Heroes Not Zombies

When I started this blog, and came up with the title “Heroes not zombies”, I also chose a byline of “becoming not being”. Those choices were very influenced by reading two French philosophers – Giles Deleuze and Henri Bergson. Bergson wrote in the late 19th century, early 20th. His ideas preceded our discoveries which followed the splitting of the atom which led to a new physics. They also preceded the findings of neuroscience which have turned out to be consistent with his thought. Yet, sadly, his writings have been pretty much ignored for the last hundred years.

I am utterly delighted to have just discovered Michael Foley’s concise, crystal clear book, “Life lessons from Bergson”. I cannot recommend it too highly. Buy it! Read it! It might just change your world view.

Here’s a summary passage from the end of the book to whet your appetite.

he sought to protect the evolving self from finality, rigidity and circumspection, privileging the dynamic over the static, the holistic over the compartmentalised, the organic over the mechanical, the qualitative over the quantitative, the intuitive over the analytic, the continuing over the completed, the open over the closed and above all the free over the determined.

If any of that touches you, resonates with your values, then you will love this book. I’ll share some of the best ideas from it in future posts.