Learning the Ropes

          “Time for a haircut”, I was told. The last one had been in Athens, where the young barber had given me a subtle style that was subsequently commented upon favourably by as many as three people. (Usually, I get just the one, dutiful observation.) Perhaps he had slightly misunderstood my instructions, despite the admirably fluent English he had acquired during his seven years in London. Or it may just be that they cut hair differently in Athens. Back at home, my ‘regular’ barber is so familiar with the style he and I both think I want, that the resulting rendition is run-of-the-mill in comparison. When I sat in his chair last Wednesday and mentioned my Athenian haircut, his only reaction was “How much do they charge there?”

          He is from Iraq but has been around quite a bit and, like the Greek, speaks English fluently. Nevertheless, he is making an effort to up his game by mastering a range of idioms – you know, ‘It’s raining cats and dogs’, that sort of thing. He quoted me a few but admitted that he had got stuck on ‘bearing a garage’ and asked me to interpret. Before too long, he had not only grasped the meaning of the word ‘grudge’ but also countered with the equivalent Farsi idiom – it involves camels because they are reputed to have long, unforgiving memories. Our conversation then meandered around the topic of the various languages spoken in the Middle East and the random nature of some of the national boundaries that were drawn up by the European colonial powers. We both know that their meddling is the cause of so much war in the region, yet he is too diplomatic to pin the blame squarely on his current home nation, so we let it drop. I asked him who his English teacher is. “YouTube”, he answered. I should have guessed. I’ve taken to consulting its resources myself, most recently in connection with how to use the free graphic software I’m grappling with to create digital posters for our jazz events. There is plenty of free advice in the form of instructive videos, but it requires patience to find one that is succinct and not voiced by somebody irritating.

          Later that day, I decided to polish off a book I’ve been reading, The Web of Meaning, by Jeremy Lent. His proposition is that we might better approach our quest for the meaning of life by adopting a holistic approach, one that factors in the science of evolutionary biology, indigenous wisdom and philosophies such as Taoism and Buddhism, rather than looking to each one of these disciplines, separately, to provide all the answers. In short, he postulates that everything is connected, if only we care to join the dots. A quick look at the substantial bibliography, which occupies a quarter of the book’s pages, is enough to demonstrate that the author had read a lot of other books to get to where he is. He must be, I thought, a tireless processor of information – like a human version of an AI programme. Then it struck me that the Middle East – indeed, the world – might benefit from being governed by a form of AI-powered decision-making programme. Far from posing an existential threat to humanity as the doomsayers postulate, AI could turn out to be its saviour. In geopolitics, it seems, everything is connected, in which case it is evidently well beyond the capacity of humans to get a grip on events. Take humans out of the decision-making process and put an end to wars, the root cause of which is irrational behaviour driven by nationalistic self-interest. I shall run it past my barber and, while I’m at it, I can introduce him to the meaning of the expression “It’s a right dog’s breakfast”.