocodile tears. Surely if he were truly mourned I wouldn't be hearing the organisers of his Tel Aviv remembrance ceremony saying that his 15th was not going to be repeated next year on the same scale. With attendance falling year after year who can blame the major TV stations for almost refusing to pay the price demanded by the organisers for the privilege of broadcasting it. Admittedly there was outcry and the TV stations caved, I wonder why there isn't such an outcry at the refusal of any Israeli government to honour his memory by actually carrying out some of his policies.

IT's just too damn easy to say nice things, it's too easy to lament his passing once a year only to ignore all that could have been, all that could be for the other 364 days of the year. I can't stand watching Barak decide that it's more important for him to sit in a government as Defence Minister than it is for him to honour the reason that people voted for him in the first place. We, who believed once in the Labour Party deserve better. We who believed once in our ability to live in a country with known and recognised borders deserve better.

We have been too quick to pat ourselves on the back, our forefathers did not create a country in 1948 they founded one. Israel is not yet finished, we have not yet assumed our full responsibilities as a nation state. This continued stagnation can not continue much longer, this phase of procrastination by successive Israeli governments will last until we, the people of Israel, stand up and tell them that enough is enough. It's not so hard, we just have to vote for change instead of going to memorials...and pretending to care.