Heroes Not Zombies

You know the old saying that if the only tool you possess is a hammer then everything looks like a nail?

Or the teaching I received from my mentor in General Practice training, about referring to specialists, “If you send your patient to a man with a knife, he’ll use it”.

I’m a big fan of taking the holistic view, of always trying to see the contexts, and connections. I’m suspicious of simplistic, “two value” thinking. I’m uncomfortable with decision making based on “outcomes” and “targets” which obscure the uniqueness of the individual and reduce their nuanced experience to a single dimension.

So when I look at this photo, I see the ouroboros, an ancient symbol of the cyclical nature of reality and of wholeness. And as I look through the centre I see a tall hedge with many arched entrances, each offering a different way through, then I think of how a holistic perspective enables us to see that reality always offers a multiplicity of options, paths, and dimensions to explore.

We live in such a richly diverse universe. Our lives are so multidimensional. Every life story reveals a multiplicity of experiences, events, thoughts, feelings and actions. When we narrow our focus too tightly, embed our habits too rigidly, then we diminish our lives and those of others, and we create a distorted view of reality.

Seeing the whole, the contexts and the connections is an ongoing, cyclical process. It doesn’t have distinct starting and ending points. It’s dynamic. It flows. It’s alive.