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Archive for the ‘photography’ Category

At other times

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, perception, photography on July 12, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Sunflower

Previously I’ve photographed sunflowers in the full brightness of a sunny day, but the other day I decided to take a photo much closer to sunset.

See how the colours and the light seem quite different…..at other times.

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Twists and turns

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

This way or that

I just can’t imagine how this tree grew in this particular shape, but it’s quite a metaphor for life.

Often something happens which means you have to change direction and go forward in a completely different way. This happens again and again and the events, their effects, and the changes you made stay embedded in the reality of you. They become the story you tell when someone asks you who you are.

Then you connect with someone, form a close bond, and your lives become entwined.

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Evolution

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

image

Two thoughts – firstly, isn’t this amazing? This little creature carefully checked out my fingers with its feelers, but decided to stay on the plant. Secondly, if evolution is a random process of mutations selected by their contribution to the chance of survival, then why did creatures become so complex? After all, single celled organisms have successfully adapted to every single physical environment on our planet.

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Putting things in perspective

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, perception, photography on July 8, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Atlantic moon

Even the moon looks small over an Atlantic this big.

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The A to Z of Becoming. Part 2. A for Amaze

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, perception, personal growth, photography on July 6, 2014| Leave a Comment »

The A to Z of Becoming has been very popular over the last 26 Sundays (if you want to see any of the posts, search “a to z” using the search box on this blog homepage). A number of readers have asked me what will happen now that last Sunday was “z for zigzag”. The answer is Part 2 starts today.

Ready for another 26 verbs?

Well, let’s start again with A. This time, A is for Amaze.

The French concept of émerveillement is a core value for me in daily life, and one of the connotations of that word is amazement. So the verb for this week is “amaze”.

We can think of this from two different perspectives –

  1. what amazes you?
  2. what do you do to amaze someone else?

Here’s one of the many things which amazes me, and I hope it will amaze you too…..

pre-history

These are impressions left in the rocks by prehistoric people who were probably amongst the first inhabitants of Scotland. Look what happens when we flip this image up the other way

stand out

 

So, this amazes me in two ways.

First it I find these marks and indentations quite astonishing. To think how many thousands of years have passed since someone made them. And how did they make them? And why did they make them?

Second, I noticed that looking at these rain-filled indentations from one side of the rock made the water look concave, but from the other, they look convex. Luckily, I could capture that with my camera.

Isn’t that amazing?

It sure amazes me!

So, why not think about amazement this week and be prepared to both be amazed, and to amaze!

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The wide open

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, photography on July 5, 2014| 1 Comment »

wide open

That’s what the world is like…..wide open.

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Complex, not complicated….

Posted in from the consulting room, from the living room, health, life, personal growth, photography, science on July 3, 2014| Leave a Comment »

DSCN1247

“Evidence Based Medicine” is a movement in crisis according to a recent BMJ article by doctors who want to improve it. Many of the responses to the article call for better statistics, more effectively communicated, and one in particular makes a plea for less but better protocols. One doctor talks about a friend who worked as a sailor in command of a nuclear submarine. He said the crew had to learn and consistently apply a small number of protocols and suggests that doctors should do the same.

There is a confusion at the heart of this comment, and in some of the assumptions behind statistics based medicine.

The confusion is that human beings are just complicated machines.

One way to clear up some of this confusion is to think about the differences between the terms complicated and complex.

Machines can be complicated. Technology can be complicated. Anything which is made up of many, many parts which are connected up can be complicated.

So, aren’t human beings complicated then? Aren’t human beings made up of many, many parts which are connected up?

Yes.

Any living organism has many, many parts which are connected up, but there’s a difference.

Living organisms are complex adaptive systems.

Complex adaptive systems have certain characteristics we don’t see in machines not matter how complicated they are. Here are four of them (there are more!)

  1. Non-linear connections
  2. Emergence
  3. Co-evolution
  4. Autopoeisis

Non-linear connections

You’ll have heard of the butterfly effect? Where a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon can cause a hurricane in another part of the world? What that illustration tells us is that very small changes in the starting condition of a system can cascade to rapidly produce very large changes in the outcome. This is the nature of most of the connections in living organisms

Emergence

Complex adaptive systems continuously behave in unpredictable, novel ways. Emergence is a term from biology which describes novel behaviours which could not have been predicted from an examination of the previous state.

Co-evolution

All living organisms exist within specific environments and because they are “open” ie constantly exchanging materials and energy with their environment, both the organism and the environment are constantly influencing each other, constantly responding to each other, and, in fact, even affecting each others evolution. You cannot fully understand a living organism by isolating it from the environment in which it exists.

Autopoesis

This is a term which means “self making capacity”. Not only can living organisms repair themselves, but they can grow, mature, develop and even replicate themselves.

Yes, all that is pretty complicated. But not in the same way a nuclear submarine is complicated. Advanced technologies might seem as if they are alive, but they aren’t.

If we forget this, we try to engage with living organisms as if they are just complicated machines which can be broken down into separate measurable parts, each of which can be managed by the application of protocols.

Living organisms need to be understood as complex, not complicated.

DSCN0930

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The month of July

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

july rest

In my twelve monthly themes, July has a theme of rest or of taking a pause.

Traditionally, these summer rest days, or rest weeks, are thought of as holidays. In Scotland there is a tradition of “Fair Fortnights” or “Trades Fortnights”, when all the businesses in a particular town would close for the same two weeks. In Glasgow, “The Glasgow Fair” is still a two week holiday period which starts with a Monday holiday. It’s a long time since all businesses shut down for the same two weeks, but a lot of Glasgow people will book an annual holiday for the two weeks of “The Fair”. In France, there is still a widespread tradition of taking a holiday in August, to the extent that the first day of the August holidays is known as “Le Grand Depart” (don’t think I have to translate that one for you, do I?)

If you do have a holiday coming up this month, what are you going to do during that time? Spend it alone, or with family, or friends? Stay at home, or go and live somewhere else for a few days (a tent, a caravan, a guest house or hotel)? Whatever your choices, I expect that your days will be quite different from your “usual” days, and I think that gives you a real opportunity.

Here’s your time to pause, to stand back, to see things from on high, to reflect. Yes, it’s a time for rest, or for exploration, or adventure, but it’s also something like what the Tibetan Buddhists call a “bardo“.

The term bardo can also be used metaphorically to describe times when our usual way of life becomes suspended….

 

The Med

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The A to Z of Becoming. Z for Zigzag

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, personal growth, photography on June 29, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Red arrows Stirling

Well here we are at Z in the A to Z of Becoming, 26 verbs to help you make your life a better one. Z is for zigzag.

Zigzag?

Years and years ago I read Susan Jeffers’ Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, and one point she made in that book has stayed with me ever since. She described how an aircraft flying from A to B does NOT fly in a straight line, even though it looks like that, but in fact the pilot is continuously adjusting the direction of the plane turning now slightly to the right, now slightly to the left. Actually, I seem to recall, she said the plane is actually technically flying “off course” for more than 90% of the journey (if the “course” is a straight line from A to B).

I loved that insight.

This is what we do. We continuously adjust our direction of travel to stay on track. We travel in a kind of zigzag way because we are always checking to see where we are heading, and making adjustments to get where we want to go.

As with flying an aircraft, this is how we go through life. I think this example is a great counter to unrealistic perfectionism. Yes, we may be trying to achieve something, trying to get somewhere, and when we check we might discover that we have been blown a little (or a lot!) of course! But then we adjust and get back on track.

This example came to mind for me when I was taught how to practice TM – with the wonderful single piece of training which was “just gently return to the mantra” – I loved that way of teaching. When meditating, and you notice your mind has wandered off to remember something or to worry about something, just notice that’s what is happening, and “gently return to the mantra”.

That’s what the zigzag is about. Noticing, and gently returning.

Happy zigzagging!

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Listening, understanding, supporting, advising and inspiring

Posted in from the consulting room, from the dark room, from the living room, health, life, personal growth, photography on June 28, 2014| 1 Comment »

As I am about to enter my last week of 36 years of clinical practice, it’s probably inevitable that I find myself reflecting a bit.

Hilltop reflection

One of the things I’ve been thinking about is what good I might have done as a doctor, and, for me, I don’t think of that in terms of “outcomes”. What I’ve been thinking about instead is what did patients find valuable about their contact with me? The answer to that question has been made clear by the letters, cards and verbal feedback I’ve been receiving over these last few weeks.

There are certain themes which recur again and again amongst the thanks and good wishes people have expressed. Five of the main themes are in those verbs in the title of this post.

december gratitude

Listening. This is what is mentioned more than anything else. I’m not at all surprised by that. I just love listening to people’s stories. Endlessly fascinating and always unique. I don’t really see how any doctor can practice good medicine without being an attentive, non-judgmental, active listener.

Understanding. I think its important not just that I understand a patient, but that in the process of the consultation, they not only feel understood, but they come to understand themselves better. Making a diagnosis is a form of understanding. Diagnosing a particular disease process is a useful part of understanding…..but it’s only a start. As Osler said

The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.

Supporting. Many patients thank me for my support. That support isn’t just compassionate emotional support, but it involves supporting people in their choices and decisions, and supporting the natural capacity for self-healing which every human has.

Advising. I don’t think patients come to see doctors just to be listened to, understood and supported. They come for advice. Advice in the form of information, diagnosis, help in making choices, and in the form of therapies. All therapies are, in one sense, a form of advice. If I prescribe a treatment, that treatment takes some information and energy into the person’s body, and their adaptive system responds….it changes the inner state.

Inspiring. This is the word which pleases me most, and which is most repeated by patients, colleagues and students. I just love that people feel inspired by me, and I hope that, through my writing and photography that I inspire many more people in the years ahead.

A few years back I wrote a post listing the three verbs based on light which I thought were at the core of my values – lighten, brighten and enlighten………still relevant now.

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