Thursday 14 September 2017

#250 Volunteering at Alexander Devine in Windsor part 2

Clasping a paper plate and fighting to keep the salad from blowing all over the place, I went and sat on a blue fold-up chair to eat my burger and sausage. I'd been standing up for four hours, directing cars around an industrial estate. It wasn't the worst job in the world. As the drivers approached, I'd stand right in their path and give what might ordinarily be a friendly wave but this was no friendly wave and they knew it. I wasn't saying "hello and welcome". I was saying "listen mate, I've clocked you and if you dare park in the wrong place, I will use my high-vis jacket and clipboard to the very limit of their capacities". Whatever that meant.

The night market had been a flop. If a town's going to host an irregular event outside of Christmas or a heatwave, it needs to be heavily advertised, yet not one of the passers-by who stopped at the stall had been aware there'd be a market. I was one of five volunteers who'd been asked to help. Even one or two would've been twiddling their thumbs most of the time, which meant that the whole thing felt less like volunteering and more like loitering.

An old couple turned up with a dolphin costume. They were regular volunteers and apparently the get-up really helped to convince drunk people. Sometimes to donate and sometimes to physically assault the costume wearer but either way, it got the public's attention.

We'd finished up around midnight and by the time the BBQ was over the next day, I was practically ready to use the burger bun as a pillow and cuddle the sausage to sleep. I was also famished though, so neither piece of meat escaped its fate. Having become an expert at putting up and taking down gazebos, I helped to get the place all packed up and then my friend gave me a lift to the station. It'd been an unusual couple of days but it felt good to be useful. It's a dangerous business, going out your door. Now and then I do though. I've yet to regret it.

21 comments

Running on empty said...

Sounds like you did a good thing.

Fizzfan said...

Loved the fatigue induced bun n sausage love.

Shame it was a flop but good you marked it up as better than being indoors.

Profound Familiarity said...

Well... I can't regret as I don't believe in choice. I can feel bad about things that have happened though. I certainly wouldn't want to leave the house every weekend but in this case I valued seeing a friend and getting a taste of voluntary work.

Profound Familiarity said...

Perhaps Cath.

Running on empty said...

You don't believe in choice?

Profound Familiarity said...

Yeah, not since I was like 20 years old.

Fizzfan said...

What happened when you were 20? (Although you could of course choose not to divulge)

Sounds like a good blog topic. I can see it would make life far less confusing but possibly a bit restricting and dull?

Running on empty said...

Democracy and capitalism , not to mention ordering in a restaurant are based on choice. I know you partake of all those things. You're not making sense.

Profound Familiarity said...

The partaking of things only proves that it was possible to partake. It does not prove that it would have been possible to choose not to.

Profound Familiarity said...

Not much Fizz :) hence the excuse that I didn't have a choice :)

Profound Familiarity said...

In theory it doesn't affect what happens, since things would unfold exactly the same way, whether or not we have any choice in the matter or we just feel like we do.

I'm certainly not questioning whether most people feel like they have choices, I feel as though I make choices every day.

Running on empty said...

Oh you are talking about fate or destiny, or God's will?

Profound Familiarity said...

I suppose it could be something like that, or it could just be that everything happens randomly. I don't have a strong conviction about it.

Running on empty said...

Do you ever have a strong moral struggle?

Profound Familiarity said...

I tend to think about things quite a lot sometimes, so there have definitely been situations when I've obsessed over what the right thing to do is.

Running on empty said...

That sounds like making a choice to me.

Profound Familiarity said...

I'm not surprised, it would to most people.

Running on empty said...

How does the other view of that work? That you would have taken that path anyway? I can't remember if you told me whether you are a Dr Who fan or not?

Profound Familiarity said...

Say a person feels like they're making a choice between a red apple and a green apple. They take an apple and then they say "I chose that apple".

The other view is to reply, in a cynical sort of tone, "prove that you chose it".

Profound Familiarity said...

I'm not into Dr. Who.

Profound Familiarity said...

You could try to prove it by taking a different apple next time but that doesn't really work, because the experiment is always repeated at a different point in time to the original. You can never go back to that exact time when you took that apple and prove that you could have done otherwise.

So you make an assumption. You say, well the second time I took a different apple and it was all very similar, in fact as far as I can tell, the circumstances were exactly the same and I took a different apple, so that proves that I had a choice but it doesn't really because still, you're only making an assumption.

How do you know you could have chosen the other apple? It's still impossible to prove. Even with time travel, it'd be impossible because if you go back in time, you're not the same person. You're now a person who's gone back in time, whereas the person who took the apple before had never gone back in time. So you can't prove it.

In fact logically speaking, if you were to magically reappear as the exact same person, in the exact same situation and took a different apple, it would be hard to claim that you made the choice because if you were aware at any point that you were making a different choice, then you wouldn't be the same person that you were when you originally made it and that would wipe out the validity of the experiment. On the other hand, if you weren't aware that you were making a choice, then you couldn't possibly be making one because your actions would be beyond your awareness, beyond your control, whereas choice assumes that we do have control.