Inspiration Archives

You’re a brand, like it or not, make it count!

Published on October 20, 2024October 20, 2024 by francesmanwaring.comLeave a comment

We hear a lot about online influencers and personal brands these days. As a brand thinker, I’m a little sceptical about whether these personal brands are good. Unless you’re scrupulously honest, the brand, oops, of course, I mean person, simply becomes a construct. A facsimile of someone designed to highlight the heroic and park the problematic. It offers a polished facade with no apparent flaws. A title with no story. A standard of perfection that the rest of us can aspire to but never reach.

I want what she’s got!

Influencer brands are carefully curated to make us want stuff. By the way, anyone else noticed that we no longer just design or make things; curating them implies much more finesse and we live in a time when more is … er … more, so curating it is. Anyway, influencers seemingly live the dream—they inhabit perfect lifestyles, surrounded by perfect people, played out in a series of perfect locations. Sounds a bit like Barbie’s world and its inhabitants in the recent movie, come to think of it.

If the influencer is flawless, the implication is that by walking a mile in their shoes, you can be just like them. By following their wellness regime, you too will be rampagingly healthy and desirable. Going to the places they go or at least recommend, you’ll be too cool for school … like them. Forking out on all the stuff they’re peddling on behalf of consumer brands who milk FOMO for all it’s worth, you’ll be the envy of everyone in your orbit.

Absent better options, we find our heroes wherever and however we can. Where’s the harm?

But who am I to judge? It were ever thus. Absent a better option, why shouldn’t my new deity be an online influencer flogging over-priced skincare or exotic travel? Spirituality even. What’s the big difference between that and a medieval priest peddling indulgences? In any case, being a follower makes me feel like I am part of something bigger and that I matter. A like on my post worshipping at the (TikTok or Insta) shrine of the demi-goddess I’m following puts me on top of the moon. Who am I hurting?

But, going for perpetual perfection is paralysingly pointless. We all know that no one is. Even Barbie figured that out in the movie. On the surface, there’s a compelling and colourful story. But when you scratch the surface, the story lacks depth and nuance. The facade cracks faster than you can say “Lululemon”. Worse, by wanting what they’ve got, you risk trashing or trivialising what you have—your precious individuality and identity.

Seeing yourself through a branding lens

I recently published a new book—Never Succumb to Beige & Other Tiips for a Colourful Life. It has attracted a lot of publicity, which is cool, not least in converting to the number of books sold. But there was another, wholly unexpected benefit. The interviewers loved the title, and the questions they asked me were playfully provocative and opened up some interesting discussions. This process made me think long and hard about what I value and believe in at this stage in my life. What genuinely matters to me and how I want to present to the world.

A recurring theme from the interviews was how one does it. Stay visible, that is. After much navel-gazing, I figured I could best answer that question by swopping my ostrich feathered, bling-encrusted personal hat of many colours for my slightly less ostentatious professional hat as a brand development specialist. Think about the questions in terms of my brand.

Personal brands are not just something for the young and trendy

The most successful brands know what they’re about and who they’re for. However flippant my opening paragraphs, I like the idea of thinking about who we are through a brand lens. It’s a helpful framework to define and review our evolving selves, particularly as we age. People are as multi-faceted as the eyes of a dragonfly and just as complicated, so we need to tap into deep self-awareness to see through to our essence.

I always thought the complications would diminish with age. Instead, they seem to multiply by the day, perhaps due to experience hammering home the fact that instead of the arrogant assumption that we know what we don’t know, we finally get that we don’t know what we don’t know. There’s a gap the breadth of the Milky Way between those two sets of understanding.

Writing your story and controlling the narrative

All good brands have defining stories. These change and evolve as the brand matures and their operating environment changes. Quite by accident, I came across a great way to define my story. The concept of Never Succumb to Beige started as a challenge about what I would call my autobiography at a dinner party one night. It was a fun evening. At the time, I think I went for something a bit lame like Frankie’s Follies (my friends at that time all knew me as Frankie and seemed to see me as a cross between Virginia Woolf and Barbarella so this was really pandering to their perceptions rather than mine).

Over the years, I’ve come up with a range of options, at least one of which will feature as a chapter title in my next book, so I won’t do a spoiler alert here. But I stuck with Never Succumb to Beige, which I used as the title of my blog and now the book, because it captures my philosophy of being true to yourself and who you are. This philosophy hasn’t fundamentally changed since. Never succumbing to beige has become the central theme of my brand. It’s my pole star that helps me safely navigate life’s jagged reefs. My guiding light that shines a light on the path I should follow.

It’s not a pose. I love living in a rainbow of glorious and colourful attitude that allow me be seen and counted. It’s important to me to stand and deliver in how I present, what I say and write, how I am with others, and what I bring to the world. I’d like to matter … in a good way. That doesn’t mean I aspire to perfection. Far from it, but I do aspire to perfect the qualities that make me unique and set me apart from everyone else. After all, if I don’t control the narrative and tell my story my way, in this online era, Google and the other apps will do it for me. Who wants that? It’s also a vision of who I can be as I get older and allows room for life-long curiosity and adventure.

Leave the cloak of invisibility on a hook by your door

I’m saddened by how many people I’ve encountered who feel invisible, marginalised or useless as they grow older. They tell me it’s inevitable—I fundamentally don’t believe that it has to be. We don’t need to allow society’s judgement to push us into the railway siding of invisibility. If we don’t give ourselves licence to stay on the main line, no one else will.

Perhaps that’s easy for me to say. I was born with a sunny, outgoing nature and insane corkscrew hair—I’ve had a love/hate relationship with the latter throughout my life. Still, it has the merit of giving me a head start in the non-invisibility games. Likely, it also played a part in developing a deep-rooted commitment to my individuality and sense of self.

Despite this, I’ve worked hard to fight feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem. I’ve also faced down that lurking menace known as Imposter Sydrome on more occasions than I can count. My brand, my recidivist disinclination to be anything other than wholly and colourfully myself, helps me feel the fear, do it anyway and bounce back when the going gets tough.

Strike the pose, there’s nothing to it

My last post was about being scammed — Scammed, Slammed and Hung Out to Dry — written solidarity with all the many others who’ve experienced this morally bankrupt contemporary blight. Not succumbing to beige clearly has little to do with colour and lots to do with attitude. How you deal with setbacks like this, which rock you to your core. I’ve had to dig deep to cauterise the wound it left. The scars are still vivid, but they get paler by the day and I certainly won’t get fooled again. It would be easy at such times to retreat inwards. Having a strong brand like m non-beige one, gives us the confidence, mandate even, to move forward without losing ourselves.

I’d love to inspire people heading towards their older years to believe that invisibility isn’t a given. To blaze a trail for younger women that shows ageing isn’t a long, lonely, greying road to oblivion. In modern parlance, I’d like to be an influencer. But not one that postures at caring whilst peddling endless products, destinations or wellness miracles for affiliate brands’ marketing programmes. I want to use whatever influence I can muster to find joy and commonality in our shared and, at times, very bizarre humanity. To lighten the mood and bring people together.

Successful brands are built on insight not wishful thinking

It’s said that personal branding begins the moment you discover yourself. Knowing what you’re about and who you’re for requires deep self-understanding. Defining and living by a set of firmly held values. Making a promise about what you bring to the world and sticking to that. It raises self-awareness and honesty above self-interest and greed. For your brand to succeed means being consistently you wherever you are, whoever you’re with or whatever you’re doing and holding yourself to the highest standards. Not giving yourself a pass when it’s inconvenient or difficult.

Successful brands are not flim-flam.They don’t get blown about in the wind like so much tumbleweed in a Western ghost town. At the end of the day, whatever our brand, we’re actually still people, with all the frailties and idiosyncrasies that entails. Even the best brands get it wrong sometimes, but the ones that last, don’t go down in a fiery bonfire of blamestorming and bruised egos. Their managers recognise what’s happened and find a better way. On a personal level, when we lapse or stuff up, our inner brand manager should cut us some slack and understand that there are times when we just step out of character, flare up in the moment about something stupid. Ultimately we are people not brands. Seeing ourselves through a branding lens just helps us be the best we can be.

Be yourself — everybody else is already taken

So said the peerless Oscar Wild who know a thing or two about being an influencer and icon. As American actor Graham Brown (Malcolm X, The Muppets Take Manhattan) said, “Life is about choices. Some we regret, some we’re proud of. Some will haunt us forever. The message: we are what we chose to be”. We might as well choose to be something special and gloriously original.

I don’t know about you but, given my “druthers”, I wouldn’t choose to be a Barbie Girl living in the Barbie World, however superficially enticing it appears. Life in plastic is only fantastic if you’re a doll.

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade?

Published on September 14, 2024September 15, 2024 by francesmanwaring.comLeave a comment

I’ve recently heard at least three people trot out the old trope that when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. It’s such an easy-to-understand metaphor for staying optimistic in difficult times and turning the tables on what life deals to you. It’s the lemony version of playing the cards you’ve been dealt.

The expression first appeared in print in an obituary written and published in 1909 by the American writer, publisher and artist Elbert Hubbard in the Literary Digest. In his opinion, “A genius is a man who takes the lemons that Fate hands him and starts a lemonade stand with them.”

It’s more often attributed to Mr Win-Friends-and-Influence-People, the king of self-improvement, Dale Carnegie. Carnegie used it in his 1948 book How to Stop Worrying and Start Living: “If you have a lemon, make a lemonade.”

However, others used it between the Hubbard and Carnegie instances. I particularly like this one in a poem published in a 1940 edition of The Optimist by Clarence Edwin Flynn:

Life handed him a lemon,
As Life sometimes will do.
His friends looked on in pity,
Assuming he was through.
They came upon him later,
Reclining in the shade
In calm contentment, drinking
A glass of lemonade.

A good metaphor, a bad rap for lemons

I like lemons. What would lemon tea be without the lemon flavouring? There’s no obvious substitute. Mandarin tea, anyone? I don’t think so. Gin and Tonic—unthinkable without a zesty zing of a slice or two of lemon. Okay, some people prefer lime. But the purists still choose lemon—the cynic in me thinks this could be due to the price difference, but that could be … well … cynical. The adventurous might even go for a taste bomb by adding a slice of both. I salute their inventiveness. Worse than a lemonless G&T, imagine a gorgeous white fish fillet slathered in herbs, garlic and butter without the blissful finishing tartness of a twist of lemon.

The lemon dissing even carries over into song. Harry Belafonte, the singer and actor who popularised Calypso and fathered Halle Berry, released Lemon Tree in the fifties. Lemon tree very pretty, and the lemon flower is sweet, but the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.[1] Duuuuude—come on. We all know you don’t eat lemons like other fruit. They’re garnish. Ingredients. You’d have to be desperate to peel and chow down an entire lemon au natural like an orange. But … lemon meringue pie … lemon cake …. lemon souffle … lemon mouse. I love the flavour of lemon in pretty much any guise. Ironically, except for lemonade, which I can’t see the point of and wouldn’t give you beans for.

Putting a positive spin on your lemon mountain

Anyway, there is a point to this meandering story. Like most people who have lived any length of time and taken the odd risk, life has lobbed a fair swag of lemons at me. But I’m not bitter, unlike those sour little yellow suckers. I tend to see my lemon mountain as an acknowledgement of an adventurous spirit prepared to try new stuff and push the envelope a bit. My adventures haven’t been at the extreme end of the spectrum. E.g., journeying to the centre of the earth-type adventures. I haven’t (yet) been embroiled in a space odyssey, even a minor one or been part of any pioneering expeditions to find world-changing places like the Northwest Passage. I haven’t even climbed any mountains of note. But I’ve most definitely taken the road less travelled at regular intervals.

AND Why stop at lemonade?

Back in 2010, in addition to becoming co-owner of a creative agency, I was co-founder of a pioneering event app, and I could see the dramatic impact smartphones would have on our lives. The ramifications were mind-boggling and made me think long and hard about the future of branding and design. This resulted, in 2012, in a short business plan in infographic form—we are a design studio, after all—setting out a blueprint for a digital transformation of our business. Not exactly messianic. All creative sector businesses worth their salt could see the writing on the (digital) wall and the need for reinvention to stay relevant.

But my thinking was a little different. I didn’t just want to make lemonade, as in shifting from a print worldview to a digital one— we had to do that anyway. No, I wanted to do something entirely different. To shift the paradigm (as we were so fond of saying then). I understood that our value wasn’t so much in our team’s undoubted skills and expertise or our quality of work and service model. Print-led or digital, any pivoting in the business-as-usual sense would be about survival and continued competitiveness rather than systemic change.

Our primary value was (and still is) in the IP around our brand development process, which we have amassed over many years. You’ve heard about software as a service. My thinking—couldn’t we create a branding-as-a-service offer. I.e, take our IP online and enable people to learn the nuts and bolts of developing and managing a standout brand, drawing on our years of intel, insight and innovation?

An idea whose moment has come

It was a great idea, but in 2012, it would have required us to build a complex (aka hugely expensive) bespoke web portal. We didn’t have access to template-driven websites like this WordPress one I use, with all the widgets and plugins that enable almost any interaction with users at affordable prices. There are even subscription-based learning platforms that host video courses, learning resources and offer community building tools. Everything you could want at a tiny (miniscule) fraction of the cost of building from scratch. Better still, it’s on them to keep adding features and functionality and support the system. My 2012 aspirations were ahead of the curve—the idea wouldn’t have succeeded even if we’d had the funding to make it happen. But the times and tools they have achanged.

Catalysed by the latest tsunami of lemons delivered to small businesses like mine in the COVID aftermath, supported by the seismic shift to online everything, I am finally making it happen. I love working with ambitious early-stage businesses, but our conventional pricing structure makes that hard. My online learning platform will allow anyone to access high-calibre brand thinking without the fancy agency price tag. I published the programme’s flagship Brands with Moxie — Eight Steps to a Winning Brand late last year. This book sets out to help entrepreneurs, small business owners, and early career marketing and comms managers understand and leverage the full power of their brands. That used up quite a lot of lemons. I’m now converting the remainder of the lemon mountain into video training courses and other resources, and I’m poised to launch the first of these by the end of the year.

Like most things, it all comes down to attitude

I’ve wanted to throw in the towel many times over the last few years. Go into hibernation mode as I talked about in a previous post. Admit defeat and walk away. Give up on years of business development and find something less challenging. But I decided to, as the saying goes, keep calm and carry on. Whether your bag is lemonade or lemon soufflé , with the right attitude, you’ll always be able to find something to do with the lemons life lobs at you. I’m not out of the woods yet. My new take on my business still has a long way to go to earn its and my keep, but I’m hopeful.

I feel proud of myself. Every time life has given me lemons, I’ve come back with a burst of extraordinary creativity, bringing a lot of personal growth. Everything is risky. There’s no such thing as a wrong decision. There’s just a different destination. I’m saying this as much to shore up my resolve as to convince anyone else. Bitterness is seductive. The drama of disappointment is too easy to get derailed by. Making disappointment a defining characteristic is diminishing and a massive turnoff to other people. Life increasingly becomes a dark place where ‘they’ are out to get you, and perspective disappears.

So, I say, whilst raising my G&T with its extravagant two slices, Slàinte Mhath—cheers—fellow adventurers. When life gives you lemons, don’t just make lemonade. Get creative. Make something new and exciting. Step away from your comfort zone. What’s the worst that can happen? You get more lemons and try a different recipe.

[1] YouTube failed me and I couldn’t find a recording, but here’s one of his most loved songs from that era Island in the Sun.

To smooth or not to smooth? The eternal dichotomy of curly hair.

Published on June 24, 2024June 24, 2024 by francesmanwaring.com2 Comments

If you came into the world sporting insanely curly hair like me, you’ve probably had a love/hate relationship with it throughout your life.

It’s estimated that about 60% of us have curly hair. That’s a fair chunk of people who regularly decide they don’t want the hair type they were allocated because it’s not the ‘in’ thing. Of course, we shouldn’t fall victim to this eternal runway of fashion ins and outs but … advertising is a powerful shapeshifter. We want to be beautiful, have the right look, not be ‘othered’.

To be clear, I haven’t spent my entire life obsessing about whether to straighten my crowning glory or let it do its corkscrewed worst, but here’s the thing. At times when the world has worshiped at the shrine of flowing straight locks, for us frizz heads, smooth, sleek hair seems as precious as Tutankhamun’s Golden Mask, and just as out of reach. We live our lives on that most uncomfortable of places, the horns of the to smooth or not to smooth dilemma.

People, talk about beauty shaming. What about hair shaming? Shouldn’t that be a thing too? Straight or curly, there’s always a time when what you have doesn’t cut it according to the fashionistas and you don’t feel in the slightest pretty — a topic I’ve covered in a previous post.

When I finally acknowledged a couple of years ago that I might as well have been trying to nail jelly to the wall as keep my tousled tresses under control for significant chunks of my life, I put a stop to a lifetime of denial. I stepped away from the Curly Wars and towards my best hair life, casting aside all the primping paraphernalia like so much unwanted baggage.

I was a curly-haired cherub as a child. People would positively croon over my gorgeous golden spirals … and I basked in their admiration, right? Wrong, I hated it. As I entered my teens, I realised my look just didn’t make the cut … as it were. I wanted to be a long-haired badass, not a curly-haired little butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth poppet. When my mother’s hair writ split at the ends in my early teens, I went on a long march to curly freedom.

But oh, the pain of the journey. Getting short curly hair to the bit where it’s a cascading glory not a god-awful grotesquerie builds lifelong attributes like inner fortutide, grit and determination. My recalcitrant curls couldn’t seem to stir themselves to grow any length, and for a couple of self-loathing years, I became that person. The nerdy, bookworm, violin-playing possessor of a horror story triangular frizz.

At that time, it wasn’t the curls per se that were the problem—Marc Bolan had already seduced us with his lyrical depth, “I ain’t no square with my corkscrew hair” in Telegram Sam. And I wanted to be that person. Pity the diminutive Glam Rock pioneer prematurely got curled around a tree in a pocket rocket Mini in 1977 just a couple of weeks short of his 30th birthday. The curly world mourned more than the loss of a rock legend. Think what he could have done to change the curly conversation over the years. Or maybe even the Mighty Mouse of the singing world would have succumbed to prevailing hair trends along with the rest of us Lemmings.

It doesn’t matter a damn that other people rave about your curls – curls are a personal thing.

It also doesn’t matter a damn that other people rave about your curls. Many people have put mine up on a pedestal. Everyone except me seems to love them. But curls are a personal thing. Mine weren’t the sleek Siren look I lusted after because “it is known” (a la Daenerys’s handmaids in Game of Thrones) or at least it certainly seemed to me that straight hair was perceived as more appealing and sexier than curls. As a consequence, I spent hours daily duelling the unruly little suckers with a blow dryer. I’d section my hair and brush each one over and over until it had a semblance of straightness. It was all awful for the hair, but we didn’t have the flat irons and specialised product we do now.

Ironically, I grew up in a cold climate where gale-force winds, driving rain or blizzard conditions were the prevailing weather conditions, so all the hours of smoothing went out the window the minute I stepped out the door. Remember the episode of Friends when Monica landed in Hawaian humidity with glorious sleek hair that frizzed out the minute she stepped off the plane? Been there, done that, worn the tee-shirt.

So, I started straightening in the mid-seventies, the time as some wag said, when hippies roamed the earth and footballers sported perms and ‘tashes. But it wasn’t until the mad eighties that we reached peak curl. The eighties were a riot of too much everything. I moved to London in 1981 and revelled in the excess. It was a time when fashion was said to have thrown discretion to the winds and gone plain wild. It was all about extreme individuality—the tail end of the Punk Era and the rise of the New Romantics. Big, curly hair wasn’t just a style but an attitude. In that decade, if you had straight hair, you were screwed. Hair was ‘pouffed’ to within an inch of its product-laden life. Body was the bomb. Curls reigned supreme. I was at last free to stop trying to coax my curls into conformity and revel in my great good fortune in not needing a perm to achieve the look.

By the eighties, we reached peak curl. Big, curly hair wasn’t just a style, it was an attitude. If you had straight hair, you were screwed!

Then, from the mid-nineties, it all went pear-shaped again as the pendulum of fashion swung, as is the way with pendulums. And, to my shame, I swung with it … and then swung back … and swung again.

OK, so I exaggerate in the interests of a good story. I’m not—quite—the fashion victim I’m making myself out to be. What’s fuelled my personal curl-path more than wanting to be in with the In Crowd has been my prevailing mood. Curly is confident me—the kickass, outgoing facet of my many-faceted self. Straight has often accompanied the stressful, conflicted me, coping with times of uncertainty and change. I guess it was a way of imposing some order and feeling a bit glam.

Women are notable for slashing long hair when relationships break down. In my case, I tend to go to ground and dial everything, including my hair, down while I re-energise and recover from whatever’s bothering me. For sure, fashion trends have some impact—I don’t live in a vacuum—but it’s largely about how I’m feeling.

I’m in with the in-crowd

Anyway, in this tale with a lot of twists, I’m glad to have once-and-for all accepted that my curls are one of my superpowers. I am once more a rebel without a comb. Like the Hidden Tiger, I’m coiled and ready to spring. My hair has always been more mood than mane. I finally see that curly hair like mine isn’t just a plate of food. It’s a signature dish.

And how clever of me to come to this life-changing conclusion at a time when curly hair has become infinitely Instagrammable. Tellingly Tik Tokable. The frisson of frizz fascinates rather than frightens. Posting endless pix of your capricious curls is all the rage. It’s not just in our modern times that curls have come and gone. It’s been the same story since Eve was blamed for everything and chucked out of Eden.

Humans are contrary by nature—we’re rarely happy with what we’ve got. The curly want straight, and the straight want curly. It was ever thus. My advice? Keep calm and curl on.

Here’s my Top Twenty picks from Instagram’s curly cuties whose “spirals have gone viral”.
Courtesy of Wolf Global

Embracing the chaos, one curl at a time
Sassy, classy and a bit smart-assy
Born to be wild and curly
Twist, shout, and let those curls out
Curly hair, don’t care, got flare everywhere
Curls rule the world
In a sea of straight, my curls are the wave
Living the curly life one spiral at a time
Embrace the chaos of your curls
Let your curls do the talking
Sassy, classy, and a bit smart-assy… courtesy of my curls
Walk through life like it’s a curly runway
When life gives you curls, flaunt them
Own your curls, own your crown
Fearless in the pursuit of what sets my curls on fire
My hair isn’t messy; it’s just erupting with awesome
Curls are the exclamation point of my personality!
Perfectly curled and unapologetically bold
Curls on point; life on track
It’s not just curls; it’s an attitude with spirals.

Not a dry eye in the house? There’s nothing like a good cry.

Published on June 2, 2024June 3, 2024 by francesmanwaring.com4 Comments

OK, so full disclosure: I’m a crier. I snivel at the drop of a happy or a sad ending. I tear up at feats of astonishing human achievement, bravery, loyalty, courage, against-the-odds survival, redemption, etc. Thinking about it, I tear up at astonishing feats of animal bravery, loyalty, courage, and against-the-odds survival. Not sure if redemption is a thing for animals, although there are some fantastic stories of animals that have gone feral and been rehabilitated, which have the same effect.

Perhaps a better way of putting it is that I am easily moved. I hope that means I’m healthily plugged into my emotions, not just at the mercy of a heap of repressed crap that gets triggered by the stuff I see, read and listen to. In any case, our experiences, good and bad, shape our responses, whether they bring smiles, laughter, tears or even a whopping great punch-up—some are just more in more socially acceptable than others. I’ve written a lot about the benefits smiling and laughing with, or even at, others, but a good cry is up there in the feel good stakes too.

According to Dr Thomas Dixon, in a recent book where he examines the history of British Crying — Weeping Britannia: Portrait of a Nation in Tears (don’t you love the title?), “Weeping is an intellectual activity, and yet it is also a bodily function like vomiting or sweating, or farting.” Tears seem to fulfil a higher function than just a vulgar bodily emission, but I guess they’re all forms of purging. When you think about it, crying’s not just an eruption of our emotional geysers, they’re also a way of protecting our eyes from spoilers like onions, billowing smoke, and particles carried in the wind by washing them out.

Whatever. There’s nothing like a good cry, or, as my Scottish compatriots would say, “a guid greet”. We have a rich vocabulary around crying. Snivelling, tearful, blubbing, wailing, sobbing, weeping, howling, bawling, to name the ones that instantly spring to mind. Bit like Miss Smilla and all those words for snow. Given how essential it is to our wellbeing, it’s a pity that publicly crying is one of the last taboos of our era. It’s almost up there with PDA (public displays of affection) on the pantheon of awful. We make fun of outsize emotions. God help the celeb caught crying a river over a broken relationship — paps have a field day, and it’s nirvana for the wits of the world who conjure meme magic to the schadenfreudistic (is that a word?) delight of all.

It hasn’t always been like this. We’re much more buttoned up than we used to be. From the earliest of times, tears have been associated with mourning rituals that included extreme acting out—prostration, excessive crying, tearing the hair, ripping clothes, smearing ashes on your face, for example. I’m glad that style of mourning has … er … died a death. But we’re far from it being considered good form to break down sobbing if our cappuccino is delivered cold.

In the medieval and Tudor world, histrionics were all the rage. People regularly gave their lachrymal glands a workout. Think big beefy Henry VIII (in his later years) projectile crying and generally carrying on like a toddler in full view of his court when something didn’t go his way. Up to comparatively recently, crying and emoting bit time were social norms. In the grip of high Romanticism, the early Victorian ear was awash … literally. It wasn’t until Albert died, leaving Victoria a grieving widow, that the vibe changed and emotional exuberance exited stage left. In it’s place came the stuffy, straight-laced, stiff-upper-lipped society we associate with the later era (at least on the surface). And it happened in only a couple of decades. Thanks for your legacy, late Victorians!

Subsequent generations copped all those repressive sentiments like “big boys don’t cry” and “I’ll give you something to cry about”. Even now, with much more relaxed standards and our buy into the concept of emotional intelligence, we’re not performative in our grief like our forebears.

The Tearjerker movie was a genius invention in a world with so little tolerance for adult tears. Tearjerkers allowed us a legitimate release valve. We could snivel up a storm in a dark auditorium where the tear police’s writ didn’t run. Of course, penance for this self-indulgence came in that ghastly moment when you had to exit your local Odeon clutching a wad of soggy tissues with bloodshot, morning-after panda eyes, and mascara-streaked cheeks. A blobby red nose and puffed-up, swollen lips completed the wrung-out look. The fact that everyone emerged the same did nothing to diminish the cringe factor of being seen having given in to an emotional storm. You could even hear the most blokey blokes coughing manfully, trying to camouflage this heinous crime. No one met anyone else’s eyes. It was wonderful and embarrassing and deeply cathartic. There is nothing like a good cry.

I read an article this week about the absence of tearjerkers from our screens over the last couple of decades. Perhaps, with the advent of streaming services, we no longer saw the attraction of collective emoting in the dark. It’s just not the same sitting at home blubbing to yourself, your family and / or your companion animals.

Although tearjerkers have been Hollywood’s secret sauce since the earliest “I want to be alone” Garbo movies, their heyday is considered to be the seventies and eighties. This time saw a plethora of cryfests like Terms of Endearment, The Way We Were, Love Story, Kramer vs Kramer, Field of Dreams, ET, Top Gun, Beaches, Watership Down, and A Star is Born (the Streisand/ Kristoffersen version) and many more, hit our screens. We cried. And cried. And cried some more. It was magnificent. Not a dry eye in any house. Then peak tears arrived in 1997 with the titan of them all, the blockbuster Titanic, and we gave our tear ducts a rest. However, it seems there are stirrings in the wind that it might just be crying again[1]. Oh yeah, baby, yeah.

The article got me pondering my all-time, guaranteed to open the emotional floodgates films. I blubbed my way through all of the above and many more. But if I want to cry without resorting to watching a movie— if I were an actor getting myself into the zone—there are two standouts. Curiously, both are children’s films, and both are about animals. So … drum roll … at the pinnacle of my all-time weepies? The 1994 film of Black Beauty. Specifically, the bit when Beauty sees Ginger for the last time alive.

“As if by magic, there she was, my beautiful Ginger. She was skin and bones. What had they done to her?”
From the 1994 film Black Beauty

They stand next to each other in a cab rank for a moment, and Beauty remembers when she was young and beautiful and all their happy ‘before times’ when men were kind. The next time he sees her, she is being hauled away, lifeless, on a cart. Tearing up as I write.

Black Beauty was my favourite book as a horse-mad little girl, which likely underpins my response to the film. I still have a copy. The last time I read it, I cried from about half way through, ending in convulsive sobbing at the bittersweet end . Luckily, it’s not a long book—I don’t think my internal waterworks could have coped.

Next? The ever-green Disney classic, Bambi. Specifically, the bit when a hunter shoots Bambi’s mother, and he’s left all alone. Gets me every time. In third place, Bambi again — when we realise his father is watching out for him. Now I’m crying as I write. It’s amazing that this 1942 movie still tears the heartstrings in a way many more recent ones don’t.

What are your favourites when you want a good cry? Here are a couple of handy top compilations of films, songs and books to get your give your tear ducts a workout. I don’t always agree with the selections, but each to their tearful own.

Films I Songs I Books

Anyway, must run. Off to my local cinema to catch Freud’s Last Interview. With a title like that, it’s bound to be a tearjerker!

[1] If films don’t do it for you, try this this gravelly Ray Charles, version of It’s Crying Time Again.

Bouncing is what Tiggers do best

Published on September 9, 2023May 13, 2024 by francesmanwaring.com5 Comments

I haven’t posted a blog for a year. It’s not that I lack ideas, but when I get into any of them, I find myself curiously bewildered about what I want to say in this polarising world where every precious word can be someone’s micro-aggression, trigger, or unsafety.

I don’t have a global following, so what I write isn’t likely to get serious oxygen, but it’s still depressing because I’m a Tigger type — it’s in my DNA. Remember AA Milne’s excellent Winnie-the-Pooh stories? (Are we still allowed to talk about these?) Pooh fans will know that Tigger is one of the animal characters in these stories who get up to all sorts of adventures and misadventures together. Tigger — unsurprisingly a tiger — is notable for his love of bouncing, which occasionally lands him in trouble with his friends or stuck up a tree he can’t get down from without help.

As a kid, my family used to joke about my Tigger tendencies as I bounced through each day — a happy little unit with a decidedly sunny nature who sang away to herself most days on waking. Like the unfortunate Elephant’s Child in Kipling’s Just So Stories (apologies if Kipling is no longer kosher either), I have “‘satiable curiosity” and am fond of shiny new things. I strongly lean towards seeing the good side of people and situations. Somewhat irritating qualities to the less Tiggerish in demeanour it has to be said.

My Tigger gene has generally carried me through life with the wide-eyed expectations of a child in a sweet shop, helped by a succession of stylish rose-tinted glasses. Over the last few years, though, I seem to have acquired tinges of Tigger’s perennially pessimistic, gloomy and depressed friend, Eeyore the donkey. My vivid orange Tigger stripes faded like furniture left in the sun for too long. My bounce became more of a plod, and my enthusiasm for … well … pretty much everything, like my childhood dawn chorus, muted.

It’s easy to blame everything on COVID, but that’s a bit of a cop-out. For sure, the COVID era has felt like a plague of locusts descending on the planet, consuming everything good and decent and leaving a miasma of misery, myopia and malice in its wake. It’s been a tough time on many levels, not least for owners of small businesses like me. The ‘global pause’ also saw the cancellation of so many rites of passage that bring humans together with some degree of harmony. Time has felt one-dimensional without them. We managed to flatten the curve of chronology even though we failed with the epidemiological one — COVID remains a Spectre at our feast, and chronology for a while morphed into one of Dali’s dripping clocks.

I can’t blame COVID for everything. I can’t blame COVID for the results of my choices, tempting though it is. I can’t blame COVID for the gap the loss of my parents has left in my heart. Equally, I can’t give COVID credit for the good things that have happened — there have been a lot of those, and I’m grateful. I also am not prepared to give COVID credit for the decision a couple of years ago to adopt my sister’s favourite mantra, “Nothing changes if nothing changes”. Working on that basis, I made changes. I took back control and stopped being victimised by the times. My mantra has long been, “If your ship doesn’t come in, swim out to it”. I realised I’d been merely treading water and started to strike out again with renewed determination towards my treasure laden ship.

The treasure I was swimming towards was purpose. The determination to re-invent my business. It was hard-hit during the pandemic and living on life support trying to sustain an outdated business model. It needed fresh thinking, so we defined an inspiring vision that would allow our Phoenix to rise in glittering splendour from the ashes of its previous incarnation. Nearly two years to the day, this vision is becoming a reality. I’m beyond excited and proud of the way it’s all coming together. I’ve written a book drawing on my professional expertise in brand development, which is being published next month, followed by the launch of an online learning platform by the end of the year. In my high-octane quest to re-calibrate and take our business into pastures new, I’ve been gobbling up apps and digital tools like the pursuers of wellness swallow Multivits. I’ve been at the edge of my comfort zone so many times mastering a heap of stuff, but l’m loving the journey.

Nothing’s easy, but it’s much easier when your gut agrees with your choices, and my gut is entirely in sync with this direction. It will allow me to focus on the stuff I want to do and not be a hostage to the place and time demands conventional businesses traditionally dictate. I’m not getting any younger, so this is a genuine need. It’s one thing I can unconditionally thank COVID for — we’ve all learned how to do things differently, and the pandemic accelerated the shift online by at least a decade, opening new ways of working and managing work. That feels a bit like freedom to me.

So, I’m happy to say Tigger’s back, bouncing around like a young grasshopper. The world once more feels like my oyster. Time has stopped dripping away. It’s not that I don’t care about what’s going on ‘out there’; I’ve just decided to stop letting the gloom darken my little corner of it. Our species has navigated into turbulent waters, but that doesn’t mean we must drown in the maelstrom. Life with purpose has always been a higher path. It always will be. Purpose gives our lives meaning. Purpose sees off pessimism. Purpose will get us through. My current purpose will keep me bouncing forward rather than up random trees I can’t get down from.

I’m imagining the eye rolls of my family and the people I’ve lived with as I write. But hey, if I want to sing in the morning, I’ll sing. OK???

Illustrations from Winnie-the-Pooh books by E H Shepard. These are in the public domain.

Ride on the peace train!

Published on March 31, 2019May 13, 2024 by francesmanwaring.com2 Comments

I’ve been crying lately thinking about the world as it is. Why must we go on hating, why can’t we live in bliss?

New Zealand was rocked to its core by the shootings at two Christchurch mosques two weeks ago leaving 50 Muslim men, women and children dead and many others injured. Our Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, managed the impossible and found words of comfort, solidarity and strength that have resonated around the world as we collectively examine our consciences and belief structures, and come to terms with some fundamental truths about what we are a nation.

This has been a very emotional time in this small country of 4.9 million. I’ve cried a lot in the days since the massacre. Cried for monstrous waste of those precious lives and for the inspirational example of forgiveness offered by the families. Cried for a moment in time that has shone a light on the best and worst of us humans. Cried for all the people who experience racism and hate on a daily basis in large and small ways and who continue to turn the other cheek.. Jacinda’s words opened up a wellspring of grief for all the things we’re not. But they also opened up a wellspring of hope that the terrible price these victims of hate have paid will not be in vain. That our collective and visceral horror that this could happen here will open our eyes and hearts to what we can and should be. It’s been humbling to see the outpourings of love and support, not just from New Zealand, but from all around the world.

There was a national memorial on Friday at Christchurch which was streamed around the country. I cried some more when I watched the coverage, particularly when Yusuf Islam — Cat Stevens as was who was such a loved musician during my teens — took the stage and sang Peace Train. It’s nearly 50 years since this song was released in 1971 at a time when Flower Power was still holding sway as a symbol of non-violent protest. The term was coined by American poet Allen Ginsberg in 1965 as a way of transforming protests against the Vietnam War into peaceful affirmative spectacles where protesters wore clothes embroidered with flowers and vibrant colour, wore flower in their hair and gave flowers to the public and on-duty police officers. The ‘flower children” or hippies and the counterculture that sprang to life around them — drugs, psychedelic music and art and social permissiveness — changed the world for ever. The “love and peace” mantra of the time seems touchingly naïve in our current reality with its social media echo chambers which enable so much awfulness to be spewed out, fuelling extremism of all sorts.

While the Flower Power movement now seems like an icon of a distant and more progressive era, the symbolism of flowers remains as potent as ever. Flowers with messages of love and support were laid in drifts at mosques around this country in the aftermath of the shootings. The universal language of flowers seem to be the best vocabulary we have to express our feelings of sorrow and grief, hope and love, not just in the aftermath of this home grown atrocity, but also as in the wider context of world events.

The giving or laying of flowers has been one immediate and simple act we have been able to take as individuals to affirm Jacinda’s heartfelt “you are us” and make a commitment to ourselves to be better and not give in to bigotry and despair. We can create our own version of Flower Power, ride the peace train and harness all this good will to create a better world.

Now I’ve been smiling lately, Dreaming about the world as one
And I believe it could be, Someday it’s going to come
‘Cause I’m on the edge of darkness, There ride the Peace Train
Peace Train take this country, Come take me home again

Because you don’t know what it means to me

Published on February 2, 2019May 13, 2024 by francesmanwaring.comLeave a comment

With mixed feelings, I went to see Bohemian Rhapsody a few weeks ago. Mixed feelings because I didn’t want my illusions to be shattered. I wanted to keep my version of Queen and Freddie Mercury. Instead, I was profoundly affected by the movie. I was uplifted and moved in equal measure. I laughed and cried. I went to see it again last weekend and was again profoundly affected. I laughed and cried again.

I laughed with the band as their story unfolded and they created so much of the music that defined my generation. I laughed when they walked out on the record label luminary who thought Bohemian Rhapsody was a load of bollocks. Oh, the irony! There was a lot to laugh about and celebrate. Re-living the chronology of the music, if nothing else, was amazing. Watching it brought to life in performance again … breath-taking.

But to me, the greatness of the film is in the poignancy of the piece. In its visceral crie du coeur which moved me to tears. I cried for the loss of a hero. I cried for the loss of the youthful me and every other me out there out there whose worlds were changed from the moment we first heard Bohemian Rhapsody and saw THAT video. I cried for the band and the gaping hole Freddie’s death must have left in their lives. I cried at the poignancy of the lyrics in the light of Freddie not being at our sides to remind us how he still loves us. I cried for the love of my own life who isn’t by my side as I grow older because I never did realise until too late what it meant to me.

I cried for the impossibility of being gay at the time and the terrible risks involved in ‘coming out’, particularly for a superstar whose every move was stalked by the paparazzi and a voracious media determined to get the scoop to feed an equally voracious public. I cried for the awfulness of AIDS and how many people have died. I cried for the gay men I have loved and who have walked a mile in Freddie’s shoes. I cried for a dear friend that that lived with HIV for years until his immune system finally gave up on him a few years ago. I cried for all the vulnerable people like Freddie Mercury who are preyed on by the amoral and self-serving. Most of all, I cried for the all the music that died with him.

Although the reviews haven’t been universally kind — echoing the reception of the original release of the Bohemian Rhapsody single — I thought it was a truly wonderful film and I can’t get it out of my head. The music was, is, and always will be in my dessert island collection. Like many, many people – millions and millions of people all over the world – I loved Queen. I loved them in a primal way, still do love their unique genius which formed a backdrop to so much of my life — Bohemian Rhapsody was released in 1975 when I was 16. Long-haired, exotic, high cheek-boned, lithe, pantherlike, beguiling Freddie Mercury became indelibly etched on my psyche from the first moment I saw the band on Top of the Pops. And that voice! I believe there was (is) no other rock star that could (can) hold a candle to him.

Even though I understood very early that he was gay, he still seemed to open a window into my soul few other performers of any type have ever found. There was something so viscerally mesmerising about the man. But it’s not just the music that’s haunted me since I saw the film … and it has … I’ve watched everything by Queen on YouTube, re-watched the Freddie documentaries and sung along with it at full volume (them and me) in my car. But I am also haunted by sadness at a life so tragically cut short and the understanding how fragile our hold is on this mortal coil.

I’m deeply grateful to Rami Malek and everyone involved in the production for bringing it all back home to me and to the others in the band for sharing their story and the astonishing music they gave life to, and for enabling the film even if it wasn’t the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I hope Rami gets an Oscar to go with his Golden Globe and that the film in general sweeps the boards. I’m glad that Freddie did finally find redemption and somebody to love in his last few years. And it’s wonderful that the rest of Queen are there to remind us how we still love them.

Riding the kindness wave

Published on November 4, 2018May 13, 2024 by francesmanwaring.com1 Comment

Don’t know about you, but I’m sick of the barrage of negativity that bombards us from all the news channels. I want to feel uplifted not besmirched when I think about our species and what we’re capable of. That doesn’t mean I’m for buying my head in the sand — I’m not hermit material, nor do I want to retire to an ashram and … er … I’m not actually an ostrich. In any case, as part of the ‘global village’ it’s my duty to be at least a bit informed about current events and geopolitics and form opinions and be part of the whole thing.

Yet there is just so much vileness, violence and vitriol splattered around these days, it’s easy to get cynical and despairing. Caring detachment is apparently the answer. But it’s hard to stay above the tantalising awfulising that vomits forth from so many channels. It’s all so ‘dialled up’ and following every sensational utterance of the Trumps of the world has become a new sport, if not religion. All that’s needed is an internet connection and a screen of some sort and hey presto, you’re plugged in and the ‘interwebs’ pedalling the good, bad and the ugly is your oyster. Lies, damn lies and fake news abound. We get trapped in our echo-chambers. For us liberals, it’s hard to ignore feeling that the barbarians are at the gates and our legacy to future generations could all too easily be a burned-out world with a broken eco-system.

So what can an individual do that really makes a difference worth a damn … other than vote of course! Well, lots to be honest. The possibilities are endless, but one option that’s really taken off is the concept of creating waves of energy to achieve positive reinforcement. Literally, spreading good vibes. Think about it — we plant trees to offset carbon emissions. Why not apply that thinking to offset hate, bigotry, misogyny, racism and all the other isms that have re-reared their ugly heads so forcefully around the world in this era of uncivility? The idea is that kindness — appreciation and caring for one another — in deed, in word, in thought or intent — changes individual lives. Collectively, it can transform the world.

Clearly, orchestrated action is not a new concept. We apply it in all sorts of practical ways like several people lifting a heavy object on the count of three.. A rapidly growing number of people believe that this type of concerted approach can lift the world. Waves of Kindness is a movement where people take a moment at 8am and 8pm daily to form a complete and tangible wave ring around the world coming from a conscious state of unified kindness.

If that all sounds a bit ‘woo woo’ then perhaps a more accessible option is World Kindness Day that’s coming up on November 13. WKD aims to highlight good deeds in the community focusing on the positive power and the common thread of kindness which binds us. It’s intended to be a day that encourages individuals to overlook boundaries, race and religion and celebrate commonalities. Two thousand and eighteen is the movement’s 20th anniversary — it was initiated in 1998 by a coalition of kindness NGOs around the world and is now observed in a number of countries including Australia, Canada, Italy, India, Japan, Nigeria, UAE, Singapore and the UK.

Embarrassing that New Zealand isn’t yet on this list — shame on us! Having said that our inspiring Prime Minister Jacinda Adern included this sort of thinking in a speech at the UN a few weeks ago, and my home town — NZ’s capital city Wellington — is celebrating its inaugural GKD this year. Better late than never!

People observe WKD in all sorts of ways. In Australia for example, it’s made it onto the school calendar of 9,000 schools and there are “It’s Cool To Be Kind Awards”. Activities include handing out kindness cards, staging flashmobs and concerts. WKD is also on the radar of individual non-profits such as Life Vest in the US and there’s clearly a big appetite for finding the international kindness taproot. Life Vest’s film Kindness Boomerang went viral, receiving more than 100 million views and coverage in serious media outlets such as TED, NBC, CBS and Adweek.

If you’re leaning towards joining the kindness wave, you might also consider becoming a Raktivist — the random acts of kindness movement might be more your thing. Much more of a JFDI individual approach without all the group hugging and collaborative stuff. According to the site, Raktivists are kindness ambassadors who live and breathe kindness, share knowledge and lead by example. Apparently you can tell where they’ve been because they leave a trail of ‘warm fuzzies’ in their wake.

I subscribe to a number of international media. One of them actually has a Week In Good News that you can sign up for and it’s great. Last week, from this and other sources, I learned that lavender is being mooted as providing a natural alternative to chemical anti-depressants, that Chinese workers has managed to save an old bear that had fallen into a reservoir and was close to drowning by scooping him out using an industrial digger, a woman who had been saved from a house fire by her cat and how a blind climber conquered Everest and went on to co-found a non profit to teach outdoor skills to others with physical challenges.

There are plenty of genuinely moving, uplifting, inspirational things going on every moment of every day, everywhere. I strongly believe positivity breeds positivity and the only way we’ll make change happen is if we believe we can and infect others in our orbit with this belief. Positive energy is infectious and it’s a virus we should be keen to share. Hope really can triumph over experience if we let it. Where we are now it seriously needs to! They used to say you need to be cruel to be kind. I’d say it’s more a case of you need to be kind to be kind.

Thrift — the new black?

Published on September 26, 2018May 13, 2024 by francesmanwaring.com2 Comments

I read a great article the other day about a trending topic, ‘The Cult of Thrift’. The gods of this cult are minimalisation, debt-free living, frugality, decluttering and zero waste, gods I’ve been progressively bending the knee to over the last few months. In fact, it was so similar to my own experience, the article felt as if it had been written by a doppelgänger. Hadn’t realised I was part of a new wave — how advanced of me!

The main difference between us was that the writer has consciously embraced the thrift ethos whereas I’ve kind of blundered into it in a necessity being the mother of invention sort of way. In fact, after a couple of financially disappointing business investments, I’ve really had no option other than to pull my belt in big time. Thinking about it, said tightenign of belt was purely metaphorical. As the funds ran out like beer from a leaky barrel, epic levels of comfort eating kicked in meaning that I actually would have had to let out the belt a few notches … if I’d wanted to wear one that is. During this nadir, I pretty much stopped wearing belts or any other clothes with shape given the results of all the snout in trough stuff. However, I’m sure you’ll be as uplifted as I am by the knowledge that not only have I started wearing belts again, I’ve actually clawed back one of the lost belt holes and have confidence a normal waistline is in sight!

So much for metaphor! In any case, what started out as necessity quite quickly morphed into choice and I appear to be well on my way to becoming a paid-up Thrifter and feeling more virtuous by the moment.

So what has given me the keys to the Thriftdom? Unsurprisingly, given the above, a fair amount of it revolves round food and eating habits. For starters, bargain food hunting has become an obsession, if not actually a new sport. This has led to the dark art of cooking proper meals again instead of giving in to the Siren call of endless takeaways after too many stressful and long days at work. Sometimes the new me even cooks a casserole or soup or similar at weekends to stretch over several weekday meals.

I finally get the joy of auction sites like eBay and Trademe although I continue to try and buy as ethically as possible. I can’t exactly claim that Upcycle has become my middle name, but I have looked at a few things and had an ‘aha moment’ about refurb rather than trash. ‘Pre-loved’ clothing shops are very much on my radar. Having moved into a much smaller apartment, I no longer get small space envy whenever I watch a George C Clarke TV programme and I feel positively virtuous for the level of de-cluttering that’s resulted. I can thoroughly recommend this tactic to wannabee Thrifties. When you have limited space, it makes you think long and hard about what stuff you actually want to shackle yourself to. Choices have to be made people! It won’t all fit! In the spirit of transparency, I have to fess up to the fact that I haven’t yet been able to get myself to offload the many boxes of books I’ve been trailing around as I’ve moved into successively smaller homes to a second-hand book seller or book fair, so my sister’s enormous garage is currently multi-tasking as my library.

Limited closet space is also a great incentive to apply some of the anti- clothes-hoarding rules. You know — if you haven’t worn it in the last two years, it’s toast. If you buy a new garment, something must be consigned to the outer darkness of the clothing bin to make room for it. If it doesn’t work with something you’ve already got, put it back on the rack. And how many pairs of shoes does anyone not called Imelda need?

In all seriousness, after the initial trauma, de-cluttering is a very liberating activity. It’s not just stuff I’ve been getting rid of either. The thrift thing can be applied across all the facets of life. I’ve shed one business and stepped back from a couple of other professional involvements so I can concentrate fully on doing one role well. I’m also training myself to say no to all those ‘should dos’ that my inner crowd pleaser sees as obligatory.

Although thrifty has been a virtue since Adam was a boy (actually since around 1300 if you read dictionaries), the Thrift evangelists are out in numbers these days. You’d have to think that’s a direct result of the all the inconvenient truths we’re facing as a society and the fear the we might be going to Hell in a handbasket sometime soon if we can’t get the lid back on our contemporary Pandora’s box. Among the evils unleashed on the world when some fool opened it in this is the spend-thriftery (extravagant, irresponsible spending) that has come to define our consumerist western lifestyle.

But how could it be otherwise? We’re literally bombarded with subliminal and not-so-subliminal messaging carefully crafted to make us dissatisfied and want more, bigger and better everything. But don’t worry, if you can’t afford it, someone will lend you the money, up your credit card limit or provide ‘interest free credit’ so you can keep on consuming and owe a bit more of your soul to the company store. It’s unsustainable on so many levels — personal, community wide and for our equally stressed planet.

Actually, it’s obscene. Or at least in my rapidly de-cluttering life, it seems so. The concept of retail therapy — when the going gets tough the tough go shopping — sits at the centre of the problem. Particularly when the results are growing mountains of recycling that can’t (yet) be re-cycled, oceans stuffed with plastic and other toxic detritus and all the rest. Maybe we should create a new mantra; when the going gets tough, the tough go … on a peace march?

Shopping as our primary leisure time activity is particularly ironic given that we humans have so much innate creativity. Less time spent shopping leaves time for things that so often go on the back boiler. I love writing this blog as it helps me sort out my priorities, worldview and values. But when I get stressed and my life and mind get cluttered, I can’t write. There’s just no headspace to think about anything other than whatever is causing the stress, and I have sometimes gone for weeks without writing anything.

It has to be noted that the cult of thrift is not a judgement on the genuinely poor for whom thrift is not a virtue but potentially a life sentence. Rather, it is being held out as an alternative for people with means who want to get off the consumer treadmill and start living within them, taking responsibility for how their actions affect the present and future. It’s not about austerity, just changing our personal values and thinking more deeply about how we live.

Taking my own recent experiences, while I’m as keen to have the good things in life as the next person, I’ve found a lot of joy in appreciating what is instead of lusting after what isn’t. In this context, less is most definitely more. Getting my thrift on has become a highly creative and engaging new way operating which ironically becomes a much more sure-fired way of being able to afford to do the things I would like to. I feel up-lifted by the challenge not deprived. There’s certainly more time to smell the roses.

Those little joy things

Published on June 24, 2018May 13, 2024 by francesmanwaring.comLeave a comment

Late on Friday night I decided to do something I should have done months ago and put an end to a situation that’s been causing me anguish. This has been a trap largely of my own making and one which my sense of obligation has held me hostage to way beyond the call of duty. A number of small things combined as the straw that broke this camels back and forced me to finally take action. Nothing changes if nothing changes!

After this liberating decision, I’d love to say I then slept like a baby. I didn’t! Had one of those terrible, wakeful nights full of churned up thoughts that went nowhere. Eventually drifted off near dawn and slept fitfully for a couple of hours. Late in the afternoon, I took myself out for a walk along the waterfront. The sea was as still as serenity and sparkling like silver-dust. On my way back, in the gloaming, the last of the sun glimmered with such beauty on the mountains at the back of the harbour I stopped to drink it in. A tiny grey warbler landed on a bush next to me, closely followed by a chittering fantail. I stood transfixed for long minutes smiling at the antics of these two little creatures. It was delightful and I finished my walk with renewed spring in my step and warmth in my heart despite the encroaching chill of evening.

Earlier in the day, someone close to me, understanding my distress and the dichotomies involved, reminded me to look for the little joy things when life feels bleak. So true. I slept like a baby for 10 wonderful hours that night.

Thanks to the New Zealand birds website for the stunning cover photo.

Happiness is a warm puppy

Published on May 30, 2018May 13, 2024 by francesmanwaring.com3 Comments

As I shivered getting up this morning, I thought about something from my childhood that always managed to bring some warmth on raw winter days in the Scottish Highlands where I grew up.

My family were all fans of the wonderful Peanuts cartoons by Charles M Schultz and we had several books. By a long way my favourite was called Happiness is a Warm Puppy. We were a family of dog lovers and that naturally extended to loving the Snoopy character. I remember someone saying once that anyone who said they didn’t know what happiness is could never have seen a puppy. I’d have to say that has always been bang on the money for me. I don’t currently have a dog but I’m teetering distance from a foreshore walk which is nirvana for our all manner of hounds, their owners and dog obsessive voyeurs like me.

Before you get to thinking I’m totally weird, I actually can’t help myself according to a wonderfully liberating article I just read in the Telegraph archive. Apparently it’s all to do with the hormone oxytocin which spikes in both human and canine brains when a dog is gazing at it’s owner. According to the writer, Sarah Knapton, “Oxytocin is known to play a strong role in triggering feelings of unconditional love and protection when parents and children look into each other’s eyes or embrace.So the findings suggest that owners love their pets in the same way as family members, and dogs return their devoted affection.”

Back in the day when my friends were having kids and I couldn’t join in those endless conversations parents have one-upping each other about the undoubted virtues of their little darlings. Stuck for any way of contributing meaningfully to such conversations, on one occasion, I resorted to referencing my amazing and hugely talented ‘fur baby’ and how well his training was going. I realised quickly and viscerally, as someone handed me my head in my hands to play with, that dogs are just not up there with human children to their parents, however incredible us owners think they are.

All these years later, I feel totally exonerated because it’s proven … by scientists no less … that we humans really can love our dogs as much as our children, something Cat Stevens recognised way ahead of science in his song 70s classic I Love My Dog as Much As I Love You!

Where have you gone Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby?

Published on March 29, 2017May 13, 2024 by francesmanwaring.com8 Comments

Sifting through GoodReads the other day, I came across a section of reviews about a book I loved as a child — Charles Kingsley’s fantasy story The Water-Babies (1863). About half of the reviewers were people like me who remembered this book fondly from childhood. The rest were new to the story. From the comments, it’s clearly very dated and the reviews were mixed to say the least. It was good to see that the magic had remained for quite a few of the second timers and somewhat surprisingly caught the heartstrings of some of the newbies. “A load of smug, moralistic old twaddle,” would be a synthesis of the remainder.

Water-Babies is one of those gloriously stentorian and self-righteous Victorian tales known as a didactic moral fable. It is full of the era’s upper class, Anglican prejudices against just about anyone who did not qualify as “one of us”; Catholics, Irish, Jews, the poor, blacks … even Americans. Because of its now very non-PC attitudes, the book has largely fallen out of favour[1], but it was a mainstay of British children’s literature for decades after its publication. It was one of my childhood favourites and my sister and I listened wide-eyed as our mother read it to us and breathed magic into this story of aquatic adventure full of fantastical creatures.

Semi-satirical in form, the over-arching theme is one of Christian redemption. Kingsley, an Anglican minister, used pertinent character names like Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby to put his points across. Her antithesis was Mrs Bedonebyasyoudid who demonstrated in very tangible ways the consequences of doing bad stuff. All very hellfire and brimstone! Sitting under this primary theme were several others: the wrongness of child labour, the atrocious treatment in England of the urban poor and also the narrow-minded thinking of many of the scientists of the day. Kingsley was a contemporary of Darwin whose Origin of the Species he somewhat surprisingly (being God-squad) strongly supported.

The plot focuses on a young chimney sweep Tom, who meets upper class girl, Ellie whilst sweeping the chimneys in her house, is chased away for his presumption in talking to her, falls in a river and seemingly drowns. He is then changed into a Water-Baby and begins a journey which serves as a moral education. Ellie becomes a Water-Baby shortly after Tom and joins him on this journey which concludes as he helps his cruel former master Mr Grimes (who is being punished for his mid-deeds, including beating Tom) achieve redemption. By showing willingness to do ‘right things’ he doesn’t like or want to, Tom earns himself a return ticket to life and human form. Back in the ‘real’ world he becomes a great man of science. He and Ellie (similarly redeemed) are re-united although the book states they never marry. So, the upshot is that they lived sort of happily ever after. Disney would have hated it — no love’s true kiss[2] for this pair!

However, I didn’t start writing with the intention of producing a synopsis or critique of Water-Babies. While the story of the book has faded into little other than fondness in my mind, Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby, left a lasting imprint, and has been something of a guiding light in my life since. The concept of doing as I would be done by has always seemed a very simple aspiration. The question, ‘would I like it if someone did this to me?’ is a sure-fired way of identifying whether an action I’m thinking about is supportable or not. A sort of moral litmus test. I’ve lived my life in the general belief that it doesn’t much matter what you do as long as you don’t hurt others, or yourself, along the way. Having said that, I’m not a saint by any means. I’ve lived a full and varied life. But I do care how my actions affect the people around me and I do my best not to create collateral damage as I skip my merry way through life.

Seriously, it’s been a no-brainer. When I follow the do as you would be done by principle, I feel good. When I don’t, it disturbs me and I feel bad, sometimes even sick. Let me quickly add that you don’t have to be a doormat to do as you would be done by; there are always options and choices which allow us to achieve our own objectives without trashing other people along the way. Of course, doing as you would be done by doesn’t in any way guarantee that other people will do the same.

It often feels that common decency and respect for others have become ‘old hat’. Yet they are the ingredients that make societies civilized. Courtesy and manners are about acknowledging the kindnesses, cleverness and care of the people around us. But they’re also about restraint. About not just saying the first thing that comes to mind. Not responding in kind to other people’s rudeness or anger. Respect allows us freedom of expression without fear, providing there is understanding that rights also come with responsibilities. Respect for the law allows us to live in peace and safety instead of anarchy. Respect for ourselves is a vital part of leading happy fulfilling lives. Respect for others and for our environment also allows families, social groupings, organisations, countries and our much vaunted ‘international community’ to flourish. This respect includes having at least a nodding acquaintance with the concept of a common good instead of the cult of me that has become the bedrock of modern life.

Clearly, respect has to be earned. but if we lose respect for the people and things around us, we cease to care about our world and become uncivilized. Disrespect in the conventional sense is everywhere; noisy neighbours whose booming stereos spoil our weekends, boy racers grinding their gears and revving the hell out of their cars at 2am, people walking five-abreast along a pavement who force you into the gutter … and those are just the tip of the iceberg.

Coming back to Water-Babies, the reviews I read didn’t inspire me to re-read it. I was tempted, but decided to keep my memories as they are. However, I do think it’s a pity that we can’t ignore the bigotry of the time such books were written in and take the eternal currency of their messages on board. The world would be a better place if more people embraced the do as you would be done by creed so individuals start being nicer and less self-obsessed people who understand that working towards the greater good is, in fact, good.

Footnotes:

[1] Despite several recent attempts to find redemption for the book itself — a 2013 update for BBC 4 brought the tale to a newer age with Tom having been trafficked from Nigeria as a child labourer — it’s attitudes don’t resonate with the sensitivities of contemporary audiences (well at least some of them … step away from the ‘Trump bashing moment’).

[2] As a totally useless piece of trivia, Kingsley is credited with inventing the word ‘cuddles’ which first appeared in Water-Babies.

Forget the worm … this early bird’s on a different quest!

Published on February 11, 2017May 13, 2024 by francesmanwaring.comLeave a comment

I was haunted for months after seeing 2011 dystopian science fiction action thriller, In Time, about a society in 2169 where people stop ageing at 25 and each has a digital clock on their arm that counts down how long they have to live. When the clock reaches zero, that person “times out” and dies. Time is the universal currency which can be transferred between people or ‘time capsules”.

The film features two very contrasting scenarios. The first is a harsh urban ghetto based around manufacturing areas where people generally have 24 hours or less on their clock at any given time and live from moment to moment, tyrannised by time poverty. The other is an upmarket ‘gated community’ where the pampered rich have enough time on their clocks to live for centuries. It’s an edgy movie where the former make gifts of time to each other to survive and where loved ones simply run out of time in front of your eyes. In our own world, where the rich get richer by the nano-second, the poor poorer and no-one has enough time, it’s not hard to imagine time becoming one of the key future differentiators between the haves and the have nots.

As I’ve got older, I’ve started work progressively earlier. Likely something to do with the fact that the number of times I go out partying during a whole year can now be counted on one finger rather than many fingers required for the weekly tally in my glory days. Don’t imagine this is an unusual evolution.

Now that I get up when I used to go to sleep, I find that I actually love the early mornings. I get a real buzz from the somewhat smug satisfaction that comes from being an early bird. From having been at my desk for an hour or so before most others. From getting a jump on the day … and checking out the latest sensational Trump story in the New York Times (yes, I am helpless in the face of this addiction). Even better, at weekends, maybe ‘sleeping in’ till an indulgent 7am instead of the usual 5.50am.

In the madness of our always on society, where we’re mobilised to the max and socially networked up the wazoo, free time is one of the genuine luxuries. How often recently have you answered “busy” rather than something more usual like”box of fluffy ducks” or even just “fine, thank you” when a colleague asks how you are? It’s become something of a professional virtue to be insanely busy — or at last give the impression of being— or you risk being seen as not very important. In some circles appearing to have time on your hands can even be career limiting.

And yet, time is so necessary to sanity. Reflective time, time to ponder. Do nothing. Smell the roses. Guilt free time to sprawl comfortably on a sofa lost in a good book. After all, as W.H. Davis said in his classic 1911 poem, Leisure, “What is this life if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?” Making or taking time, makes us better people, personally and professionally. Time allows for balance, to think, take stock, plan, strategise, synthesise. Taking time is taking control not just reacting to the last txt or email. Running to the next meeting, or moving to the next item on the never ending list of stuff to do.

Coming back to being haunted by In Time, getting up early one way of putting some more time on my meter. Consider: If you discount my indolent teens and party-centric, night-clubbing 20s … oh and the first half of my thirties that I spend recovering from the former … working on the assumption (and I am) that I will make it to at least three score years and ten, that’s two extra hours a day for some 40 years. Incredibly an massive 29.2 years that I might have slept through or squandered in some meaningless way that I have excavated slow the flow and offset the feeling of always running backwards. AND it only gets better the longer I live!

Of course, I don’t factor in the two hours earlier I have to go to bed in order to get up at the crack of dawn. But then, it’s arguable that those two hours, when you think about what I actually did with them — out on the town, chick flic on TV, obsessively flicking through old fav music, adding to my already extensive knowledge of wine — didn’t really count. I’ll take the win.

So I raise my Americano to the other early birds everywhere. Long may you chirp away in your happy and annoying-to-everyone-else song-filled mornings … but you can keep the worms!

If you have to go to work before breakfast, have breakfast first

Published on January 26, 2017May 13, 2024 by francesmanwaring.comLeave a comment

I love this piece of nutty circular wisdom. Don’t know who said it, but I wish I had. It makes me smile every time I think about it because while it means nothing of any consequence, I sort of get the paradox. Basically life’s a contradiction and that’s all there is to it. That probably makes me about as original as a member of a boy band but hey, we can’t all be Proust!