No Competition

Its Friday, so from 11.30 to 1.30, a group of young people from the Complex Needs Department of George Green Secondary School come to club. They spend time playing games, socialising and doing anything from glass painting or cooking to simple life skills like turn taking and sharing.

Today S, one of the young men showed me how to choose and steer a car in a computer game. After the instruction then we began to race.

When I got stuck he helped me.
When I was behind he waited for me.
When he couldn't see me on the screen he came and found me.

He kept checking to see if I was ok and we finished the race together side by side. If only more people could be like him. I learned a lot from him today about competition...its very hard to win or lose if you spend your time caring about and for other people in the race.

All you now do is pursue your private objectives within society. Instead of us being a community, everybody is asked to seek their own personal ends. It's called competition. And competition is antagonism.

- Edward Bond

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.

-Henry David Thoreau

Being a youth worker I am privileged to meet many people who hear different drummers and step to the music they hear...I hope sometimes I am one of them...and sometimes we can share the same music...

The first (and only so far) Lostism up in club is, appropriately:

MAKE YOUR OWN KIND OF MUSIC