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Archive for the ‘from the reading room’ Category

Finding your own path between actuality and imagination

Posted in books, creativity, from the dark room, from the living room, from the reading room, life, perception, philosophy, photography, psychology on December 27, 2013| Leave a Comment »

fractal cloud

 

Ursula Le Guin, in the introduction to her selected short stories, “Where on Earth”, says

I had been writing realistic stories (bourgeois-USA-1948) because realism was what a serious writer was supposed to write under the rule of modernism, which had decreed that non-realistic fiction, if not mere kiddilit, was trash. I was a very serious young writer. I never had anything against realistic novels, and loved many of them. I am not theory-minded, and did not yet try to question or argue with this arbitrary impoverishment of literature. But I was soon aware that the ground it offered my particular talent was small and stony. I had to find my own way elsewhere. Orsinia was the way, lying between actuality, which was supposed to be the sole subject of fiction, and the limitless realms of the imagination.

How liberating! How inspiring! Of course, all fiction is a work of the imagination, whether you call it “realism” or not, and, actually, isn’t Life, which can only be lived from the perspective of the subject, also a work of imagination? Or at least, it’s a work of finding that path between “actuality” (the objective Real), and the “limitless realms of the imagination” (how we subjectively interpret and experience that Real)?

I also love her phrase “arbitrary impoverishment of literature”. Why indeed should we limit ourselves to “realism”, especially if that same realism ignores, or worse, denies, the inclusion of the imagination?

Finally, I like that phrase “the ground if offered my particular talent was small and stony”. Isn’t it true that for each of us, our particular talents flourish in quite different environments, or on quite different paths?

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Love

Posted in books, from the reading room on December 24, 2013| Leave a Comment »

wishes

I’ve been reading “Stoner”, by John Williams, which has been getting rave reviews in the UK in recent weeks. I’m enjoying it and can easily see why it’s been attracting such positive reviews, but today, I had one of those experiences you get when you read really great writing. Suddenly a phrase leapt out at me, stopping me in my tracks, catching my breath and sparking my thoughts….

…love is not an end but a process through which one person attempts to know another

Oh, yes! Love isn’t a goal to be achieved, or a target to be hit, or a product to be purchased. It’s a process of attempting to know someone. In fact, it seems to me that it isn’t possible to know another unless that attempt at knowing grows out of love. (Incidentally, I also think one of the reasons why many people find it so hard to really know themselves, is a lack of self-compassion…or loving attitude towards the self)

But then Williams, in the very next page writes this about how Stoner thought about love –

he saw it as a human act of becoming, a condition that was invented and modified moment by moment and day by day, by the will and the intelligence and the heart.

“a human act of becoming” – oh I SO love that phrase, and in the rest of sentence he shows us how love constantly changes, how it is a creative act, and how it involves the will, the intelligence and the heart.

Don’t you just love it when a book of several hundred pages, suddenly throws a few words at you and you feel awe, amazement and admiration?

I do.

 

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more, more, more…..more what?

Posted in books, from the dark room, from the living room, from the reading room, life, personal growth, philosophy, photography on December 23, 2013| 1 Comment »

As we come towards the end of another year, there are many articles and programmes looking back over 2013, and looking forward into 2014. In the socio-economic world what we hear about most is “growth”. Concern about whether or not there has been “enough”, and how we can all strive to produce more. Every single country in the world is measured in terms of the “growth” of its economy. Very little growth, bad marks. Increasingly more growth, good marks!

But growth of what? And for what?

Growth of consumption. That seems to be one marker. Consumption of what? Doesn’t matter. Stuff. Just, the more consumption, the better. Growth of “activity”. That’s another. But what kind of activity? Just activity. Busy turning financial derivatives into even more complex products to sell others. Busy making stuff. Busy moving stuff. Just activity.

Why? Why is more consumption and more activity good no matter what is being consumed, no matter what activities are being carried out?

Is it to produce more and more wealth for less and less people? Because that’s the sure and certain trend we are seeing.

Meantime we are seeing two other forms of growth. Growth of the number of people alive on the planet. Growth of the amount of finite resources we are taking out of the planet. Growth of the number of drugs people take every day. Growth in long term diseases and cancer.

Something isn’t going right, don’t you think?

Marc Halévy, in his “Prospective 2015 – 2025”, [ISBN 270331017X] takes this whole issue by the scruff of the neck and points out with stark clarity that we are just not on a sustainable path. More than that, we seem to be caught in a communal delusion, that this current path of ever more consumption by ever more people is a good thing – in fact THE good thing – THE criterion on which to judge the health of any economy.

This is just crazy. It makes no sense.

Marc suggests an alternative and he captures it in a simple French phrase – “la jouissance de la frugalité”.

These aren’t the easiest words to translate into English (help me out here if you are good at translating!) – but you get a bit of the sense of “jouissance” from the french phrase “joie de vivre” (which, interestingly, is one of those phrases we English speakers use directly as it is). It’s something to do with pleasure, joy, delight, satisfaction, something life enhancing. It’s, fundamentally, about quality. And “frugalité” isn’t exactly “frugality” as we would say in English. In fact, frugality isn’t a word which is used much by English speakers any more, but Benjamin Franklin had it as one of the most important of his virtues. It doesn’t mean something inadequate, or poor. It isn’t about poverty. But it is about “less”…..a kind of making the most of whatever it is you have…..

We can find this suggestion in the “sweetness of life”, and in the “slow movement“.

It’s about more quality for less consumption. It’s about living in the present, savouring, enjoying, mindfully experiencing every single moment.

Once you apply that personal principle to the universal, then you stop to ask yourself at each level. Does this enhance my life? Does it enhance the life of the human species? Does it enhance Life on Earth? Does it enhance the Universe?

Enhance might not be the best word, but I hope you get the idea. We need to shift our focus from more, more, more numbers and stuff, to deeper, greater, more impactful quality of living.

We need more of “la jouissance de la frugalité”

fishermen Lake of Menteith

 

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MEAMs

Posted in from the music room, from the reading room, music, neuroscience, personal growth, psychology, science on December 18, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Hmmm…..haven’t come across this acronym before but its an exciting one!

It stands for Music Evoked Autobiographical Memories.

This interesting study used “No. 1 songs” to stimulate autobiographical memories in patients with brain injuries. They compared this method to the standard psychological “AMI” – Autobiographical Memory Interview. It’s a very small study of 5 patients and a very specific type of problem so the conclusion that music was more efficient than verbal prompts at eliciting autobiographical memory needs further study.

However, this whole idea has pricked my imagination. How often does a particular song or piece of music take you right back to a particular place, time or person in your life? How often do we share music with old friends or family to recreate our shared autobiographical memories?

One element of the study which is especially interesting is that most of the MEAMs were associated with positive emotions. When you think of our brain’s bias to negativity (Rick Hansen says our brains have velcro for negativity and teflon for positivity), and the common claim that we need a ratio of 3 – 5:1 positive to negative thoughts a day to experience flourishing, then surely music must be a GREAT tool for embedding positive, accessible experiences into our memories.

I know, there are lots of other reasons why music plays an important part in our lives, but, hey, MEAMs just sound such fun!

 

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the world poetizes

Posted in books, from the dark room, from the reading room, life, perception, photography on December 16, 2013| Leave a Comment »

When I read the word “poetizes” I thought it was a neologism, or maybe a bit of French-English creation, but, of course, it’s a regular English word, meaning “To describe or express in poetry or a poetic manner”. I stumbled over this beautiful verb today in the following quote

From the moment we begin to look at things, the world changes, the world poetizes immediately if you begin to pay attention to the grain of a jacket, the color of a curtain, or a falling drop tap…….says Thomas Clerc

 

Here’s a little collection of some of my photos which I think show that phenomenon clearly……enjoy yourself for a moment as the world poetizes itself…….

rock face

weaving

perrier

sunlit

peacock

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A better life (for more of us) (for longer)

Posted in books, from the living room, from the reading room, from the viewing room, life, philosophy, science, video on December 15, 2013| 1 Comment »

José Mujica, Uruguay’s president acts very differently in power from most of the world’s leading politicians. He lives in a one bedroomed farmhouse instead of the Presidential palace, and gives away 90% of his monthly salary.

He is described as the world’s poorest President but he rejects that description preferring Seneca’s teaching about poverty – “It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.” He most refreshingly rails against hyperconsumption and waste pointing out that

We can almost recycle everything now. If we lived within our means – by being prudent – the 7 billion people in the world could have everything they needed. Global politics should be moving in that direction but we think as people and countries, not as a species.

This is such an important point which is almost never made by our politicians. Global population is doubling every few years and shows no sign of stopping. Just how is that sustainable? Can we keep growing the population by that much, and all keep pushing for “growth” (by which we mean great consumption and accumulation) and not hit a wall at some point? Isn’t the Earth finite?

But I especially like his last point there – that we think “as people and countries, not as a species”. We need to start living as if we are species, not isolated groups trying to beat each other, dominate each other, exploit each other.

Watch this for THE most coherent and convincing exposition of this case –

He also makes the excellent point about our enslavement to the market –

I’m just sick of the way things are. We’re in an age in which we can’t live without accepting the logic of the market,” he said. “Contemporary politics is all about short-term pragmatism. We have abandoned religion and philosophy … What we have left is the automatisation of doing what the market tells us.

Halévy says all this too in his publications. He challenges us to ask what’s the purpose of our current socio-economic system and who does it serve? Go on, ask yourself, read around a bit, and see what answers you come up with.

Both Halévy and Mujica focus on the need for quality instead of quantity. Halévy uses the term “frugality” and Mujica says “prudent” but neither are setting out the case for a worse life. Quite the opposite, they say we should concentrate on getting more quality from less consumption, and in so doing, create a sustainable way of life on this little planet.

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The danger of…..

Posted in books, from the reading room, life on December 13, 2013| Leave a Comment »

This article in the Guardian collects together some of the books which the authorities who run Guatanamo Bay refuse to allow their prisoners to read. If you can figure out their logic you’re doing better then me!

However, one whole class of writing gets an outright ban – poetry!

Poetry … presents a special risk, and DOD [Department of Defense] standards are to not approve the release of any poetry in its original form or language. This is based on an analysis of risk of both content and format

You know, terrible and ridiculous as this whole sorry episode is, there’s a bit of me which is in awe of the power of poetry – for me, that’s something to celebrate, not to fear.

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the other understanding

Posted in books, from the living room, from the reading room, life, personal growth, philosophy, science on December 12, 2013| 2 Comments »

For a long time there have been two broad views of the universe. Determinism and meaningless chance.

Most religious traditions have the idea of a Creator, of some super-natural spirit or force which is in control. There is comfort in this view, in that it helps to make sense of Life, and brings a feeling of there being some control over events (even if that control is in the hands of God, rather than of human beings).

With the rise of materialism and decline in religious beliefs, many feel that the universe is a heartless, meaningless place where we are all the repeated victims of chance. Of course, some who see the universe this way gain great comfort and security from humanistic principles ie that we are the masters of our own destiny.

In the second half of the 20th century a third view has arisen. Complexity science has allowed us to understand that chaos is absolutely not the same as randomness. Once you understand the principles of complex systems (networks and webs of interconnected parts which are all acting on each other), then you find that whilst the behaviour of chaos can be hard to discern, it allows us to see that everything holds together. Indeed, if you consider the “universe story” of energy, to the first atoms, the creation of stars and planets, to the first elements, the emergence of Life, and evolution of consciousness in human beings, you can see this other view appear – one which does not require an external “super-natural” controller, but isn’t random and meaningless either. There is a direction of travel in the universe story towards ever and ever greater complexity. As complex systems move to “far from their equilibrium” points into the chaos zone they can develop completely unpredictable levels of greater organisation and complexity (see the concept or “dissipative structures“)

I do think we are in the early days of this new paradigm, but, for me, it makes a lot more sense than the materialistic, nihilistic scientism which has dominated the last century and more, and doesn’t require me to believe in any super-natural beings. I’m very happy to know such a new paradigm is emerging because so much seems to be falling apart – the economic/financial system, social structures, the health of the planet and the health of human beings who consume ever more drugs to try and control ever more chronic disorders. We need new ways, different, more creative ways of understanding and organising our shared Life.

If you’ve read anything about this emerging paradigm, do let me know – I’m keen to read whatever I can get a hold of!

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what makes life special……..

Posted in from the dark room, from the reading room, life, narrative, personal growth, photography on December 4, 2013| 3 Comments »

No, there’s no question mark at the end of that title. I’m not asking a question. I’m thinking about all the little everyday experiences which make life special

melon and ham

In the summer this year, in a little bookshop in the heart of France, I stumbled across a beautiful, inspirational book called “Le Sel de la Vie”, by Françoise Héritier. Then a couple of weeks ago, in my favourite independent little bookshop in Scotland, The Watermill, I stumbled across an English translation of the same book. I had no idea it had been translated and its just as engaging and inspiring in translation as it was in the original French. One of the strange things about translation is that “le sel” is “salt”, so the literal translation of the title would be “The salt of life”. However, to grasp the true essence of the original text it’s been translated as “The Sweetness of Life”. How interesting! Salt or sweet? Both work for me, and when combined (like in my delicious starter above) it can be even more special.

This little book is like no other book I’ve ever read. The author wrote it in response to a colleague’s postcard from his holiday on the Isle of Skye. He described the holiday as “stolen” and that got her thinking about how we spend our time and how he was stealing his own life by failing to be in touch with all the daily little experiences which made life so special, so sweet……

Given my recent post on the one sentence, I was really struck by this part of her introduction

So what follows here is an enumeration, an ordinary list in one long sentence……

I can’t really quote you any of the book because whenever I start it, I can’t stop it! She writes, in one long flowing list, using a free association method, listing sensations, experiences, memories which she considered to be everyday special. Does “everyday special” strike you as odd? I think this is such a key element to living a great life – to be constantly in touch with the “everyday special”. Believe me, if you can’t find the special in the everyday, you’re not awake!

OK, difficult though it is to stop, here’s a wee sample

….phone calls made for no reason, handwritten letters, family meals (well, some of them), meals with friends, a beer at the bar, a glass of red or white wine, coffee in the sun, a siesta in the shade, eating oysters at the seaside or cherries straight off the tree…..

You get the idea?

I think if you dip into this little book and read a line or two before setting off into the day each morning, you’ll heighten your “everyday special” awareness. It’s almost like a different kind of meditation. But the other thing which this book inspires is to start your own list (in fact, the English language version has a few blank lined pages at the end to encourage you to do just that)

Go on, try it…..

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Life everywhere

Posted in books, creativity, from the dark room, from the living room, from the reading room, life, personal growth, philosophy, photography, science, Uncategorized on November 29, 2013| Leave a Comment »

fern eclipse

David Suzuki, in ‘The Sacred Balance’, says

Many have believed in an animated, inhabited, sacred world surrounding them, the natural world that constitutes reality. These beliefs restore our sense of belonging, of being-with, which is threatened by our dividing, conquering brain;

Oh, this connects with so many other things I’ve read these last few months. That last phrase taking me back to ‘The Master and His Emissary‘ – “our dividing, conquering brain” – what a brilliant description of what our left hemisphere does! But it’s this sense of Life everywhere which really captures my imagination. Marc Halévy in ‘Ni hasard, ni nécessité’ writes about the concept of hylozoism….a term I had never encountered before. Look it up. I thought Halévy had invented it as a neologism – but he hadn’t. It’s a very, very old idea which, suddenly becomes very, very new and relevant now. It’s the idea that everything has life in it. He juxtaposes hylozoism to materialism and says

It reveals to us that all matter is alive, that all matter is an expression of life, that all matter is living. (my translation)

Without looking it up right now, I seem to recall Howard Bloom argues something similar in ‘The God Problem‘ too, where he makes the case that even neutrons demonstrate free will.

It seems that Life is everywhere, and that the Cosmos is where we belong, what we are part of, not apart from. Does it make you feel differently about our planet once you realise it isn’t a resource but a manifestation of a living universe

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