Heroes Not Zombies

Co-evolution is a term coined to describe how an organism and its environment change and grow together. Because all that exists does so in a vast interconnected web, nothing changes all by itself.

I think we sometimes forget that there are ongoing streams of influence flowing into, through and around us.

This photo is of the “Jardin Extraordinaire” in Nantes. It was created in a disused quarry site on the banks of the Loire near the old dock and shipbuilding area. Amazingly it was created only in 2016 but just look at it already!

The site benefits from a special microclimate partly created by the result of quarrying out the stone many years ago. And now somebody clever has picked up on that and planted a number of pretty exotic tropical or subtropical plants, as well as creating waterfalls, pools and streams. The effect is magical. You can see how people are drawn to it.

I was really struck by how I felt different in that garden from how I did in any other part of Nantes. I experienced wonder, delight, joy, contentment. I could imagine my heart rate variability settling into one of those zones of healing frequencies which spreads through the whole body and out a few metres to touch and influence others.

There’s a lot of evidence that engagement with natural surroundings has profound and significant effects on immunity, inflammation and well being, but I think the fact this garden clearly showed to effects of human activity added something extra.

I’ve long since been convinced of the benefits of spending time in natural surroundings, such as lochs, forests and hills, but, actually during my student years I lived near the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh and went there at least once a week, sometimes taking a book to study, other times simply exploring to incredible plants.

Gardens are a fabulous, common example of how we change our environment, and how, in turn, that environment changes us.

There are precious few examples of one way flow in this world. We all share the same little planet. How I live, changes that planet, how you live changes that planet, and in the process that planet changes you and I.

We co-evolve.

I think a core feature of human life is individuation. We grow, develop and mature. The French word “épanouissement” captures it best for me. It means, blossoming, unfurling, unfolding, flourishing.

And here’s the thing….my “épanouissement” co-evolves with the “épanouissement” of the entire living world, the whole planet.

Or it doesn’t.

So we can’t just follow our paths to individual well being and thriving (although we should always be guided by what our body and intuition tells us is nourishing or noxious for us). We have to work together for world well being and thriving too. Because without that we just aren’t going to live well.

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The Little Prince knew his rose from all the other roses. The truth is that uniqueness is at the core of the cosmos. Throughout evolution there has been a clear direction of travel…towards greater complexity, diversity and uniqueness.

This day has never been around before, and it won’t be around any time ever again. The Classical Philosophers knew that when they taught to embrace today as a first, but also a last. They knew that today is unique, that every single experience you have today will be unique.

Montaigne, in his essay, “On experience”, describes how hard it was for him to find a cure for his kidney stones, concluding that we are all different, and that certain habits of eating and living in some cultures are deemed harmful in others, and that, ultimately, Nature knows best what’s good or bad for any individual.

Iain McGilchrist describes how our left hemisphere narrows our focus, homing in on what’s familiar, what’s typical and what’s general, while our right hemisphere, attending to patterns and connections, allows us to see the singular and the unique.

In health care we should hold this knowledge at the core. We need to start with this individual, unique patient, today, choose the best known, most likely treatment to help them, then follow up to see how it’s worked out for them. Because no treatments produce the same outcomes for everyone, no matter whether a drug is branded “evidence based” or not. Only this individual, unique patient can tell you if the treatment is helping them.

Human beings are not machine like, and health care shouldn’t be factory like. Because every patient is unique and every doctor, nurse and therapist is unique. We need a system built on the value of keeping uniqueness at the core.

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The dynamic notion of flow attracts me. It seems clear to me that nothing is fixed and nothing is unconnected or isolated. It makes no sense to me to consider only the present condition of a patient without taking into consideration the vertical flow of past, into present, into future, and the horizontal flow of materials, energy and information into, through and around the individual from the multiple environments and contexts in which they live.

The same is true of life.

The vertical flow brings all our past experiences into present time, and is influenced by the multiplicity of future potentials.

The horizontal flow of encounters changes us, as we, in turn, change all that we experience. It changes our environment and our relationships, just as they both change us.

What holds this together, what opens the windows and doors of insight, are our stories, every one of which is utterly unique. That’s why it’s so important to listen attentively, empathically and without judgement, because without that we fail to grasp the story and fail to comprehend the other.

Iain McGilchrist, in “The Matter with Things”, says this….

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We say “solid as a rock” when we refer to something unchanging, don’t we…..something consistent, something we can rely on to never change.

But even rocks change. Even mountains change. It’s just a matter of timescale. Day by days most rocks don’t seem to change very much, but week by week, year by year, decade by decade, it becomes gradually more obvious that they do.

Absolutely everything changes. Just at different rates.

One of the main ways that everything changes is through interaction with other elements. In the case of a stone like this, the wind, the rain and the sunshine are all in constant relationship with the stone, altering its structure and appearance bit by bit.

Of course all of this is much more obvious in a soft stone like this sandstone. The changes take much longer in something like granite.

When I look at a stone like this I am fascinated by the intricate patterns. They couldn’t have been predicted before they emerged. That’s a fundamental characteristic of all reality. Every stone, every river, every plant and animal, every person, is unique.

Unique and unpredictable at the level of detail. Unique and beautiful. Never “finished”, always a work in progress.

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We have the impression that we are separate. We have a model of reality which tells us that everything which exists can be broken down into smaller and smaller pieces. We used to think that atoms were the smallest indivisible pieces, and that everything was made up of them.

Then we split the atom and found even smaller particles inside….electrons, neutrons, protons….then it turned out that inside there were even smaller pieces which we’ve called quarks.

But, hey, guess what, when we get down that far and look even closer it turns out there are no indivisible separate fixed pieces at the bottom of everything.

Instead we’ve discovered that it’s better to think of “fields”….fields of energy flowing into, through and around each other. As these fields flow and interact there are “events”, “happenings”, where what we call particles flicker, briefly, into existence, then they’re gone again.

So it turns out that “all is one”, and “one is all”. It turns out there are no fixed “solids” at the foundation of the universe. Instead there are vast energy fields, inter-relating, constantly bringing into being everything we can see, constantly transforming everything we see into something else.

Actually, given our rather limited range of sensory organs and our finite brains it’s highly likely there’s a lot more in the universe than we are capable of becoming aware of, let alone knowing and understanding.

Isn’t that awesome?

Isn’t that humbling?

Isn’t that beautiful?

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What is “Nature”?

At this point in our human development there is an enormous tendency to objectify life, to fill our view of the world with objects, objects which we seek to grasp hold of, to own and/or to use. We treat Nature as one of those objects. It’s a place, somewhere to go to. It’s a resource to be used, even plundered. It’s where we humans landed, as if from elsewhere.

But Nature isn’t like that at all. Nature is our home. We emerged in Nature and we never leave. We are like the waves on the surface of the ocean, not like aliens who have landed.

How we think of Nature deeply affects how we behave. Are we consumers or gardeners? Are we conquerors seeking to control or inhabitants seeking to live?

It seems to me that treating Nature as an object to be controlled or consumed has brought us to this juncture….where we humans might make it impossible for our grandchildren and their grandchildren to live here.

It’s crucially time to change our relationship to this world in which we live.

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This is a drainpipe. But it’s not like any other drainpipe I’ve ever seen. I mean, have you ever noticed a drainpipe and stopped to take a photo of it? Nope, me neither.

But this speaks to something important. Too often we allow utility to be the beginning and the end. As if as long as it does what it’s supposed to do then that is entirely sufficient. However look what happens when someone with imagination, someone with a creative, artistic tendency gets involved.

For me, the expansion of effort and vision beyond and below simple utility makes our lives more fully human. It’s not just that the drainpipe is more beautiful and unique, it’s that my day was different, enhanced, by it being this way. I didn’t just pass by. I stopped, I looked with greater awareness. I stepped out of zombie mode, slowed down, and entered more fully into the present moment. On top of that I felt delight, joy and wonder…all emotions and experiences which make for a better life.

We don’t have to choose superficiality. We can experience a life of greater depth, a re-enchanted life by our encounters with beauty, by encounters with the creativity and imaginations of others.

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Here’s the most basic paradox I explored with patient after patient. We are social creatures, who need to belong, to be connected, to have healthy, living relationships, to share time, space and activities which other, to discover what we have in common. Yet we are also, every one of us, completely unique. No two of us share the same life story. We all have different habits, tastes, preferences, even values.

I think this photo which I took at a river side music festival in Nantes captures this paradox, people connected and sharing, whilst also doing their own thing. (Note the two women lying reading books on this near side river bank, for example)

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Can you see that sort of whirlpool in the middle of this stream? It’s a vortex, created by the flow of water itself.

When we look at a stream, or a river, we can often see a disturbance, usually caused by stones or sticks or something interrupting the flow of the water. But that’s not what this is. A vortex is created by an asymmetry within the flow of water itself. A resistance is set up and a vortex appears.

A vortex can be very brief, lasting just a few seconds, but this one continued as long as I stood watching it. I tried to take several photos but it was tricky. There’s always something lost in the still image of whatever is moving, morphing before your very eyes.

A vortex is a good example of how objects are not things. We focus on only parts of the world around us and we separate out elements within the flow to see them as objects. But the underlying reality is that nothing exists outside of the flow. There are no separate fixed objects, just areas in the flow which change more slowly than others. It’s the rate of change which allows us to see them as things. Nothing lasts for ever. You just have to consider a larger timescale and even whole continents shift shape and location.

Is this important?

I think it is. Because the view we take of the world influences how we experience our everyday. If we see the world as a collection of separate disconnected objects, some kind of giant machine that we are not part of, then we will act in certain ways. However if we see the world as a whole and massively connected, ever changing flow, then “things” become more transient, and we realise that we, too, are vortices appearing in the flow.

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Wherever I go I’m drawn to the bookshops. This photo is of one of the oldest, and best known, bookshops in Nantes. “Coiffard”. Look at the sculpture they have above the front door….a reader holding an open book and a broken chain.

Maybe this is a reference to the fact that this is an independent bookseller, not a chain store! But, I think the meaning is deeper than that….it’s that reading can set you free.

My blog, you’ll know, is called “heroes not zombies”. It’s a call to wake up, to break the habit of sleepwalking through life, driven by habit, manipulated by others. It’s a call to awareness, to appreciate the wonder of the everyday and to become more conscious authors of our own life stories.

Reading has always seemed like a path to liberation for me. I love to learn. I love to discover. I love to have my thinking and my preconceptions challenged. In other words reading opens up a larger and a deeper world for me.

I also love to have my imagination fired up, to be thrilled, to be moved, to laugh and to feel more deeply. I love to enhance my powers of empathy so I can understand and connect with others more deeply.

Reading is one of my main paths. One of my main ways to experience today as a good day, a special day.

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