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The importance of difference and diversity

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, personal growth, photography on September 11, 2014| Leave a Comment »

We have two fundamental and opposite approaches to the world – noticing similarities and noticing differences.

When we notice similarities we generalise and classify. When this is used as the basis of mass marketing and consumption we end up with an awful lot of sameness – each High Street (or mall) has the same shops, the big chains squeeze out the local family businesses. In town after town in France I see abandoned “charcuteries”, “boulangeries” and so on. A Main Street in my home town of Stirling is lined with empty shops.

When we notice difference we see uniqueness and diversity. Nature thrives on diversity and abhors monocultures. These gourds in a market are stunningly beautiful for both of those reasons – their individuality and their diversity.

I read recently that one of the big supermarket chains in France has started promoting ‘misshapen fruit and vegetables’ along with leaflets encouraging shoppers to buy the ‘funny looking’ foods, they are selling them at 30% less! Woo hoo! There is hope!

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Getting to the heart

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, personal growth, photography on September 10, 2014| 1 Comment »

How do we use the word, the image, the idea of heart?

Heart felt, broken hearted, heart sore, big hearted, warm hearted, hearty……

It’s about deep, significant, loving feeling.

We also talk about getting to the heart of the matter, by which we mean the nub, the core, the important essence.

A heart-focused life……a good aim, you think?

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Swan meditation

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, perception, personal growth, photography on September 9, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Sometimes I think it’s good to have an image to focus on for a short meditation. I especially like the kind of image which is initially beautiful and engaging, but which then draws me in to see more and more, the closer I look.

Try this one.

I see the swan. I see his reflection. I see his shadow on his reflection.

Multiple layers. Multiple perspectives.

Enjoy!

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Bursting with potential

Posted in creativity, from the dark room, from the living room, life, personal growth, photography on September 8, 2014| Leave a Comment »

I’m always fascinated by seeds, fruits and nuts.

Look at this corn I saw in a field the other day. It is literally bursting with potential!

What does the future hold for these little kernels? Are they going to be eaten? If so, by whom, or by what? Are they going to be “processed” for their oil? Will they be planted out or find their own way to soil and grow into corn plants themselves? If they are planted out, will they make it to fully mature plants?

So much uncertainty!

Too much uncertainty is hard to bear, but the reality of all living creatures is that the future EMERGES out of the present. We can’t predict it, so what do we do?

Focus on living today
Get in touch with the immense potential which lies within each of us
Imagine. Practice our creativity….let it run free
Live consciously….mindfully….with awareness
Slow down, and savour each moment as we live it
Be amazed by the wonder of today
Practice flexibility and resilience (to be better able to respond to the unpredictable future when it becomes the surprising present)
Fully own and share our uniqueness
……………………………………………………..(add your ideas here)

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The A to Z of Becoming. Part 2. J for Jump

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, personal growth, photography on September 7, 2014| Leave a Comment »

In the A to Z of Becoming, part 2, J is for Jump!

I bet you wish that life just flowed like a free flowing river, continuous, unbroken and mostly calm.

But the universe isn’t like that. Change is continuous but it occurs in jumps.

At the subatomic level this is described by quantum physics – the quantum is the jump.

At the evolutionary level we see it as a series of leaps, not a smooth transition.

If you’ve ever watched a small child develop you’ll know they do it in leaps. One day they can’t stand by themselves. Then they can. One day they can’t walk. Then they can. One day they can’t say any words. Then they can. Some changes stutter a bit, so toilet training might not be so complete from one to the next, but soon it is.

Our lives are like that. To embrace change, we have to leap. We can do our best to plan, to try to see ahead, but, ultimately we can’t see the future and we have to decide. We have to jump. It’s often scary. It’s sometimes way to scary to make the jump, but that will never be the end of it, we will soon find we’re asked again to jump.

So, are you ready to embrace the way the universe works, and jump?

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Tranquility

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, photography on September 6, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Saturday afternoon…..a stroll along the banks of the Charente.

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Is science the study of objects?

Posted in from the consulting room, from the dark room, from the living room, health, life, narrative, philosophy, photography, science on September 5, 2014| Leave a Comment »

That’s the statement I came across in an interview with a “new realist” philosopher the other day. I’m not going to get into what on earth is “new realist” here just now but when he was asked if science (or more precisely Physics) had proven that the universe had no purpose, that it made no sense?

Well that’s a claim we often hear from people who claim the only reality is physical, the universe is random, and evolution isn’t “going anywhere”. This isn’t a world view I’m attracted to.

My understanding is that human beings exist, and that we all have consciousness and subjective experience. Values are important to us. For example, you can look at that photo above and describe it according to its botanical classification. I look at it and see a beautiful image. It’s the beauty of the image which strikes me.

This philosopher said that science is the study of objects, whereas for human beings it was often something not at all like an object which brought meaning to life. The example he gave was democracy. He said what colour was democracy? What were its dimensions? Science has no answer to these questions. Because democracy is not an object, it’s something which gives lives meaning.

I don’t know about you but that certainly gets me thinking. What about the “sciences” which don’t deal with objects? Like economics, or psychology, or “social sciences”?

Then I got to thinking about health and how, as a doctor, I needed to understand the body in a scientific way. I needed to know what to measure when, and what to do with the results. But I also needed to understand the lived experience of a person. When they talked to me about pain, about an itch, about nausea or dizziness, they were not talking about objects which could be measured. And what about the narrative…..how a person experienced and made sense of their illness?

So, there is something helpful in this idea of science being the study of objects. It helps us see the relevance of science and the absurdity of scientism (which claims ultimate and absolute authority for the “truth” as revealed by science.

Objects are an important part of reality, but they sure aren’t everything that exists!

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Art changes the world

Posted in art, creativity, from the dark room, from the living room, life, personal growth, photography on September 4, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Art is such a characteristically human activity. What would the world be like without art? What would the world be like if we only had science and judged everything only by its utility?

These beautiful works of art, so contextually sensitive and clever, change the lived environment of Angoulême.