Zen and the art of negotiation

Sitting outside the lunch room at work on a fine, clear day. There's still a little chill from this morning's frost and a faint wisp of steam rises where the sun shines. It seems such a perfect day.

They let me take the laptop to work. So much stuff has gone missing from our house the insurance company cancelled our cover. I don't want the laptop to go - that would be too much!

I always thought it axiomatic that the tighter you hold on to something the more likely you'll lose it. That's stood me in good stead over the years, but presupposes everyone else is as trusting and honest as myself. Inevitably, to leave something lying about unattended is an invitation for a significant cross section of the community.

A supervisor passes and grunts some sarcasm. Sarcastic supervisors are not thin on the ground at my job. I've learned to cope with a touch of Zen and a modicum of detachment.

I think everyone would benefit from a spell of rehab. I went for the Buddhism - 12 step teaches you process, Buddhism, a life view.

Buddhism separates thought, feeling and action. It reminds you you have as much right to breath as anyone. It teaches you to disengage the ego. It shows you how to cherish every moment.

The only power a word has is in the listener. I have a room in the cellar of my heart where I lock away negative emotion for future action. It mostly works, but, I'm not a cold fish nor a Zen Master.

I assist myself by concentrating on the speaker. 'Why is he saying this? What is his story that made him into such an arsehole? Why do we not see eye to eye?'

Such questions are mostly unanswerable, but it serves to divert me away from the hurtful remark.

Of course, I was once quick to take offense and used to go off like a sack of week old fish heads. A raging temper was followed by intense regret and depression. Something was afoul with the old noodle, the top shelf, the executive suite - a steak sandwich short of a picnic.

Now, I could load up on drugs, kill my fiends, etc, which I did, and still could, with a fistful of prescriptions. Or I could turn to a spot of Zen. Zen doesn't slap you around so much and the only side effect is an enigmatic smile.

That dark room in the cellar is opened in those quiet moments with a spot of meditation followed by writing - I write myself back into balance.

Of course it is never that simple or I would be doing overpriced lecture tours and writing a book of my revelations. My revelations, in any case, are not mine but someone called Satyanand Somebody. I just read them when having nothing better to do.

Robert Kiyosaki gave me the key to going on overpriced lecture tours, but I never had the bottle to turn it.

My supervisor doesn't like me because I can use a computer and therefore he suspects I'm smarter than him. I DO have a better formal education, travelled much more, more articulate, etc, but he's way more practical and experienced. He ought to know I don't want his job - I'd be useless at it.

I suspect he can't figure me out. He's a micro-manager who needs the pieces of the puzzle fitted neatly together. He's perpetually pissed at me but can't figure out why. He's pissed that he's pissed and doesn't know the reason. I defy his concept of manhood. He may think I'm queer or my door swings both ways? Little does he know, but the hinges seized up long ago.

I'm a sissy, a nance, a bumbler who bitches over a broken finger nail. I don't care for getting down and dirty. I'm a runt who can't lift loads. And I don't give a flying fuck.

I'm more at peace than he'll likely ever be. I know who I am and my strengths and weaknesses. I've done the pain and made the gains. I surprise myself every day with new found skills and accomplishments. I let criticism slide off my back. I am bloke!

Zen teaches we are born with all the knowledge and skills of the universe. Our lives are then spent in self discovery. Drugs confine you to childhood, but, once released allow you to grow - to transcend into enlightenment.

Not all of that sits happily in my court, I have to say. Western culture is innately cynical in outlook and I'm a Westerner by birth. We have hyperactive bullshit filters that inhibit accepting that which you can't see, touch and hear.

We are egoists and clutter our lives with material possessions. Our self-concepts are tied to what we own, not who we are. We neglect the heart in preference to the head. We rationalise and seek explanations. We don't learn about the inner realm of the self. Our hearts are what we pour out when we've downed a few whiskeys.

I remember a story about two bands of Lakota sitting own with a BIA agent to solve a grazing land dispute. The elders sat all day outside their teepees saying nothing. When it grew cold in the evening, they rose and left.

"What the hell was that all about?" asked a confused BIA agent.

"It was such a nice day," answered one of the Lakota, "and the dispute is vexing. The chiefs didn't want to spoil it by arguing with one another."

Now that is very Zen!

Don

Saturday Rant

In the eighties I joined another Communist group called the Socialist Action League. The League generally followed a Trotskyist line, being associated with the 4th International. In contrast to Socialist Unity, it opposed seeking control of Trade Unions - preferring to build a movement by way of 'Fractions' or activist groups from the shop floor.

It satisfied a thirst for conspiracy and, at the same time, comradeship and a need to be 'doing something worthwhile (shit-stirring)'

At that time in New Zealand, there was a fair bit of sensationalistic journalism and a campaign by the Government to expose 'Reds under the bed.' It was all for political ends, of course, and no-one really believed NZ was on the verge of revolution.

I enjoyed turning out for demonstrations. I generally held the red flag and, therefore, got my picture taken a lot by the press. It scarcely mattered what the cause was - I felt we were the 'real deal' and shared a revelation.

In fact, Trotsky and Lenin were tedious reads and barely more interesting than Karl Marx. I struggled through the required texts, but most of it flew over my head. I was more interested in their lives, rather than their theories. I read a lot more history, of course, and was able to impose a Socialist analysis. That was a more fascinating game and I still do it.

There were conspiracies in the press about paid informants and such and someone was exposed as being an Intelligence agent within the Socialist Unity Party. We all wondered whether our group had been penetrated and began to look askance at our comrades.

One day, I was looking out the window of our secret headquarters on Jackson Street, Petone, watching to see what cars were parked outside full of spies. I then asked Mike Treen, our beloved leader, whether he thought I worked for the Security Intelligence Service.

"Don't know," he shrugged. "Don't care either."

In fact, I could blow the whole lot to the Government, in banner headlines, and Mike would've been delighted. It would just go to show how paranoid capitalism becomes when it perceives it's under threat. It would raise the profile of Socialist Action well beyond its numbers. That suited him fine.

Actually there was very little threat. There were only 53 of us throughout the country and had remained so for the last ten years. The movement was hardly growing. Workers were more interested in 50 cents an hour more and a longer lunch break than learning about the nature of the capitalist economy.

I was equivocal myself and remained outside a Fraction. I was then an elected Trade Union official in a Union controlled by adherents to a rival Communist group, the Workers Communist League. As such I'd broken a number of Socialist Action's rules.

I was also a drug user, and drugs were anathema to the League. Drugs could be used by the State to bust the League's members. I was pretty good at covering everything up, however, and Mike either didn't notice or chose not to.

I still keep in touch with Mike now and again. Paradoxically, he heads a Union now called 'Unity' and I admire its brief. It targets poorly paid young workers in retail - a neglected sector, in my opinion.

Of course, in the late nineties everything turned to custard for me and I was exposed as a fraudster, thief, liar and drug user - unceremoniously asked to leave the Union and told not to come back. Politically, I was unaffordable and had disgraced the Union I worked for and my employers I cheated.

Friends fled and wrote unkind things in publications and newspapers. I was branded one of the 'Gang of Four' and eventually I had to leave town and rebuild my life from scratch.

I choose not to reveal the details of my activities only that my criminal spree - or that for which I was caught - spanned two years and involved over 30 grand net. I still feel a mild satisfaction at the cleverness of it all, but, otherwise the shame and all the other stuff is gone.

I put my family through hell during that time but we've moved well and truly on. The only reason I can speak so candidly is because I feel nothing. In that sense I'm healed - for good I hope.

Royal First

The battleship that set the standard, HMS Devastation. This ship was built in 1871 and demonstrated the features that would become common to the pre-dreadnought battleship.

She was originally equipped with 13.5inch muzzle loading cannon - two per turret, one aft and one forward. She was built entirely for steam and had nothing but a signal mast. Even so, she had a range of over 5000 miles - pretty good for the day.

Devastation gave over 30 years service - subsequently equipped with 10 inch breech loaders.

The Devastation was widely admired and even more widely copied by the world's navies.

Don

Victorian Innovation

HMS Inflexible and the vessel that inspired its design, Italy's Duilo of 1880/1. The guns about reached the limit for breech loaders on a warship in the Victorian era. They were just too damned difficult to operate.

The barrels had to be first depressed into a glacis below which an army of gun crew rammed the shell and charge up the barrel. The turret then was turned, aimed and fired, if lucky, inside 15 minutes.

The turrets themselves were mounted en enchelon amidships so, in theory they could both fire across the deck broadside. In practice, the muzzle blast caused more damage to the superstructure than any theoretical hit from the enemy.

The amidships section was an armoured box within which were the machinery spaces and the magazines. The ends were soft, ie unarmoured, but, it was reckoned, the armoured section would be sufficient to keep the ship afloat if the ends were punctured.

Another problem with the type of gun was the use of black powder. This caused a huge amount of smoke which had to clear before the gunlayers could relocate the target.

Lastly, the detonation factor of black powder meant these guns had to be very strong in the breech to cope with the sudden expansion of gases. This pushed the weight of these monster guns to over 120 tons for the 13.5 inch.

Don

Reluctant Turncoat

SMS Pillau - fast light cruiser originally designed and built for Russia by Schicau of Elbing. It was to have Oblukhov 130mm main guns but the Germans mounted Krupp 150s. Upon the outbreak of war in 1914 the German Navy took over her and her sister SMS Elbing.


German cruisers led much more busy lives than the capital ships and Pillau was no exception. She was at Jutland, Heligoland Bight, Riga Gulf and numerous skirmishes with the enemy throughout the war. In 1919 she was handed over to the Italians as part of reparations and renamed Bari. As such, she was sunk by the British in 1943.