Fish for Thought

Whenever invited to spend a week-end fishing, I would ask to stay
home. This would take the form of a surly adolescent grunt to the
negative and my father and brother would trot off alone. They would
have assumed that (at the time a stolid vegetarian) I would have no
desire to watch the brutal murder of an innocent amphibian, insect or
whatever a fish was. Otherwise, it would be deduced that I had
surrendered to the fact that it was a Job For The Boys. Both the above
are untrue. Firstly, I am no longer a vegetarian yet still am not
rushing to the riverbanks, rod in hand. Secondly, I defy many Boys not
to retch when gutting The Job in preparation for dinner; thus the
machismo loses its effect somewhat. The real reason was that I would
not be able to bear the wait.

Waiting is a skill that is very underrated in modern society. In the
21st Century, we needn't wait anymore, right? Waiting will get you
nowhere in the workplace. We are living in the age where if you want
something, you go catch it. Some people have been doing that all along.
They have also been:

Planning: check. We plan everything today to the extent that we have
four different diaries (including a virtual one) and can check every
step of the way for oncoming icebergs such as flooding, train strikes
and foot and mouth. The fisherman packs his waterproofs, packed lunch,
fishing equipment and scouts for the most promising spot to catch some
trout.

Technical skills: check. In the work place we know how to sweet talk
the photocopier, computer, modem, telephone system and
audio&;#64979;visual equipment. Only to go home and negotiate the
answerphone, burglar alarm, mobile phones and car bleeper. The
fisherman? Well, he has it easy &;#64979; all he has to do is work
out how to cast his rod so that a fly can balance on the water enough
so the fish would notice, but not too much so the fish would not want
to eat it. I think.

Flexibility: ch... Sure you can perform all the acrobatics your manager
desires in order for you to get that promotion, and you can negotiate
yourself into a 50\% discount at Iceland for life if need arose. But
when have you had to wait for something in the past week? Silly
question, that experience will be etched on your brain so that you can
recount it in horror to anyone that listens. Poor service and slow
moving queues are the stuff of nightmares for modern man though we
could all deal with before the onset of a "fast-changing global
community" or whatever. We suddenly have lost the ability to wait, or
at least have more excuses not to. And when you do wait, do you bite
your tongue? Or do you huff out loud now and again, perform the jerky
head ritual or roll your eyes so that people know very well that you
were waiting? Not so flexible now are we?

The crazy thing is that those who fish (anglers) actually choose to
wait. This is their hobby. To wait for their reward. And in today's
workplace, if you do not receive a bonus or positive feedback within
regular intervals, then you would be entitled to take them to Human
Resources to be shot at dawn. To become an angler however, this skill
is paramount and unfortunately one that I have never owned. You could
go so far as to say that leisure activities like fishing could fast
become something that re-teaches us one of those long-lost skills that
has been abandoned with the onset of technology (see
www.fastness.com/nowaiting). Patience. And with patience, spontaneity
is born.

Most everyday rewards - such as loyalty points, appraisals, bonuses,
buy one get one free - that we receive in modern society will fast
become redundant because there is little excitement in expecting one's
reward (no matter what Pavlov's pooch said). The beauty of fishing
therefore, must be the unpredictable waiting. The best thing that comes
to them eventually. Or not. Those who fish for fun, are training
themselves like dogs in Crufts to use skills and patience to gain a
reward, that might not even chomp on the bait. This twinned with the
fight against the urge to go to a supermarket and buy a tin of tuna may
make you think that the experience is not worth its investment. Let's
face it, what's the point of doing something that does not guarantee a
reward? We are Thatcher's children after all.

Forgetting fish for a moment, some say that the activity itself
provides them with time to contemplate, think and take stock - time
that they otherwise would not have. This, perhaps, is the true reward.
And one that we all may need when we tire of tutting in the queues at
Starbucks (one of many Corporate hobbies). But I am still not promising
to join my father fishing. Because rather than being of the temperament
to sit and think, I write and think. So you could say that where others
angle, I write.