THOUGHTS FROM THE ALPS: What Are Your Skills?

In late July, How About This took a group of adventurous souls to the French Alps (have a look at HAT’s Off to the Alps on the Events page). The trip included lots of interesting conversations, and one recurring discussion throughout the holiday centred on what skills our group possessed. This theme engendered some interesting thoughts around the topic of skills, and what these might mean.

We all have a variety of skills, from those which are generally acknowledged as hard to obtain, to those which most people possess and which we may not even consider as such. These might range from playing a musical instrument to driving a car; reading a book to writing computer code. What is often interesting, however, is the reluctance with which people often ‘admit’ to their skills, let alone agree that the skills they have are in fact noteworthy or even useful. This seems to follow a more widespread general pattern that has long been recognised in British society (and indeed throughout the Western world), that of self-deprecation, made more prevalent now by the culture of average-ness or mediocrity that many people now cultivate as a form of social camouflage (follow this link for a short, interesting article about how the TV phenomenon Friends heralded the Age of Mediocrity).

Many of us remember someone being told off as a child for being a ‘show-off’ or ‘know-it-all’, and hiding your abilities in order to conform to the average is something that most school children learn to do if they wish to be popular and accepted within the norm. Schools often also propagate this ethos through their insistence that everyone learns the same things in the same way, and those children with unconventional skills can often be buried by the weight of society’s expectation for conformity, let alone by the narrow parameters of what is considered ‘success’ in a school system ruled by tests, rote learning and averages.

This is especially ironic given the growing positive emphasis that today’s society is giving on finding and nurturing entrepreneurs who can think outside the box. Indeed, exhibiting one’s skills nowadays seems often to be only ‘cool’ if they are labelled with specific tags such as ‘geek’ or ‘nerd’ (interesting that these terms have only come into general usage over the last couple of decades) – and then are only acceptable within certain socially recognised subject areas, such as computer technology. And even then, there is still often a tone of incomprehension or faint scorn, unless of course you happen to be a Mark Zuckerberg or a Bill Gates and can translate your ‘geekness’ into something tangible that is socially acceptable, such as wealth.

This drive for conformity is not new of course. In times past, having a superior skill-set or an interest in learning new information and building new skills was often viewed with suspicion; successful merchants skilled in trade were considered undesirable by feudal societies, for example, and were labelled disparagingly as 'bourgeoisie' or 'tradesmen', even to the beginning of the 20th Century. (Even countries were not exempt; Napoleon, for example, derisively labelled Britain as a 'nation of shopkeepers'). Those skilled in the use of herbs and medicines or in furthering the studies of philosophers and thinkers from Classical times were often labelled as witches or heretics. Even a skill in book-learning was, and sometimes still is, considered undesirable; being a ‘bookworm’ is even today not an entirely acceptable social title and, until recently, any woman labelled as a ‘bluestocking’ (interested in books and learning) was considered a less-than-desirable marriage prospect.

So, then, it is not surprising that it becomes more and more difficult to get individuals (especially in a group) to ‘admit’ to their skills, let alone to agree that the skills they have are in fact noteworthy or even useful.  During our discussions it was also interesting that there seemed to be a definite disparity between the sexes in terms of being forthcoming about their skills; it was notable that men were initially more comfortable about speaking out more freely about the skills they possessed, while women were more reluctant to ‘blow their own horns’ and had to be coaxed into adding their contributions.

Another aspect is the type of skills that are considered as relevant or important. For me, growing up in a house filled with minimal appliances and full of crafts, I was always interested in how things worked, so my definition of a ‘skill’ generally denotes something practical such as cooking a meal, speaking a language, wiring a plug, riding a bike, changing a tyre or reading a map. However, in an increasingly connected world, where social interaction is often through technological means (social media, computer games, virtual worlds etc) there seems to be an increasing emphasis given to personnel rather than practical skills. Problem-solving, organisation and logistics, coping with stress and performing under pressure, arbitration, managing conflict, good communication skills and information management have become the buzz words for getting a job, and for being socially successful. Indeed, Yuval Noah Harari, the author of Sapiens, argues that in the future the skills vital to humanity will include communication and collaboration, rather than practicalities or knowledge retention [see here for the complete article].

And this, popular media tells us, is what we should aspire to. Indeed, such programmes as X Factor or Britain’s Got Talent (actually, it should be Britain Has Talent, but since grammar is no longer a socially acceptable skill to have, the inaccuracy is unsurprising) have built social and financial empires on the ability to exploit one individual, practical skill that is socially acceptable (usually a good singing voice) and milk it for all it’s worth.  Programmes such as or Big Brother or Celebrity Island have created further empires out of highlighting the (in)ability of average people to cope in situations that require complex social or practical skills. And Goggle Box doesn’t even try to create scenarios out of the ordinary; it simply holds a mirror up to ourselves and our own mediocrity.  The sporting world comes at it from the other direction; mastery of a practical skill such as kicking a ball around or punching another person can be leveraged to create social acceptance, regardless of social skills.

It is unsurprising, therefore, that this emphasis on social acceptance skills should lead to what I call the Cult of Celebrity. Being famous for being famous is not a new concept, and yet in our modern society this has become ubiquitous on our television sets and in our media. B-Listers clutter up the society pages and tell us what to buy, how to look, what we should want, and yet their fame is based on no particular skills beyond that, perhaps, of being able to read an audience and understand a prevailing social mind-set. The Only Way is Essex, Made in Chelsea and other programmes have used the quirks of social geography to become the new arbiters of what is desirable, and their ‘success’ is emulated more and more by an audience who has been trained to want the ostensible wealth and enviable lifestyle on display. Indeed, for some, becoming a TOWIE or a WAG or a contestant on Love Island is the ultimate aspiration. I can’t help wondering however, once you have achieved this ‘ultimate’ social acceptance, what is left to aspire to and to build on beyond a better tan, a bigger house or a more ‘famous’ boyfriend.

This all brings me to a number of conclusions. First and foremost, all of us as individuals will profit from looking at ourselves objectively and recognising and acknowledging the skills that we have, both practical and personnel-based, regardless of whether our society views them as acceptable or cool or not. In this way we can all gain confidence from the knowledge that we have something to contribute and something in which we can take pride. Secondly, cultivating different skills can only widen an individual’s worldview and allow for a greater understanding of those around him or her. Furthermore, functioning successfully in an increasingly globalised world will require ever greater levels of empathy in order to reach consensus or generate change, so building and nurturing your skills can only help to bridge the gap and find commonalities between different cultures, languages and societies. Thirdly, recognising the skills that we have will hopefully shine a light on and point the way to what may make us, as individuals, happy rather than relying on the accepted norm, the average and the mediocre. We need to learn to revel and rejoice in our different skills, explore them rather than hide them, and make our own minds up about what our aspirations should be and what skills we wish to nurture.