...a catch

Having a resolution of this type raises a problem...

To recap using the original problem of the situation I found at work - the boss REALLY believed that he was "superior" simply because he had given himself the name "director". It was this counter-intuitive situation that started me on this path. This is like a child REALLY believing they are a doctor in a game of doctors and nurses (you know kids - anyone who doesn't play along gets them angry). Most people will gain the name "director" because of some quality they possess, especially the ability to direct affairs. This directing affairs becomes a function and a skill, not a status. Status is a good example of the illusions identified. Now people can have skills, like having height, but these are superficial to their humanity. Humanity is immeasurable and unquantifiable. This is the argument so far.

The temptation however when dealing with people is to judge them on whether they are deluded or enlightened on the above point. Thus I just found myself looking at my mother judgementally realising that she was viewing me in a deluded way!

This is the trap of dogma. This resolution is a superficial feature! It does not reflect my humanity, and a lack of this resolution down not effect my humanity. By that token, the same is true for others!

And, just watching the film "Can-Can" (1960) where Sinatra sings to the girl in the bar that things are not the "right" things highlights another issue of illusion.

What is the difference between meeting someone we know and someone we don't know? Actually nothing in reality. The difference occurs in the world of illusions. We have constructed a history between us, share the game of recalling memories, have some ability to predict the other person's habits. All these constitute the belief in personality. But personality is not REAL, it is narrative like a film. This is why actors exist, the manipulate the personality illusions.

So a good test of the difference between illusion and reality is to imagine if experiencing this for the first time would make any difference. If it would then the difference is illusion!

But, I go back to "my muse" if I was to meet her for the first time again I expect I would have the same response. If I met her now then it would be very different. So does this mean that the first response is the truth, and what I call "my muse" now is illusion? Ok this is complex, because my "first" response was actually someone meeting my expectations - so she walked into a narrative I had already written! OK its a bit more complex. When is the first time? She fitted a narrative that was sparked - I am beginning to think - by a girl in my hall of residence when I was 18, who I find now writes for the Times. But she fitted a narrative that I had before that - an image that maybe goes as far back as childhood with the description of Snow White. And, before that? It is endless. OK there is no first time...

Its not easy to judge illusion... but anyway regarding the resolution.. a quick check that the resolution does not become a dogma and illusion itself! It is a Buddha says a raft that hopefully will help me purify relationships and make a better society...

p.s. finally finished the webpage photo processing :-)...

http://ouroboros.exofire.net/diary.html?year=2005
http://ouroboros.exofire.net/diary.html?year=2006
http://ouroboros.exofire.net/diary.html?year=2007
http://ouroboros.exofire.net/diary.html?year=2008

Resolution...The bitriptic

I'm not near a computer for a few weeks now but the resolution so far is actually very simple and ordinary... I realised in meditation today that I lost it through the process of "my muse" but having found it again I value it.

The goal of life, at least at it base, is the peaceful, harmonious and loving interaction between beings especially human beings. This is complicated by the fact that to do this we have to take part in the various threatres and plays that are worldly living and so the people meet take on a vast array for form, uniforms and attitudes. The plays are a myth, but this is to understood only in that it enables us to see the humanity that lies beneath the uniform of a saint or a nazi.

The bitriptic is thus like this.

The truth is that there is a triptic of:

Humanity, Nature and God.

that forms this universe. But over laid upon this, the one that we see and live within is an arificial one of:

Nation, Industry and Legality.

We live within the later triptic but must never lose sight of the underlying primary triptic which living in accordance with is our goal. Enough people living with eyes upon the primary will infuse the secondary with what we call peace and love.

Beautiful moth...

I was just working my way through the nature photos iding the pictures when the window was hit my a fluttering moth attracted to my light. It was a swallow tail moth come to watch me working. I went back to work. I was iding what I remember is called something like "beautiful moth". Put it into google and got this page. The moth was back at my window. I ignored it and read the page...

Early hours of yesterday, about 1.00am, I heard a rattling agains my window. When I drew back the curtain I took a quick step back. After composing myself I got a couple of pics.click hereclick hereI have identified it as a swallowtail moth, one of the largest in the UK.

Then it hit me, wow! I've been outside to see it, a visitor from beyond but it has gone...

well I found my moth ... Nettle tap moth ... I must remember to set up a moth trap have been meaning to do for years... but 2nite off 2 bed.

How to live in society...

I sort of getting a feel for how to develop this issue of how to live in society. Our mandate is to relate and live with fellow people and creates in peace and harmony. But these channels of interaction and communion are only the means by which we enact the higher spiritual path. I won't discuss that here, but its about Goodness at root.

So we may be British, we may be Christian we may live in an aggressive nation who has been warring and killing for centuries like England. But this should not concern us because it is illusion. We have an army governed based upon this illusion. We have a complex government and legal system that is governed upon this illusion. But these things should not trouble us. It is the people we meet that should be our concern. A soldier enacts his duty and we do not judge his motive, how do we know why he does this. We seek only to relate to him in peace. Maybe he does the same, maybe he is hostile. Our point is to treat him as a human being with respect and love, to entertain his fantasy about being a soldier by all means. If you argue he is not a soldier that is just another fantasy. If all the worlds people are stripped of their roles in the game, what will we all do stand around aimlessly and naked? We play these games, we wear these uniforms, we always will but they are at the same time illusions, and make believe just like kids playing doctors and nurses. It is the point of all these to seek a harmonious relation with this soldier. It is just as probable that he is doing the same - using his make believe status and his uniform to enact his own humanity. When the horrors of war become too much each soldiers humanity will begin to cry regardless of his uniform and stripes. And so it goes for all society and all our lives doing. In the endless theatres that we play out our lives the goal is to use these roles as channels to transmit Gods goodness, to transmit peace and happiness to all beings.

I think I am disillusioned because I've looked at this differently. Why after all these centuries can't we just get it right now. Stop being compromised in this clockwork mechanism of politics which means that bad regiemes get supported because thay are useful in the bigger game. And, the same in our lives agreeing to something that is wrong because it is useful for other means. Temptation and compromise these are the mediocrities that keep the poison flowing forever. If it is wrong like a disease stamp it out. But we are selfish and we compromise the greater good for personal profit again and again. But it is not the society, or the people that are bad. We can't change that. It is only ourselves and the goodness, peace and welfare that we profit the world that matters, and for that reason society is our goal. Something like that anyway... lets try it out see what happens.

Anxiety, groups + summary

I noticed writing against the state in the last blog that is caused me some anxiety again. It seems that inclusion in the group is very comfortable state and being outside the group creates fear. So what danger exists outside the group?

I studied animal group behaviour at university and it is seems it often occurs as an anti-preditor strategy. Animals with specialist preditors keep together because there are more eyes to see the attacker, there are more bodies and so less chance of you being the one attacked and [I'm adding this one] in co-operative animals more to join in the fight. If you ever sleep alone in the wilds and compare this to being with a companion the sense of safety is almost tangeable. Conversely then outside the group there are these increased pressures and also the danger that comes if you ever go into conflict with the group. So group membership and anxiety seem related.

There are other reasons tho. When I walked away from "my muse" the pain was so intense that after a few weeks of bearing it I broke and lost any ability to tolerate anything. Even the stress of being on a busy train became too much, and always wishing escape from situations I became agorophobic which I still suffer from. There seems to be this inherent danger in social living that people are unpredictable and if you depend upon them you may become seriously hurt. It is often quite innocent. The fiance of "my muse" can never have expected what happened, that pain comes from no where, it is inherent in the very desire to become attached to form a relationship, a communion, a society. Thus human relations while sources of great peace and harmony, are laced with danger. This is the thirst that Buddha says makes us suckers for suffering.

Human society is a double edged weapon then to the attached. Think of the "terrorists" (I mean the islamic ones) - sympathise with them. They are fighting to remain members of their group, to fail in their projects would mean rejection by their peers and also God. But they also know that their group is not very large and faces a very much greater group. They are fearful, they fight a lot harder and actually a lot more skillfully than our group. The leaders of our group have failed in the propaganda war for one. I actually believe more of what the terrorists say! Extraordinary given that our leaders have more money and even control of the home press. So the suicide bombers are trapped - they can't win. They fail membership of their group, or they die. Of course a potential suicide bomber reading this only needs to realise that they can get everything they want in the eyes of God even outside their group so there should be no fear in leaving the group and just making peace with people. The group is not everything, but the group makes them believe it is everything. It is the standard abusive relationship. We must have faith always in God and the world outside the group. This is why falling madly in love is so dangerous - we want to forget about the rest of the world outside for perfect completion within the group. This is why "my muse" has been so devastating - she was the one, the only one, ever. What kind of valued membership is it if there are other groups, other better choices maybe. If being American is better than being British then am I so proud of being British? All nonsense of course - I'll quickly recall that experience of the mansion in Scotland. It was glorious in it opulence and grandeur. I had quite strong desire for the place. But an hour later standing on the horizon it was just a tiny patch of green in a huge expanse of space. I've never seen that place again and for all its dazzlement close up, the world outside is infinitely larger. We join a particular group as the expense of the infinite world outside.

The same that applies to terrorists applies to us in the Western allied nations. We are trapped, tho only a few of us will die for being trapped. It should be remembered by us that there is no shame in leaving the group. But unlike the terrorist groups we can't!!! The British government won't let me leave. I am like a girl in a patriarchal society. I am owned by my father until I get a husband. I am owned by the British Nation until I get another Nationality, yet as argued I never decided to be part of the Nation and now I even don't want to be after the things it has done. I want to be part of Humanity and live in peace with Nature in the eyes of God to put it in plain words. These are the greatest groups that exist, were really are members of these at birth because they are tangeable and they really do exist. There is no room for cynicism, no spin, no coersion, no lying, no fighting, no pen pushing, no enactments, no press to read, no membership, no enrollments, no exclusion they just are and always have been and always will be. Since our membership forms for these already exist, why do we waste time trying to fabricate the man-made pantomime of Nations and Rules. It is I imagine the class systems and the desire to formalise social interactions to enshrine inequality, or at least mete out equality as if it was something "equal people" could give one another - (Ouroboros smile there).

Just quick reminder of Ouroboros. It is the world serpent with its tail in its mouth. Representative of the cycles of existence. What ends, begins again and in so doing the world perpetuates itself, time flows. No Ouroboros and all the things in the world would live out their lives, end and there would be no more world. But I challenge the Ouroboros to make itself live. Is it a cycle itself? Is there a bigger Ouroboros and so on ad infinitum? Or is the Ouroboros its own progenitor and progeny? I was trying to formally prove that such self-reference is impossible but have so far failed, and maybe need to fail for such a proof would be self-contradictory. I also considered reversing the problem and taking such impossibility as the test of self-reference. No progress here for ages.

This intensive period of writing has dug up a lot of the ideas that got put into archaeology by "my muse", the foray into Buddhism and especially employment. Now they are mostly up and dancing I wonder what progress will be made now.

Keywords: Life, environment, Nature, God, society, capital, sexuality, sex, employment, spirit, matter, Law, rule, knowledge, self-reference, self, nothing.

Who is better Men or Women - Mother or Father Nature?

Finished a very interesting book last night 'The Lost Gods of England' by Brian Branston (1974). Has the flavour of a post 1960's book, I liked it. Many intertwining threads one of which was the spiralling dance between the Indo-European patriarchy and the Mediterranean matriarchy.

There are always three Gods traditionally wherever you go. The Sky, Air and Earth gods. To understand the father Gid think of the difference between the air and the sky! This makes a great insight into the troublesome Trinity of Christianity. It was once explained to me that God was the Sun in Space, Jesus the sun as mankind sees it on Earth and the Holy spirit the light connecting the two. Well exactly right, and going back long before Christianity. Interesting fellow who told me that - a story there!

On the shores of the Mediterranean they venerated a female deity, and this seems to be the pattern in pre-historical times. Man didn't understand his role in fertility. Women held the keys to life and were celebrated for this. Neolithic figurines with greatly exaggerated female parts symbols of feminity, fertlity and creation. The "Source". For the farmers that evolved fertility became an essential feature of their labour in the fields. Work alone was not enough, mysterious fertility was the magic of nature. Hunter gatherers in northern climes had braved the winters and the loss of fertility and this was mythologised as the Earth Mother losing her lover and mourning for the winter, only to have him resurrected in spring.

Again here is another circle. In 1996 I had formed the opinion that female emancipation was the key to the future because women hold the key to life. They are earthly creatures bound to reality and nature through the experiences of childbirth that men can only wonder at from afar. They are involved in a stream of life in a way that men can never understand. This wholesomeness and connectedness with reality I saw as a key feature of their wisdom. I had a compilation of only female song-writers (and they form a interesting group by themselves in the ocean of men) brilliant names like Susan Vega, Cindi Lauper, Tori Amos to name a few. It was called Predominant Female (not only because it was predominantly female, but pre-Dominant also). Or so was the belief then. Then I met "my muse".

But man soon enough understood his role in childbirth. And women being so deeply involved in the stream of life knew that they needed a man to complete their fertlility. Man gained the bargaining tool and rose to "call the shots" (great song - is Phoenix really rising? - was it written by a man tho? Xenomania - the producers who also do Sugababes who I have to acknowledge are quite good tho they can't sing yet! -have got the right idea - it was obvious that this had all been over looked by the music industry when the Spice Girls started in 1996 - yes I thought I was prophetic then). So the cult of man-gods began and where the female Earth of fertility had ruled the Sky God her husband came to dominate and mete out and control the law of fertility.





This issue of fertility goes real deep. A gay friend of mine had to resolve this. Interesting that to understand the role of "sex" in a gay relationship he had to decide that he was infertile. Whatever society says this is a profound question - what is the meaning of fertility to a homosexual? This is the crucifix upon which homosexuality is hung by the church. Does sex have meaning outside of fertility and issues arrising from fertility? Open question.

You will have heard of the major Saxon gods before: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday names after Tiw (war but maybe evolved from sky Tiwaz, Zeus, Deus, Deva etc), Woden (dead), Thor(thunder - usually goes with sky God) and Frigg (fertility). There is another called Balder who has been much forgotten in England, the son of Frigg. His myth surrounds his death and resurrection, his death marking the beginning of the end of the world. Further North there was no resurrection. He is forgotten maybe because his myth got adopted by Jesus instead, and this myth originating with the fertility goddess of old. American "End Timers" really should read the mythologies of their founder nations to get a bigger picture! This has been a big failure of the American dream: to start history in 1776!

Now the book makes brief mention of the Hebrew God - Yahweh. Apparently he is different from all the other gods. Yahweh has no manifestion on Earth. The books says that the Indo-Aryans believed that these physical entities were the god. I'm not quite sure about this. When I experienced what I recon might have been the Earth Mother at Mere while she was the Earth, it was in another plane, over laid upon the physical earth. It was as if I was understanding the hills as her body induced by a strong sense of peace and a connection via what I think they call the heart chakra (these are just words for something not quite normal!). So yes you disrespect the physical earth and you disrespect the Earth mother that is true. Yahweh on the other hand is not immanent in nature at all. This seems to challenge what I have been saying about Laws. I seem to have linked Reality and Laws with Yahweh. Branston quotes 1 Kings 19:11-12 which I won't quote but says clearly that God is not in nature... 'I AM THAT I AM' says He. A variant one might think for the great Upanishad assertion 'tat tvam asi' which states "I am That". Buddha is similar "That is not I" (profound opposite of "I am That"). All better than Descartes "I think therefore I am". Yahweh makes no identity, relation, nothing: He just IS. I find this very hard to comprehend - the Ouroboros is stirring - Is Yahweh an Ouroboros? Extremely deep issues here that I am not even close to examining - far beyond the pagan stuff I set out to look at...

The worlds customs and people are not so different when you look beneath the surface. Compare May poles (which have vanished in my life time) with Totem poles. I like this one especially: The Orion's Belt in the constellation Orion has another name "the three kings". The line of stars points to Sirius the brightest star in the Northern Sky and on the winter solstice apparently (I need to check) the sun rises beneath this. So as the night evolves and the sky revolves on the longest night first you see the three kings. And, if you follow those to a bright star in the East the sun - the new born Lord, the sun god, the Oak of light is crowned as king. Oak is the spring and summer form of the Horned God (pre Saxon now) who rivals with his darker brother the Holly for the attention of The Goddess. His is defeated at midsummer and retires so the celestial wheel to gain wisdom before being reborn (sound familiar ;-). Maybe the appeal of Catholocism in Meditteranean countries is the preservation of this myth with teh Virgin Mary? Here he is (I think) in the Chruch of St Mary and St Sexburga in Sheppey. Found this is my picture collection this week. Apparently it is one of the oldest places of worship in England, St Sexburga having being associated with a nunnery founded in AD664 [ref] less than 67 years after Augustine arrived. My bike was stolen from outside the church while I was talking to the people inside - worth the photo tho I think.

The horned god also also known as "Cernunnos, the Green Man, Herne the Hunter, and Lord of the Wild Hunt, he is a god of fertility, growth, death, and rebirth" [ref]. Yet the Wild Hunt is usually led by women Berthas (very fearsome I think!) and also Artemis and Diana in Greece a nod to the once dominant Goddess. Herne gets resurrected in this much more modern myth from Berkshire.

Speaking of retiring to gain wisdom another feature of this is the being hung on a tree. The Northmen believed a great ash tree supporting the universe called Yggradsil. Odin (Woden) gained his mystical knowledge from being hung to die on this tree! Over the millennia the separated tribes carrying these stories have turned up a real soup of mythologies, but the basic threads can still be seen all the way through to this day. You can see where Science got its legs from. As peoples met and had such wildly different stories to tell the dissatisfaction with the myths musthave grown and people began to look for myths that all people everywhere could share. Sometimes this is done through force (politics, education), sometimes it just happens through social bonding, but sometimes it is done peacefully through wisdom and enquiry (I hope). If there is a Truth surely this must be the one we are interested in... not random regionalised myth, not unexamined normative myths, not dogmatic,, oppressive must have "Beliefs" (note the sub list comma, does it work?), but something we can hold in our hands look at with confidence and show other people - the scientific Truth but one about things that interest namely our lives not disinterested "matter"-s.

So returning to woman and man the myths go back a long time. The foundations of our own understanding of these issues goes back a long time. But at root something I have become aware of myself. Women are the driving force of biological Life. They are the force to procreate, they are the force to marriage, to buy houses, to start faimilies, to 'nest' as I described the behaviour in the partners of my friends. And to do this they need a man. A man completes a woman's desires. A man on the other hand is more independent, once even completely outside the cycle of life. For him woman surrounds and absorbs him, is the mysterious world of nourishing fertility that he wishes to be come enveloped in. This is certainly how I felt in 1996 and I'm in accord with Branston. Women are the stronger then their energies going into the stream of life, while men have while only a supporting role, an essential role. Being freer they have used this as blackmail over the centuries to dominate. Tables are turning now as women are discovering once again how to be free from men in all aspect even child-birth.

But and like everything I am saying at the moment there is another side to this. Yahweh is not bound to nature. Buddha does not say that the natural world is where it is at. Like Plato these people are scornful of nature as an imperfect and decaying place. Mankind's true nature is transcendent of nature. Thus Men raise to ascendency precisely because they are not tied into the muddy impure world of natural being. Women are weakened in their transcendence because of the ties. [nice but useless pun there with weekend]. This is why in the Indian religions women have such a low status. I have had complete faith in Buddha ever since reading the Dhammapada so what did he really say about women and what has come into the texts since?

I faced this problem in 2003 walking to John o'Groats. Realising afterwards that I sought Nature not as a natural being but as an spiritual being. The natural beings will destroy the planet ironically, over populating and getting rich upon it. While the transcendent species enjoy nature as a place to Be, not as a source of life. So the human is not animal when they take a walk in the woods, but instead spiritual. While the woods may have been grown for timber to make things and create wealth to bring up a family - which is humans as natural. Mixing in yesterdays musings on the subject participation with nature is thus two levelled. One immanent immersion in nature through Living (work, sex, families etc; Subsisting) and the other immanent immersion in nature through Being (experiencing, watching, walking; Existing). I've tried to do both and failed. I wanted sex to be a state of Being of experiencing nature, but of course it teeters on the brink of subsisting because women so think differently it seems and sex does mean children...

So the decision can't be made which is better the Earth Mother or the Sky Father, woman or man. They are not equal, but they are not unequal either: they are different and are involved in a very complex ancient mythology that resurrects even today in the very questions I am posing to my self: what is Life and how to Live?

A sub-conclusion here though. The question for you Mr G is this. Do you want to Live or do you want to Be: or are you not really doing both? Yet paganism and Monotheistic religions and Buddhism do not mix: they are at different levels. Do paganism and you can live but you will forget to be. Do Monotheism and you will Be but you may forget to live, as ascetic you will be challenged not to live. Buddha solved this with the "middle path": live no more than you need - take what you need only - do not indulge the wants, and do not starve the body.

p.s. you'll notice my mother has kindly hosted me for the week so lots of time to get on with examining these things on line. I notice that subsistence is an important ground to existence. It is hard in the garage because of fear of the establishment. This means that the state here is employing terrorism because I am afraid of them despite having done nothing wrong! I should write on the "Enclosure Acts" soon which I'm sure hold the key to the fascist state we have in UK. People of Briton vote for a government, but this presuposes that we are part of a political system. I was confirmed into the CoE which I hold to be a higher authority than the government and accept Gods judgement (I've no choice see previous posts), yet I have never agreed to be part of the political state and I'm sure anyone reading this hasn't either? Yet the state seems to assume we are part of it and that we are governed by it's decisions... how did this fascism come about? Unbelievably important issue... what if the government really is illegitimate! and I can't see how it is not. That would be a case to end all cases... a real ragnarok and the Ouroboros to end everything!

Participation, Society & Conservation

Things go round in circles! Was here in 2004. It was an idea at the temple while I was president of the youth group to focus on "participation" as a means of strengthening the youth group. The idea was that being "involved" by itself would constitute the youth group. I also wanted a "reason" to be involved (i.e. for Buddhism to become something tangable like knowledge, experience) but this led to disharmony with the temple heirachy (familiar situation ;-) and was never resolved. In the absense of any "reason" we were left with participation itself.

Now this I realise is actually a great idea. I'm useless as implementing ideas probably because I don't understand what I'm learning here. Participation (for better or worse) is what keeps "society" together. It is why the government keeps badgering on about employment a hundred years after it became a real issue in western society. By participating in an economic system the people are kept loyal to the status quo. Have people "dropping out" and the society starts to fragment and those who depend upon the status quo are in for a bumpy ride. (This is why I'd call myself anarchist at the moment because why not?)

For better however this crops up in our relation with all things. I have a casual interest in astronomy. It began after I discovered the B stop on my dads camera. Staying up late in the crisp, biting air of frosty December nights capturing star trails was really exciting. Getting the pictures developed for free (cos they didn't charge for the negatives if pictures came back blank) and then using the photo labs at school to produce prints got me looking at the stars. I know the constellations for no reason other than I tried to photograph them. But then I began to look at them for their own sakes. I still don't get completely blown away by these extraordinary creatures - the 4 moons of saturn, the nebulae and galaxies mostly I guess because its a lot more imagining what you can see than actually see. And I just can't comprehend these distances - it's just off the scale to my small mind. We've even an 8" Newtonian reflector in the back garden made from a off cut of drain pipe when they redid the drains in the street here. But M31 is still just a smudge though. The mirrors are faded and maybe I should get it all working again.

In religions: the solitary monastics do so on the understanding that their contemplations of God, their self realisations, or their enlightenments, are for the enrichment and benefit of all the world. No-one retreats into contemplation to get away from the world, rather to get closer to it. And no-one who find the world sits in silence, they preach and teach to others. The whole process is one of inclusion not exclusion, involvement not isolation. But notice the deeper meaning of society - it is not about the actual contact with others. One can be more richly included in society while alone than when physically with people. A guy from Groove Amada was comparing to Alexa Chung (she's strangely geeky don't you think?) the values of writing and performing and valuing them both: when you're in the studio and you know you've got a massive tune that is quite an experience too. I know this experience - sort of (never quite I see you baby) - and my mum always says why don't you publish your music. Well I give it as birthday presents normally. But my trial argument has been: why go to the shops to look for music when you can write exactly what you want yourself? Like why go to the restaurant when you can cook just how you want at home? The answer I am realising is "society". People don't listen to music or write it even primarily for its own sake but to be part of a community. Thus kids group based upon their music choices. They sit in their room listening to a tune and feel the inclusion in that group. But it's not everything. Van Gogh never got to be part of physical group from what he did... there is authenticity outside the group... he was displaying for a greater group, not of peers but of something abstract. Physical humanity caught up with him after his death - he is now very much part of physical society, but who was the audience when he was alive? God? Society (with a big 'S')? He was participating in something, or was he just trying unsuccessfully and that is why he went mad? Is that why I feel I will go mad?

Springwatch this year interviewed these two kids who'd made some pretty nifty footage of a barn owl. It became clear that it was the camera that had got them up close to the owls and through the work to capture them on camera they had learned about the owls and come to appreciate them in their own right. The BBC is brilliantly working at the moment to increase participation in the countryside. They are absolutely right. If the city folks can be given a means or tool to get involved with nature, then they will come to appreciate it. It is not just a matter of cleverly worded arguments as I have tried for as long as I can imagine - it is the whole gambit of arts, conservation works, sciences, farmings, walkings, out-door sports and dare I say it hunting that mediates between nature and man and creates participation and inclusion. That is the key to conservation.

In my own case my interest in animals and nature goes back as far as I can remember but like Gerrald Durrell it did involve a lot of putting bugs in jars, and now has developed from keeping animals in cages to photographing them in situ, identifying them properly and being generally more studied. It is about capturing and hunting in essence; not physically capturing but capturing the experience and the wonder. A moment that sticks in my mind was descending into the bay of Golspie in Scotland while walking to John o'Groats. It was afternoon and the sun was settling on the bay. I had incidentally written a song on the road down the hill so was in good spirits. Arriving on the road past the bay I was enthralled to be enveloped in a swirling cloud of curlews that has lifted off the mud flats to fill the whole sky. Like a huge squadron of spitfires they flew about me, so gracefully that I could see the individual beaks of these odd birds as they made their characteristic siren song. A moment of absorption into the world, extraordinary. An experience captured, an involvement, a participation in their (the) world!

By converse then it is the loss of participation in nature that has driven the wedge between man and nature. A combination of machine and capitalism has driven us from the land and that has fuelled the collapse of relationship with nature (Even when God put man in dominion over the animals he was in relation to the natural world). But what is needed then is the evolution of new relationships with nature and that is what the BBC and others are prophetically working in. Congratulations to those who have been working on what seems the sound foundations of a healthy world!

OK so I'm a bit slow in getting the wind here, but this is very good stuff. But, note it can be used for good and for bad. There were so many people "involved" in the German regieme that they could not stop what happened. And so it does seem a balance is still needed between the blind inclusion in societies (like the temple seemed to advocate at grass root level at least, and my previous work advocated to) which while they may sail very well require direction and the individual conscience and understanding of their members.

This remains the rub that keeps me seated at this juncture. Rather than run out to join the throng in activity and participation (which is a very attractive option certainly), the call for quiet personal reflection still seems to be wisest. What in the end is the point, or direction of this great journey of history, or do really we just sail around a endless sea? Like a planet in orbit I sway between these, and so many other poles at the moment.

Terrorism

Just found a picture of a dictionary page (digital camera make excellent photocopiers)

Shorter Oxford Dictionary.

Terrorism (1795) A system of terror. I. Government by intimidation; the system of the 'Terror' (1793-4) 2. gen. A policy intended to strike with terror those against whom it is adopted; ... 1798

I thought it ironic at the time when Mr Rumsfeld spoke of "shock and awe" in the same breath as speaking of terrorists. Its an ancient battle technique, win the war before you even fight psychologically. According to Herodotus, Alexander the Great over came an impenetrable citadel in India after pretending he had a winged army. The king surrendered immediately. Actually he had just sent some climbers onto the citadel's summit hill during the night and timed a flag waving display. But psychologically it did the trick. This is where Alexander was so superior, conquest for him was the whole "theatre" (pun intended) - political, social, physical, military strategy and performance. My weakness amongst many is that I don't do any of these - they are illusions precisely because we can chose the play them or not. So who is the stronger - the one who plays cat and mouse with the illusions or the one who is wise to them but doesn't even get involved? Well that is another conquest illusion isn't it ;-)

Mr Rumsfeld like the who American PR stunt has sadly shattered the performance illusion because it was so badly done. It seems these days that our intelligence is under profound assault because what we here is so completely ridiculous we have only two choices - to be incredulous of the stupidity of it and so believe it, or to take the radical move of having to disbelieve the state. Which is a big move since we are supposed to be playing this game where they are in charge. To stop playing that game is a profound move. So to keep our "lives" together we have to believe what is ridiculous. This has been going on for so long now that we have forgotten what is not ridiculous and the governments push the boundaries of the ridiculous all the time.

So terrorism was originally the french name for the period of extreme opponent cleansing by the Revolution, a policy of total force to qwell any resistence. Don't see how the American policy is anything but this. So does that mean that Americans are on the Axis of Evil? Of course it does... irony is always ironic!

This is where I should be careful... already noted in previous blogs... I had this poem which started,

"I have never known a word of criticism not intended for the self."

(always start with long lines it seems, "In early June I took my place upon a chequer floor" - should look at poetry formally some time...2do)

It seems whatever you say, or anyone says to you in criticism in actual fact it is always about the speaker. This seems to be the nature of criticism.

Can only think of one reason why at the moment: whatever measure I chose to judge you with, it is me who chose the measure. Now why should we instinctively chose the measure that really applies to us?

My mother calls me selfish at the moment, but actually I can see that what has happened is she has grown so used to being alone that the company of another is considered an invasion of her privacy. She feels this as invasion and so accuses me of taking liberties and being selfish. Well I've done everything I can to help and on a few occasions shown her that actually i was not being selfish. She's calmed down, but still has a few flare ups.

The difference here from the situation at work is that while she thinks "I am your mother" in response to any threat its not quite clear what authority this entitles her to. She gets off her high horse and watches and listens eventually. The system of capital leads weak people to really believe they have ontological authority however. Thus I imagine it is pathological throughout industry that the last person to ever realise they are wrong is the "boss". In actual fact it is just the rules of the game which give this illusion, anyone can be wrong at any time. Or to put another way, how would we ever know if we were wrong if we didn't listen (at least to Reality or God)?

So the Terrorist stunt falls rather flat because the Americans have stopped listening, believing that now is the moment for the Global American Empire before it has even come to fruition. Hubris is alive and well.

Structuralism is wrong!

The Ouroboros strikes again...

Structuralism says that things gain their meaning from their context and position within a structure. So what position does Structuralism take in the system?

This occured to me as I sort pictures - bear with me another procedure. I'm using the recycle bin to collect deleted pictures and if I make a mistake I can restore it from the bin. However like a real bin you can't view the pictures in the bin, you need to take them out. I've created a folder in which to move them and called it the "bin floor", named after the usual procedure of emptying the bin onto the floor to find something you chucked out. But its not "really" the bin floor its another folder in a computer memory with a nice graphic display on a computer screen - its an illusion designed to fool me. It gets its name from being used like the bin floor. This is an example of Structuralism - it has the same context in this game as the floor. But it isn't the floor.

We all sense there is something wrong with Structuralism. Meaning is not just linguistic games, but you try and say how S is wrong and they'll hammer you. We'll let the Ouroboros ask them how they are right for a change ;-) and do so using language ONLY.

The Dark Void

There is a Light Void, one of infinite love and bliss (called Heaven normally). It is infinite because it has no shape - that is why it is called Void.

For me however I fear there is a chasm that lies between me and this world of light, a Dark Void. Maybe it is just me; maybe it is a universal experience? We know that Buddha defeated the demons and brought light to this darkness. We know that Jesus did the same.

In particular I first encountered it on a walk in 1995. My first self-organised adventure with my girlfriend. Nothing miraculous but some good distances covered at low level in the Lake District. On the third day I think I was physically tired and we had strived to reach a camp site (not free camping in those days - my approach has evolved over a long time). Arriving we found it full. We walked to the next site about 6 miles away. I was already exhausted. When we arrived this was not even open. There was another camp site, but pushed to the limit we decided given that no-one was around to camp on the hill behind. We erected the tent, my inside energy was far down like an empty battery. I climbed into the darkness of the tent to spread out our things and I fell, not into a tent but into a dark hole as though the ground has opened up beneath my heart and I was falling. It was like drowning. Expecting relief if not exhilaration after the walk, I was met with complete despairing emptiness. This is the dark void. It is endless loneliness, it is depression, sadness, profound melancholy. Its not terminal, like sinking in the sea you eventually find your feet on a sort of bottom (that moment in the film Abyss) - and then there is relief and strength again.

My girlfriend was extremely supportive and realised something was up. She dragged me off down the hill to a pub and we had fish and chips twice and a beer. A glow began to flicker in my heart again and I began to pull myself out.

I've just gone through the backlog of 6000 photos amassed over the last 4 years. Extraordinary how I can remember almost every single picture. But this has always been a tricky place for me. As a child I had a rule never to photograph anyone because I knew that in the future looking at that picture I would miss them, I would miss that time. Time is this Dark Void, while Time brings new things, for me this is overwhelmingly dominated by the sense that it will take away everything, both what you have had and also the things that it promises you. I've been born with this sense - I've no reason to be sensitive to loss. Lost a few pets but nothing unsual. It is bittery ironic then that this sensitivity has been played out in reality - the loss of "my muse" in a thousand different ways - from parting at the end of an evening out, to parting for good, to parting for good again. I knew this was going to happen, it is like I've watched this film before but forgotten what happens. Am I repeating a past life? The Dark Void has taken her like it does everything.

Anyway there is a risk in dwelling on this too much in one go, of slipping of into depression, not that this matters, its just a bit difficult to be enjoy one's social duties when depressed. That's the battle, but looking at the war The Dark Void poses an intriguing quest, a chance to don the armour and get some action. I make forays into this place regularly. A lot of my solo walking must have been inspired by this. When one enters the Dark Void with head up high, a religious icon as companion and in my case the watchful eye of Nature with you there is not much that can go wrong. What looks foreboding becomes a source of great achievement and peace. Certainly we know that through this dim place with only fragile flame for light lies the land of infinite bliss and light. Sounding a bit Pilgrims Progress here but faith in that is the strongest weapon. Of course the darkness will fight back with its most powerful tool which is doubt - if you give into that the flame goes out and then it's a very very much longer journey!

So that's a note on this aspect of the situation - the quest for a path through sadness and loss. I've no way of knowing if this is a personal or universal quest now.

I am selfish, the bulldozer

The distinction between an objective search for meaning in Life in general, and a personal search are very blurred, but I imagine this is a good thing because if they weren't then it wouldn't be very honest or real, but at the same time the more personal it gets the less interesting to others ... except as an particular example of an existential quest. This the great dialectic between the universal and the particular (an apple must be both a unique thing, but also be in common with all other apples). Is a blog the right form for a diary of this nature? What is the meaning of public/private in literature anyway? Anyway ... I am selfish...

This is dawning on me slowly. The problem has been that it is very difficult to understand what "selfishness" is. Firstly the moment of insight... just now while sorting photos from years ago I found a famous (in our world) picture of an ex-girlfriend pulling a very hurt face after an argument. I had left her by the path for 20minutes while I went in search of a cave, I cannot have been more than an hour in the end and she lost it. I always thought she had over reacted, but I just noted today that this was her birthday weekend! There are photos of smiles as she stands in the big heart and birthday message etched across the sand of a deserted beach and in the restaurant. Now I realise this is me all over. To my eternal shame another ex-girlfriend years before had become pregnant and an extremely stressful few weeks ended with me pressuring her to a termination (the argument being that the relationship was not on solid legs and while she was ready to go it alone, this was half my responsibility and I was not ready for it). Thurs 2 November 1995 at about midday was the day that my only child was abandoned by me. I have no idea whether I would have made a good father, or whether Alex would have been happy with what I had to offer.. I exchanged that world for this which was supposed to be better! The real shame however came after the termination. I was so relieved and focused on a return to normality that I asked my girlfriend to walk back home from the hospital!! We took a taxi in the end but i was not understanding. That weekend was bonfire night and I remember regaining unaware of her physical and emotional state. This was pure fascism in every sense of the word. How I can have been so blind is hard for me to ever understand, but at the same time I am not faced with a sudden brush with a complete life changing experience at the moment.

So yes I can be very fascist even in the face of obvious signals (her birthday, her discomfort) ... I am selfish. So how does this arise? Where is the confusion?

One check for selfishness is to run a quick check in our own heads about whether we are doing anything wrong. Usually this check passes! Its not often we find ourselves with a gun to an innocent persons head! Sadly this check is often all that I at least run.

There is another very important check, but much harder to run. Are the people who disagree with me right. And an even harder test to run, could there be someone who I don't know about who would be right to disagree with me.

I've written that last paragraph is the most ignorant way I can, but this is the level of the problem. This is also why my breaks in Life are fully slammed on at the moment!

The problem with doing things, having desires, drives, wishes, goals is that often the bull dozer just keeps trundling along even after the driver has got confused. The wars at the moment spectacular - and I keep going on about them but they are such obvious symptoms of huge institutional problems currently in our Lives - examples of this. Well I'm confused so I'm trying to switch off the bull dozer.

It seems the only way to get things done is by force. Often its not overt, but its political force, social force. Indeed that idea from 1994 of "Harmonic Structuralism" fits well. The bigger the social group the more force is can apply both externally and internally. There must be a kind of critical mass in social forces - like stock market bubbles - self organising criticalities and their ilk. In 1994 I was arguing that degree of morality can be mapped to group size. Cohesive internal logics being better than those which can only achieve small size. Selection thus unavoidably pushes mankind toward more moral, better systems with more harmonious internal logics. Kind of true actually. But it aint the whole truth - I read Buddhism since then (starting 1996) - I'm back to a more Modernist belief in a timeless truth that can be discovered at any time and place -not evolutionary.

But force suggests to me "going against" nature. If a force exists use it, don't fight it. If water flows down hill then drink it at the bottom of the hill, don't try and drink it at the top. If I child wants to play instead of study then turn the study into play. If I child doesn't want to eat then let it go hungry. It will learn very soon that food has a natural place in the world. It need not be a struggle between parent and child. Nature will teach a child all by itself I believe, as indeed it has taught Mankind (who taught us anyway?).

Where I am selfish and wrong is that I have plans and thought out views of things which get the bull dozer going and once it's off, any Palestinians in the way will get squashed. And, the fear of stopping the bull dozer is that once it stops it won't start again. How many times do people (in addition to me) argue that we can't stop the current process otherwise it will never end... how circular is that. Useful argument sometime though - Northern Ireland peace process' famous objective to "keep the bicycle upright and moving" i.e. to stay upright it needs to be moving. But, I always return to the Nazis as a warning - look what happens where an out of control bull dozer careers off the road (Israel "too" (pun) ironically)!

So how to balance forward movement (attainment of goals and desires) with consideration and inclusion of all parties... i.e. perfect non-fascism. That is the big question for me... I realise something I have been working at all my life beneath the surface...

Also realised this morning the important things are the simple things. Something incredibly simple about my principles/approach becamse clear this morning but I forgot it.

I can certainly recommend to anyone "time out" to contemplate in depth the minute motivations and principles which drive them - partly to correct faulty ones, partly to understand oneself so that we understand why we respond to the world the way we do, and partly to understand what we need in Life. This is the current process, I can see what is happeneing now. It's very simple too, I need to keep this simple.

A Summary of most ideas so far...

Just thinking aloud - I think I'm almost thru this phase of the analysis of life... and isn't work, social structure, social rules, class, culture, money, shopping and property and HUGE chunk of archaeology that needs to be digested!

Back to basics: "Money" is a non consumable store of wealth prior to exchange for consumable goods [very broad definition]. So grain is not a good store of wealth because it rots, and so makes poor money, but it has the advantage of being "real" wealth since we Really need to eat. That which we need tends not to be a good store of wealth. Unfortunate irony there that to be rich is to fill our house with useless things!

But what is the point of having lots of money? In its simplest analysis it is to ensure the ability of future exchanges for consuambles.

Split consuambles into Real consumables (those needed for life) and Luxury consumables like this computer I write upon. I've re-proven I can write on paper, however I can't publish so easily, but then does anyone really "need" to read all this? Only advantage to this process is that airing one's progress enables valuable input along the way rather than all at the end. So there is some necessity to this, but I've received 1 comment so far so all the technology amounts to very little. Its luxury.

But recently the analysis in this blog has taken this a a whole lot further and shown this is not even half the picture. Social structure and participation appears to be the real nature of the matrix.

Looking at Money economically misses the point, its use is to tie together the social fabric.

As if we still need to worry about the necessities in life in western post-industrial society. Of the 60million in the UK only 50% are eligible to work, and only 1% of those work in agriculture: that is 300,000 in farming in the UK. 75% in services!

The work we do in the UK does not actually address necessities like in the common model, it addresses luxuries. In other words if we didn't do it it wouldn't make much material difference!

The figures are skewed because things are interconnected. Without oil, electricity, water, roads, processing plants, mines, chemistry, genetics the agricultural sector wouldn't be so efficient but it would be interesting to work out just how many man-hours are needed each year to keep us all in a fixed and comfortable standard of living. With advances in efficiency and technology each generation should see a reduction in the hours required to do the same work. This is how technology was sold in the 60s - labour saving. If we can produce the same for less work, our labour becomes more valuable and we should get paid more. But then less people need to work, so redundancies ensue and labour-wages stop being the best distribution system. Fundamental problems that need addressing in the near future - especially since we are trying to "Go Green" the fundamental way being to just shrink the economy and stop working! (No-one ever talks about this stuff.. amazing. Am I really the first?)

But, all this overlooks the real purpose: society. The reason why we continue to sail down this river of eternal toil and labour even despite many millenia of gradual improvement in efficiency and technology is because we are driven not by lifes necessities but by societies structure.

Labour, salary and capital are king-pins in our understanding of "civilisation". Without these no-one has any idea at all how to think about "life". It would be chaos if we didn't need to go to work. What would we do? This is the "nothing hour" problem which at least I've a name for now. How would we decide who got what? How would we decide who was top dog and who was subordinate? Sadly we might regress to fights which is more a reflection on how little evolution has really been effected by "civilsation" so far. Odd thing to note: the higher up the system you go the more regressive things seem to get - it is only countries that are sanctioned to fight today. The rest of use have to be civilsed. Strange to think I am more civilsed than Great Britain who has a very long history of fighting! I have never physically fought (couple of skirmishes at school maybe) and am even trying to reduce my rhetorical skirmishes - how civilsed is that!

It seems that "society" not just for me, but for people in general, is a very hard thing to maintain and develop.

I realise I hold a very ideal and radical notion of society - quite religious. Society is an already existing fabric (or potential) which enables us as human agents to interact. It is not the interactions which form society (as I read recently Tim Ingold argues), but the society that enables the interaction.

NOTE: desert island analyses to come. Explaining things Lord of the Fly style is a very useful analysis technique. Do it!

Two human beings on a desert island who have never met are most probably already involved in a society. If they speak a language for example the chances are that language had a common root somewhere in history. They are already embedded into a common world thereby. Even if it is only sign language they will have a communion. Even if it takes the form of throwing stones at each other, they have already engaged into a game which presumes rules that they must have already known. Where did this possibility of meaninful interaction come from (we don't think of human beings interacting like ball and racket, we assume meaning)? Do we really think that two people meeting on a desert island will have to start from a blank slate, no matter how disparate their origins. They already exist in a society before they even meet which furnishes them with all the tools to interact.

With this view of society we respect all humans before we even interact with them. Infact we respect all things treating them as what they are (viz. definition of 'fascism' which is to define ones interaction with some thing, based upon one's own side only). The potential for interaction is already laid - we can only utilise that potential for good or bad(fascism).

Sadly many, quite educated, people seem to think that humans might really exist separate on a desert island until they meet. Then they can chose whether to meet again and make society, or agree to build a wall and never meet again. What a fragile and limp notion of society and human interaction this is. Borrow a term from Marx and Freud - this is the worst part of Bouregois Ego. I have few interactions with people these days. I am seeking perfection, and I am not finding it in my interactions. Situations with girl-friends, bosses, society just don't gel - I have too many disagreement, imperfections to be satisfied with these badly formed relationships. But that is only the form my society takes. But, this does not stop me examining society and writing! Why is this? It is because I am part of society already (to be an "I" presupposes this!) how I express that in free/exploitative, textual/physical, sexual/non-sexual relationships is superficial... although it emerges that society is truthfully expressed in "good" relationships not bad (a definition).

[Mum just accused me of wasting my time as opposed to having a job. It is remarkable how ideas get absorbed without any real understanding how to use them. I simply said to her if I hired someone to do this, so that it was their job, would it then not be a waste of time? On that logic why not hire myself and pay myself, which while I am working is financially zero sum and makes employment pointless - Ergo: Employment is not the same as working - good old Ouroboros :-) He is called Jörmungandr in Norse and I read recently was one of the 3 evil progeny of Loki who would finally defeat Thor at the Ragnarök .. 1 less day to work then with no Thorsdays ;-) ... unusualy that the Ouroboros is an evil entity here - I can't decide whether it is delusive or enlightening - still to satisfy that self-reference issue which it encapsulates (tho ina tail in mouth way)]

[is it interesting to use the ! symbol in place of the I? So that ! might say, what ! really want to do is divert texts away from ontologising the self or maybe ! could use the '!' for all terms which refer to self? so that it deontologises the ! completely. Only problem is the keyboard layout.]

Finally a note on "sidedness" I noted in the preceeding blog. Contemplating a stone how can it be anything other than one sided - the stone has no thoughts, feeling or wishes of its own. Surely we can do what we please with a stone. This is the heart of the problem with Nature. Try and chew a stone and it will break your teeth (if its harder than 5 on Mohs hardness scale - given that enamel is hydroxylapatite a baaad joke: Q: what do healthy french teeth say to each other before a meal? A: bon-apatite ;-). The stone has its own nature which we need to be aware of in a relationship with the stone. The fascist might get angry at the stone for scratching his teeth and have it pounded with a hammer - but the fault lies with the fascist because the stone "did" nothing (interesting... another note here on "doing"). Thus we have a two sided relationship with the stone. The stone has its own Nature which must be respected first in any relationship. This nature belongs to the stone, the process of gaining knowledge of that nature begins then with respect for the stone. Oddly knowledges are often named after people. Take "Newton's" Laws of motion. He discovered them and codified them so "F=Ma" is Newton's, but the motion that it describes if anyone's at all belongs to God. After all the 'F=Ma' is only famous, and Newton by association, because of its correspondence with actual physical motion! Really it was Newton gaining the name of Nature which made him so successful. Humility and respect are the attitudes, even to a stone, that enable ironically humans to have such power. Watch a stone carefully, listen to it with utmost attention and you can master it! That is the lesson in science. How much more then should we listen and pay attention to our fellow animals and even more so people! What still confuses me here is that in a conscious interaction there are two fronts. There is the other-side as in a stone relationship, but there is the other-side in the conscious relationship also - that is where the problems for me occur - my own consciousness needs to grow here so this will come in time.

[After much private thought I'm introducting the double comma. Exactly like the double quotation " versus the single ', so separate lists of sublists - you will see in the next paragraph... it's practical to double then recursively, though it is hard to read I grant.. I'll try]

Quick note (and I'm tired of thinking and writing for the now). A fascist grows angry at the stone and curses, "look what you have done now". There is a sense when Nature acts that it is doing something. It is not intentional but is it wrong to say that things are "done". Mountains are built and decayed, water evaporates,, rain falls and rivers flow, creatures grow and decay, the sun shines. For the economy to do this would be impossible. It is vast immeasurable amounts of work, there must be some doing? What this highlights is that when we talk of "doing" we are not referring to any real "work", or effect that is produced we are talking about the intentions and human will behind that physical eventing. Sir Christopher Wren "did" St Pauls cathedral, not because he raised a finger toward the construction but because it was his Will that was effected. So in accordance with the analysis at the top that "work" is not a measure of energy expended, or things done but rather on Wills exacted, and the mediation of wills is achieved through the social order (which is an expression of the potential for society in human beings).

Which all flies in the face of the fact that no-matter what the social order, or the strength of people's will it is the food that is made and the water that is cleansed that fuels our Life.

OK so that lengthy refluxing of ideas separates two opposing substances: Nature and Will. Without nature we die. Will wishes to subsume this logic.

The Greatest moment in Western History: Law again

Two thousand years ago a shockwave was felt in the middle East that has spread out in all directions, upsetting the Jewish order and standing opposed to the Arab world and Islam today. The ancient Babylonian law written down by Hammurabi and having existed for almost two millenia itself that for an eye one should pay with their eye, was famously challenged on a hillside beside Galilee. This was the most momentous event in Western history.

I won't take side and say whether Jesus was right, only to note that he sets up a dualism between two opposing views and confusions at the heart of the notion of justice.

Jesus would not dispute I am sure a central rule of thumb of morality (a categorical imperative in Kant) that we should do to others as we would like done unto us (in olde speak). He says amongst humans the greatest rule is to love our enemies as we love ourselves - people know what it is to love oneself (side with one's own side), he only asks that we extend that to others (side with them equally). When we act then, act with the same consideration for others as we do for ourselves - in modern talk be objective (that is inter-personally, not impersonally and materially cos humans ain't stones).

One might argue from this that when someone does wrong, that wrong arises because they did not give due consideration to the other party. The logical response then would be to teach them of their short sightedness and Hammurabi argues this is best done by showing them, by recreating it, the impact of what they have done for the Other person - i.e. have it done to them.

However one may dispute the apparent logic of this. If it is wrong to kill, then is killing a murderer not an act of killing? It should also be noted that while losing an eye may teach someone, killing will not!

There are many arguments for capital punishment like deterrent, cheaper than imprisonment, punishment but they are not the realm of morality.

Jesus argues on the other hand that we suffer the slings and arrows, the iniquities, of selfish men and the tyranny of evil people, and more we offer ourselves again. What does the wrong doer learn from this?

Well this is the path I have tested and miraculously it works. The problem with the former and I'll expand and argue this more in the future I'm sure is that Hammurabi's system can lead to resentment. People misunderstand the rules as fascism which leads to two problems: 1) they think if they can get away with it them it isn't wrong (2) they think the state is effectively sanctioning such behaviour for the powerful. This is what has happened today. People live in fear and ignorance rather than get to the root.

The root is what I have argued at length now - morality IS reality. A heavy hand simply covers up ignorance of this. What Jesus teaches does not take command of wrong doers, it asks them to take command! Their wrong doing arises precisely because they have not taken command.

On realising that they have complete power over you two things can happen to a wrong doer: they either slip into sadism and cruelty or they can experience the need for mercy. This is not what Jesus is asking, we do not turn the other cheek so that we can be pummelled into the ground.

I believe we turn the other cheek to show that really we are stronger. It defuses the attack, it shows the assailant that our love for them is greater than that for ourselves. Our love lies in the fact that while they wish us harm, we do not wish them harm, we love them. We see their actions as wrong not to us, but to them! If someone punches you out of anger, you will experience the fear, rage and other emotions and attitudes that arise from self love. But if you have love for others you will experience the sadness that this person is feeling anger themselves, that they have experienced you with such hostility, that their world is not such a nice world to love in. You would wish that did not attack you, not because of self love, but because you wish them to live in a peaceful world where they do not need to attack. If you can do this I can guarentee that the assailant will break-down because at heart this is all we seek for in this world - recognition of our own souls so that we might live again. When God says he loves us, he says it to our souls so that they might live again.

While I am born protestant and realise here that what I am saying is exactly Lutherian Christianity I believe I've arrived at these arguments from diverse sources including Buddhism (which has no proven direct link to Christianity).

Obviously these are the action of a saint. But, we should be aware that behind our self-love lives love-for-others which we should try and identify and cultivate whenever we can. Certainly I failed at work here! Very little love for the bosses, who I still think of as beyond help and terminally ignorant and stupid. This I try to solve for my own sake!

A problem does arrise though because Christian and Jewish/Islamic codes do differ here. We argue about Sharia law in UK at the moment - in my understanding while it is practical it seems to have missed the whole angle on "love".

As argued the Rules are laid down by the Rulers who are the wise who measure our behaviour so that we are advised to do what is in accordance with the Laws of Reality who is the unfailing and inevitable judge of what we do. This is why Church and State have no choice but to be combined. We have 3 Realities in UK : the Traditions of the Class system and Monarchy, the Realities of the Church and the practical realities of the government. They should inform one another equally, but instead they are split: absurd. Iran strangely is far superior in this department!

p.s. to last night. Authourities do have a part to play it seems in game theory, since they standardise the rules. Thus people in London and Newcastle drive on the same side of the road. This is the scope of secular government activity.

Ruling on the rules of football however is different because football has no impact on reality. It matters not how we play football, it could be like rugby, it could be like tennis and only a change of rules stands between these games. They exist because of the rules alone - in other words the rules don't describe a reality - the reality IS the rules - like in all fiction.

Law & Rule and His Great Works

Well this was opvious! Dunno why it took so long.

> A Law cannot be broken, it describes Reality.
> A Rule exists because it can be broken (and we must remember not to break it).

The two are so fundamentally different I'm amazed that English is so naive as to still use the same word for both.

It must be a hangover from the days of the Divine right of kings, where they likened their power to that of God so that their Earthly decrees should have the same permanence and authority as Reality. Obviously Henry VIII forgot about King Knut (already discussed).

But since there is only Reality then what is the use of rules? And if rules have no use then what use is authority?

They argue that we'd fall into chaos and end up killing each other. Odd thing (as argued before) countless times more people have been forced to kill each other by authority on their own initiative.

Maybe the answer lies in game theory. Rules, that those that govern the game of chess, enable games to be played, and it is games that fuel the fantasies and fictions that dress up our lives. Are their games that we need to play?

Driving on the correct side of the road is a simple example. It is not the side that is important (right in US, left in UK) but that everyone does the same. Thing is what is the use of authority here? It is obvious to anyone which side to drive on, and if we didn't ... its a bit late for the authorities to do anything because... reality strikes! Reality takes care of this one straight away... crunch!

Authority is seems then is just a reminder to stupid people what is the obvious thing to do to avoid unwelcome realities. This fits the analysis of evil, that it is just ignorance. Evil people are stupid and don't see what a bad reality they make for themselves...

[brackets: (... and everyone else). Book I was reading was trying to argue that Buddha originally taught non-personal karma - that bad karma was just that it could not return to you since you didn't exist (non-self). Obviously wrong - but subtle. The opposite is that bad-karma comes down on everyone - which is also wrong because of non-self. Basically bad karma is just that - even to ask "who is it happening to?" we are already deluded.]

So it should be called The Rule where previously it was called The Law. And, what to make of the Rule of Law???, but isn't The Ruler a brilliant term since he is the one who "measures" people's deeds according to the Law (if he is wise and knows reality) or the Rules if he is legal professional - but why measure when Reality is going to happen anyway? more fortune telling then - the wise inform people the impact of their actions and what they might do to correct their mistaken actions - this is the true purpose of the Law - how unbelievable that people speak of such ignorant evils as revenge and Law in the same sentence!]

Easy to see here that really we have made no progress from ancient ideas. Any clarity we think we have with modern legal system is really a fiction designed to paste over the cracks and draw people away from the simple truth that mankind can't alter Reality! We are bound forever by the Laws, no number of clever people can ever change that. God has made the world and the people that lie within, and those people assume his authority at their peril. As Humans our best place is knowers of His great works.

Sophistic argument that I have used before, but want to clarify some time... "All Human Endeavour must be superfluous". Why? because if it was essential then no one could have existed to perform it.

Partly true, but not completely. It points to God again because while we may be able to describe how the universe came to work after the event, we didn't, and logically couldn't, have actually done it! It is like the detective who having examined a crime claims that now he knows how it was done, is the criminal... except that he only arrived on the scene after the crime had happened, and indeed being the detective because it had happened! Meanwhile the criminal is far away. Life is far away, and the detectives of the human race, need to catch up (me being one of them!) but certainly a good way to waste time is to dwell at the crime scene and pretend that I am God.

The Nothing Hour

Once upon a time I would have written a poem, but instead I simply looked at the shags - some grooming, some sleeping on the jetty in the Thames. They had a sense of time about them. The waters of the river racing along below them as the tide slipped away, the tide of people rising as the hour of the weekend approached. It was Friday.

I do not know when the shags came to rest upon their perches; I did not stay to find out when they left; it was time un-packaged, awaiting no delivery, un-stacked, not waiting. This came to call itself the "nothing hour"; I a lone traveller standing on the bank forgetting where I was going beside a flock of sea birds with nowhere to go.

This, the nothing hour, is what our lives are made from. We layer, we mould, we struggled and fuss to paint over it, draw its edges, mow its lawns, build upon it, try to befriend it with dinners and drinks, hang the fairy lights of love from its boughs but it is never amused it simply watches and wonders when we will be seated and calm.

My Greatest Work of Art + more examination of jobs

Was thinking recently my sacking from work was my greatest work of art yet... as good as anything that "my muse" inspired ... a dance performed by many people some conscious and some unconscious of the art work ... layered and ironic.

Talking to my uncle today who used to manage the maintenance of nuclear submarines it became clear where my disagreements lie (tell the truth?). People are paid according to their skill. Thus if someone from a highly skilled guild stands in for a lower skilled worker, they still get the higher wage.

Now compare this with the free market. I have discussed the distribution of wealth many times and how their is no real connection between work and pay. The best foundation of the link lies in the free market. Jobs which are easily filled have a low wage, and the converse is true. Certain trades then have to form cartels (doctors, accountants, solicitors, chartered ... etc) so that they can maintain supply and fix wages at the same time. Other types of unions achieve the same purpose. However if everyone fixed wages above the free market level the system would not work so governments are traditionally heavy handed with nurses, teachers, etc.

So there are two systems at work. There is the free market (supply/demand) determination of wage and there is the Traditional. Now to my mind only the former has any meaning. Why? Well, it is true that society has a long history and the appeal of certain jobs goes beyond what they actually do - the meaning of certain jobs like soldier is quite different from what it actually is (killing... and yes soldiers do other things but kill... but if a carpenter has a saw as his tool, what does a man with a gun as his tool do?). So in a "fictional" way there is meaning to jobs. But as is clear from the direction this blog has taken I am not interested in fictions here, only truth.

The truth is seems is that a job exists for what it does. If it makes nothing that can be sold then it cannot be paid. If it makes something that is saleable then it gets paid. That is the Law (truth). It has been obscured by history and injustice, but this is where money comes from - it does not grow on trees as the Capitalists secretly believe. What is made need not be physical obviously: a book can be sold, and idea, a lie even!

Now this is not the way things are. Jobs have become a complex cocktail of life's unexamined issues - most importantly the question of "what to do?". When we are working this problem seems solved.. but it isn't. Working is just an avoidance... unless we are working because of what we do, not doing what the job requires.

So the point of view that has become very clear recently links a whole lot from this blog. Being "in a job", and being "out of a job" are meaningless ideas. Does our life stop when we don't have a job? Does it start when we do? It might seem like this if we have no clue what our life is about, in which case a "job" is just avoidance. If we have a meaning to our life, and our actions have meaning then it makes no difference what packaging we have. The only difference is that we may be poor, or rich as a result. But if we are true then surely it follows that our actions will have value, and therefore must be saleable, or at least support us? This is the faith that we must have to be free, otherwise we live in fear and become dressed by our expectations rather than by what we do and what is meaningful.

It follows that if I have any meaning of life myself it should be present in the authenticity and truth of what I say here. The two are interestingly connected!

So its obvious really but we become a doctor because we want to help people to be free from disease. We do not become a doctor to please our parents, or have lots of money, or belong to the highly qualified class etc ... this is obvious right? It is just that the world has become very deluded over the centuries.

So put the Plays back on the stage and find our true lives seems to be the calling.

Pulp Fiction and morality

I was just watching Pulp Fiction last night - a simply superb film and one of the most rewatchable I think there is.

I was washing up during a part of it: where Marcellus gets raped (which is one of the funniest moments in cinema :-) and Butch returns to sort things out. Through the stylised posing with japanese blades it is a moment of kindness toward Marcellus. There is a good morality which runs through the film.

But while washing up I took a kitchen knife and held it to my finger to examine what this meant in reality. What if I did just decide to slice my finger off? Thoughts like this can drive you mad, and if you have OCD they can seem to get very dangerous, and if you are depressed you might just think it is a good idea to harm oneself. But with a strong enough mind to fight off the distrortions that arise it is actually a situation like oil and water. A knife belongs no where near my finger, and to cut my finger off is (while possible in the imagination) makes no more sense than rain falling upwards. There are many delusions swirling in the mind (I mentioned a few at the start of the paragraph) which cloud the issue but in reality the two simply don't fit together.

Looking again at Pulp Fiction one can see the illusions that it has created. The gangster world of people set against one another, polarised in a sequence of mexican style stand offs (the hallmark of Tarentino), the violence and style with which they interact a pantomime of carefully crafted illusions. It is believeable world, one that we enjoy being part of - the result of two centuries of American culture and before that European input.

But, in reality, it is absolute fantasy. Every single part of it could never be real. Yes people may carry guns and shoot one another - but the reality is not what we see in Pulp Fiction. This then turns to the press in the UK at the moment and moral panic about youth violence.

It is an extraordinary world we like in where filmic illusions are played out by people in reality. In true reality our relationship with all things is one of non-violence. A stone cannot commit violence against another stone, an arm cannot commit violence against another arm. It is our interpretation of the events that makes it violence or non-violence. The youths stabbing one another I doubt sees this - they have believed that worlds like Pulp Fiction or that manufactured by 2Pac (who believed it himself) are real. But looking slowly and carefully it is like crafting a ducks head onto an orange: it only works in make believe.

We criticise the kids but the politicians are equally at fault. The recent spate of wars are simply no different from youth crime: why the press sanctions one and not the other is another illusion. But, I must be careful not to let such thoughts sour my relationship with the people in the press or the politicians.

So finally I saw it clearly. Good and Evil has always been a Christian struggle for me between the nobility of the good and the temptations of the evil, yet they say that the Enlightened are beyond good and evil. Plato would agree that evil is not a struggle against temptation, so much as a struggl;e against ignorance. It is not selfish men or the tyranny of evil which beset the righteous man, but simply illusion. When we are fooled by illusion then we develop wishes and desires which have no reality, and then we commit evil. But with mind freed from mistaken seeing then reality is just that and what we do in accordance with reality is only good. That is what Goodness is, no more and no less than Reality.

This kind of fits with my analysis of Law (previous blogs). Scientific and Religious law share the common feature that you cannot break these Laws: they are Laws of reality - they represent how things are they are the truth. They are the word of God.

Legal law however is quite different. It is a measure: a ruler: It is logos. We are judged by the law to be on one side or the other. It is not that we could not break the law - it doesn't govern action like this - it simply decides where our actions have fallen according to a standard. The standard being a complex amalgam of religious, cultural and procedural rules.

In reality if I stab someone then sadly for me the consequences are already under way. Such an action doesn't happen by accident and I must have a profound cloud of illusion about me to have performed such an action, a cloud which this action will have fuelled. I can expect a life of hostility, confusion, anger, hatred, loss and pain simply from this action. The legal system is only there to catch me with its scales and to help me from spiralling further into illusion.

Its a simple understanding. Good and Evil are thoughts belonging to us the illusioned. I think this was good and that was bad as I reflect upon my confused actions in life. But what I call Good now will when I am purer and wiser become simple the natural and obvious course. Often people call this process habit, it is more: it is the seeing things truthfully and our being straightforward and honest.

I have made a big mistake - Society

I was reading some Tim Ingold essays last week. The book sort of lept out at me while I was heading toward the Buddhism section - and there is a funny thing everything I am reading at the moment from ancient history to anthropology to Buddhism to literature all seems connected. Instantly I like his reasoning, and I realised a huge mistake in my thinking so far: Society.

Society has been left left out of my bottom up approach of late. Tim Ingold argues that Society is not some expansive structure which moulds its components, nor is it the result of underlying subconscious processes either: it occurs in the everyday conscious processes of willing agents.

It occurred to me that taking part in the vast ocean of human interaction was something that I have progressively cut myself off from in a Cartesian way, beginning to doubt the wholesomeness of everything. The Iraq war was the icing on the cake. The people that surround me are ostensible idiots and this self generated proclaimation has damaged my relationship with them and society.

For Ingold the meaning of life arises out of the nexus of interaction that gives things their meaning. Culture and society are not to be seem as identical. Culture is a tool that is used by the agents of society to order their lives. Ingold goes so far as to say that consciousness IS this ocean of interaction (although I must have misread him because of the contradiction that on one hand being conscious is a precondition of taking part in society, but on the other it is also identified with society). It is also the

But this is good enough to identify my mistake. In its simplest version our meaning of life can only be sought in our relationship with others.

However like everything this only goes so far: enter the Ouroboros. Ingold is then saying that the meaning in his life has been manufactured from his intellectual relationship with readers like myself (and mine in reverse). This duplicates the hypothesis of which we talk: firstly the hypothesis in its ordinary meaning of language interaction and secondly in its social meaning of inter-personal interaction. This hypothesis is more than just a ball to be tossed about, it is proposing that it can see itself in the mirror: it talks of meaning being constructed in relationships, and in so doing it sets up a relationship: it talks of something which it actually is. Does this mean then that we can talk of a relationship in terms that are beyond actual relationship, or is actual relationship required for us to talk about it, or are they same and how would we know the difference without another relationship ad infinitum.

So the model breaks down it seems as the extreme limits like everything. But again it has been supremely useful. Arriving at the Buddhist section the next day after my Ingold distraction I realised that Buddha is saying the same thing. Our mind exists in our relationships and the spiritual path is none other than improving our relationships with people. Improving what we do, what we say and what we think.

This is the root of all human life: our relationship with people, and our striving to improve that relation. Well there is a lot of work to do and it doesn't happen all of a sudden!

My leaving work has not improved my relationship with them, but it has bought me this time to think and reorganise the army. Karmically I will be entering exactly the same abusive relationship I had with the bosses at work (they are abusive people). And, while I had been practicing Buddhism for all my time work I never managed to stop the relationship being abusive. They (the bosses) have very deep character flaws and indeed it was my duty as another human being to help them manage those. I lost it eventually and I too became flawed, the relationship broke down even more than before.

But it is good, the river flows on and we gain the experience we need to travel the next section.

So a mark in the sand here. Never step back over the re-re-realisation (for I keep getting reminded of this) that it is in human relationships alone that we find life.

p.s. at least that is stage 1. I have struggled in my webpage for a much, much greater concept of relationship: that which includes all things both animate and inanimate. (That webpage is due for an overhaul. The process which began there and runs through this blog should condense again soon into another webpage - with a focus on clarity and usability!).

Revised Principles again...

My father taught me this:

God, grant me the grace to accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference.

This fits well with the "what is" principle. This is working it is very good. Before we do anything be sensitive and well aware of they way things are. Accept these as a starting point.

Certainly I'm reconsidering where I am, and rather than trying to shift the world to how it seems it should be, I realise one must start with how it is regardless how unpleasant or ridiculous this may seem. Start passive, action should grow as a seed in good soil.

Home
I for get this that the concept of home is no more than a good meal and a place to sleep. These I have found (and blogged before) are all that are needed to give the sense of home be that place to sleep in a 4-poster bed or under a tree.

Wealth Distribution

I was taught by my father that if you do not work then you do not deserve pay. It is an attractive and logical axiom - in "the state of nature" one is led to believe that mankind flourished on the work that he did. One has a wealth of belief connected with this - things like laziness, madness, criminality (a complex syndrome).

If one looks with fresh eyes it does quite work. The existence of voluntary and charity work suggest that there is lots of work that people think needs doing which does not get directly paid in the normal market structure. You have artists also like Van Gogh whose work was never recognised by the contemporary market. You have parents who do the single most important job in the community. Not so long ago well over half the population was unemployed - children, wives and the elderly. Some how the 30% or so of the population, the working men, distributed their wealth quite successfully to the rest of society.

On the other extreme you have people being paid without working for example the capital holders upon which the current system is founded. They get paid twice. Once for the work they did (or their forefathers did, or their subjects did and were taxed) and then again many times more on the capital they have accumulated. There are also lottery winners and those with inheritance who have wealth without working.

Looking again even at the micro level the distribution of work doesn't fit the pattern. We know that the concept of a salary does not correlate with a fixed amount of work - sometimes more and sometimes less.

The relationship between work and pay is almost indefinable - it is a myth upon which the current hegemony is founded. I always like the analogy with the game Monopoly - the current system for all its pomp and seriousness is no more than a huge game of Monopoly that has been championed because the winners like being"winners" - which they wouldn't be were the rules to change as they did during the switch from aristocracy to bourgeois. (Which was just a change of name because the structure remained the same.)

The question however once we accept that the economic hegemony has no foundation in reality is what exactly is "reality", or what system could we have?