Does your life suck? Why not kick a duck to death? or: Why Balloon Releases are Dumb.

I have written and rewritten this post more times than I could count. I have compromised and compromised to avoid offence, until I realised I had become as guilty of this as the people this post criticises. I’m tired of compromise, so this is the first version that I wrote, I am unapologetic for this fact…

Okay, let’s play a game.

Let’s imagine every member of your family are inextricably struck down tomorrow. Would any of those loved ones have appreciated you honouring their memory by tipping a barrel of crude oil into the ocean? If so then each time one dies you should do exactly that, may as well, right? Of course none of us would do that, because it’s HARMFUL and DAMAGING to the ENVIRONMENT. I recently had to explain to a grown adult why the environment is important for our lives (People are hopelessly miopic, all hope is lost, we’re going to die here).

You with me so far? We’re agreed that we shouldn’t tip barrels of oil into the sea because it’s harmful and damaging to our environment and we need our environment to live? If you accept this argument, then you already know why releasing balloons is a terrible idea.

To be clear

If…..

Punching badgers = Dumb

Tipping oil in sea = Dumb

Then…

Balloon releases = Dumb

This is a post about Balloon releases and a man with the greatest beard that has ever been grown by man.

I’d followed Andy Mabbett for some time and got to know his work quite well, in encounters with him he was always friendly and courteous, so I was somewhat surprised to log on to Twitter before christmas and find him getting huge amounts of aggressive tweets from people, I was intrigued. It was more intrigueing as some of the abuse was coming from an official charity Twitter account.

Note

I will not name this charity as I promised I wouldn’t (and I don’t want to give them the coverage).

Andy’s crime was suggesting that Balloon Releases were harmful to the environment and that the charity involved should cancel theirs. Andy was Zen-Like in his calm responses to abuse, fighting blind rage with reasoned logic and science. He was always polite even when attempts were made to goad him. This is the evidence that Balloon releases are terrible: Balloons are harmful to wildlife  

Andy was totally right. The abuse he was subjected to was horrific and ludicrous throughout, if you joined the discussion at a late stage you would be forgiven for assuming that Andy was personally responsible not just for the suffering of the people abusing him, but for all the evils of the world. I found it strange that no one one was saying anything in way of support of Andy, infact general consensus seemed to be that the charity was in the right because they had the trump card of grief. Balloon Releases are okay if you’re grieving or raising awareness of some disease. To be fair, many thought Andy was right, but should keep his mouth shut, because people have a right to their grief and to express it in the way they feel best, including releasing balloons, whatever the consequences. People are idiots.

I started trying to talk to some of the people who had been abusing Andy. Following his fine lead of being polite and logical I suggested that perhaps they were looking at the issue in the wrong way. I tried to explain that Andy was not trying to take away their right to grieve, that wasn’t the issue, he was simply asking them not to do something to express their grief and remember their loved ones that was so damaging to the environment as a whole. It didn’t take long before I was being accused of all kinds of weird and wonderful things…at one point someone suggested that when I had children they hoped one died so I would feel their pain *Face Palm* I got quite a few DMs of support from people on Twitter but, again, no one was too keen to speak openly in support; my attackers were grieving after all. This made me realise some things…

Balloon Releases are Dumb

Just as pouring oil into the ocean is dumb; releasing balloons, whatever the reason, is harmful and destructive to the environment and therefore should be banned. If you are aware of the reasons why balloons are harmful to wildlife, but still proceed with organising one, you’re a selfish idiot and the same goes for venues that allow releases to take place, you can stop them. We can stop them.

Releasing a balloon will not help your grief! Once that balloon has floated off to get lodged in the throat of a cormorant, your grief will still be there, it will still hurt just as much as it did and you will still feel empty. Releasing a balloon will also not bring about a cure for any of the currently incurable diseases known to medical science, research into the disease may indeed yield a cure, but that cure is unlikely to resemble a Puffin choking to death on rubber.

Sometimes challenging wrongs makes you unpopular

The world needs people like Andy Mabbett, The rest of us will most likely not challenge things, even if we feel strongly about them, when there is a risk we may cause offence to others but, sometimes, causing offence is unavoidable and essential if you want to create positive change. He doesn’t go out of his way to upset people, but he doesn’t keep his mouth shut to avoid it either, especially when it is something he believes in. I respect this and I’d rather be counted along with Andy and be potentially seen as unpopular or argumentative, than keep my mouth shut just to keep the peace.

Volunteer Surgeons

It’s unlikely you would want a volunteer surgeon, without any background in biomedical science, to operate on you, but a lot of the Charity’s that I have seen Andy go up against have their Public Relations activity managed by volunteers without the relevant skill set for the role. The majority of the unpleasantness that I have witnessed comes from a fundamental lack of understanding on how best to deal with a vocal activist opposed to your organisations planned activity. It does not naturally follow that having an knowledge of the subject involved makes you the best person to handle the PR side of things. If Your spokesperson is basically leading a cyber-lynch mob of grieving people in attacking people politely suggesting alternatives to your planned activity, it might be time to find another spokesperson.

Further Reading

Follow Andy Mabbett on Twitter

Find out about Andy’s ‘Big Society’ Award

Virtual Ranger’s Blog: Bereaved Parents hope environmentalist chokes to death

Paul Clarke – A time and a place for everything

…Now if you’ll all excuse me, I am off punch a penguin in the spleen. That’s okay, right? I’m grieving after all.

Confessions of a Shy Guy

The guy in the picture on the mic, that’s my Dad, Pete. You would like my Dad.

I appreciate this is a bold statement to make, you are forgiven for wondering how I could possibly know you’d like him. It’s simple really, everyone likes my Dad, it’s almost impossible not to like him even after only a brief meeting. He’s charismatic, bubbly, funny and generous with both his time and his praise, but my Dad has a deep secret: he suffers from crippling shyness. No one ever believes my Dad when he tells them that he’s shy mainly due to the outward appearance of his personality traits; I’m shy too, but no one ever believes me either, in fact not so long ago a friend said the following when I told him, ‘You’re not shy Paul, you’re a gobshite’. He was right and ultimately wrong.

We all ‘know’ the things that shy people don’t do: they don’t work in Public Relations which is littered by Type A personalities; they don’t speak confidently in front of large groups of people; they don’t, due to fear of conflict, challenge things that they think are wrong ; and they don’t go out of their way to meet new people. I’m shy and I DO and have DONE all these things.

It has been one of the best lessons that my Dad has ever taught me. He made me realise that while I may never overcome my shyness and my self-doubt that I don’t have to let it stop me doing the things I want to do. Watching him, I learnt how to create a public face, as mask if you will, that was all the things that, naturally, I wouldn’t be. At this point some of you may be thinking that this is deceptive and, if you see the world in blacks and whites, I guess it is. It’s a deception that means I get to do the things that I want to do and achieve the things I want to achieve and no one gets hurt, so on the scale of things I’m okay with it being slightly deceptive.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this recently as I have a couple of friends who are incredibly shy.  They both have the capacity to do great things and the desire to do them, but the likelihood of that happening is decreased unless they overcome their shyness (by whatever means). So I thought I’d write this post as fess up on my own shyness and share some tips I have used and still use:

• Practice public speaking in front of a mirror. It will be uncomfortable to start with (very few people fully like the person staring back) but it works to overcome anxiety as it shows you what people see when you give a presentation or similar;
• Don’t let opportunities pass you by. Luck does not exist, this is a fact, it’s a pointless construct human’s have created. People, who we think are lucky, simply take advantage of more of the opportunities that come their way;
• Force yourself to meet new people, in person, at least once a week and talk to them. You have nothing to lose from this and you might actually gain new friends;
• Challenge things you disagree with. It’s rare to regret challenging, but unfortunately common to regret not challenging. Always be as polite as you can but fear of a disagreement should not be enough to keep you silent.

My final thought to anyone shy, like me, is this: don’t tell yourself (or let anyone tell you) that there are things you cannot do because you are shy…it’s fundamentally not true, me and my Dad are proof of that, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy all too easily. In most situations the truism of Francis Bacon’s saying (though popularised by Roosevelt’s inaugural address) stands:

The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself. 

Update

Since writing this I’ve been touched and surprised by the amount of people who have contacted to me on Twitter to thank me for writing this post and to say that it could have been written about them. I have been especially surprised by the number of people working in Public Relations, people I’ve spoken to for ages and assumed were vastly more confident than myself, who told me they suffer from exactly the same type of shyness and have also constructed similar public masks to overcome it. Far from being the AB Fab clones that many choose to imagine PRO’s as, there are plenty of type B personalities like myself working in the industry.

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to respond, share their experiences and methods for overcoming shyness, I really appreciate it.