I think the general pattern of these blogs is not that things are "wrong" but more that they are only half the story. This is in tune with the Hegelian dialectical view that for every thesis about the world there will emerge a counter view and the tension so arising is what pushes consciousness to develop a new transcandent view - the famous aufhebung if you follow German philosophy. And what is the aufehebung of that ;-)
So there is probably some truth to the notions of ownership that I have rallied against. The most convincing argument comes from Hegel... indeed a single line (which I can't find now) but it says that ownership is the physical projection of the notion of self so that we can examine it in its material form. This is a stage in the development of a spiritual consciousness, that is the best argument for the validity of ownership.
However its antithesis time in these pages and I want to ryle against it's absurdity more.
Walk down to the beach and the gathering of limpets and periwinkles off the rocks, which are good to eat, but better collect some drift wood, making a fire and eat a sumptious meal.
Now take the car to your local supermarket via the petrol station. Gather your food from the shelves, queue and pay at the check-out. Drive home and cook it.
What exactly is the difference? If you look carefully, not a lot. The supermarket won't let you take the food off the shelves, and the petrol station and gas company won't let you just take the fuel without exchanging actually precious metal (or its legally precious equivalent, money). Nature oddly will?
The argument is that the companies own the products and agree to exchange them at a price. To qualify for that exchange process we need to get some money and we have to do some "paid" work. The argument being that the products that the companies sell belongs to them because they have done some work, and we must do some work also.
But as the beach scenario shows this isn't true. There is little more work to collecting food from the beech than going to the shops and collecting it off the shelves, but the former is considered sufficient to demark ownership while the latter is insufficiant.
Nature it has always seemed to me get short changed every time. This is the real error in Mankinds thinking; past, present and probably future. Really Nature owns everything, or as the religions say, the fruits of our labours belong to God.
Once it can be shown that the qualifications for ownership are very unclear then a whole can of worms erupts, most famously the ownership of the extra productivity arising from machine labour and economy of scale. In Capitalist systems the machine owner inherits the machines productivity. Which is expanded to: the investors in a company own the companies productivity. But really this is absurd and more tradition than reason.
The tradition at work here I suspect is the one of ruling class. We accept a ruling class and they have evolved over the ages into the class which owns the industry. They don't really own it, but we accept this hegemony because it fits the pattern we are used to of a ruling class.
It is absurd that the sculpters and builders who built St Pauls cathedral in London are all subsumed by the name of Sir Christopher Wren whose own hands would have been too unskilled to do most of the work. The building - actually regarded as poor in archetectural circles - is the result of the English craft system of the 1700s, traditions going back centuries and having evolved over even longer. C. Wren on the other hand is a figure head from the ruling classes and we accept this, it is part of the tradition.
It is absurd to me that the cleaner who makes the foyer of a grand building look grand is considered "lower" than the owners of that building. Without the cleaner it won't look grand for very long, so really the cleaner is the grand one. The cleaner it is true wouldn't be able to be grand without the big house to clean, and the owners of the big house wouldn't be able to be grand without an army of servants and supporters of their lifestyle - they are inter-dependent and this is a dialectic. In this sense to the wise they are profoundly equal, but many people who think themselves Aryan (noble) are not really Aryan because they are not wise and do not see this. This is where society is collapsing and entering a darkness.
I'm signing off now for a return to the non-electronic world.
Monday, 30 June 2008
Sunday, 29 June 2008
Ships
Reading Alan Bennett last night I thought maybe family history holds some interest to others: a quick blog on the multifarious importance of ships in our family. Here is a ship broken from its bottle made by my father before he was not even 10; placing its launch to somewhere in the early 1940's during the war. At only 65mm high and fitting into a narrow necked bottle not much bigger it is an extremely skillful piece of craftmanship. It is one of many that have been lost, a hobby he had for a some time. In later life he took up sailing and it is out sailing that he met my mother; well more accurately in the club house afterwards.The family tale is that my name is taken from a sailing ship, owned by the Spanish side of the family. A very successful ship it earned a good deal of money and in good Spanish tradition the name came to be given to the eldest child - male of female - to this day. Thus my grand-mother has exactly the same name as me (her surname being taken by my father) and my father had it as his middle name.
That Spanish connection was made by a distant relative who jumped ship in Spanish waters and married into a Spanish family. His descendents included a line of merchant seamen in the 1800s, the trophies of one of their adventures once adording the dark stairway in my grandmothers house. The two 10 foot Australian aboriginal fishing spears, the shield and boomerang now in the loft above where I write... except my mum reminds me this could have been from my fathers travels with P&O when he worked for them (in computers).
By all rights I should love the ocean. It certainly has a charm for me, and I enjoy nothing more than walking the coast - but to date no major desire yet to cast myself upon the waves.
A complete aside is the importance of the number 8 in the Gosson family. My grandmother and my father were born on the 8th. She was quite angry that I was born at 23.30 on the 7th and my sister 1.30am on the 9th. My mum is born on the 17th. The story goes that my great-grandmother always thought she was born on the 18th. Grandma wouldn't believe it and finally when she tracked down the church and birth records it came as no suprise to her that it was indeed the 8th.
Historic Progresses
1994 was a turning point. The resolution that I called "Harmonic Structuralism" was made as was a reading of Jung's "Man and his Symbols" which launched spontaneously an allegorical consciousness. That consciousness first applied itself to the film "Betty Blue" I had been mesmerised by earlier that in week of April, and which then became officially my favourite film, and which eerily came to be a "blue" print for the years that followed.
Betty never existed. She represents his anima figure and his creative side. Thus the awakening of his creative side and the publishing of his book is revealed as the plot with Betty. Beautiful colours throughout and her haunting melodic motif make it a pleasure to watch. The clue is the very last line of the film which goes something like, "Tu ecrit?" asks the cat to which Zorg replies, "Non, Je pense". It is clear that Betty never lived, and her death marks the absorption of his creativity into himself; and what does he write? The film never tells us, because it can't, because he writes no less than "Betty Blue". It is that circularity which I loved in 1994: it is what I have been calling the Ouroboros recently. Odd things happen when the Ouroboros tries to bites its tail: the writing has stopped, the films narrative has stopped, the Zorg we see is no longer the result of his hand on the page, it is the "real" Zorg and Betty becomes not the character of his hand but the force of creativity which has inspired his writing and now the making of the film. She becomes an ontological entity, through her death she becomes alive always.
It was a bit shaken when it occurred to me a few months ago that this was my own plan. I met a girl who was to be my own muse, who was to inspire me inner self, but I never counted on her dying, and I still wait to begin writing altho that day is approaching very fast. I haven't undergone the right transformation, "my muse" never become incorporated into me. She was a real person, and while I doubt I loved the real person, it would be unforgivable for her to be simply the canvas upon which my own psychology was played out. That someone has died remains a cold dawn that no romance seems to shift. I would be weeping at the tomb of Jesus although I never knew Him, and would refuse to see his resurrection as it might over shadow his death. Is it right that "my muse" might live again in writing as I has always wanted? Maybe in a way she does for I have written so much, but what I write must be good for it to be in Her name, and this has not happened yet. Maybe she will become the constant measure that insists on what is Good rather than accept what is mediocre (and a lot of writing in mediocre I think).
Returning to the "Harmonic Structuralism" - no reference to Structuralism I hadn't heard of this at the time simply a method of resolving the difference between Good and Bad. Heaven and Hell cannot be mirror imagines one good and one bad, because what then is the difference between Good and Bad? Instead I adopted a system where size was important. A system of rules which maintains a large system is better than one which supports a small system. I had the Nazis as my test system. Indeed Nazi Germany was a good time for the Nazis and the Germanic peoples. There was great hope and expectation. But such an idea only makes a small world because it does not include "inferior races". Liberalism is a better idea because it provides a harmonic system for more people. So one acts to support that group which is larger - or which at least has the potential to be larger.
This year was followed up with, in 1997, with a stanza. I had felt more and more clogged up with thinking, books and what seemed and endless path of learning. Walking back from the tube in Hounslow after a visist to the library at Imperial College, I came upon this which set the stage for the next decade.
I will see Existence just as it is,
And through this I will Be,
And with books and systems all behind
I'll live a Life that's me.
I'm think I'll return to this now as it is a good place to be. Indeed things have gotten confused, and at times like that we must return to "What Is". Our thoughts are only the caring servants of Reality. It is when our thoughts gain a life of their own that we drift from Reality and things become confused. Indeed I must return to Reality for a while to check that my thoughts are still firmly saddled upon the World.
A not so successsful idea from later that year was "Irreason". This is to Reason what Irrationality is to Rationality. A name for the idea that we don't need a positive reason for doing something. Somewhere between positive justification for an action and positive restraint is the grey area of Irreason. In otherwords I can't see why it should be done, but I can't see what harm it will do. Danny Wallace recently referred to a similar experiment, saying "Yes" more often. I found tho this causes problems, and while you have a story to tell it goes no where. I realised this after saying yes to a gay guy who asked me up for coffee. He tried to kiss me and I said 'no I'm straight, I was here just for the coffee'. We had a pleasant chat, it was interesting, I said yes to a peck on the lips, but he was just getting frustrated and so I thanked him for the coffee and left. It did do harm because he was confused by my random behaviour, and for me saying yes to a gay encounter is simply not what I want. I could say yes because he wants it, but it is just going to lead to more confusion when he finds out that I'm not "into" it. The conclusion then is simple: if we are not entirely sincere then we should not act. Hesitation, deliberation, consideration are all good. If opportunities are really so short lived and fickle then "easy come, easy go". Like girls they don't seem to wait around long, you have your window of opportunity, maybe a few months and then they are off - "easy come, easy go".
Qustion then is what is not "easy come, easy go"? Well that window of opportunity should be open now... that is what I'm looking for... they call it Enlightenment sometimes.
Betty never existed. She represents his anima figure and his creative side. Thus the awakening of his creative side and the publishing of his book is revealed as the plot with Betty. Beautiful colours throughout and her haunting melodic motif make it a pleasure to watch. The clue is the very last line of the film which goes something like, "Tu ecrit?" asks the cat to which Zorg replies, "Non, Je pense". It is clear that Betty never lived, and her death marks the absorption of his creativity into himself; and what does he write? The film never tells us, because it can't, because he writes no less than "Betty Blue". It is that circularity which I loved in 1994: it is what I have been calling the Ouroboros recently. Odd things happen when the Ouroboros tries to bites its tail: the writing has stopped, the films narrative has stopped, the Zorg we see is no longer the result of his hand on the page, it is the "real" Zorg and Betty becomes not the character of his hand but the force of creativity which has inspired his writing and now the making of the film. She becomes an ontological entity, through her death she becomes alive always.
It was a bit shaken when it occurred to me a few months ago that this was my own plan. I met a girl who was to be my own muse, who was to inspire me inner self, but I never counted on her dying, and I still wait to begin writing altho that day is approaching very fast. I haven't undergone the right transformation, "my muse" never become incorporated into me. She was a real person, and while I doubt I loved the real person, it would be unforgivable for her to be simply the canvas upon which my own psychology was played out. That someone has died remains a cold dawn that no romance seems to shift. I would be weeping at the tomb of Jesus although I never knew Him, and would refuse to see his resurrection as it might over shadow his death. Is it right that "my muse" might live again in writing as I has always wanted? Maybe in a way she does for I have written so much, but what I write must be good for it to be in Her name, and this has not happened yet. Maybe she will become the constant measure that insists on what is Good rather than accept what is mediocre (and a lot of writing in mediocre I think).
Returning to the "Harmonic Structuralism" - no reference to Structuralism I hadn't heard of this at the time simply a method of resolving the difference between Good and Bad. Heaven and Hell cannot be mirror imagines one good and one bad, because what then is the difference between Good and Bad? Instead I adopted a system where size was important. A system of rules which maintains a large system is better than one which supports a small system. I had the Nazis as my test system. Indeed Nazi Germany was a good time for the Nazis and the Germanic peoples. There was great hope and expectation. But such an idea only makes a small world because it does not include "inferior races". Liberalism is a better idea because it provides a harmonic system for more people. So one acts to support that group which is larger - or which at least has the potential to be larger.
This year was followed up with, in 1997, with a stanza. I had felt more and more clogged up with thinking, books and what seemed and endless path of learning. Walking back from the tube in Hounslow after a visist to the library at Imperial College, I came upon this which set the stage for the next decade.
I will see Existence just as it is,
And through this I will Be,
And with books and systems all behind
I'll live a Life that's me.
I'm think I'll return to this now as it is a good place to be. Indeed things have gotten confused, and at times like that we must return to "What Is". Our thoughts are only the caring servants of Reality. It is when our thoughts gain a life of their own that we drift from Reality and things become confused. Indeed I must return to Reality for a while to check that my thoughts are still firmly saddled upon the World.
A not so successsful idea from later that year was "Irreason". This is to Reason what Irrationality is to Rationality. A name for the idea that we don't need a positive reason for doing something. Somewhere between positive justification for an action and positive restraint is the grey area of Irreason. In otherwords I can't see why it should be done, but I can't see what harm it will do. Danny Wallace recently referred to a similar experiment, saying "Yes" more often. I found tho this causes problems, and while you have a story to tell it goes no where. I realised this after saying yes to a gay guy who asked me up for coffee. He tried to kiss me and I said 'no I'm straight, I was here just for the coffee'. We had a pleasant chat, it was interesting, I said yes to a peck on the lips, but he was just getting frustrated and so I thanked him for the coffee and left. It did do harm because he was confused by my random behaviour, and for me saying yes to a gay encounter is simply not what I want. I could say yes because he wants it, but it is just going to lead to more confusion when he finds out that I'm not "into" it. The conclusion then is simple: if we are not entirely sincere then we should not act. Hesitation, deliberation, consideration are all good. If opportunities are really so short lived and fickle then "easy come, easy go". Like girls they don't seem to wait around long, you have your window of opportunity, maybe a few months and then they are off - "easy come, easy go".
Qustion then is what is not "easy come, easy go"? Well that window of opportunity should be open now... that is what I'm looking for... they call it Enlightenment sometimes.
Saturday, 28 June 2008
The Opening Principles...
The opening principles that have guided this enquiry since its inception as a child...
1) Truth is worthy.
1.1) Falsehood is unworth.
2) The Truth is available at all times and places and to all people.
2.1) Anything which is particular to me, or which I have to gain or which I can lose, is by definition not the Truth.
3) Physical existence entails only what we Need for biology. (cf Buddha's "Middle Path")
4) What we call the "Natural World" is Reality and the "location" of Truth.
5) Peace and Truth are brothers.
It follows from these that if we understand the Natural World, live in Peace with it, seek only to Live within it, and aim for nothing which makes us different from another then we are in accordance with Truth.
There are other insights that direct this enquiry.
We can use Greed constructively like this. If I am alive and nourished then I should have no wish. If however I seek something non-essential then why when I have got it won't I seek something else... forever. Isn't it better to nip that "seeking" in the first place. This is what I am experimenting with at the moment. Certainly I have never been happy with what I have because the thought is always there "I can do better". It seems the only way to appreciate what I have is to just accept it, in which case why not just accept where I am now? This is hard, there are a million greeds ... most perplexingly this greed to be "doing something". This blog fails in a fundamental way at the moment because "I want to write it", I am still caught by the desire to "do" something. Now if I do succeed in doing it then I am depriving someone else of doing it. It cannot be the search which is important, only what is found, and this is True only if it is valuable for all.
"Doing" can never be a goal. But it seems that were all the things in the world to be made, and all the problems solved, then people would then be sitting around twitching and being bored. This seems to me to be the biggest problem which must be solved first. This is why I argue for unemployment and peacefully doing nothing as a fundamental skill to be learned. Think what a beautiful world it would be if everyone was happy doing nothing! That is the easiest and most enduring happiness.
Conversely then, the making must be judged by what is made, but importantly the "maker" must be considered independent of what is made (otherwise it is fascism). So in this sense Free Markets are correct in that they determine a value for things based upon what is made - however they are incorrect, like Democracy, in that the value of something like a Van Gogh or the Natural World is determined at a point in time with no regard for the future or Truth. They are also incorrect because they require production before consumption: consider wild food or the products of machinery. This small oversight will be the end of the world because it leads to over production as we must work before we eat, even when food is already plentiful.
If one extracts the arbitrary things from life the problems become clearer. Stripping away the fivolities of employment, families and property the core of life becomes clearer. I'm taking a big gamble in doing this it is granted, but in there somewhere behind the smokescreen of self-perpetuating busyness must lie the tail of the Ouroboros.
1) Truth is worthy.
1.1) Falsehood is unworth.
2) The Truth is available at all times and places and to all people.
2.1) Anything which is particular to me, or which I have to gain or which I can lose, is by definition not the Truth.
3) Physical existence entails only what we Need for biology. (cf Buddha's "Middle Path")
4) What we call the "Natural World" is Reality and the "location" of Truth.
5) Peace and Truth are brothers.
It follows from these that if we understand the Natural World, live in Peace with it, seek only to Live within it, and aim for nothing which makes us different from another then we are in accordance with Truth.
There are other insights that direct this enquiry.
We can use Greed constructively like this. If I am alive and nourished then I should have no wish. If however I seek something non-essential then why when I have got it won't I seek something else... forever. Isn't it better to nip that "seeking" in the first place. This is what I am experimenting with at the moment. Certainly I have never been happy with what I have because the thought is always there "I can do better". It seems the only way to appreciate what I have is to just accept it, in which case why not just accept where I am now? This is hard, there are a million greeds ... most perplexingly this greed to be "doing something". This blog fails in a fundamental way at the moment because "I want to write it", I am still caught by the desire to "do" something. Now if I do succeed in doing it then I am depriving someone else of doing it. It cannot be the search which is important, only what is found, and this is True only if it is valuable for all.
"Doing" can never be a goal. But it seems that were all the things in the world to be made, and all the problems solved, then people would then be sitting around twitching and being bored. This seems to me to be the biggest problem which must be solved first. This is why I argue for unemployment and peacefully doing nothing as a fundamental skill to be learned. Think what a beautiful world it would be if everyone was happy doing nothing! That is the easiest and most enduring happiness.
Conversely then, the making must be judged by what is made, but importantly the "maker" must be considered independent of what is made (otherwise it is fascism). So in this sense Free Markets are correct in that they determine a value for things based upon what is made - however they are incorrect, like Democracy, in that the value of something like a Van Gogh or the Natural World is determined at a point in time with no regard for the future or Truth. They are also incorrect because they require production before consumption: consider wild food or the products of machinery. This small oversight will be the end of the world because it leads to over production as we must work before we eat, even when food is already plentiful.
If one extracts the arbitrary things from life the problems become clearer. Stripping away the fivolities of employment, families and property the core of life becomes clearer. I'm taking a big gamble in doing this it is granted, but in there somewhere behind the smokescreen of self-perpetuating busyness must lie the tail of the Ouroboros.
Friday, 27 June 2008
Human Productivity
Certainly it seems to me that every single "official" story has at least one valid alternative. There is a myth that humans are fundamentally lazy - similar to the view that they are fundamentally prone to crime.
It is always satisfying to see TV footage of "primative" tribes, and also of "civilised" society for comparison. Actually I see very little difference which makes me wonder what these words mean. But if there is a difference it often seems to be in favour of the "primative" society and quite often the "civilised" seems quite ill.
Series running at the moment in the UK called "Tribal Wives" - the female version of Bruce Parry's "Tribe" - where English go and live with other communities around the world - especially what we would call "primative".
For primative I would use the word simple. They are simple communities and we are complex communities - that is the difference.
In simple communities humans are seen much freer and in their element. The usual patterns exist of eating, shelter, marriage, childbirth and death. But living closer to nature and in tune with the natural order does seem to furnish these humans with a straight forwardness and simple contentment that is lost in the West's over complexities.
I always compare humans to worms. Which is greater? Well the worm and the human both complete the same biological existence but one makes it so incredibly complicated while for the other it could not be simpler. I'd say the worm was greater for finding the simpler way.
What is also interesting is how productive these humans are. Maybe they are not productive in variety - it seems that often their songs are very simple and their dress codes remains unchanged for hundreds of generations - but then if you have formal wear and a ceremonial song why change it? They are steeped in tradition, everything has its place and people know what works because it has worked before. But within this fixed tradition manufacture of crafts, of homes, of food, of clothing is intricate and never lacking. Why then is it that when people become incorporated into huge society they are accompanied by a belief that humans are bad and lazy and need education and force to flourish?
Certainly anyone knows that humans are naturally productive. It takes years to train kids to sit down quietly. Humans have huge energy and resources that is what has got us so far in history. It is not the systems that have made us so, but us who have made the systems. Odd then that we entertain thoughts about ourselves that seem to contradict this.
One reason might be that while it is Humanity that has achieved all this we have statues in our cities of particular people - invariable from the ruling classes - who we take to be the doers of all this. Of course they never lifted a finger it is the countless people who worked in their name who did the work. It is humanity who wins everytime, but humanity who seems at odds with itself as particular humans wish to take the credit and wish to spread bad myths about the rest.
It is always satisfying to see TV footage of "primative" tribes, and also of "civilised" society for comparison. Actually I see very little difference which makes me wonder what these words mean. But if there is a difference it often seems to be in favour of the "primative" society and quite often the "civilised" seems quite ill.
Series running at the moment in the UK called "Tribal Wives" - the female version of Bruce Parry's "Tribe" - where English go and live with other communities around the world - especially what we would call "primative".
For primative I would use the word simple. They are simple communities and we are complex communities - that is the difference.
In simple communities humans are seen much freer and in their element. The usual patterns exist of eating, shelter, marriage, childbirth and death. But living closer to nature and in tune with the natural order does seem to furnish these humans with a straight forwardness and simple contentment that is lost in the West's over complexities.
I always compare humans to worms. Which is greater? Well the worm and the human both complete the same biological existence but one makes it so incredibly complicated while for the other it could not be simpler. I'd say the worm was greater for finding the simpler way.
What is also interesting is how productive these humans are. Maybe they are not productive in variety - it seems that often their songs are very simple and their dress codes remains unchanged for hundreds of generations - but then if you have formal wear and a ceremonial song why change it? They are steeped in tradition, everything has its place and people know what works because it has worked before. But within this fixed tradition manufacture of crafts, of homes, of food, of clothing is intricate and never lacking. Why then is it that when people become incorporated into huge society they are accompanied by a belief that humans are bad and lazy and need education and force to flourish?
Certainly anyone knows that humans are naturally productive. It takes years to train kids to sit down quietly. Humans have huge energy and resources that is what has got us so far in history. It is not the systems that have made us so, but us who have made the systems. Odd then that we entertain thoughts about ourselves that seem to contradict this.
One reason might be that while it is Humanity that has achieved all this we have statues in our cities of particular people - invariable from the ruling classes - who we take to be the doers of all this. Of course they never lifted a finger it is the countless people who worked in their name who did the work. It is humanity who wins everytime, but humanity who seems at odds with itself as particular humans wish to take the credit and wish to spread bad myths about the rest.
Belonging to groups
It seems that a fundamental human desire is to belong to groups. My mother is always advising me to join societies or clubs; I may socialise she says. If I join a club I always tell her it is to engage in the activity of the club from which socialisation may or may not arise; joining a club just to be part of a group seems absurd. But, maybe she is right; humans have a deep need to belong to groups so it seems.
In politics we take sides. I always thought politics was based upon policy: but when you meet life long Conservative Party members you realise it is group based rather than policy based. If the Conservatives have absurd policies, the members would rather change the party policy than support an alternative party with those policies. So much for the "vote".
It seems that groups exist as much for their own sake as for the purposes that they were created. This had certainly occurred in the company I last worked for. The company made (and tried to design) medical coatings. You would have thought that decisions in the company would be to that end. Not so. More and more desicions were made as a means of defining the role of management. Whether the decisions were good was of no interest, just that they were made and became effective. I doubt after considerable examing of the process over the years that this is a rarity of the bosses there. It seems deeper.
While the police may have been designed to protect the interests of the ruling classes, and gradually expanded to try and become a group acceptable by "all" people (except those who disagree with the ruling classes), one can see that even in a completely good society the police might become officious or antagonistic on occasion simply to feel their own presence. Without crimes to solve and people to arrest the integrity of the group of people who call themselves police would weaken.
Just linking to the post 2 ago on rules: when a child says they want to be a Policeman do they really know what that entails when the decide? Or are they interested in the uniform and the membership of the group? I don't know just a question.
I first became aware of this in a temple. While there was a clear manifesto and reason for the temple's creation it became more and more obvious that membership of the temple was more important than what it did. I imagine this is common. How many Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Conservatives, Labour etc really have any idea what they are doing. I called myself Buddhist for a while and I don't so that is 1 at least.
Is human group membership really this important to life. Human society is without question this I grant, but is membership? My argument regarding this is that the harder it is to enter a group the more it means, and the more it means to not be a member. Like being rejected from an exclusive night club we only want to get in more. However once in we realise it is just a night club like any other and the only thing special about it is that the other people had to get in as well. How self-generating. Thus exclusivity becomes its own attraction in the end and you get a speculative bubble like the stock markets - but there is nothing there just speculation.
One of the biggest clubs of all is not exclusive at all and so most people don't even notice it: it is the club called Humanity. We are all members already. Given that everyone belongs to this club already why do we need to join any others? Is membership of 10 exclusive clubs better than 1 to which everyone joins?
You decide, but membership to me is a name for nothing, and the more time spent preparing omeself for memberships the more time is wasted. And to add insult to injury if we join a club for memberships sake we had better hope that no-one else has done so because otherwise the people we meet would be equally misguided.
In politics we take sides. I always thought politics was based upon policy: but when you meet life long Conservative Party members you realise it is group based rather than policy based. If the Conservatives have absurd policies, the members would rather change the party policy than support an alternative party with those policies. So much for the "vote".
It seems that groups exist as much for their own sake as for the purposes that they were created. This had certainly occurred in the company I last worked for. The company made (and tried to design) medical coatings. You would have thought that decisions in the company would be to that end. Not so. More and more desicions were made as a means of defining the role of management. Whether the decisions were good was of no interest, just that they were made and became effective. I doubt after considerable examing of the process over the years that this is a rarity of the bosses there. It seems deeper.
While the police may have been designed to protect the interests of the ruling classes, and gradually expanded to try and become a group acceptable by "all" people (except those who disagree with the ruling classes), one can see that even in a completely good society the police might become officious or antagonistic on occasion simply to feel their own presence. Without crimes to solve and people to arrest the integrity of the group of people who call themselves police would weaken.
Just linking to the post 2 ago on rules: when a child says they want to be a Policeman do they really know what that entails when the decide? Or are they interested in the uniform and the membership of the group? I don't know just a question.
I first became aware of this in a temple. While there was a clear manifesto and reason for the temple's creation it became more and more obvious that membership of the temple was more important than what it did. I imagine this is common. How many Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Conservatives, Labour etc really have any idea what they are doing. I called myself Buddhist for a while and I don't so that is 1 at least.
Is human group membership really this important to life. Human society is without question this I grant, but is membership? My argument regarding this is that the harder it is to enter a group the more it means, and the more it means to not be a member. Like being rejected from an exclusive night club we only want to get in more. However once in we realise it is just a night club like any other and the only thing special about it is that the other people had to get in as well. How self-generating. Thus exclusivity becomes its own attraction in the end and you get a speculative bubble like the stock markets - but there is nothing there just speculation.
One of the biggest clubs of all is not exclusive at all and so most people don't even notice it: it is the club called Humanity. We are all members already. Given that everyone belongs to this club already why do we need to join any others? Is membership of 10 exclusive clubs better than 1 to which everyone joins?
You decide, but membership to me is a name for nothing, and the more time spent preparing omeself for memberships the more time is wasted. And to add insult to injury if we join a club for memberships sake we had better hope that no-one else has done so because otherwise the people we meet would be equally misguided.
What is fascism?
Certainly a post from 10 years ago. A personal definition:
"any action where the intention deliberately favours the actors perceptions over the nature of the subject"
In other words whenever the nature of something is deliberately overlooked in favour of the actors wishes it is fascism. This makes a very great deal of human activity equate to fascism. Obviously it was most extremely expressed by the Nazis in their treatment of Jews. The problem is that even an idiot can see that a Jew does not want to die or be treated horribly. What is extraordinary is that the Nazis were able to hold on to a world view that was so blatently alien to the nature of Jews as living feeling human subjects. But we do the same thing with animals. It is almost as extraordinary to me that we are able to block out the nature of living things and simply execute our desire to eat them regardless. Isn't this the same as a murder or rapist who just blocks out the wishes of their victim in favour of their desires? This is all extreme fascism.
More subtly if we take an apple and we throw it in the bin because we don't like its flavour this is fascism. Why? because looked at soberly this was grown and bought with the intention of being eaten. It is good food. It is also the fruit of a tree which quite apart from any use is an extraordinary thing. Imagine never having seen a fruit before. Or imagine that it had just been discovered on a distant land or planet. Looking at a fruit with respect for what it is, it is quite a sobering entity. Indeed then we may discard it in the bin if we agree that this is a fitting future for such an entity. Though I can't see how, isn't it better to just eat it, or give to someone else, or at least know not to buy one in future, or even leave for a bird to eat. It is the consideration given to the entity from its side that stops the action being fascist.
"any action where the intention deliberately favours the actors perceptions over the nature of the subject"
In other words whenever the nature of something is deliberately overlooked in favour of the actors wishes it is fascism. This makes a very great deal of human activity equate to fascism. Obviously it was most extremely expressed by the Nazis in their treatment of Jews. The problem is that even an idiot can see that a Jew does not want to die or be treated horribly. What is extraordinary is that the Nazis were able to hold on to a world view that was so blatently alien to the nature of Jews as living feeling human subjects. But we do the same thing with animals. It is almost as extraordinary to me that we are able to block out the nature of living things and simply execute our desire to eat them regardless. Isn't this the same as a murder or rapist who just blocks out the wishes of their victim in favour of their desires? This is all extreme fascism.
More subtly if we take an apple and we throw it in the bin because we don't like its flavour this is fascism. Why? because looked at soberly this was grown and bought with the intention of being eaten. It is good food. It is also the fruit of a tree which quite apart from any use is an extraordinary thing. Imagine never having seen a fruit before. Or imagine that it had just been discovered on a distant land or planet. Looking at a fruit with respect for what it is, it is quite a sobering entity. Indeed then we may discard it in the bin if we agree that this is a fitting future for such an entity. Though I can't see how, isn't it better to just eat it, or give to someone else, or at least know not to buy one in future, or even leave for a bird to eat. It is the consideration given to the entity from its side that stops the action being fascist.
Thursday, 26 June 2008
Is it illegal to break the law? The foundation of rules
It seems that threads on my blog are of two types at the moment... those to do with the nature of illusion like the previous post and those to do with the Ouroboros like this.
If one breaks a law then what of it? In reality you can't break a law because laws describe reality. When a law is broken the law is patched up to reflect the break - that is science.
In the realm of authority laws must be enforced. This means that other laws must exist to guide the behaviour of the enforcers. And, what if they break the law? Then other laws must exist... and we have an ouroboros. The law cannot justify itself. So where does the authority of the law come from?
A lot of my thinking seems to be picking up from where I was 10 years ago. Maybe the spell "my muse" cast on me has broken and I am returning. Even the job I had was got to get money incase I decided to get married. I'm free ... maybe the spell really is finally broken.
10 years ago while watching the F1 grand prix the house opposite was burgled. The first anyone noticed was the police turning up. They asked us if we had seen anything and we hadn't. Despite it being a small street with houses packed on both sides, everything on view to everyone, no-one anywhere saw anything. It was then I realised that law and order has nothing to do with the police. They are simply a token force. There is simply not the manpower to watch every single person all day and night - and if there was who is watching them? And if they don't need watching then why do we need watching? The police rely upon a simple fact that most people are good. There was a sudden increase in police presence around where I live a few years ago. I asked them why. Apparently a known thief had been released from gaol and immediately the reports of thefts had increased. They were just waiting to catch him again. This seems to be the way, that a small minority live in a dishonest way and the majority are good.
Sadly however the whole of society is organised according to this small minority. Indeed the small dishonest minority are what justify the existence of the small ruling minority. It is intolerable really that we live in a world where every door has a lock (even in my lifetime in the UK it wasn't like this). If we leave something unlocked and it is stolen people have normalised this state of affairs to such an extent that they argue it is our fault that it was stolen! And if people find something unlocked it is ok to take it! Are we accepting theft as a normal part of the world these days? So if I don't arm myself and someone attacks me that is my fault? Maybe I should take preemptive action, be responsible, and kill everyone in the world to make sure that they can't do wrong to me! American logic is not so far away from this hyperbolic absurdity.
But, it is a mistake to blame a "rotten" part of the world for the evils we all endure. Certainly the temptations of greed, anger and ego exist within us all; it is only that some people are weaker in the defence of themselves from these temptations. And, certainly once weakness has been shown it is even doubly hard to recover ones original strength. A bitter irony that the people who need the strength and the support are least likely to get it. The winners get more accolade and strength, and the losers have more taken from them.
So what we have played out on the "official" stage today is a play where a small and clearly identified righteous group (the good guys) take on an equally small but dishonest group (the bad guys). The rest of us are the "innocent" audience of this show, at best giving evidence to the police, or being caught up in a shoot out. If anyone ever wondered why the good guys always win its actually because of simple logic. The problem with bad guys is that their badness is shown to everyone including each other - so you can always rely upon the bad guys imploding due to their own greed, anger or selfishness. Indeed the good guys don't need to do anything - the bad guys will always implode by themselves! No actual need for crime fighters - the bad guys always lose anyway (that is what is wrong with badness - its the Law see below).
Returning to the start before putting all this together: so where does the authority of law come from? Well this is what has been established in the recent bundle of posts - it can't be established! it just "is". It is a normative assumption we must make - after all if rules didn't exist then how can I be using these words correctly/incorrectly butterflies. Instantly we know the last word in that sentence doesn't belong there... how? It is because of rules we learned "as" we learned to read - so no point in writing them down! No-one enforces these rules, indeed what language would the rules of English be written in! And what language would those rules be written in ... ouroboros again. This is the hemaneutic circle argument - that we enter into the game by learning how to play it, not once we have learned how to play it. Once again there is this fundamental irony, something Wittgenstein spent his later life examining, that the human condition is not one of approaching things face on, but rather looking backwards over territory we have already covered (I believe but haven't read it that Heideggard amongst other may make similar points). When we enter into language classes we do it with a full working knowledge of a language already. Our teacher can talk to us in one language and explain a second language. But the real progress is made in "practice" of that language "submerged" in the language culture. This is backwards, because as a child our primary language is learned through the submerging and practice first and then only much later the instruction from a teacher - I knew english long before I was taught it! Wittgenstein would argue that this process of practice and submergence is analogous to playing games and we learn the use of words just as we learn the use of objects like balls in various games. Likewise we don't get taught culture it occurs to us through submergence and practice - we just go along with it. It is a process with things one after another, not equivalences running side by side (like this word = that word). So humans are well accustomed to laws and rules - these indeed are the foundations of the human world of myths that I have been highlighting of late. It is a normative part of the human mind to embrace law, custom and rule. This is why we enjoy football, or even stories and films, where actors are put through the hurdles of a make believe world of rules.
Now just quickly that raises the point of dualism. In games and in stories the fundamental rule seems to be of sides. We instantly look for the side of the narrative voice and the other side (which causes what I've called in the blog the tyranny of the narrative where you are excluded from any rights if the narrative does not favour you - which seems to be the nature of Yahweh in the Old Testament stories). We instantly look for the good guys, and the bad guys; the winners and the losers. Then you have the film noirs and the anti-heros where the narrative is reversed: the Bogart's who while the "other" guy and who lose are followed by the narrative and so oddly "win". And obviously in sport which is between winners and losers. So the foundations of human meaning: unwritten rules seem to entail dualism and setting of one thing against another. So it follows that we eat with a knife held in our right hand and with the handle concealed in the back of the gripped palm, and those who do not obey this unwritten rule are excluded.
Yet we also know that human meaning and so dualisms are a myth. There must be a deeper reality beyond this. This deeper reality is what enables us to adopt the rules of football when that game begins and the game of rugby when that game begins. That deeper reality enables us to speak English when that game begins and Chinese when that game begins (assuming we are bi-lingual). That deeper reality enables us to play a character in a play, and then become ourselves afterwards, or watch a film and turn back to our "reality" afterwards. In this deeper reality it is no longer a myth that we are watching a film, or speaking English. That is Reality. In this Reality we do not simply obey the rules of business if it entails our actions becoming "wrong". It is from this Reality that we can say that the rules and mores of the various games are myths, suitable at a time, for a time, and only where they do not contradict the higher Reality. This higher reality like the passage of the planets is not breakable: you do wrong, you will suffer: because there is only "Good". This is what the religions speak of.
Now the problem for me it seems is that a contradiction has occurred in my rules. Like HAL in Kubriks 2001 I'll go mad unless this is resolved. Put alternatively the games I have learned to play tell me different things, and these often contradict what seems to be the Higher Law. My culture tells me to use a knife and fork, but actually I can see no advantage except when eating steak (which I don't because killing obviously breaks the higher Law). Practical Reality has taken presidence in my mind. This is the contradiction between my deeply tradiational upper class mother, and my laisez-faire rationalist father - which turned into irrationalist authoratarian in later life. Who do you listen to mum or dad?
This is what must be resolved before I inevitably mad. But the bits and pieces are all expressed in this post.
If one breaks a law then what of it? In reality you can't break a law because laws describe reality. When a law is broken the law is patched up to reflect the break - that is science.
In the realm of authority laws must be enforced. This means that other laws must exist to guide the behaviour of the enforcers. And, what if they break the law? Then other laws must exist... and we have an ouroboros. The law cannot justify itself. So where does the authority of the law come from?
A lot of my thinking seems to be picking up from where I was 10 years ago. Maybe the spell "my muse" cast on me has broken and I am returning. Even the job I had was got to get money incase I decided to get married. I'm free ... maybe the spell really is finally broken.
10 years ago while watching the F1 grand prix the house opposite was burgled. The first anyone noticed was the police turning up. They asked us if we had seen anything and we hadn't. Despite it being a small street with houses packed on both sides, everything on view to everyone, no-one anywhere saw anything. It was then I realised that law and order has nothing to do with the police. They are simply a token force. There is simply not the manpower to watch every single person all day and night - and if there was who is watching them? And if they don't need watching then why do we need watching? The police rely upon a simple fact that most people are good. There was a sudden increase in police presence around where I live a few years ago. I asked them why. Apparently a known thief had been released from gaol and immediately the reports of thefts had increased. They were just waiting to catch him again. This seems to be the way, that a small minority live in a dishonest way and the majority are good.
Sadly however the whole of society is organised according to this small minority. Indeed the small dishonest minority are what justify the existence of the small ruling minority. It is intolerable really that we live in a world where every door has a lock (even in my lifetime in the UK it wasn't like this). If we leave something unlocked and it is stolen people have normalised this state of affairs to such an extent that they argue it is our fault that it was stolen! And if people find something unlocked it is ok to take it! Are we accepting theft as a normal part of the world these days? So if I don't arm myself and someone attacks me that is my fault? Maybe I should take preemptive action, be responsible, and kill everyone in the world to make sure that they can't do wrong to me! American logic is not so far away from this hyperbolic absurdity.
But, it is a mistake to blame a "rotten" part of the world for the evils we all endure. Certainly the temptations of greed, anger and ego exist within us all; it is only that some people are weaker in the defence of themselves from these temptations. And, certainly once weakness has been shown it is even doubly hard to recover ones original strength. A bitter irony that the people who need the strength and the support are least likely to get it. The winners get more accolade and strength, and the losers have more taken from them.
So what we have played out on the "official" stage today is a play where a small and clearly identified righteous group (the good guys) take on an equally small but dishonest group (the bad guys). The rest of us are the "innocent" audience of this show, at best giving evidence to the police, or being caught up in a shoot out. If anyone ever wondered why the good guys always win its actually because of simple logic. The problem with bad guys is that their badness is shown to everyone including each other - so you can always rely upon the bad guys imploding due to their own greed, anger or selfishness. Indeed the good guys don't need to do anything - the bad guys will always implode by themselves! No actual need for crime fighters - the bad guys always lose anyway (that is what is wrong with badness - its the Law see below).
Returning to the start before putting all this together: so where does the authority of law come from? Well this is what has been established in the recent bundle of posts - it can't be established! it just "is". It is a normative assumption we must make - after all if rules didn't exist then how can I be using these words correctly/incorrectly butterflies. Instantly we know the last word in that sentence doesn't belong there... how? It is because of rules we learned "as" we learned to read - so no point in writing them down! No-one enforces these rules, indeed what language would the rules of English be written in! And what language would those rules be written in ... ouroboros again. This is the hemaneutic circle argument - that we enter into the game by learning how to play it, not once we have learned how to play it. Once again there is this fundamental irony, something Wittgenstein spent his later life examining, that the human condition is not one of approaching things face on, but rather looking backwards over territory we have already covered (I believe but haven't read it that Heideggard amongst other may make similar points). When we enter into language classes we do it with a full working knowledge of a language already. Our teacher can talk to us in one language and explain a second language. But the real progress is made in "practice" of that language "submerged" in the language culture. This is backwards, because as a child our primary language is learned through the submerging and practice first and then only much later the instruction from a teacher - I knew english long before I was taught it! Wittgenstein would argue that this process of practice and submergence is analogous to playing games and we learn the use of words just as we learn the use of objects like balls in various games. Likewise we don't get taught culture it occurs to us through submergence and practice - we just go along with it. It is a process with things one after another, not equivalences running side by side (like this word = that word). So humans are well accustomed to laws and rules - these indeed are the foundations of the human world of myths that I have been highlighting of late. It is a normative part of the human mind to embrace law, custom and rule. This is why we enjoy football, or even stories and films, where actors are put through the hurdles of a make believe world of rules.
Now just quickly that raises the point of dualism. In games and in stories the fundamental rule seems to be of sides. We instantly look for the side of the narrative voice and the other side (which causes what I've called in the blog the tyranny of the narrative where you are excluded from any rights if the narrative does not favour you - which seems to be the nature of Yahweh in the Old Testament stories). We instantly look for the good guys, and the bad guys; the winners and the losers. Then you have the film noirs and the anti-heros where the narrative is reversed: the Bogart's who while the "other" guy and who lose are followed by the narrative and so oddly "win". And obviously in sport which is between winners and losers. So the foundations of human meaning: unwritten rules seem to entail dualism and setting of one thing against another. So it follows that we eat with a knife held in our right hand and with the handle concealed in the back of the gripped palm, and those who do not obey this unwritten rule are excluded.
Yet we also know that human meaning and so dualisms are a myth. There must be a deeper reality beyond this. This deeper reality is what enables us to adopt the rules of football when that game begins and the game of rugby when that game begins. That deeper reality enables us to speak English when that game begins and Chinese when that game begins (assuming we are bi-lingual). That deeper reality enables us to play a character in a play, and then become ourselves afterwards, or watch a film and turn back to our "reality" afterwards. In this deeper reality it is no longer a myth that we are watching a film, or speaking English. That is Reality. In this Reality we do not simply obey the rules of business if it entails our actions becoming "wrong". It is from this Reality that we can say that the rules and mores of the various games are myths, suitable at a time, for a time, and only where they do not contradict the higher Reality. This higher reality like the passage of the planets is not breakable: you do wrong, you will suffer: because there is only "Good". This is what the religions speak of.
Now the problem for me it seems is that a contradiction has occurred in my rules. Like HAL in Kubriks 2001 I'll go mad unless this is resolved. Put alternatively the games I have learned to play tell me different things, and these often contradict what seems to be the Higher Law. My culture tells me to use a knife and fork, but actually I can see no advantage except when eating steak (which I don't because killing obviously breaks the higher Law). Practical Reality has taken presidence in my mind. This is the contradiction between my deeply tradiational upper class mother, and my laisez-faire rationalist father - which turned into irrationalist authoratarian in later life. Who do you listen to mum or dad?
This is what must be resolved before I inevitably mad. But the bits and pieces are all expressed in this post.
Tuesday, 24 June 2008
Art and Myth
"Starry night over the Rhone" is one of my favourite paintings. Originally I bought a copy prospectively as a present for "my muse" but while it stood upon my shelf awaiting some day when I might satisfy her with it, it looking back at me every day, I began to fall in love with it, began to be drawn into its intense dreamy world; and then it hit me. Contemplating in the stillness of the image one day the stars, the river side lights, the reflections and the couple walking arm in arm looking out from the scene. All of a sudden I noticed in a flash the alignment between the stars, the street lights and the reflections. Are the reflections of the worldly lights, or the cosmic lights; or are they the same?
The alignment of world and celestial! This is what is so magical about this picture.
And, the couple arm in arm are they simply reflections of a world in flesh and bone, or arm in arm are they reflections of heavenly realms of love: or both? And the painting; is this not a reflection of that scene or one similar all those years ago, a reflection of unity and love itself? It is an image of profound symmetry and alluring depth.
But, and the reason for this blog... it is an array of colours only! How can there be so much to say of an array of colours? There is no river here, no lights, and most absurd no people. Try and talk to them? They are dumb and souless, and yet I speak of love!
Yup, it's yet another illusion, yet like the growing world of illusions in the blog, there seems nothing wrong in entering the illusion even while we know it is not real. This is what needs to be watched more closely... it is not the entering of illusion that is wrong, but just how easy it is to forget we have entered it.
Art is an accepted illusion with clear boundaries that we have learned to accept. We watch a film and while probably totally engrossed in it, we have learned how to escape its hold: it is "just" a film. Although we may feel a bit jittery for a while longer after watching a horror movie alone late at night: or we may feel the warm glow from a romance or positive movie for many days... even weeks after. I wonder what effect the use of guns and weapons in American films has. In "reality" I have and will never need access to a weapon. We have some air guns at home for target practice, for sport. This is not however how guns are portrayed in American films! Personally whenever an American picks up a gun in a film, I switch off - it is a culture so alien to me that I cannot relate to it - it is purely fiction. I wonder tho whether all children switch off so readily! If you walk away continuing the illusion that a gun really can achieve anything then problems are starting. Even the governments seem to believe this illusion: War is an ancient myth which people still haven't escaped from: sadly the movie still goes on.
Adverts are even less defined. There is no car in a car advert, and what is displayed is complete illusion from start to finish, but do we really switch it off after the illusion ends? Clearly not since car companies consider it money well spent to continue making this "art".
Education contains a plethora of myth, and it is very hard to see the start and end. When we read history while we might say "this 'really' happened" the question we might be pushed on is "what" really happened? In recent history no one questions the missing World Trade Centre or did such a building ever exist - maybe World Trade Cent-er (anyway that big building that isn't in New York any more). However if someone says in the history books "a central American office building" and someone else says "an icon of American global imperialism" clearly we have vastly different political views of the same event. And if someone else says "life has been difficult I lost my mother in that tragedy" and someone else says "God be praised against the odds my mother was saved" we have two completely different stories. There are as many views as can be thought of an event which seems to be just just one thing! And of course there is the governments "use" of the event which is another view.
So one truth, but a million stories. And the problem for humans it seems is to find which story "is" the truth. But as this phase of this blog unfolds it appears: no story is ever the truth. The truth is actually quite profound and while we may tell stories about the world (as indeed I am doing here) which are all very illuminating and informative: when we turn to Truth we need to switch off ALL the illusions: forget all the stories, close the book, turn off the radio, the TV, the phone, put down the newspaper, burn our qualifications, forget our name, and where we were born, forget what people think of us: get out of bed, end the slumbers of day dreaming, open the curtains, indeed open the window and look again at the stars that shine upon high, and the street lights that shine upon low, and the painting that reflects the light betwixt the two.
=== added 27th June
On second thoughts maybe the river is the key ingredient of the picture. The steady flow of the Rhone symbolic for the steady flow of process in Van Gogh that gave arise to this picture and which continues in my own mind giving rise even to this blog addition. It is the river which refelects the river side lights and the stars: it is in the river of the world that all things become manifested and reflected, a great river which is both the canvas upon which the world is set apart and which at once is brought together : the universal cosmic love?
Monday, 9 June 2008
Switching back to paper
In time honoured style and because I won't have ready access to the internet this blog will continue on paper, but with updates when I get to the internet...
100 UK Soldiers Dead in Afghanistan
We are supposed to respect the sacrifice made by these soldiers. This of course I do.
Our soldiers have mothers and family who grieve their loss. They have a vicious enemy which they have to fight in unforgiving terrain. They have limited supplies. They have dreams of a long and successful life, not of perishing in a bleak desert.
But then I'm a Taliban. I suppose the same must be true of the British soldiers.
If we respect the sacrifice made my British soldiers, there is no reason I can see why we do not in the same act respect the sacrifice made by the Taliban.
In 1997 I sent an article to the papers asking for wreaths to be laid at the Cenotaph (in London) in honour of German, Italian and Japanese war dead. They made exactly the same sacrifice, they are equally the heroic victims of war, why are they not remembered?
So it is simple. Either we remember all the war dead, and remember the tragedy that is war; or we remember none.
And, in this it is plain the futility of war, and the profound error that is made by all humans to grasp at that which they can call "theirs" and that which they will dismiss as "not theirs". It is the foundation of all the world's evils as I can see it. It is why my bosses think I don't work for them any more (it is why they thought I ever did work for them). When they buy something in the future which I have made, am I not still working for them? Are we not always working for everyone always? The rest as argued is simply the dressings of vanity and fetishised role playing. People love to dress up and act (suits, robes, gowns, coats, uniforms: see; business men, barristers, judges, graduates, doctors, police) it is just part of the fantasy that obscures life for many people. The red carpets, the entourage of sycophants, the titles, the meetings etc all designed to avoid this mysterious "void" which governs all. I certainly don't fight with bosses to be part of this (or not part of it - I must remember that would only work to suck me in) it is just to get a break from the myths which powerfully perv-ert/ade our world.
Our soldiers have mothers and family who grieve their loss. They have a vicious enemy which they have to fight in unforgiving terrain. They have limited supplies. They have dreams of a long and successful life, not of perishing in a bleak desert.
But then I'm a Taliban. I suppose the same must be true of the British soldiers.
If we respect the sacrifice made my British soldiers, there is no reason I can see why we do not in the same act respect the sacrifice made by the Taliban.
In 1997 I sent an article to the papers asking for wreaths to be laid at the Cenotaph (in London) in honour of German, Italian and Japanese war dead. They made exactly the same sacrifice, they are equally the heroic victims of war, why are they not remembered?
So it is simple. Either we remember all the war dead, and remember the tragedy that is war; or we remember none.
And, in this it is plain the futility of war, and the profound error that is made by all humans to grasp at that which they can call "theirs" and that which they will dismiss as "not theirs". It is the foundation of all the world's evils as I can see it. It is why my bosses think I don't work for them any more (it is why they thought I ever did work for them). When they buy something in the future which I have made, am I not still working for them? Are we not always working for everyone always? The rest as argued is simply the dressings of vanity and fetishised role playing. People love to dress up and act (suits, robes, gowns, coats, uniforms: see; business men, barristers, judges, graduates, doctors, police) it is just part of the fantasy that obscures life for many people. The red carpets, the entourage of sycophants, the titles, the meetings etc all designed to avoid this mysterious "void" which governs all. I certainly don't fight with bosses to be part of this (or not part of it - I must remember that would only work to suck me in) it is just to get a break from the myths which powerfully perv-ert/ade our world.
Irrelevance of Darwinism to Mankind...
big p.s. to the "why I won't have children post"...
Now the problem that has stuck in my head since a kid was that from a Darwinist perspective I should have kids to pass on my genes. If I don't have kids then my genes are lost and this seems to violate the basis of biological life.
Spot the error? Well, how are these "my" genes?
Famously we know we have like 95% of our DNA in common with chimpanzees (used to be 98%). Well these are not my genes obviously. And when you look at the remaining 5% the vast majority are not unique either. It is the combination of genes which is unique however. Is the combination "mine"? Well this is the same point as most of this blog is moving toward very slowly...
What if I decided to buy a gene combination... would that be mine too? What is the difference between my own sequence and the one that I have bought?
When we have kids these are not "our" gene combination. Of the tiny fraction of unique genes we have, 50% are replaced by those of our partner. How are they our kids? It is quite possible for someone elses' kids (by chance) to have DNA more similar to us than our own kids!
Evolution occurs over hundreds of thousands of years, with selection amassing its impact across whole populations. An individual by itself makes almost no impact on the movement of genes. And even if it does... what significance is there in occupying one niche rather than another?
Or I can just do away with the notion of "mine" and "not mine" and just treat all life with the respect I'd give my own children... we are all cousins afterall.
The new layout of life btw looks like this (see http://www.bork.embl.de/tree-of-life/). Here Eucharyotes belong together in terms of genetic similarity which makes us close cousins to trees compared with the differences between bacteria!
Now the problem that has stuck in my head since a kid was that from a Darwinist perspective I should have kids to pass on my genes. If I don't have kids then my genes are lost and this seems to violate the basis of biological life.
Spot the error? Well, how are these "my" genes?
Famously we know we have like 95% of our DNA in common with chimpanzees (used to be 98%). Well these are not my genes obviously. And when you look at the remaining 5% the vast majority are not unique either. It is the combination of genes which is unique however. Is the combination "mine"? Well this is the same point as most of this blog is moving toward very slowly...
What if I decided to buy a gene combination... would that be mine too? What is the difference between my own sequence and the one that I have bought?
When we have kids these are not "our" gene combination. Of the tiny fraction of unique genes we have, 50% are replaced by those of our partner. How are they our kids? It is quite possible for someone elses' kids (by chance) to have DNA more similar to us than our own kids!
Evolution occurs over hundreds of thousands of years, with selection amassing its impact across whole populations. An individual by itself makes almost no impact on the movement of genes. And even if it does... what significance is there in occupying one niche rather than another?
If I bring up a chimpanzee as my child I can be happy that I am supporting 95% of my genes, and if I bring up a tree I can be happy that I am protecting maybe 70%.
Or I can just do away with the notion of "mine" and "not mine" and just treat all life with the respect I'd give my own children... we are all cousins afterall.
The new layout of life btw looks like this (see http://www.bork.embl.de/tree-of-life/). Here Eucharyotes belong together in terms of genetic similarity which makes us close cousins to trees compared with the differences between bacteria!
Sunday, 8 June 2008
the few against the many?
Just a note...
A central issue in ethics is this matter of the many and the few. If you have some money, do you spend it saving 1 person with an expensive to treat condition or on 10 people with cheaper treatments?
We can begin with a generally accepted principle that all people are equal (I accept this myself).
There is a disasterous democratic logic that each person is quantifiable. So 10 people are 10 times 1 person: iff all people are equal.
But then democracy also protects the few against the many... what chance for minorities in a democractic world!
The correct view seems to be based upon a slight development of the opening principle...
"All people are equal, with the exception of oneself who cannot be judged."
Thus when in a situation where someone needs help, then we only judge what needs to be done based upon them. We cannot argue from the position that "I" have equal value so should save myself as well.
Will need to work on this..
A central issue in ethics is this matter of the many and the few. If you have some money, do you spend it saving 1 person with an expensive to treat condition or on 10 people with cheaper treatments?
We can begin with a generally accepted principle that all people are equal (I accept this myself).
There is a disasterous democratic logic that each person is quantifiable. So 10 people are 10 times 1 person: iff all people are equal.
But then democracy also protects the few against the many... what chance for minorities in a democractic world!
The correct view seems to be based upon a slight development of the opening principle...
"All people are equal, with the exception of oneself who cannot be judged."
Thus when in a situation where someone needs help, then we only judge what needs to be done based upon them. We cannot argue from the position that "I" have equal value so should save myself as well.
Will need to work on this..
Thursday, 5 June 2008
Processes, The Argonauts, my muse, things don't exist...and energy vampires
Bear with me while I explain the really boring issues we get at work... but a very interesting problem...
A question has got us stuck at work. We have a process that produces a product in two stages. Each process makes a batch which has a unique number today it is 1698. Data is recorded on two separate forms which are headed with this batch number 1698.
Stage 1 is made and added to stage 2. A query was raised that the second form makes no reference of the addition of the first stage. If the two stages were completed and never combined it would never show up on the accompanying documentation.
A tick box was added to the second form asking whether the first stage had been added. The problem was what to call the first stage. The first form is headed by the batch number, and the document has a name, "F0020", but how to refer to the product that arises from this process which is added to stage 2?
Maybe we call it 1698.1 but does that make the result of the second stage 1698.2? So actually we ship 1698.2 not 1698.
What if we added 1697.1 to 1698.2? This has accidentally happened. In the past the documents were amended so that 1697.1 and 1698.2 had the same batch number. The "batch number" names a process, or a stream of manufacture, which ties the stages together. Where the batch numbers are the same the stream has flowed. This was how the system was supposed to work. But regarding naming the stages in the stream there is this problem.
Let us take the manufacture of a chair. There are established names for the parts. The back-rest, seat, four legs and various supporting slats. Each has to be manufactured separately and then assembled. Now if we take a chair and trace it back through the factory we can see where the bits and pieces came from. However working forward it would be silly to make legs for
a particular chair. I imagine there this just a pile of legs which are fitted together as needed into final chairs. Any front pair of legs will fit any chair.
However run out of front-pairs and there are no more chairs! All of a sudden, because of only one missing part, there are no more chairs. That is how fragile the existence of a chair is! Remove one part and the whole thing fails. Take a part from another chair and suddenly we have a chair. It can be switched on and off this easy.
The parts don't really "belong" to the whole. They are inter-changeable, fickle creatures that do have a role in the process of being a chair, but drop out at a moments notice and leave the whole chair project floundering.
Back to the manufacture process at work. So what name for the products first component? That is easy. "Stage 1" and this is what we call it. So we have Stage 1 "of" batch 1698. And we have documentation "for" 1698. And when it is bottled into 10 identical 1Litre bottles we have bottles "of" batch 1698. But if someone wanted to actually see batch 1698 we would gesture at the 10 bottles on the table and say there is it. And we would collect the 10 bottles and maybe put them in a box for shipping. But look again. There is nothing there called batch 1698! There are 10 bottles "of" batch 1698. Each bottle has the plastic container and 1Litre of a polymer in aqueous dilution. But the batch is 10L not 1L. It is a part "of" batch 1698.
Suppose we get all 10L together in a big beaker. "OK this is batch 1698" we say. The contents of this beaker. But we are still not pointing at batch 1698 only the beaker and saying obliquely the contents "of" this beaker are it.
If we can point at a beaker why not point at batch 1698?
The problem is that 1698 is not a real thing. It is a process. It never really begins and it never really ends. We don't call the raw materials 1698 when they come into the building, but we do document them so that if anything happens in the 1698 stream it can be traced backwards.
The problem is most famously, and more romantically, found in the story of Jason and the Argonauts - so named because they sailed in a boat called the Argo. During its decade long journey into the Bosphorous every part of the boat was repaired and replaced many times. The question that then faced the Thessalians when the boat returned was were the people aboard still Argonauts? The boat was different from the one they set sail in, so they can't still be Argonauts!
The Argo was built by a man named Argus. He simply took part in a process that gained the name of Argo. Thus when the process involved the replacing of timbers it regained that same name. So of course the sailors that returned were still Argonauts.
Argo is derived from its makers name Argus. This is the name that came to be given to a process that has a stage of birth from his mother and took up a life which involved ship building. We ourselves are processes. Streams of manufacture. Names refer not to the momentary things, these do not exist, but to the stream which flows through them. Things, as Heraclitus would have said in Ephesus over the sea from Thessaly many centuries later, are in a state of flux or becoming, forever changing.
And so we come to "my muse". Tomorrow is 6/6/2008. It is 10 years since "early June" where "I took my place upon a chequer floor" and she gave "her World and Eternity". If only she had, but such things are just processes I am coming to see. It seems very harsh to end all this, this ten years of heart ache, longing and musings with so dismissive a conclusion. How can the softness, the romance and beauty of all that come to this? But I think this is the truth, and seems my only means of escape. Maybe I won't stay here for her forever. Maybe I should stop haunting the places where we one met, the memories of what once was. Maybe the process that I have called "my muse" is taken a turn. It is hard to do, but the evidence is over whelming, that the girl the world once called "Reena" was a process. A beating heart, a smile, a skip in the step, a bounce of voluminous hair, a giggle, a flash of excitement in the eye, a letter, a poem: these were the parts that manufactured "Reena". But she was never there. I never spoke to her, I never touched her, I never wrote to her, I never met with her, I never had her: I have only missed her, cried for her, longed for her, lost her. Had any part failed then the whole illusion would have failed, but I never longed for any part of her: I longed for "her", for "Reena". How foolish the heart! how ignorant! how destined for sorrow and torture! Why do we give hearts a moments thought! It was my heart that believed in her, and it was her heart that shattered the illusion! Where is the process we once called Reena now? Do I still long for that? I regret those last words, "see you in another life" i said before I turned away from that form forever. What! see that "form"? the dark hair, the slight body? More accurately I have wished to be part of her process again. But this is a lie! My heart wishes to be with that form. That "person" who stood before me, who I never had, who I wished for, who has been lost.
So really I never knew her. I never even met with her. She is an illusion which has haunted my mind every day for a decade and which has driven my pen and hand endlessly. But she never existed and she never lived, and she never died. And me? "I" too do not exist. I have never written a word of this blog. But you may call the stream from which these words are issuing Alva.
But while I came to the belief last night that may be I might be nearing a turning point in this situation, another thing happened. My lab partners daughter went into "shock". There is a good chance that I drained her of energy. It has been a suspicion, a fear, for a while but maybe the energy that I found with Reena - the love as I thought it was - the spiritual connection which persisted until she died - was fuelled from her rather than anything happening between us.
Last night I resolved an issue regarding the closure of all this. I need to know whether what happened was really the thing I have been searching for. I have been convinced that it was, but doubtful also because other guys seemed - on the surface of it - to get very much more! And its not exactly a "loving relationship" in the usual sense. So I have doubted the depth and significance of it. But it seems to have held a place in her heart, but I can't believe a scratch on the place that her fiance held. And so the mystery. If for me it is everything I have ever wanted, to the point on walking away that I had taken part in my only reason to live. If for her it is just a casual friendship then to anyones thinking this cannot have been "it". Yet it persists for me as "it" and so the problem of how to move on remains. If it is "it" - then I have aretez. If it is not "it" then I am mistaken and must search more - and I have allez.
But the twist is that maybe I have a hand in her death afterall. That connection was a drain of her youthful energy and I am a vampire. I am not going mad, maybe this happens. Suddenly everything is different. What for me is bliss and happiness and the goal of my life, is to other people a path of destruction. If this is so then my whole life must be re-written. My whole existence is based upon a false premise, that to live others must die.
Well its very sad if its true. There really goes any dreams of happiness. But it might come at a good time. Now that I really suspect this is true I need to restructure myself to find energy with harming people. I have no idea how to do this, but I must switch off the "heart" which seems to be the antenna which picks this stuff up. Its the same antenna that linked to the "earth goddess" in that experience at Mere if you read my webpage.
It also means that I'd better move quickly into the next stage of my Buddhist process. Recently I've become convinced that the main goal of Buddhism is to "extinguish desires". This has become plainly simple to me. It means to resist the lure of "thirsts". In other words that "force" that generates within us when we want something. Which drives our thinking, our analysis of how to get it, and drives our actions toward getting it: that force must be mastered. Let us call that force : "empulsion" which is the root of all movements both outside and inside: movement and emotion.
The arising of empulsion is of no consequence when we are master of it. But when it directs us then karma becomes our enemy. Karma means almost the same as empulsion - I think. It is the process by which things happen when we act, and especially whether those consequences are considered good or bad when we experience them again. A simplistic example might be: you throw a rock in the air in a fit of rage and it falls down to hit you on the head. That thud on the head is the karmic repercussion of that empulsion. You want to know why your head hurts? it lies in that very moment of empulsion. Of course processes in the world are very much more complex and have been going on for a very long time! There is a lot of karma waiting to hit us on the head, but also make us very happy too - delayed results of ancient empulsions we have had. It all depends upon what we have done in the past.
Back to the point. When empulsion arises it strikes me as very simple. If we can achieve the goal of that empulsion we are happy and if we can not then we are unhappy. If we are master of empulsion and we cannot achieve the goal it is a very simple matter to simply let the empulsion die away (nothing lasts forever). But if the empulsion is directing us, then we experience loss and suffering. Pain is not suffering. We have a dental operation without anaesthetic it is a simple matter to ignore the empulsion which pushes us away from the dentist drill and which would try to stop the operation or take pain killer. If we are controlled by empulsion then the pain is "too much" and we must take action to avoid it.
"Be seated it will pass" is a most wise line I picked up from the excellent film "Withnail and I". Indeed if you can remain seated then all things will pass. The problem is when we cannot remain seated. In these situations we are generating karma which will create the unpleasantness of the situation again. The situation itself is not so much the issue, as the empulsion that it causes within us. Some people might like to sit with a person, while others cannot sit in the same room as them. Same person - two different empulsions: wanting to sit and wanting to walk away.
So in the last 24 hours a lot has happened in this stream, a lot of karmas, but I'm hoping to master the empulsions particularly that one which previously I have thought was love.
A question has got us stuck at work. We have a process that produces a product in two stages. Each process makes a batch which has a unique number today it is 1698. Data is recorded on two separate forms which are headed with this batch number 1698.
Stage 1 is made and added to stage 2. A query was raised that the second form makes no reference of the addition of the first stage. If the two stages were completed and never combined it would never show up on the accompanying documentation.
A tick box was added to the second form asking whether the first stage had been added. The problem was what to call the first stage. The first form is headed by the batch number, and the document has a name, "F0020", but how to refer to the product that arises from this process which is added to stage 2?
Maybe we call it 1698.1 but does that make the result of the second stage 1698.2? So actually we ship 1698.2 not 1698.
What if we added 1697.1 to 1698.2? This has accidentally happened. In the past the documents were amended so that 1697.1 and 1698.2 had the same batch number. The "batch number" names a process, or a stream of manufacture, which ties the stages together. Where the batch numbers are the same the stream has flowed. This was how the system was supposed to work. But regarding naming the stages in the stream there is this problem.
Let us take the manufacture of a chair. There are established names for the parts. The back-rest, seat, four legs and various supporting slats. Each has to be manufactured separately and then assembled. Now if we take a chair and trace it back through the factory we can see where the bits and pieces came from. However working forward it would be silly to make legs for
a particular chair. I imagine there this just a pile of legs which are fitted together as needed into final chairs. Any front pair of legs will fit any chair.
However run out of front-pairs and there are no more chairs! All of a sudden, because of only one missing part, there are no more chairs. That is how fragile the existence of a chair is! Remove one part and the whole thing fails. Take a part from another chair and suddenly we have a chair. It can be switched on and off this easy.
The parts don't really "belong" to the whole. They are inter-changeable, fickle creatures that do have a role in the process of being a chair, but drop out at a moments notice and leave the whole chair project floundering.
Back to the manufacture process at work. So what name for the products first component? That is easy. "Stage 1" and this is what we call it. So we have Stage 1 "of" batch 1698. And we have documentation "for" 1698. And when it is bottled into 10 identical 1Litre bottles we have bottles "of" batch 1698. But if someone wanted to actually see batch 1698 we would gesture at the 10 bottles on the table and say there is it. And we would collect the 10 bottles and maybe put them in a box for shipping. But look again. There is nothing there called batch 1698! There are 10 bottles "of" batch 1698. Each bottle has the plastic container and 1Litre of a polymer in aqueous dilution. But the batch is 10L not 1L. It is a part "of" batch 1698.
Suppose we get all 10L together in a big beaker. "OK this is batch 1698" we say. The contents of this beaker. But we are still not pointing at batch 1698 only the beaker and saying obliquely the contents "of" this beaker are it.
If we can point at a beaker why not point at batch 1698?
The problem is that 1698 is not a real thing. It is a process. It never really begins and it never really ends. We don't call the raw materials 1698 when they come into the building, but we do document them so that if anything happens in the 1698 stream it can be traced backwards.
The problem is most famously, and more romantically, found in the story of Jason and the Argonauts - so named because they sailed in a boat called the Argo. During its decade long journey into the Bosphorous every part of the boat was repaired and replaced many times. The question that then faced the Thessalians when the boat returned was were the people aboard still Argonauts? The boat was different from the one they set sail in, so they can't still be Argonauts!
The Argo was built by a man named Argus. He simply took part in a process that gained the name of Argo. Thus when the process involved the replacing of timbers it regained that same name. So of course the sailors that returned were still Argonauts.
Argo is derived from its makers name Argus. This is the name that came to be given to a process that has a stage of birth from his mother and took up a life which involved ship building. We ourselves are processes. Streams of manufacture. Names refer not to the momentary things, these do not exist, but to the stream which flows through them. Things, as Heraclitus would have said in Ephesus over the sea from Thessaly many centuries later, are in a state of flux or becoming, forever changing.
And so we come to "my muse". Tomorrow is 6/6/2008. It is 10 years since "early June" where "I took my place upon a chequer floor" and she gave "her World and Eternity". If only she had, but such things are just processes I am coming to see. It seems very harsh to end all this, this ten years of heart ache, longing and musings with so dismissive a conclusion. How can the softness, the romance and beauty of all that come to this? But I think this is the truth, and seems my only means of escape. Maybe I won't stay here for her forever. Maybe I should stop haunting the places where we one met, the memories of what once was. Maybe the process that I have called "my muse" is taken a turn. It is hard to do, but the evidence is over whelming, that the girl the world once called "Reena" was a process. A beating heart, a smile, a skip in the step, a bounce of voluminous hair, a giggle, a flash of excitement in the eye, a letter, a poem: these were the parts that manufactured "Reena". But she was never there. I never spoke to her, I never touched her, I never wrote to her, I never met with her, I never had her: I have only missed her, cried for her, longed for her, lost her. Had any part failed then the whole illusion would have failed, but I never longed for any part of her: I longed for "her", for "Reena". How foolish the heart! how ignorant! how destined for sorrow and torture! Why do we give hearts a moments thought! It was my heart that believed in her, and it was her heart that shattered the illusion! Where is the process we once called Reena now? Do I still long for that? I regret those last words, "see you in another life" i said before I turned away from that form forever. What! see that "form"? the dark hair, the slight body? More accurately I have wished to be part of her process again. But this is a lie! My heart wishes to be with that form. That "person" who stood before me, who I never had, who I wished for, who has been lost.
So really I never knew her. I never even met with her. She is an illusion which has haunted my mind every day for a decade and which has driven my pen and hand endlessly. But she never existed and she never lived, and she never died. And me? "I" too do not exist. I have never written a word of this blog. But you may call the stream from which these words are issuing Alva.
But while I came to the belief last night that may be I might be nearing a turning point in this situation, another thing happened. My lab partners daughter went into "shock". There is a good chance that I drained her of energy. It has been a suspicion, a fear, for a while but maybe the energy that I found with Reena - the love as I thought it was - the spiritual connection which persisted until she died - was fuelled from her rather than anything happening between us.
Last night I resolved an issue regarding the closure of all this. I need to know whether what happened was really the thing I have been searching for. I have been convinced that it was, but doubtful also because other guys seemed - on the surface of it - to get very much more! And its not exactly a "loving relationship" in the usual sense. So I have doubted the depth and significance of it. But it seems to have held a place in her heart, but I can't believe a scratch on the place that her fiance held. And so the mystery. If for me it is everything I have ever wanted, to the point on walking away that I had taken part in my only reason to live. If for her it is just a casual friendship then to anyones thinking this cannot have been "it". Yet it persists for me as "it" and so the problem of how to move on remains. If it is "it" - then I have aretez. If it is not "it" then I am mistaken and must search more - and I have allez.
But the twist is that maybe I have a hand in her death afterall. That connection was a drain of her youthful energy and I am a vampire. I am not going mad, maybe this happens. Suddenly everything is different. What for me is bliss and happiness and the goal of my life, is to other people a path of destruction. If this is so then my whole life must be re-written. My whole existence is based upon a false premise, that to live others must die.
Well its very sad if its true. There really goes any dreams of happiness. But it might come at a good time. Now that I really suspect this is true I need to restructure myself to find energy with harming people. I have no idea how to do this, but I must switch off the "heart" which seems to be the antenna which picks this stuff up. Its the same antenna that linked to the "earth goddess" in that experience at Mere if you read my webpage.
It also means that I'd better move quickly into the next stage of my Buddhist process. Recently I've become convinced that the main goal of Buddhism is to "extinguish desires". This has become plainly simple to me. It means to resist the lure of "thirsts". In other words that "force" that generates within us when we want something. Which drives our thinking, our analysis of how to get it, and drives our actions toward getting it: that force must be mastered. Let us call that force : "empulsion" which is the root of all movements both outside and inside: movement and emotion.
The arising of empulsion is of no consequence when we are master of it. But when it directs us then karma becomes our enemy. Karma means almost the same as empulsion - I think. It is the process by which things happen when we act, and especially whether those consequences are considered good or bad when we experience them again. A simplistic example might be: you throw a rock in the air in a fit of rage and it falls down to hit you on the head. That thud on the head is the karmic repercussion of that empulsion. You want to know why your head hurts? it lies in that very moment of empulsion. Of course processes in the world are very much more complex and have been going on for a very long time! There is a lot of karma waiting to hit us on the head, but also make us very happy too - delayed results of ancient empulsions we have had. It all depends upon what we have done in the past.
Back to the point. When empulsion arises it strikes me as very simple. If we can achieve the goal of that empulsion we are happy and if we can not then we are unhappy. If we are master of empulsion and we cannot achieve the goal it is a very simple matter to simply let the empulsion die away (nothing lasts forever). But if the empulsion is directing us, then we experience loss and suffering. Pain is not suffering. We have a dental operation without anaesthetic it is a simple matter to ignore the empulsion which pushes us away from the dentist drill and which would try to stop the operation or take pain killer. If we are controlled by empulsion then the pain is "too much" and we must take action to avoid it.
"Be seated it will pass" is a most wise line I picked up from the excellent film "Withnail and I". Indeed if you can remain seated then all things will pass. The problem is when we cannot remain seated. In these situations we are generating karma which will create the unpleasantness of the situation again. The situation itself is not so much the issue, as the empulsion that it causes within us. Some people might like to sit with a person, while others cannot sit in the same room as them. Same person - two different empulsions: wanting to sit and wanting to walk away.
So in the last 24 hours a lot has happened in this stream, a lot of karmas, but I'm hoping to master the empulsions particularly that one which previously I have thought was love.
Monday, 2 June 2008
What is wrong with laziness? (9/11/97)
Just been looking through an old archive of stuff... an article written on 9/11/1997 and rather self importantly sent to a newspaper! Obviously didn't get published. But it seems I have gone full circle because I'm coming back to this view of strong self-reliance being the basis of life.
What is wrong with laziness?
Laziness as a taboo subject I consider has confused the place of work in our lives. The opposite of laziness is busyness or rather business, and yet action for its own sake is not worth while whether it be working or buying, it requires meaning and therefore ethics. By ethics I do not mean universal truths for such impartial clubs as humanity, history or the Good but rather the personal questioning that ensures that we are an integral part of what we do, and can justify this to ourselves for ourselves. Only in this way can our actions become meaningful and we live our life: it's absurd to allow someone to live your life for you, as well as live theirs, for who then are they?
Laziness is then not just a deficiency of busyness but rather a deficiency in meaning. If this deficiency is measured at all - itself a sign of lazy attitudes - it is done so better by high crime statistics and lottery ticket or alcohol sales than by low ‘profitable’ productivity. For this reason it is irresponsible and lazy two fold, for politics and business to have its eyes on such irrelevant issues as the unemployment figures, profit or the value of the pound. In their stead a stimulation of not legal, financial or group, but personal responsibility and therefore meaning was all that was ever required. A change in very basic attitudes to life is required if individually and collectively we are to make any progress in the next millennium.
Where have I been all these years? to find stuff from before the time of "my muse" so in accordance with where I am today?
What is wrong with laziness?
Laziness as a taboo subject I consider has confused the place of work in our lives. The opposite of laziness is busyness or rather business, and yet action for its own sake is not worth while whether it be working or buying, it requires meaning and therefore ethics. By ethics I do not mean universal truths for such impartial clubs as humanity, history or the Good but rather the personal questioning that ensures that we are an integral part of what we do, and can justify this to ourselves for ourselves. Only in this way can our actions become meaningful and we live our life: it's absurd to allow someone to live your life for you, as well as live theirs, for who then are they?
Laziness is then not just a deficiency of busyness but rather a deficiency in meaning. If this deficiency is measured at all - itself a sign of lazy attitudes - it is done so better by high crime statistics and lottery ticket or alcohol sales than by low ‘profitable’ productivity. For this reason it is irresponsible and lazy two fold, for politics and business to have its eyes on such irrelevant issues as the unemployment figures, profit or the value of the pound. In their stead a stimulation of not legal, financial or group, but personal responsibility and therefore meaning was all that was ever required. A change in very basic attitudes to life is required if individually and collectively we are to make any progress in the next millennium.
Where have I been all these years? to find stuff from before the time of "my muse" so in accordance with where I am today?
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