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Archive for June, 2014

Love not fear

Posted in education, from the living room, from the viewing room, life, perception, personal growth, philosophy, psychology, video on June 18, 2014| Leave a Comment »

I’ve often thought about the question attributed to Albert Einstein (although I think he didn’t actually ever pose it!)

The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe

Whether he said it or not, it’s still an interesting question which highlights how our beliefs inform our choices. If we believe the universe is hostile then we see ourselves in a constant battle for survival, if we see it as friendly then we call to it for support, and if we think it is neither then maybe we make choices based on the essential meaningless and randomness of life.

OK, I think that is too simplistic and in fact there are no clear answers to this question, but I do think the useful point is about influences. I do believe your choices are informed by your beliefs. Simple, everyday beliefs. Is it safe to walk down this street? Are strangers likely to attack you? Are your friends likely to act in your best interests? And so on…..

All this came to mind this morning having listened to Jim Carrey’s speech at the Maharishi University. Here’s the ONE minute edit…..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajMpfPYlHi4

(you need to click the link to see the video for this one. Go on, do it now, then come back and read the rest)

So, here’s the key point to think about just now – are you making your choices based on love or fear?

Fear is the main weapon of persuasion in the world, but you don’t need to make it the basis of your life.

What choice will you make today if that choice is to be based on love?

What choice would you make instead if you are basing it on fear?

What are you going to choose?

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The past, today

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, narrative, personal growth, philosophy, photography, psychology on June 17, 2014| 1 Comment »

I reckon we often think about time as a line. We stand at a point on the line and we call that point the present. Everything from the start of the line up to that point is the past. It’s behind us. And everything from that point to the end of the line is the future. It’s ahead of us. In fact, I’ve used just this idea many times in the consulting room.

It’s neat.

But it’s not a good model of reality!

Time in many ways is a more cumulative process. We grow, not by leaving the past behind us. Every moment emerges from the accumulated past. The past is always within us, always present. It’s probably more like the rings of a tree. Each day grows out of all the other days.

 

Emerging branch

 

Henri Bergson puts it this way, in his “Creative Evolution”

……the past grows without ceasing, so also there is no limit to its preservation. Memory, as we have tried to prove, 1 is not a faculty of putting away recollections in a drawer, or of inscribing them in a register. There is no register, no drawer ; there is not even, properly speaking, a faculty, for a faculty works intermittently, when it will or when it can, whilst the piling up of the past upon the past goes on without relaxation……..the past is preserved by itself, automatically……The cerebral mechanism is arranged just so as to drive back into the unconscious almost the whole of this past, and to admit beyond the threshold only that which can cast light on the present situation or further the action now being prepared—in short, only that which can give useful work.
He is saying that we select elements of the past (memories) which might be useful to us in the present. He’s describing something ideal there, explaining something about the mind, but it is really more complex than that, isn’t it? Quite often, it seems, some memory is evoked seemingly against our will, and without it being at all clear that its becoming conscious in a helpful way. But in those moments, in those experiences, we have the opportunities to learn a lot about ourselves.
To what extent do we operate on a kind autopilot ( a major theme of this heroes not zombies site ), with the past memories, habits, loops, paths, somehow running our whole lives?
Not that we can act without these influences. Here’s Bergson again…
it is with our entire past, including the original bent of our soul, that we desire, will and act
Just to put this in context, when he refers to our entire past, he includes what we brought into this world when we were born, not just our accumulated experiences of this life. One common fascinating aspect of that view is our common experience of behaviours and traits which we see in our children or ourselves which seem identical to those of certain predecessors….a father, grandmother, great grandparent, or some other relative who was never alive at the same time as this child.
We don’t have to operate only on autopilot of course. We can develop our understanding of ourselves, become more aware of our present moment, of our choices and why we are making them, and create some small spaces (the neuroscientist’s “necessary distance”) between what comes up and what we do……we can learn to respond rather than react, and in so doing grasp that opportunity to become the active author of our own story.
To become heroes, not zombies.

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Change (or, becoming not being…..)

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, personal growth, philosophy, photography on June 16, 2014| 2 Comments »

Is change like a series of steps….

The Stairway to...

or a continuous flow, like a river….

river

 

Bergson writes, in Creative Evolution

The apparent discontinuity of the psychical life is then due to our attention being fixed on it by a series of separate acts : actually there is only a gentle slope; but in following the broken line of our acts of attention, we think we perceive separate steps.

So, reality is continuously changing. It really is a flow of becoming…….

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The A to Z of Becoming. X is for…..

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, personal growth, photography on June 15, 2014| 1 Comment »

Sailing

In the A to Z of Becoming, I’ve chosen a different verb to focus on every week, starting with a verb beginning with the letter “A” and moving forward through the alphabet. We’re down to the last three now, and if you’ve been following this so far, you’re probably wondering, “what verb starts with an x?”

Well, I wondered about that for a quite a while too (wonder was last week’s verb by the way) and I reckon “xylophone” isn’t a verb, and while I could have chosen “X ray” (which you might think I would have done, given that I’m a doctor), I haven’t done that. I could have mused on looking below the surface of things to what lies on the inside, but I’m not doing that. I could have chosen “X marks the spot” and considered the “here” element of “be here now” – as in “x” marking the spot, right here, where we are now.

We rented an apartment on the outskirts of “Aix en Provence” for a few years, and if you know a little French geography, you’ll know that that beautiful town is pronounced “X en Provence”. That gives the locals a mass of opportunities to use the sound of the letter x at the start of words to describe some of the town’s attractions. I’m going to use one of those this week.

X is for Xcite!

Yep, I know that in English “excite” starts with an “e” but this week it starts with an “x”!

I want to look at this verb from two sides.

What, or who, excites you?

and

What, or who, do you excite?

Think about these questions and maybe take your notebook and see what you can list. When do you feel most excited? Do you feel excited very often? I think it’s wonderful to see little children bouncing with excitement. They are little bundles of energy and happiness in those moments. We lost that, don’t we? I’m not suggesting you start bouncing like a child (but if you want to, please go ahead and give it a go!), but I am suggesting you specifically ask yourself about “excitement” in your life. There must be something, or someone, you find excites you, even if not currently.

And, spend a little time too, on the question, what, or who, do you excite? I reckon we don’t think that way very often. We don’t often consider how we create excitement, where we create excitement, or who we create excitement for.

Go on, make this week a little more XCITING!

 

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Drug taking for health

Posted in from the consulting room, health, life on June 14, 2014| 3 Comments »

There’s a lot of controversy this week about statins because NICE (the body which makes recommendations for the NHS in England) seems about to recommend a huge increase in the number of people taking statins. A group of senior medics have written to the government criticising this recommendation. The letter,

signed by nine doctors and academics including the president of the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), warns “public and professional faith” in the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) could be lost and harm could be done to “many patients over many years”. It accuses the standards body of seeking to “medicalise five million healthy individuals”.

Their criticism includes concern about the quality of the evidence being used by NICE. They say they are….

seriously concerned that eight members of NICE’s panel of 12 experts for its latest guidance have direct financial ties to the pharmaceutical companies that manufacture statins”. They also warn that “overdependence on industry data raises concerns about possible biases”

But whatever you think about the quality of the evidence, do you think it really makes good sense to medicate millions of healthy people? This excellent summary from John Middleton really struck home for me

The Nice proposals suggest putting five million extra people on statins to prevent fewer than 500 deaths a year. For every death postponed, 10,000 people will have to take a statin to no purpose.

Let me just be clear that I understand the potential benefit statins can bring to people who have heart disease, and avoiding strokes and heart attacks is a perfectly reasonable goal. What bothers me is the idea that the way to ensure a healthy life for already healthy people is to get masses of them to take drugs for life. That makes absolutely no sense to me.

Surely, if we want to stack the odds in favour of healthy lives in already healthy people, we need to be making the changes to our society which will ensure healthier ways of living, not prescribing more drugs to more people for more of their lives.

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Bored?

Posted in books, creativity, from the dark room, from the living room, from the music room, from the reading room, life, music, personal growth, philosophy, photography, psychology on June 13, 2014| Leave a Comment »

According to a government report workers who retire early risk “boredom, loneliness and poverty“.

Well, that’s something to look forward to, huh? Strange report – probably part of a fear campaign to try and keep people in employment for longer. What are they suggesting, actually? It’s better to retire later? Or that if you are working, even on a minimum wage, zero hours contract in your 60s and 70s you will avoid “boredom, loneliness and poverty”?

I suspect this kind of thinking says more about how we live than it does about the respective benefits of employment and retirement.

Funnily enough, I just stumbled over this quote from Goethe –

“A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I’ll be continuing to do that once I start my early retirement next month! And much else besides. I’m anticipating that the post-employment years will include lots of discovery, creativity, personal development and fun.

Meantime, here’s a little music

and a little poetry

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

– from Mary Oliver’s The Summer Day

and

Here’s a fine picture

glorious seedhead

 

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Synchronicity

Posted in books, from the living room, from the reading room, life, perception, psychology on June 12, 2014| 1 Comment »

I don’t understand synchronicity but when it happens its always striking and exciting.

About a week ago I bookmarked a transcript of an RSA talk by Guy Claxton, and yesterday I sat down and read it. It’s a fascinating talk about what he terms “glimpses” (what others have termed spiritual or enlightenment experiences). I’ll let you read the full talk yourself, but in that talk he referred to W B Yeats’ poem, “Vacillation”, where he describes just such an experience –

My fiftieth year had come and gone
I sat, a solitary man
In a crowded London shop
An open book, an empty cup
On the marble table-top
While on the shop and street I gazed
My body of a sudden blazed
And, twenty minutes, more or less
It seemed, so great my happiness
That I was blessed, and could bless

Then, later the same day, I was researching the lifespans of different organisms (I’ll tell you why another time) and picked my copy of Richard Fortey’s “Life” off my shelf. I have a beautiful Folio edition which is a complete joy to hold. Imagine my surprise when on page 22, in his first chapter, where he is describing his early experience of an expedition, he writes about having a dispute with his colleague, then waking to a beautiful, perfect day and he says “The joy of such moments healed any differences between us. Like W B Yeats –

My body of a sudden blazed
And, twenty minutes, more or less
It seemed, so great my happiness
That I was blessed, and could bless

I don’t know how that happens. Do you? How do I read the identical passage of poetry in two such different, totally unconnected places within a few hours of each other?

 

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Maslow’s hierarchy of murder

Posted in books, creativity, from the living room, from the reading room, life, personal growth, philosophy, psychology on June 11, 2014| 1 Comment »

Remember Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?

Maslow identified what he called a hierarchy of needs which motivate human beings, starting with survival needs, such as food, drink and shelter, then moving upwards to social needs (relationship needs) of connecting and belonging, to esteem needs of being recognised and respected. Beyond that he postulated being needs, as opposed to these “deficiency needs”, which became evident as self-actualisation, something he thought wouldn’t happen until the lower needs were met.

This hierarchy has been criticised and its certainly not the case that human development follows any rigid, layer by layer, step-wise progression. (I think integral theory provides a more interesting way of looking at old hierarchies – from an integral viewpoint its not so much a hierarchy at all as layers which grow on top of each other with every layer continuing to exist)

Well, Gary Lachman, in his Secret History of Consciousness, mentions the writer, Colin Wilson, once researching the history of murder and finding something curious.

At first it seemed murders were mainly committed for gain – food for example. Then other types of murder appeared, which involved murderers protecting their lifestyle, their homes or their property. Towards the end of the nineteenth century the sex crime emerged (think of Jack the Ripper) where the murder was a kind of sex act in itself. In the twentieth century he noticed the emergence of murders for fame – to become known, and then towards the end of that century the appearance of the “motiveless murder”, the unpredictable, random killing sprees.

Wilson was struck that there was a parallel here with Maslow’s hierarchy – food, the home, sex, self-esteem –  and where did that lead to? Murder as a creative act? Murder as an act of self-actualisation? Wilson rejected this idea, rightly claiming that crime is not a means to self-actualisation. Criminals try to grab what they want, instead of putting in the time and effort to self-actualise. They will murder a celebrity to gain celebrity for example.

He posed the interesting question in relation to this discovery – was murder a kind of Jungian shadow, reflecting the level of development of human consciousness? If so, it might be further evidence that we are indeed moving as a species to a new stage of development, towards a focus on self-actualisation and creativity.

Wow! That’s quite a leap, huh? But certainly a thought provoking one!

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sixes and sevens

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, photography, science on June 10, 2014| 2 Comments »

Any botanists reading this?

If so, what’s going on here?

Why do some of these flowers have six petals…..

Six

and some have seven…….?

Seven

 

Nature loves diversity

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Spider music

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, perception, science on June 9, 2014| 1 Comment »

spider in web

web and castle

dew web

web

 

There’s no doubt that spider webs are beautiful, but spider’s silk is a very complex fibre which has remarkable qualities. It’s strength is legendary, but now researchers from Oxford, Strathclyde and Sheffield have discovered that one of the main ways spiders use their webs is, well, musical.

Most spiders have poor eyesight and rely almost exclusively on the vibration of the silk in their web for sensory information,’ said Beth Mortimer of the Oxford Silk Group at Oxford University, who led the research. ‘The sound of silk can tell them what type of meal is entangled in their net and about the intentions and quality of a prospective mate. By plucking the silk like a guitar string and listening to the ‘echoes’ the spider can also assess the condition of its web.

Dr Chris Holland of the University of Sheffield, an author of the paper, said: ‘Spider silks are well known for their impressive mechanical properties, but the vibrational properties have been relatively overlooked and now we find that they are also an awesome communication tool. Yet again spiders continue to impress us in more ways than we can imagine.’

Isn’t that amazing and wonderful? That spiders set and sense the vibrations and frequencies in the silk they weave to know how healthy their webs are, and to know, from the “music” of the web, what they have trapped.

Wonder!

 

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