The motivational bat

Good writing is like a windowpane.

- George Orwell -

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I used to have the most terrible handwriting; when I say used to I mean still do. It's legible now but usually only when I handwrite in capital letters. Fortunately I don't often handwrite, just personal notes I scribble when on the phone at work.

When I was seven my mother authorised the headmaster of my primary school to review my handwriting each Friday. I was given an exercise book containing tasks I'd complete over the week and submit in person to the headmaster for evaluation and the resulting motivational inspiration should my handwriting not be acceptable. My mother had authorised the motivational prompt also.

I'd stand there whilst the headmaster perused my exercise work and, each and every Friday, my writing would come up short and the motivational prompt to do better was delivered there and then.

The headmaster, whose name I still recall but will omit, would collect the good-handwriting-motivational-device from his cupboard and administer a solidly motivational and incredibly inspirational prompt to do better next time. It involved me leaning over and placing my hands on his desk whilst he wacked me on my seven year old ass five times with a wooden beach bat. You know, one of those big paddle things one takes to the beach to hit tennis balls back and forth. It hurt like a mother fucker but I'd front up each Friday knowing I'd get whacked yet again due to my handwriting not being acceptable.

My writing never got much better over the twelve months this continued but I learned something nonetheless.

I learned that much of the time lessons don't always come directly and sometimes what is designed or purported to be a lesson is not the actual lesson at all.

I learned that I have the ability to accept adversity and deal with pain, physical and emotional. I learned that people who present themselves as responsible may not always be so...and I learned how to hate, although the relentless and brutal racial vilification I'd experienced for the preceding two years had already paved that path.

I learned that I'm responsible, about duty, fear and how hope doesn't always win the day; action does. I learned how to quell anger, to command myself that others were oblivious to my pain, suffering, thoughts or intentions and I learned that should I have the chance to bat that headmaster at some later date, I'd take it. That last, was the foundation of my ethos of protecting those who cannot do so for themselves, the old and infirm, women and children, the disabled.

Thinking back I know I could have rebelled and taken different paths. As it was, I lost any and all interest in school, but I was an intrinsically good person which endured. I looked inwardly, educated myself and despite my school teachers telling me I would never amount to anything and was a waste of time and effort, all the way until I left high school [early], I did a reasonable job in my estimation. I'm not nothing.

My life has moved in many directions but all the way through I've had a passion for reading and writing - those two things are pivotal to my life and two of the most constant things. I'm fortunate that headmaster didn't beat that out of me whilst trying to beat me into better handwriting. I'm also glad I never got the chance to return the beatings because I don't think I would have been able to stop myself, and would have done a splendid job at it. [I never said I'm a totally good man.]

I've read so many words over my life, have listened to many others directly and indirectly, and feel content with where I am now, who I am. I'm somewhat self-made I suppose although, thinking on it, maybe not as self made as I like to think...

All of my life-happenings, most of which I will never repeat here or even to my closest confidants, have impacted upon and shaped me, some painfully and some not, but it's all of those things which have brought me to this time and place; the man sitting in front of a computer writing these words. Fortunately I don't have to handwrite them though, no one would be able to decipher them.

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I don't regret those life-things, none of them. They happened, some at my hand others by the hand of others, circumstance, fate, destiny or however one wants to put it. They don't define me though, how I took them and created my life because of them does.

Things won't get better dwelling on the past. Accept what has happened. Then move forward.

- Jocko Willink -