#ruminating Hermann

[foxglovecove]

Tales from the Jaeger Pilot AU

Some background for the snippet below: Newt and Hermann are jaeger co-pilots, this bit takes place probably 6 months into their assignment together after graduating academy. Newt also has yet to get his first tattoo which will be the one they’ve just defeated

I HC that Hermann is not a huge fan of casual touch so…

…when a drunk Newt burst into Hermann’s bunk room one night post “successfully defeated a Kaiju” mission, basically rendering Hermann trapped on his couch while he snored away in dreamland, it sent Hermann down a spiral of rumination on his ability to get close to people

Here’s a rough snippet of a larger bit of story I’m poking at that goes along with this pic:

Then there had been the letters from Newton, the anticipation churning each time he flipped open his post box, and the relief that came with the knowledge there would only ever be words on paper between them, keeping him safe and Newton at a distance.

Ha.

He stares down—one arm tucked behind his head, the other still holding the burning nub of a cigarette like a lifeline—and wonders if anxious anticipation and cultivated distance are all he’ll ever be capable of. He’s mesmerized by the steady rise and fall of Newton’s head pillowed against his stomach. How easy it would be to just reach out and…touch.

His fingers twitch.

You’ve been a menace to me for 6 years.

Three years of letters. Then three years since the letters had stopped, when Newton ceased being nebulous words safe on a page, and burst loud and colorful and real, into Hermann’s life at the academy.

[homopathy69]

HIS ASS QUIET!!!!!

I will not disclose the reason for his anger

ughoaokwii i need to go to a fucking what is it called vocational college seminar and I DONT WANT TO IM NOT GOING TO VOCATIONAL COLLEGEE!!!!! Grrr!!!!!!..!!.!.!! I’m also so not getting into university theres just no way they’ll take me :P can a bro just chill 🍃 fr.,….,.,.,.i mean i got a bit over two years but come the fuck on I’m not making it and I don’t even need to. University only has one thing i want which is education but I can do without university to get education. Plus everyone’ll expect me to do something great after like jesus hermann christ mom I’m not gonna do groundbreaking discoveries in chemistry im sorry. I’ve pretty much abandoned all my plans by now because there’s nothing i can do except trying not to be a burden on society and do my part to make some people happy. I don’t want anything which is bad because i think you’re supposed to want something from life but it might be just cuz im ND and I don’t see myself in traditional work or work at all. I just want to frolic in the flower fields and be left alone until I am done baking but I’m afraid I’ll get burned to a crisp if i keep saying im not ready. I might go to italy for two weeks for a school thing which is great. I hope the weather is better than here.

Speaking of weather i was actually kinda counting on the fact that I wouldn’t even make it to spring but apparently life has a way of keeping me alive. I simply cannot fit a hospital stay nor death into my schedule. My schedule has plenty of empty space dont get me wrong but It’s because I’m a mentally exhausted little man and i need to ruminate in my sadness.

Im twitter posting again but tumblr is better for it because it actually lets me type an essay. Ughhoojqlal I don’t wanna go to my art classes tomorrow they both suck major ass. In the other one we’re using adobe illustrator and it’s just….. dreadful. The other one is a movie course which is fine but it’s very taxing for me. I just kinda wanna drop out but the law won’t allow it anymore. Which is good cuz id be dead without school :P

[ceilidhtransing]

I hope it's OK if I slightly hijack this post to add a lot more information because I read a lot of Holocaust academia and am very passionate about genocide education, and you've touched on something that I think is very important for people to know. Serious content warning that this is going to get extremely dark and I'm going to go into quite some detail on the Holocaust. You have been warned.

Himmler - you know, “head of the SS” Himmler, “one of the true bastards of history” Himmler - found many practical aspects of the Holocaust horrifying and disgusting, as did many of the hands-on perpetrators of the killing. When Himmler witnessed a mass killing in Minsk he decided that the process was too stressful for the SS men and arranged for rest and mental health care for killers who were suffering as a result of the genocide they were perpetrating. It wasn't uncommon for members and commanders of the Einsatzgruppen, the mobile killing squads of the Holocaust whose job it was to round up and shoot (primarily) Jews, to find their task immensely psychologically difficult.

The psychological burden was serious and extended even to [Higher SS and Police Leader Erich von dem] Bach-Zelewski himself. Himmler's SS doctor, reporting to the Reichsführer on Bach-Zelewski's incapacitating illness in the spring of 1942, noted that the SS leader was suffering “especially from visions in connection with the shootings of Jews that he himself had led, and from other difficult experiences in the east”. [Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men]

There are records of men who could not suppress the human instinct in them and grumbled against the violation of all that civilisation stood for. The simple everyday human beings, not totally depraved by Nazi lore or gore, did not hide their disgust. The nervous strain had a telling effect on their morale. Some drank themselves to forgetfulness, and even suicides occurred after some special events [massacres]. Some of the killers were fathers and had complained that while shooting Jewish children, they were plagued by the vision of their own offspring. [Joseph Tenenbaum, The Einsatzgruppen]

Since the shooting brought the executioners nearly eye-to-eye with their victims, even hardened SS men found it difficult. In ruminating on the moral complexities of mass murder, Michael Burleigh noted that “many of the shooters vomited, either because of the blood and the brains flying around or because they had consumed too much schnapps”. The copious flow of alcohol became an integral ingredient in the killing process. Hermann K, a member of Jeckeln’s staff, shows the ambivalence that drove the shooters to alcohol: “Jews were constantly brought to it [the grave]. Some of them had to lie down, others we killed by a shot in the back of the head while they were standing. There were men, women, and children, but I only shot men. There were no breaks. I often moved away from the grave when my nerves could not stand it anymore and I tried to shirk this assignment.” We should add that this SS man also augmented his resolve by drinking schnapps before returning to the firing line. [George Eisen, Kamenets-Podolsk: Anatomy of a Massacre]

Until the spring of 1942 the sole means of execution was by firing squads. To spare women and children the agony of being “exposed to the mental strain of the executions” and to ease the strain on the killers Himmler ordered that they should be executed by gassing. [Joseph Tenenbaum, The Einsatzgruppen]

You read that right: one of the primary reasons that the means of killing during the Holocaust shifted from “shooting people into mass graves” to “gassing people to death” was that the shooting was simply too psychologically distressing for the perpetrators. It was too disgusting, too bloody, too traumatising, too in-your-face awful. There were obviously other factors at play here too - it's also just more efficient to gas people than to shoot them - but the emotional strain of killing tens of thousands of people by gunfire was absolutely an element of that transition. But that didn't completely ease the feelings of utter horror.

Even the gas vans which were to ease the emotional strain of the men were of little help. Untersturmführer Becker protested against letting the men remove the corpses of women and children from the vans. In a letter from Kyiv to SS Obersturmführer Rauff, in charge of transportation in the RSHA [Reich Security Main Office] office A2, Becker warned the commanders of the SK (Sonderkommandos) of  “the immense psychological injuries and damages to the health which that work can have for those men, even if not immediately, at least later on.” The men complained about “headaches which appeared after each loading”. [Joseph Tenenbaum, The Einsatzgruppen]

Why am I sharing all of this, beyond the fact that “people having more knowledge about the Holocaust is generally a good thing”? Because what is extremely rarely if ever brought up in discussions of genocide is the horrifying fact that it's possible to find the act of genocide appalling, traumatising, and extremely difficult to carry out, and still commit genocide. It's absolutely possible to be a normal human with normal human emotional reactions to things and still perpetrate appalling crimes against humanity.

A lot of us rest easy with this false sense of security that we could never be genocidaires because we would simply find it too difficult to shoot a load of people or deal with a pile of corpses. We imagine genocide perpetrators as exclusively “hardened psychos” who find killing easy - fun, even - and, well, because we're not hardened psychos, we don't have anything to worry about. The thing is, the vast majority of people do not fit this psychological profile of “total sadist who just loves to kill and has no problem mowing down civilians”. I think it's safe to say that the vast majority of genocide perpetrators do not fit this profile.

Most of us would find it exceptionally difficult to hands-on commit a genocide. But the terrifying fact is that the vast majority of us are also capable of finding ways to make ourselves feel OK about acts of genocide, to rationalise them, to justify them.

We must not distance ourselves from perpetrators of horrific crimes against humanity and lazily assert that “we're nothing like them”. We are, collectively, much closer psychologically to those perpetrators than we like to think. We must always be vigilant against finding ways to make ourselves feel alright about the most awful things. We must always be vigilant.

The most ironic thing about Spain-Nazi Germany is that Spain at one point had some bullfighting to celebrate the arrival of Heinrich Himmler - the guy who basically made the Holocaust happen, so you know, very "neutral" of Franco to want him coming to party in Spain

And without a single bit of self-reflection, Himmler got very upset at the barbarity of the bullfighting

That's the kind of thing that if you saw it in a book it would feel almost too on the nose

[infpisme]

[avelera]

I've been thinking a lot about 'joy' in fiction lately.

This rumination began back when I described 'my novel' to my dad. Yeah, that novel. The novel we're all working on but that we're too scared or too busy or too hung up on outlining to actually write. The details of the novel are immaterial but it is something of a tragedy, and when I finished describing it my dad said, "Where's the joy in it? Where's the fun?"

At the time I was indignant, the point of the novel wasn't to be "fun", but it was styled as an adventure so it was a fair question. I didn't have an answer. I was consumed by the tragedy of that story and hadn't really thought about where the other pleasures of the genre, like fun or joy, would fit into the story. He and I disagree about a lot when it comes to fiction so I was tempted to write off the comment as him 'missing the point' but we also agree on many things and he was the one who introduced me to a love of reading at a young age with his nightly storytelling, so the critique stuck. And grew. And worried at me. I began to really, really think about where the joy and fun were in stories, even in tragedies.

This was several years ago and the world has become a grimmer place since then, or perhaps I've simply aged and become more aware of what's around me. The latter is more likely. Perhaps it is with age and awareness that I began to really see his point. As a teenager, craving the most extreme of experiences, I longed to read and write stories of the most aching anguish: the world is ending and my lover is dying in my arms, that sort of thing. It was about teasing at emotions too big and operatic for me to have experienced yet at that age. Pain and anguish and drama and tragedy are all wonderful seasonings, they allow us to live vicariously feelings outside what we've experienced. Fiction allows us to safely, on our own terms, and at our own pace, experience destruction, and self-destruction in ways we'd never want to permanently impact our real lives. With experience and lived pain, though, I believe one loses a bit of one's taste for the banality of endless pain and unmixed anguish, even in fiction.

There should be joy somewhere, perhaps not in every story, but as a maxim to myself for future creative endeavors, I believe this is important. It's hard to see the depths of a rich, inky darkness without a bit of light. It's hard to appreciate a character crying if we've never seen them laugh. Even as a writer, it can be hard to live in the lowest depths of a character's despair if there's no break from that emotion. It's hard for audiences, I think, to cheer for a character if they never see their happiness as well as their suffering.

On a more personal, fandom note it's one reason I'm reassessing some of my older WIPs in fandoms like Pacific Rim, where Newt/Hermann as a couple were a comedy ship for me at first but the events of Uprising made Newt's fate so gutwrenching, and in my own fics as well, that I feel I abandoned some WIPs just because I could no longer live in that place. Even if the story still calls to me to be finished, I feel I need to rediscover the joy there. For OFMD I feel it a personal mission that anything longer than a one-shot that I might write contain some glimmer of the humor of the source material, or else it feels like a disservice to the text. In my own novel, I’m mentally writing and re-writing the outline (maybe someday I'll write the actual book!) trying to find where the joy should go. It feels like the latest key to unlocking the story.

Joy has a place in stories. Not always a central place, but like Hope in Pandora's box of horrors, we need a glimmer of it, I think. Or at least I do, these days, to be fully engaged. It's where my head is at lately. It's what I hope to impart in whatever I do next.

[computomography]

① I am an invasive person, and I have been troubled by this for the past ten years. Invasive thinking should belong to psychology. Many times I will have some dangerous ideas. Invasive thoughts are an idea that enters the level of individual consciousness, often without warning, and its content is often worrying, disturbing or strange. Most of the time, they just flash through my mind, but for me, I will repeatedly struggle with these invasive thinking, resulting in strong pain in individuals. The forms of invasive thinking mainly include anxiety, compulsive thinking and ruminant. In terms of content, it is mostly negative memories, violent ideas, and sex-related ideas. For example: infected by bacteria and viruses, and then dying, suddenly want to attack someone, children suddenly have some form of accident, when it is very quiet, suddenly want to shout, past experience of being hurt, the impulse to sexually assault others. Including height-phobia and obsessive-compulsive disorder, I think it is also related to invasive thinking, and I am also a relatively extreme person myself. So I'm interested in invasive thinking, because for me, I've been trying to figure out this problem over the years. How much has this invasive thinking changed me? What symptoms did it cause? And how many people are similar to me? Are we the same group? For example, when I stand on the railings of the balcony, I can't help jumping down, which seems to be a desire for the tranquility of death and the pursuit of a state of stability. Research shows that some poets are 30 times more likely to have bipolar disorder than ordinary people, so I can understand the feeling of eager to find identity in past celebrities - knowing that all this has been tormenting them for a long time may make them feel better. There is always a force of oppression in our hearts, which may be violent ideas or self-abuse tendencies. Here are some of my own behaviors about invasive thinking:

The pupils on the edge of the balcony on the seventh floor began to enlarge, washed his hands 18 times, constantly stepped on the protruding objects with his feet, sat on the railings, and then kept leaning back and cycled back. Walking around the ice cream cone over and over again, he turned to the bottom of the bridge and stared at a pile of broken fallen leaves.

But I still believe it.Depression and bipolarity are a channel to produce wonderful thinking.

Most of the time, I enjoy the thinking brought by this pain, which makes me pay more attention to the power in my body.

Understanding Contemporary Art 4.1 On Viennese Actionism by John David Ebert

Wikipedia defines the entry Vienna Actionism or Viennese Actionism as "a short and violent movement in the twentieth century". The Vienna Action School is one of the many "art of action" movements in the 1960s, including the Wave School, the occasional art, the performance art and the body art. The four core members of the Vienna Action faction are Günter Brus, Otto Mühl, Hermann Nitsch, and Rudolf Schw Arzkogler), active as an activist between 1960 and 1971

Antonin Artaud’s manuscript

②

Therefore, I am interested in a historic movement, the Vienna Action Faction. I think there is a link between invasive thinking and taboo energy in the body. I want to start with the "cruel theater" proposed by Antonin Artaud. Artaud so-called "cruelness" is a kind of performance mode that makes people trapped in some kind of wild and beyond rational consciousness (this is a bit like one of the acts of invasive thinking, shouting suddenly in an unintentional place, which I often do. ) I think quoting Artaud 's description is that "in an extremely familiar situation, a space in the audience's heart is opened by a strange beam of light." In his 1938 book The TheatreandItsDouble, Artaud explained the cruel theater theory by calling for the establishment of a venting theater to replace traditional, rational, elite and suppressing people's emotional feelings. Field, the sound and body movements are developed to the extreme in the ritual way of witchcraft sacrifice, so that the audience can experience an extreme experience like spiritual enlightenment.

For the development of the project, I will conceptually quote invasive thinking, interview this specific group of people, and collect different forms of media expression (perhaps their personal belongings, photos, transcripts, etc.) that are troubled by invasive thinking, and will also go deep into The profound influence of this historic movement of the Vienna Action School on some later behavioral artists is how to inspire them to explore the boundaries of the body, how to break the taboos of the body, and how to release the strength in the body. In today's context, I try to find the connection between those suffering from invasive thinking, whether their thinking is like the Viennaists at that time, some strength in our bodies has been suppressed.

mind-map for connection between Vienna Actionism and Intrusive thoughts

But for intrusive thinking, some scholars suggest (Seif & Winston, 2018) that invasive thinking may only be an extra product generated in our brain's brain stream of consciousness, similar to garbage-like existence. As long as we don't pay too much attention to it, it will eventually disappear.

Herman Netsey's Good Friday Picture 1961

YokoOno, a female artist, uses her body as an artistic medium. Her most famous performance art performance was CutPiece held at Carnegie Hall in New York in 1965. Yoko sat motionless on the stage and asked the audience to come on stage to cut off her clothes one by one until all of them slipped off her. In English, fragments are homophonic with peace, and cutting clothes means destroying peace. Yoko Ono's physical performance exposed the process of human aggression and invasion, tyranny and abuse, and revealed the harm of human nature caused by the tendency of aggression and violence in human social behavior.

blade sheet by me

Francis Bacon: Man and Beast

my hand drawings in Royal academy of arts

Since then, Deluz has further put forward the Alto-style "body withoutorgan" theory. In 1989, he used Francisco Bacon's fleshy picture as an example to explain the body theory of resisting all institutional constraints. It can be seen that since the 1990s, contemporary artistic practice and theory have once again turned to the body, which is not accidental. This turn means that the real feeling from the body has finally broken the simulation image of shielding reality in the post-modernist period, allowing people to touch a real and humanized world again.

Essentially, invasive thinking also affects symptoms such as obsessive-compulsive disorder and acrophobia.

③ I have done a project about height phobia before, which is the most important thing for me to print.Like profound. In fact, this is not high-fear, but more about the stability of death. I don't have much sense of fear of heights, physiological reactions, etc., and fear of falling. I studied this.The cause of fear and the possibilityInspired by the explanation: Acrophobia will have a strange counterintuitive effect: let yourself fall into the depths of panic and willingly jump down. Researchers have found that no matter where they are, people will overestimate their longitudinal height, which may be one-third to twice as much.2. But people can usually accurately estimate the horizontal distance. Overestimation of vertical distance will make high places more terrible for some people: Professor Stefanucci and others have found that the higher the fear, the higher the estimated vertical distance, which also escalates their fears and forms a vicious circle 3. So I did different perspective experiments. At the same time as structural development, I have developed the fabrics of my project based on this. The artwork in this project adopts clothing.Materials that are not common in production. I mix epoxy resin a and b glue on cardboard. Then turn the cardboard to make the glue flow. In order to imitate the trauma of multiple layers of skin, I used a hot fan and realistic fake blood. To enrich the details, I use plastic straws as veins, and then use epoxy resin to fix their positions. Make a blurred visual effect of people falling from a high place and falling behind the ground.

[soulsbetrayed]

"Aw thank you Greg." the brunette smiles warmly. To be fair she was nervous as all get out at the notion of leading this whole affair, she wasn't a leader at all that she can admit. Nose scrunching up she picked up the war vet's distress. "Hon now look, you did all you could back there. We couldn't have anticipated what and who we'd face when we reached the ruins." she tells him lifting his chin up with her index finger so they'd have eye contact this time trying to snap him out of his ruminating.

She tuts at thinking back on Hermann and her group. Well she knows exactly who she'd be after when the Sinners decide to clash with them. Vindictive doesn't even begin to describe what Rodya was feeling but she'd gladly show that side of her if any of the others were in the predicament Gregor's in or similar. Let it be known that she is quite overprotective of her peers and viciously so.

"We will recover the Golden Bough taken from us, just you wait." whether or not it'd be at the cost of their lives she cannot say for certain. After all how effective their ragtag group really depends on who's doing what that day and what nonsense they've gotten into. Success was simply a gamble at times and she was fine with that.

Somehow, he doubted those words, but Rodya's smile warmed his heart and settled those doubts. The look he gave her was intended to reassure, and Gregor squeezed her hand again. He was still a bit worried, though, as he still blamed himself for failing the mission last time, for allowing the Golden Bough to be snatched away from them in the blink of an eye.

Would she fail, as well? Or would everything be okay in the end?

"If you're sure," He stated in a softer tone, nodding. "No matter what happens, I'm here." A small smile appeared at that, though part of him doubted it was even real, or a part of a façade.

[hermannsthumb]

I've been haunted by this prompt: Hermann keeps staring at Newt's lips wondering if they're as soft as they look.

this ficlet brought to you by the fifty times newt goes :p in the film and this one picture i have saved of him after being chased by baby otachi where his mouth is hanging open

-------------------------------------

Hermann’s insomnia has been getting worse lately. He’s not sure why--stress, looming deadlines, the end of the world that creeps ever-closer--but whatever the case may be, he’s laid awake in bed three of the five nights of this week. Alone, gazing up at the ceiling, thoughts racing, drifting off around five only to be awoken by his alarm for work at seven and have to shamble to the showers and choke down breakfast. It makes for a bloody awful work day. Even Newton’s been commenting on his recent sloppiness.

(“Missing a decimal point there, ace,” he said yesterday, tapping at Hermann’s chalkboard with the end of a pencil obnoxiously, and the day before was the negative sign that shouldn’t have been there, and two days before that--because Hermann managed to get one decent night’s sleep in the middle--he’d written a six instead of a seven. Messy, easily caught mistakes. Yet Hermann did not catch them.)

The solutions Google gave Hermann did not help. Hermann does not use a computer if he can help it, nor is he allowed a cellular phone on the base, so there is nothing to cut back on there; he already does not drink caffeine after five in the evening; evening meditation does nothing but give him time to ruminate on how behind in his work he is and stress him out further. He’s at his wit’s end. Frustrated beyond anything. It’s why he’s on his way to the lab at three in the morning--he may as well get some bloody work done.

He should’ve known Newton--perpetually sleep-deprived, caffeine-guzzling, manic Newton, who embraces his insomnia with open arms--would have the same idea. 

“Howdy,” Newton says when Hermann shuffles through the door. He’s sprawled across the couch, cradling a mug, wearing nothing but boxers and a sweatshirt, his hair a wild tangled mess. Usually he’s styled it with so much product not even a hurricane could rustle a strand out of place. “What’s up? Couldn’t sleep?”

Hermann back a sigh: he hadn’t particularly wanted to talk to anyone. Especially not someone who loves talking as much as Newton. He nods.

“Me neither,” Newton says. “Hey, have a seat. I just made a pot of coffee, do you want--?”

“No,” Hermann says, quickly, “thank you. I won’t be able to sleep if I have caffeine now.”

Newton’s mouth twists up. “You’re already not sleeping,” he points out. He swings his legs down to make room for Hermann and pats the cushion. “Come on, have a seat, you’re not going to get any work done anyway. Is it still milk and no sugar?”

“Er. Yes.”

Hermann takes the proffered seat while Newton dims the lights and busies himself at the kitchenette. He, strangely, feels more comfortable here (with the sagging cushions, creaking springs, overstuffed throw pillows) than he has in his bed all month. The couch is still warm with Newton’s body heat; the overhead lights are not fluorescent, not like they are in Hermann’s room; even the steady bubbling of Newton’s specimen tanks in the background is soothing. Hermann drags the knit blanket they keep tossed over the back of the couch down and spreads it out across himself, and, as an afterthought, nudges off his slippers. It’s downright cozy.

“Here, dude.” Newton wriggles in next to Hermann and hands the mug over. The PPDC-issued instant coffee is terrifically weak, and the milk they put in it is always watered down enough to barely be milk, yet the smell of it--the warmth of it, spreading down through his fingers--makes Hermann hum happily. He even allows himself a small smile. “Gimme some blanket,” Newton says. “I’m cold.”

“It’s not big enough for both of us,” Hermann says.

Newton wriggles closer. “It’s going to have to be. Come on, you jerk, I made you coffee.” Hermann relents and allows Newton to slip under the blanket, too; Newton sinks, low, until it reaches his chin, and then shoots Hermann a smug, satisfied smile. “I knew you’d wear a dressing gown,” he continues. He’s speaking softer than usual. “It’s the kind of dorky thing you’d do.”

“Mm,” Hermann says.

Newton drums his fingers against the side of his mug. He takes a drink.

How funny, Hermann thinks, the sorts of thoughts you entertain when you’re not quite in your right mind, the sorts of thoughts he’s entertaining now upon watching his friend swallow and swipe his tongue across his lower lip: Newton has got a lovely mouth. Always pink, like he’s just bitten at it, curled into a perpetual snarky grin (though less snarky, tonight, more genuine), wet, now, from coffee and saliva. Soft. Very soft. Hermann’s own lips are always chapped.

“Something wrong?” Newton says.

Newton has a tin of rose-flavored lip balm he keeps in the top drawer of his desk, and Hermann has seen him use it frequently (carefully and methodically dragging a fingertip across his lips). It always leaves his mouth a little glossy. The vaguest scent of roses clinging to him that Hermann catches in whiffs when he walks by. Perhaps he’d taste like roses now. “Ah,” Hermann says, casting his eyes down to his mug hurriedly, “no, why would you ask?”

“You were looking at me weird,” Newton says. “Do I have something...?” He licks two fingers and rubs at a spot on his cheek.

“No,” Hermann says. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

He takes a too-big sip of coffee, chokes, and coughs up half of it down his pajama shirt and dressing gown. Newton narrows his eyes. “Alright.”

Unlike Hermann, who can go months without picking up a razor and have nothing more than a few cactus-like prickles along his jaw to show for it, Newton seems to be perpetually stubbled no matter how often he shaves. Chin, jaw, cheeks--always so rough-looking, always so scratchy, yet encircling that damned soft mouth. Would it burn to kiss him? Or would Hermann be so distracted by his lips--

“Stop staring at me, man,” Newton says, “it’s wigging me out.”

“I’m sorry,” Hermann wheezes. “It’s not--”

Newton wets his lips again, another frequent habit of his, something Hermann has seen him do dozens of times when he’s anxious or lost in thought. Only this time, when Newton does it, Hermann cracks.

Newton goes rigid with confusion when Hermann swoons against him, but when Hermann--unable to help himself--presses their lips together clumsily, he fists the back of Hermann’s dressing gown with a “Mmph!” and kisses back. Hermann is quickly overwhelmed. Newton’s lips are as soft as they look, soft and plush, and he parts them so readily when Hermann prods at them with his tongue that Hermann can’t help but push more of himself against Newton and kiss him harder, push his tongue in deeper. Newton’s stubble scrapes his skin. He tastes like stale coffee. (No roses.) How wonderful--how dizzying--

Hermann’s snapped to his senses by the sound both of their coffee mugs rolling off the couch and shattering. What is he doing? “I’m sorry,” Hermann repeats in a pant. He tries to push himself up, up off the dazed Newton, up to deal with the mess seeping across the floor. “I’m sorry, I don’t know--”

“Shut up,” Newton says, grinning, tugging furiously at Hermann’s gown to pull him back down. His pupils have dilated behind his crooked, fogging glasses. “Do it again.”

[magnetar1]

Before the End

Roads strewn with dead.  Three days journey before reaching the mountain.  They’d come this way before . . .  

Funerary detachment in times of war & bloodshed, continually ignoring the subtler emotions.  Having lost more than they cared to admit, they never complained about being tired or cold.  Backing down from less evolved attitudes, they get up & go.

- - -

Born dreading, he is one who leads them.  After all, it is one of his brothers they are going to honor.  The youngest of the group, but the strongest.  The only one, too, without memory of rhapsody . . . Instead, songs of doom under clanging steel: beleaguered portents failing to atomize indifference.  Necro-denizens play the tune while huddled in a mass grave.  As wounded grieve & cry, rake & eventually die.  

Priests of Chemosh.  Kingly scribes.  Gathering might of lost tribes; unconscious deity, incarnate usurper.

- - -

He tells them to sleep.  They sleep when, & where, they are able. However he does not, preferring to keep his eyes on the stage.  Domed hills beneath writhing pillars of smoke, funneling blackened torment into the heart of the sky.  Snaking omnipresent in view of all who warded against it.  Charging air with molecules of light, sheltering filigree of wisdom’s torch.  

For him such wisdom never was, experienced only in dreams or visions.  

Hallucinating rapture.  Land of Ancestors.  Visitant yet lost, bedraggled episcopal trace.  Especially when consuming the body of Ashtar, below the grave of the world.  Following her through its necropolis, yet unpopulated by abominations – Creatures here, free to come & go, untainted by the reality of fear.

- - -  

He did not fear them, that much he knew.  Head empty save for thoughts of revenge; those who conquered, distilled in a crucible of hardship . . .  So many brothers lost; companions of war, laid to rest. So many sisters gone mad; riven truce, wombs torn out & devoured . . .

Bitter rumination: last of his kind.  Unless seed is brightened by day; pioneering solace, with nature’s guidance.  Instead, the brink looms. Fatigue & depression setting in.  Long ruminations on the road in the guise of one who walked proud.  It’s true he did not fear, but he was breaking down.

- - -

Gravity of emptiness.  Prophetic sojourn.  Those who fled could not get away as those who went against it would never forget.

He’d been to the Land of Moab before.  Misted ruins of slain giants, original settlers of the Northern Reach . . . Obscure cast of future wars. These, his true ancestors, bartering deep in caves with a host of shadows.  Pledging their indifference to fire & resurrection.  Eaters of Stone, molten dwellers; hid in tombs of Bathys, subduing armies of the Earth . . .

It is no legend, he thinks, waking those who no longer whispered the pride of demons.  The rotting landscape was enough to remind them. All seals had been broken as all veils thinned – Sacrificing a ghost, with little foothold.  Wombs, cracked & bleeding, slowed them down – Brother could not wait!  He spat as the caravan halted.  All agonized eyes on him.  Soon, those bilious shepherds of the deathly art, would lead his brother to the leaden circle; domain of pyrrhic slayers, expert in ways of torture & alchemy.  They kill him over & over while keeping him alive – Stuffing him on plague worms until he shits his guts.  Filling his blackened cavity with precious gems.  Burying it in earth until ready to war for them.

- - -  

He’d seen others crucified in this way.  When sun first rises over its delicate feeling; spectral propagation, tinged in crimson & grey.  Eternal haze of billowing souls up against a discipleship of vacancies.  Fallen back one by one, choked on ash & human debris.  Over the first range of hills where clangor of war is heard.  Near to the heart of empire. While underneath, massive worms bloating prideless on a bed of rancid meats.  Gazing down the pit they left with the turpitude of Wallowers. Bred to be Watchers & communicators with the dead; sleeping through with perfect dormancy.

- - -

Clearly, valor is lost.  The light in its eyes has gone out – The few who stood beside him, leaning on the precipice of Moab’s sinking valley. Searching feebly in darkness to foreign shores.  They’d die for this . . .

Army of silent prayers & empty verses.  Even he found comfort in its impassiveness.  

His brother, real or vision, clawing his way out of that pit to greet them, as a turgid force dragged him back down.  Concentrated in that spot: all the depressive virtues of the grey race.  Glutting the world on myth & lassitude.  Nothing could be seen in those artificial beings, guarding the road at Moab’s gate.  Enlisted through ranks of distillers until nothing’s left.  Monstrous legends, waking nightmares, meditative & blind; without exit, without entry, unliving but alive.    

Artwork By Hermann Wohler

[mrbutchdyke]

Hermann and Newt spend an hour arguing before every rose ceremony and the producers eventually have to be like "dr gottlieb you have to give these other men a chance you can debunk dr geiszler's theories later we promise"

I was about to post something about a newmann bachelor au but then I remembered they're both too fucking annoying to do that. Like in either direction. Could you imagine

[uwmspeccoll]

Staff Pick of the Week

Illustrirtes Thierleben für Schule und Haus (Illustrations of Animal Life for School and House) volume one: Die Säugethiere (Mammals) by Dr. Hermann Dümling was published in 1875 in Milwaukee by George Brumder, and forms part of our George Brumder Collection of Milwaukee German-Language Publishing. I was intrigued by it because of its use of specific taxonomic nomenclature. Dümling uses a modified version of 19th-century mammal taxonomy, which breaks things down a little differently than we might be used to: Hand-Animals -- Monkeys and Bats; Crass-animals -- Flesh-eaters, Marsupials, Gnawers, Edentates; Hooved-animals -- Horses, Ruminants, Pachyderms; Finned-animals -- Seals, and Cetaceans (pg. 2).

The second volume, Die Vögel (Birds), divides birds into Raveners, Climbers, Perchers, Scratchers, Runners, Waders, and Swimmers (pg. 26).

The body of the text is 100% German, but the Table of Contents, index, headings, chapter titles, and captions include English animal names, as Brumder was publishing for a German-American audience.

The use of “earth pig” for Aardvark and “gnawers” for rodents is not merely a German-to-English translation error. Anotther book we hold, Elements of Zoölogy: A Textbook  by Sanborn Tenney, published in 1875 by Scribner in New York, also uses Flesh-eaters, Hoofed Animals, and Gnawers, but also has humans in their own order or Bimana:

However, Tenney does not support Dümling’s creative division of birds:

-- Charlotte, Graduate Student Intern

[lobocomicsandtoys]

CORTO MALTESE GN THE SECRET ROSE

Corto Maltese enters the crossroads of magic and the occult, astrology and history, religion and mythology in the first English-language translation of Pratt's award-winning book. Visiting the writer Hermann Hesse while researching alchemists with his old friend Professor Steiner, Corto drinks from the "source of the Alchemy Rose" and becomes immersed in a surreal and dreamlike adventure that involves Klingsor, the quest for the Holy Grail, Death, the Devil, and the Sandman, among others. This complexly plotted graphic novel was among Hugo Pratt's most philosophical ruminations on the imagination.

Available at Lobo Comics & Toys this coming Wednesday, 02/27/2019

visit us on facebook, google+, blogspot, our eBay store, and our website

[l-homme-moderne]

Frères Limbourg

On déplie les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. Les lumières se succèdent comme les siècles: tout bouge, tout coule. À poser notre doigt mouillé sur l’une de ses pages, on remarque que c’est plein et docile. Le doigt veut en jouir lentement, il ouvre, il caresse, il parcourt, il contemple: trois petites têtes flamandes, rouges et bleues, apparaissent dans ces lumières antérieures.

Pol, Jan, Hermann Limbourg, frères, ont le goût des images et des mensonges. On s’échauffe autour d’eux: certains disent qu’ils feront le pouvoir, d’autres qu’ils manquent des bras forts dans les champs. Ils ne savent pas qu’ils feront l’almanach d’un Moyen-Âge qui médite, des petits idéaux en enluminure qui ruminent sur des chairs de femme. Le vieux Jean le Magnifique va l’adorer. Ils n’ont pas encore touché la peau de la légende, non, ils l’imaginent à peine; c’est peut-être ce jour-là, quand tout trois ils courent dans l’aube du printemps. Ils descendent et voient la rivière dans les premiers rayons. Ils jettent leur bonnet rouge et bleu, le reste sous les feuillages. Les petits pieds goûtent l’eau, et au-dessus des petits pieds les hymnes et les lais, calmes, cent fois chantés; le vers est intime et rose comme Dieu. Ils suspendent leur geste, et dans ce royaume de France la douce sans pigment ni fenêtre sur le monde, Hermann voit ses frères et lui-même peindre ce vers, dans l’écoulement de l’eau, dans ce matin de nouveau monde. Pas grand chose, rien qu’un cadre minuscule; il pense qu’ils auront assez de lumières pour sonner Son sacre et fausser tout ce qui les précédera. Tournons la page.

On me dit que Charles VI, fou; le chaperon écarlate et les clairières qui s’enterrent dans l’août étouffant de 1392, l’ennui des boisées du Maine; Froissart nous racontera les cerfs merveilleux qui l’ont fui il y a si longtemps maintenant, emportant bien loin des feuillus pauvres d’ombrage une jeunesse éclatante, les forces. « Tout dressé aux grandes pensées » le chaperon s’est fracassé contre le sable. Les lettrines de sa légende ne seront pas fades; l’intensité du jour a braqué Sa parole sur sa houppelande de velours bleu, le front; la rubrique du Livre IV tracera de rouge cet idiot qui s’échauffe à coup de pensée sourde et brute; il beugle contre l’invincible et l’on ne comprend pas tout. Les oncles sont là. La malice traîne la patte, les échecs ruminent à bride abattue derrière lui, hennins et blasons mornes, hennins sur le motif des poignards, blasons qui marchandent le lys, les provinces, tous béats devant la démence et le midi épiphanique; ils l’encerclent d’ombres pauvres; ils guettent et piquent, les crochets en avant, le venin s’élève et à l’odeur de la petite bête qui se fige, ils la suivent; ils chassent le roi à sang chaud. Il déambule alors dans la fureur, gueulant des fantasmes, des peurs, le glaive a limé l’horizon en massacrant quatre compagnons d’un coup. La chronique introduit une bastringue d’acier qu’on peut entendre, elle trébuche elle aussi contre le jour, jaillit en feu; il est tombé, le casque qui l’a fait culbuté dans l’idiotie le regarde, stupéfait.

Le Moyen-Âge tremble au Mans, mais les feuillets de sa légende ne sont pas encore écrites, laissons alors toutes ces politiques, la perspective du bal des ardents s’enterrer dans la chaleur folle d’août, les frondaisons des bois creux. Passons la gloire de tous ces connétables et les Marmousets qui s’agitent, la relance de la Guerre de Cent Ans, tout ce qui est suspendu aux lèvres de ce roi fou. Les Frères Limbourg sont encore des bambins, ils glosent des chèvrefeuilles, la semaille fictive, soudain le gai savoir qui vient vers nous avec douceur. Ils le peignent, les heures sont bonnes. On se penche au-dessus d’eux, les trois petites têtes tombées, les doigts qui fouillent les mythes; un sous-bois de chair, de romances, des chants d’amour et de fantaisies comme des saisons, des hallalis mêlés aux semences et aux prières. Le bleu marial remue; les mains idiotes parce que naïves, pendent au-dessus de l’infini. La géométrie se détache un peu, allons il y a encore quelques coups de génie à faire. Les enluminures du Berry restent verticales dans ce siècle fait de bascules. Il y a la croix des routes, le chêne des partisans d’un côté, l’arbre des dames de l’autre; deux alluvions de la Légende. Les Frères Limbourg imaginent et sophistiquent déjà ce Moyen-Âge qui râle. Fiction allée aux banalités du jour, la guerre bouge en pacages tout près du Berry, des Limbourg, du bleu marial qui tourne au gré des pages. C’est tout ce que nous les petits gens ne sommes pas, nous qui reprenons le vieux Magnifique et ses lubies. Dans un jardin, une clarté qu’on ne reverra plus vient de trébucher avec passion sur une jeune des Marches ; elle entend Quelque chose qui ne ressemble ni au sang, ni au lait. La pucelle se lève, l’Histoire surgit.

Les Limbourg ne sont plus là, nous dit la chronique. La peste les a couché; les lumières chutent sur d’autres naissances.

[graphicpolicy]

Preview: Corto Maltese: Secret Rose

Corto Maltese: Secret Rose preview. This complexly plotted graphic novel is among Hugo Pratt’s most philosophical ruminations on the imagination. #comics #comicbooks

Corto Maltese: Secret Rose

Hugo Pratt (w & a & c)

Corto Maltese enters the crossroads of magic and the occult, astrology and history, religion and mythology in the first English-language translation of Pratt’s award-winning book.

Visiting the writer Hermann Hesse while researching alchemists with his old friend Professor Steiner, Corto drinks from the “source of the Alchemy Rose” and…

[bonpasboncom]

Insomnie : que faire pour avoir un sommeil de qualité ?

Les lourdes conséquences de l’insomnie chronique ne peuvent être ressenties que par les personnes qui en souffrent. Les autres ne peuvent certainement pas être en mesure de sentir l’impact de ce fléau sur la santé.

Vous souffrez de l’insomnie : que faire pour la traiter définitivement ?

Quelles sont les méthodes naturelles qui favorisent le sommeil ?

Quelles habitudes doit-on adopter pour ne plus éprouver de difficultés à dormir ?

Trouvez toutes les réponses dans les paragraphes suivants !

Insomnie : que faire pour la traiter avec de bonnes habitudes ?

Voici les habitudes que vous devez éviter avant de vous coucher pour ne pas perturber votre sommeil :

Éviter l’exposition à la lumière : La luminosité des écrans, la lumière bleue émise par les smartphones et les télévisions empêchent la production de l’hormone du sommeil (mélatonine). Il est donc préférable de dormir dans l’obscurité totale et de ne jamais s’exposer à la lumière bleue des appareils numériques comme les smartphones, les tablettes ou même les ampoules à LED avant d’aller se coucher.

Ne jamais regarder une montre : Si vous avez une fâcheuse tendance à regarder l’heure toutes les 5 minutes, alors vous devez absolument abandonner cette mauvaise habitude parce que ça prolonge l’insomnie.

Ne pas regarder de film avant de dormir : Il est à savoir que le fait de regarder un film (et surtout les films d’horreur) puis aller directement au lit va aggraver vos troubles du sommeil et vous empêchera d’avoir une soirée calme. Par contre, ça sera utile de lire un petit extrait de livre ou de roman.

Éviter le tabac avant de dormir : Les cigarettes contiennent des quantités importantes de nicotine. Cette substance stimule l’organisme et le maintient éveillé pendant la nuit.

Insomnie : que faire pour la traiter par l’alimentation ?

Un changement d’habitudes alimentaires peut vous aider à éviter l’insomnie. Il existe des aliments qui provoquent une hyperactivité physique et également mentale et qui nous empêchent de bien dormir. Voici quelques exemples :

Le café 

Les boissons alcoolisées 

Les boissons énergétiques

Les aliments riches en vitamine C comme le jus d’orange car ils ont un effet stimulant et excitant qui entrave l’endormissement

Les fritures

Les acides gras type trans

La margarine

La moutarde

Les protéines difficiles à digérer (contenues surtout dans les viandes rouges)

Par contre, il existe des aliments qui favorisent l’endormissement et surtout ceux riches en tryptophane. Pour combattre votre insomnie, on vous conseille de consommer quelques aliments parmi la liste ci-dessous avant de dormir. Certains aliments possèdent des effets calmants sur le système nerveux, d’autres contiennent des précurseurs de la mélatonine, alors que d’autres s’avèrent très bénéfiques pour avoir un sommeil de qualité.

Gruyère

Saumon

Lait chaud

Banane

Poivron

Dattes

Fruits secs (surtout les amandes)

Pois chiche

Essayer les plantes médicinales : une bonne alternative contre l’insomnie

Il existe des dizaines de plantes et herbes à propriétés sédatives. Ces plantes possèdent des effets régulateurs sur le système nerveux central et aident à lutter contre les troubles du sommeil. On vous donne les exemples suivants :

La racine de valériane : C’est une plante antistress qui est largement utilisée dans les cas de nervosité et d’insomnie. Si vous souffrez d’une insomnie liée à un problème d’anxiété, on vous conseille de privilégier la racine de valériane car elle possède des effets anxiolytiques et sédatifs.

La fleur d’oranger : c’est une plante idéale pour les personnes insomniaques car elle est reconnue pour ses capacités apaisantes et relaxantes qui facilitent l’endormissement. Pensez à boire une tisane à base de fleurs et feuilles d’oranger séchées pour soigner les troubles du sommeil chez l’adulte.

La camomille : Elle est utilisée pour lutter contre les cas d’agitation nerveuse et les troubles d’endormissement, ainsi que pour avoir un sommeil réparateur.

La lavande : C’est une merveilleuse plante somnifère utilisée généralement pour traiter les états dépressifs et les difficultés de sommeil.

Utilisez ces plantes en infusion avant de vous coucher pour profiter de leurs vertus sédatives et relaxantes.

Les thérapies de relaxation

Les thérapies de relaxation sont des activités qui aident à gérer le stress et réduire tous les facteurs qui peuvent provoquer l’insomnie. Ces thérapies luttent contre les émotions négatives qui sont à l’origine de la perturbation du sommeil.

La relaxation musculaire progressive et la respiration abdominale sont deux techniques largement utilisées pour améliorer la qualité du sommeil.

Conseils pratiques pour un sommeil réparateur !

Faites attention aux effets indésirables des médicaments que vous utilisez parce que certains types tels que les antihistaminiques sont capables de provoquer des retards d’endormissement ainsi que des troubles du sommeil.

Portez des chaussettes propres et confortables si vous éprouvez des difficultés à dormir avec des pieds froids.

La température de la chambre à coucher est un facteur très important qui doit être bien contrôlé. Évitez de dormir dans une chambre trop froide ou trop chaude parce que ça va vous garder éveillé.

Évitez tous les bruits qui peuvent perturber votre sommeil comme les bruits des montres qui font « tic-tac » ou encore les partenaires ronfleurs. Le calme absolu peut vous aider à bien dormir.

 Éloignez vos animaux domestiques de votre lit car ils sont capables de perturber votre sommeil.

Ne travaillez pas sur votre ordinateur et n’utilisez pas votre tablette la nuit avant d’aller au lit pour ne pas perturber votre sommeil.

Ne pratiquez aucune activité stressante avant de dormir parce que ça va garder votre esprit en état d’alerte.

Dormir sur un matelas orthopédique, confortable et de bonne qualité peut vous aider à éviter les troubles d’insomnie.

Ne prenez pas de sieste après 15h et essayez de ne jamais dépasser 20 minutes pour ne pas perturber votre sommeil la nuit.

Arrêtez toutes les ruminations mentales et essayez de vous libérer de toutes les préoccupations de votre esprit avant de dormir.

Le lit n’est pas un endroit pour pratiquer des activités diverses. Il doit être réservé au sommeil et également au sexe.

Prendre un bain chaud avant de dormir est une méthode efficace pour s’endormir rapidement et avoir un sommeil plus profond.

Un massage à l’huile essentielle de lavande diminue l’agitation et favorise l’endormissement.

Insomnie : que faire pour la guérir avec Destination sommeil ?

Vous souffrez d’insomnie : que faire pour dormir rapidement ? Quelles sont les différentes causes de l’insomnie et comment peut-on traiter ce problème d’une manière définitive ?

Si vous cherchez des réponses à ces questions, on vous conseille de découvrir le guide Destination sommeil ! Vous trouverez dans ce guide un programme naturel qui stimule la sécrétion de l’hormone du sommeil pour régler vos problèmes d’insomnie d’une façon naturelle. Dans ce livre, vous allez aussi trouver des conseils nutritionnels et des aliments qui permettent au corps de se détendre.

Cliquez ici pour plus d’informations sur Destination sommeil de Jean Hermann !

L’article Insomnie : que faire pour avoir un sommeil de qualité ? est apparu en premier sur Bon Pas Bon.

source https://www.bonpasbon.com/insomnie-que-faire/

[neitaima-blog]

Lessons from an Impending Separation

I’ve recently been contemplating divorce.

Ruminations began in earnest quite recently when I was in Paris.  Not perhaps for the reasons you may think, although I confess to being quite drawn to the apparently innate confidence Parisians exude, but as a consequence of facilitating a leadership development programme for 25 incredibly bright, gifted and thoroughly likeable individuals from around the globe.

Over three intensive days, emerging themes reflected the concerns and challenges of the assembled throng with what it is people want in their leaders proving a significant part of our inquiry.  

The general consensus, in line with research in this area, was they want them to be ‘real’, genuine and authentic.  They want their leaders to have an enthusiasm, and passion that others can be energised and motivated by.  People clearly need leaders to create a sense of community; providing something to belong to, something with shared purpose and benefit, something to engage with. They need their leaders to recognise and value them; to acknowledge the importance of them being part of that community, one in which they are listened to and to which they make valued contribution. And people want their leaders to have strength and resilience but definitely be human, demonstrating what we might call ‘tough empathy’ whilst also being prepared to show their own ‘allowable’ weaknesses and acknowledgement that they too are on a learning journey.

Being held in Paris there were, unsurprisingly, many Europeans amongst our numbers and understandably the subject of Brexit came up on more than one occasion.  The media that week seemed to be filled with even more talk of a separation that seems to be getting messier by the minute.  What started as a, “it’s not working anymore, but we want to remain friends”, no faults, reluctant ‘au revoir’ seemed to have escalated into a fight over the record collection, who pays what portion of the bills for the house one party is removing themselves from, and visitation rights.

On returning to the UK my thoughts gravitated towards the process our leaders in the UK had engaged the electorate in, questioning how we got to where we are now and what lessons, if any, we could learn from it all? In an attempt to find some clarity and possible explanation, I turned to a bit of ‘whole brain thinking’.  

Ned Hermann developed the Whole Brain Concept in the 1970s going on to produce the Hermann Brain Dominance Instrument in 1981 when working with General Electric. It has since been applied internationally to assess the mental preferences of many individuals, groups and organisations.  Having capacity to shed light on why we do the things we do, why we do them the way we do, and why things don’t always go as smoothly as we might wish, could it be applied to improve understanding of what we had experienced in the lead up to June 2016?

Considering thinking styles, and how we see the world, Hermann’s model provides a four quadrant metaphor of the brain organised around cerebral-limbic and left-right hemispheres. Each quadrant has different characteristics relating to the specialised thinking structures of the brain.  These four thinking ‘selves’ can most simply described as, Analyser – an analytical, logical, fact-based, rational ‘bottom line’ view, Organiser – an organised, detailed, chronological ‘control’ orientated view, Personaliser – an interpersonal, emotional, ‘people affect’ view, and Visualizer – an intuitive, conceptual, ‘big picture’ future view. The result of these different styles is far reaching, filtering as they do our experience of the world and impacting on our success or failure in communicating with others and making decisions.

I have often used the Whole Brain Thinking ‘Decision-Making Walk Around’ with clients to support and challenge them to consider options and opportunities from all perspectives.  It involves asking some simple but provocative questions:

Beginning with ‘Why’, I initially pondered the British public’s understanding of the original purpose behind the EU and why we had actually joined the then EEC back in 1973?  Did they actually know what the ‘vision’ had been? Did we really understand what we were deciding to leave or remain a part of?

I may not have been of an age to take too much interest in the details of what joining the common market entailed, (I was more concerned with finding ‘The Real Me’ with the help of The Who), but I do remember being told the EEC or European Union was essentially set up to ensure a peaceful post-war future for Europe.  Wow, incredibly big stuff!  However, to be fair, I also seem to remember references to Britain being ‘broke’ and that closer ties with Europe would be our financial salvation.  Is it unfair to suggest the UK’s joining was a ‘marriage’ made of a desire to be part of a big bold vision and an economic crisis demanding a dollop of pragmatic opportunism?  Certainly, looking back, the question of, ‘What’ was in it for me (Us)’ seems pretty apparent and quite compelling – and nothing wrong with that.  

Turning my attention back to the events of 2016, I found myself asking, “What exactly was the future either the ‘leavers’ or ‘remainers’ were offering us?”  Initial recall suggests each side of the Brexit debate appeared both enthusiastic and passionate about their respective causes.  Each painted pretty emphatic, if not particularly clear or compelling, visions of a future Britain in or out of Europe.  However, perhaps a symptom of failing cognitive ability and emotional connection on my part, try as I might, I can’t actually remember hearing any promise of a future that particularly excited or engaged me, or for that matter anyone else I know.  

Additionally, did our leaders present sufficient facts to ensure clear understanding of the issues? The ‘debate’ seemed to focus on some relatively singular if high profile and emotive concerns.  And, if I’d been ask by anyone (which, although I have no idea why I didn’t get the call, I wasn’t) I would have probably agreed with the view that the public’s perception of the issues had, as is often the case, become more dependent on communication strategy and skill than objectivity and fact. Did the messaging feel like a reflection of genuine and authentic leadership?  Whole Brain Thinking encourages us to recognise the benefit of having confidence in the facts we are basing significant, long lasting decisions on and to do that we need to be transparent and accurate in our examination, communication and debate of those facts.  Clearly the decision makers were denied this.

In the course of my ‘whole brain walk around’ I was additionally struck by the apparent lack of planning, for either eventuality, by anyone!  Now, I’m not naïve enough to think governments and leaders don’t develop contingency plans for many eventualities about which the public remains blissfully unaware (although I’m not trusting enough to think they always do so!)  When, however, stakeholders are invited to decide on an issue, Whole Brain Thinking reminds us of the obvious importance of considering how something will be implemented and the criticality of such consideration in good decision making.  The apparent lack of planning for the potential outcomes of the referendum may have been deliberate political ploy, arrogance, anxiety or simple oversight. However, without some sense of not only where people are being led but also how they might get there, a vision no matter how eloquently and compelling communicated, can only remain a dream (which may just turn into a nightmare!).

In consideration of what WHT sometimes refers to as ‘people affect’ I am struck by the ‘distance’ between our political leaders and the stakeholder public.   There is little evidence of any clear empathic understanding of what was really behind the disquiet of the British public leading up to June 2016 – how they really felt?  One of the most important and critical attributes of modern leadership is the leaders’ ability to observe, collect, and interpret soft data and respond to the context of each situation by taking appropriate action.  What were the needs of the British people that were being expressed in that vote?  Could it be they simply needed to be heard - to protest at someone or something, anything, about their dissatisfaction with years of austerity and not feeling listened to? But did either the ‘stay’ or ‘go’ leaders really try to understand what they needed or merely respond to and exploit what they said they wanted?  Consider, did the British people feel they really belonged to and were engaged with this European Union, shared its purpose, felt valued and included?  And what part did the leaders in Britain and Europe play in the people of Britain feeling this ‘marriage’ was no longer working for them and the only course of action was divorce?   Had, for example, too much focus on creating laws meant Europe had lost sight of the ‘big purpose’ and the very people the ‘rules’ are surely meant to serve?

Over many years together, good and bad, my partner and I have, like many other couples, made many decisions.  No matter where we have been in our marriage, sometimes content, sometimes wondering “what’s in it for me”, we have found consistently reminding ourselves of our ‘why’ has served us well.  We have rigorously sense checked ‘what’ we know; testing our individual and collective perceptions against the facts of a situation.  We’ve planned ‘how’ we might achieve something, considering what would be involved in following a particular course of action.  And we have not just allowed ourselves to be satisfied that we have heard what we or others involved ‘want’ but done our best to really understand what both we, individually, and others need.  Being very different people, we haven’t always found it easy to make decisions together but reminding ourselves the importance a balance of clear purpose, empathy, logic and planning, plays in good collective decision making has certainly helped.

In a world, a Europe, a Britain, where over the last few decades increasing importance has been attached to diversity, we are still finding it so difficult to collaborate with those who, essentially wanting the same future, may simply have a different way of thinking.  One critical learning I have taken from working with the Whole Brain Model is that, perhaps unsurprisingly, using our ‘collective whole brain’ results in more robust, creative and mutually beneficial decision making.  Overly focusing on one or two thinking positions and neglecting to review, reflect on and, if necessary, revisit and review decisions can result in catastrophic short and long term damage.

There are those on both sides of the Channel suggesting there is still time for reconciliation with Europe.  Equally, there are those holding the view that it would be unlawful, against the ‘rules’, or simply wrong to consider it, now that the UK has voted - despite more and more emerging ‘facts’ about the issues, consequences and future that may be heading our way.

Having briefly considered events from a whole brain perspective, the complexity of Brexit is clearly immense and may well now have to run its course, but we can learn lessons for the organisations we lead?  Whether you are facing a challenge of engagement, motivation, collaboration or some equally pressing issue, what will you choose to learn about how decisions are made in your organisation?