So this year I started writing lots of posts on this blog. However a lot of my writing has focused on my past experiences such as university life and my time in China and Singapore.

However, something in my life at the present that brings a lot of joy to my life is my part time volunteering position in my charity shop Carr Gomm in Victoria Market in Inverness town centre.

I currently volunteer 4 afternoons a week for just under 15 hours a week.

I have been doing an MSc in Applied Data Analytics with the local University of Highlands and Islands too. The MSc involves a lot of intense computer use. Modules include Statistics, Intro to R (R is a programming language), Data Analytics on the Web, Information Decision making and Ethics. Most of these modules are very technical subjects that involve intense concentration and use of logic sides of the brain. 

Now, my job at Carr Gomm mainly involves manning the cash machine and helping customers and tourists with their various questions and problems. It involves a totally different part of my brain. Also I get great joy in helping my colleagues with their various problems. As I explained to my brother recently, when you solve a computer programming problem you do not necessarily see the fruits of your efforts before your eyes as you do when you help someone in front of you. For example just yesterday (it’s Wednesday 1am now so Monday afternoon I mean) I managed to help my manager transfer some old video files from her CD rom and successfully view them on her Chromebook. They were videos from her old workplace in the Netherlands and she hadn’t watched them for maybe 10 years. I saw her face light up as she reminisced about her old colleagues and she wondered how they were doing now. I love moments like that where one sees the results of their efforts and brains.

Another thing I love about my shop is it’s a nice quiet environment and I always take a book and its easier to concentrate in that environment than at home where I can use my mobile phone as much as I like (I can use my phone in the shop too but I don’t like to because I feel it is a distraction). I always feel there is something inherently peaceful and likeable about a person reading a book. If they are on their mobile it’s completely different. They could be on social media or messaging a friend or family member, they could be shopping. There is no end of things they could be doing. But with a book you know they will at least be in a state of peace and contentment generally (books generally have that effect on people in my experience).

Another thing I like about my job is all the people I get to meet. On one level there are all the people my manager knows that I get to meet in the course of the job. I get to meet the other business owners (the bar owner, the butcher, the florist etc). There are my colleagues of course who you gradually get to know while working together towards common goals. There are the tourists with their eccentricities and exoticness. And finally there are the locals who I often like to engage in small talk with (the weather, the book I am reading, the jigsaw we are doing etc).

Another thing I enjoy about the job is taking pride in my work. Its a simple job to operate the till and take payment and provide change/receipt for goods sold but I enjoy it nonetheless. I enjoy being able to answer the questions customers have. I enjoy the small amount of authority and respect I have.

As I have said before in previous blog posts, human beings are social creatures. We wither away when we isolate ourselves. Questionable lines of thoughts enter our mind and we begin to have strange beliefs. I can attest to these statements personally from experience.

Being in a room with other people as opposed to seeing them on screens is important. The Germans use a word called ‘Gemut’ to talk about social cohesion. I was reading about it in a book on the origins of Asperger’s diagnosis. Nowadays often the focus of the discussion is on money and individualism. But the group’s contribution to the individual’s success is often overlooked. Life is not so black and white, there are multiple planes, with shades of grey and nuance.