Street Photography at Notting Hill

Man with van

Carrying the shopping

Determined

Woman on phone

Ruan and I decided to spend the morning in Notting Hill. I used a hand-held flash to achieve the deer-in-headlights effect.

Steam locomotive "Union of South Africa" at Kings Cross Station, London 24/11/2012

I had a rather special experience today. I saw on the Ian's blog that a steam train will be visiting Kings Cross today and we went out to see it.
The train is the "Union of South Africa", a British Rail  LNER Class A4 steam locomotive built in 1937. Here is the locomotive entering the train shed at Kings Cross:

Locomotive entering King's Cross Station

I liked the colour scheme - gold on red with green paint:

Close up of the locomotive in motion

This is me and I like the wordplay "Rudolph of South Africa". :)

Rudolph of South Africa

The driver/engineer changing the headlamp.

Engineer changing the light

Changing the headlight

Front of the train

This is the old Union of South Africa coat of arms that I grew up with. "Ex unitate vires".

Union of South Africa's coat of arms

A shot of the driver's cabin of the locomotive:

Driver's cabin

And of the wheels.

Wheels of the locomotive

This is the old "flying springbok" used by the South African airways and railways. Also something you don't see anymore.

Flying Springbok

Locomotive from the other side

Blowing steam

Conflict between the conscious and the subconscious

I've been pondering about the curious process of healing that triggers when you suddenly have a realisation about an internal, subconscious conflict. Most recently, I've had a few of those and it was quite surprising how quickly I felt better after each realisation.

Last night, I felt the Black Dog approaching and fast. Earlier the day, I learned that the Hatmaker killed a deal I was trying to set up between his company, a mutual customer and myself. Obviously I have no idea why he did that, because it is not in his interest. He feels I'm threatening him when I have been trying to get money out of him that is now overdue by fourteen months.

Needless to say that it unsettled me greatly. I spent the whole day thinking it through and only this morning did I realise that the conflict is quite obvious. On the one hand, his behaviour has always been erratic and this particular act is just madness. He is out for revenge and not thinking about any kind of mutual benefit. On the other hand, having just learned about Attribution Errors, I try to explain his behaviour by analysing it and searching for a rational cause. Which I can't find. So I've been experiencing this complete duality. One part of me can see he acts irrationally and he just acts in his self-interest. The other part of me wants to believe that he is right and I am the crazy one and that everything makes sense from his perspective. The one side feels intense shame, because I am not good enough for his 'standards' and the other side can observe the erratic behaviour and they can't be reconciled.

I found this text that describes the process and it matches my own experience:

It is well known within the psychoanalytic community that people require time to integrate insight and apply their new found understanding of themselves to their current life challenges. Freud came upon this understanding after impatiently surging forward to uncover the early conflicts that lay at the root of his client’s then current symptoms by first trying to hypnotize his clients, and then simply explain to them why they suffered from these symptoms. He soon realized that forcing premature insight led to a less than satisfactory, lasting ‘cure’. His clients may have had momentary suppression of symptoms but this was often followed by a return of symptoms, often in some other form. This led him to understand that he could not circumvent an important part of the psychoanalytic process; the affective uncovering, understanding and processing of these early, intensely emotional events, by the now, current more mature ego of the client. It is this moment of insight, reached by the client himself, and not prematurely forced upon him, that is actually measurable by new brain scanning technology. 

Cognitive/behavioral therapy, while often having an important role in ‘quickly’ reducing symptoms, may not lead to a more long term ‘cure’. We have only to look at the statistics of return to treatment of clients who undergo rehabilitation for addiction to see this clearly documented. From a psychoanalytic perspective, those suffering from a lack of internal ego structure may temporarily benefit from external structure, but we know that only after extended exposure to external structure will the ego begin to internalize that structure; a prerequisite for a truly successful resolution of symptoms.

The story of the horse and carriage

Recently, I had to think hard again about the events of 22 months ago. Someone asked me if I really put the company at risk when I left in January 2011. What I can say, without any doubt whatsoever, is that if I didn't leave I would have done further damage to my health, perhaps unrecoverable.

So what happens when a founder, a key resource and a leader suddenly has to go? Does that put a company at risk, considering the circumstances? I don't know. What comes first? The company or the person?

I think I thought about a good analogy for the events as I experienced them then. I cracked that problem yesterday.

Imagine a heavy carriage, drawn by four horses. And a driver on top. Cracking her whip while we work our butts off. Picture something like this:

Our little company, happily trotting along in 2010

That is a little what our company was like at the end of 2010. Of course there were more horses, but some were on breaks and others were stabled so that the doctor could look at them. The three men with brown hats on top, they were our customers and all their baggage made the load quite heavy. I imagine myself as the horse at the front, the closest to the right edge of the photo. My right hand man was always on my side and we made a very good team. Behind the two of us, we had two other colleagues, doing their bit, faithful and loyal as always. Our beloved leader with the whip? Well the image doesn't do him justice. The real one looked more like this photo of Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, Empress of India and so on and so forth. You can get a sense of the personality from this classic photo of The Queen:

Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, Empress of India and so on and so forth

I have to add, that our leader usually wears a hat and not a crown. I am sure you know exactly what that hat looks like. HM Princess Beatrice borrowed it off him last year for the Royal Wedding. Yes, that hat. Imagine our driver with his hat on and you've got the picture. This is Princess Bea, not the driver, but it is his hat:

The famous hat

So back to my story. In December 2010, we were working hard to get our three customers and their luggage to where they need to be. But we were getting tired. And every time we stopped for water, the driver would load up more passengers and their luggage. And crack his whip. The burden was getting too heavy. My memory is foggy about the next part, but somewhere, while we were at full trot, the driver uncoupled two of the horses from the team and sent them on holiday. These two made up the right of the procession. He left the two of us on the left to carry on. So while the other horses were having a nibble and a trot, he himself jumped off the carriage for a well deserved rest. He cracked the whip, jumped and with the usual fanfare, he was gone. 

But as you can image, the show had to go on. So we were. Imagine a steep hill on the left, a winding road ahead and a sharp drop on the right. And then the ensemble started getting out of control. The wagon veered to the right. We pulled and pulled, but it made no difference. The cliff was next. At the very last moment, just before it fell, the two of us broke free and watched the carriage careen down the road. I don't know what happened to the carriage.

So back to the question. Did the horse put the company at risk? Or was the company doomed because of what happened earlier?

Guerrilla Knitter struck at the secret Thames Path

I took to the old, semi-derelict part of the Thames path today to sort out a few loose bolts in my mind. I was pondering the meaning of life and suchlike when I suddenly realised that something was very different. It was the pole on which the sign is mounted at the end of the blue-walled part of the path between the containers.

Something unusual is up in the alley

On closer inspection, it appears as it someone covered the two poles with knitted jackets of some kind? This was just weird.

I walked up to the the two poles and my eyes were drawn to the left. Astonishingly, they covered the railings of the disused steps too. The rest of the journey turned in a magical experience. I will try to show you.

Colour on the steps

Hallucination?

Adding colour to drab old boats.

White and red knitwear for steps

I came upon a tree with a cosy and colourful... stem garment?

Doily for a pretty tree

Another lamppost...

Lamppost with some added colour.

And an octopus with six legs caught in a fish net...

Six-legged octopus trapped

We then found a little children's doll with a flag tied to a fence!

Smile! And do not enter.

Whose flag is this?

And a tree with a very comfy looking branch hanging over the water...

Tree.

Demotivation

I feel awful today. I have the time, but not the energy and the motivation to work on... anything really. Started with a Google search on "demotivated working alone". It describes my current feeling best. Demotivated. Lonely. And then I hit this post. It breaks demotivation down to 10 sub-types:

1. You’re demotivated by fear
2. You’re demotivated by setting the wrong goals
3. You’re demotivated by lack of clarity about what you want
4. You’re demotivated by a values-conflict
5. You’re demotivated by lack of autonomy
6. You’re demotivated by lack of challenge
7. You’re demotivated by grief
8. You’re demotivated by loneliness
9. You’re demotivated by burn-out
10. You’re demotivated by not knowing what to do next

My biggies are in order #9, #8, #7 and perhaps a little bit of #6.

#9 Burnout

This is the big one. Even after 21 months, I've still not recovered from the burnout at PMT. I feel I still need more rest, but I am not getting that because of insomnia. 

#8 Loneliness

I am trying to do everything on my own. I don't have a team close to me that I can talk to and that works with me on my plans. Skype and IM are not substitutes for a real team. I have no clue how to fix this at present. The anti-madness woman said the same thing last week. I need to find someone that can sit next to me that can execute part of the plan. 

#7 Grief

Yep Grief. I am still grieving the loss of my company and the friends and support the gave me. This one is getting better - I've reestablished most of the friendships that were taken away from me, but one. I guess this will take time. One of the major issues remaining is that I need to come to terms with the loss of my team. This ties in with #8 above. I think as soon as I get the team-issue sorted, the grief will also go away. I big part of grief is also that I am not getting the validation I am looking for so desperately. Validation from the very people that betrayed me. How crazy is that? I guess step one is to understand that I have that need and then to accept that and not do anything about it. 

#6 Lack of a challenge

I think this is a secondary issue that will just go away as soon as I get the three issues above under control. 

The Pelican Dance

I had the best experience ever today! The plan was to do a bit of street photography around Green Park. I got exactly one worthwhile photo:

Then I walked through St. James's Park and started taking photos of the birds. I got quite a few nice ones and I think this one of a goose eating oak leaves is the best by far:

Then I spotted the pelicans!

And ended up watching them for almost two full hours. Here is the result. Enjoy!