Heroes Not Zombies

I took this photo in Aix-en-Provence a few years ago and I still like it. These two students (I’m presuming they are students) are sitting close together in this empty square late one evening. They are both lit up by the light of their laptop screens and I’m guessing they’re sitting there cos the found a wifi they could connect to.

I like that they are together but separate. Each on their own laptop but sitting so close together and sharing a reason to be there.

This image sets off a few trains of thought for me.

First and foremost it reminds me of the deep need we have to be connected. We humans have evolved as the most highly social creatures on the planet. Our brains, our senses, our bodies don’t exist in isolation. They exist in constant flows of materials, energies and information. We couldn’t survive without making connections. If you’ve had a child you’ll know the intensity of connection which overwhelms you within minutes, perhaps seconds, of their birth. No infant would make it to adulthood without powerful ways to connect with others and secure the care they need.

It also reminds me of that rather paradoxical opposite phenomenon – our need to be separate, to know that we are individuals. Each person here on their own screen, making their personal connections with a unique social web of others.

In the light of the pandemic this image takes on a new significance. We have been distanced from each other and confined to our separate spaces to communicate through technology – screens and phones – and that’s produced a mixed bag of experiences. Many of us have reconnected with others who had faded into the backgrounds of our lives. Many of us have spent a lot more time connecting with others on Zoom, FaceTime, messaging services, Facebook, etc. And a lot of those connections have been good. But people are also talking about screen fatigue and recognising that “virtual” connections are not a substitute for “real” ones. We long for the physical, for the gentle touch, for the hug, for the greeting kiss, the firmness of a hearty handshake.

Maybe it’s good to become more aware of all that and to know that, as we go forward, the most important aspect of life is our relationships. We might feel like separate individuals but we live only in connection with others.

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I know that colour choices are very personal and subjective. We each have various colour palettes which we prefer, and I suspect there are certain palettes we prefer in particular circumstances.

I don’t really have a lot of bright primary colours around me. The colours I wear in summer are similar to the colours you’d see as you walk around certain Italian streets…..Bologna, for example. But in the winter I generally wear black or dark colours.

Now that I stop to think about it, I’m not really sure why I make these particular choices. It seems to happen mostly subconsciously, but maybe it’s a better idea to become more aware and make more conscious choices?

As I walked around the garden this morning the potager caught my eye. We’ve put in these twirly steel rods for the little tomato plants to grow up, and to stop us from poking our eyes out on the pointy ends we’ve attached these brightly coloured little plant pots.

Against a blue sky they are particularly delightful and they’ve got me wondering if bright colours are more likely to evoke the emotions of joy.

What do you think? How to colours influence your emotions and moods?

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This photo gets me thinking about three dimensions of context…..horizontal, temporal and depth.

The horizontal dimension contains what’s around us here and now. All of our experiences occur within the context of a place. We live, moment by moment, in a web of physical connections which extend in every direction we can see. It includes the natural environment of all the elements and all the other living organisms which share this space with us. It also includes the social environment of all the other people around us (and now with phones, video and messaging services that social environment can stretch out over thousands of miles. It’s not limited to the physical horizon any more). It also includes the cultural environment of habits, behaviours, values and rules with which we co-construct our lives together.

The temporal dimension includes the past….the trails and tracks we can see behind us, the memories we have and the roots which lead from our beginnings to where we are now. It also includes the future, or rather all the possible futures we and others can imagine….that multiplicity of possibilities which collapse into a single reality as each moment emerges from the next one.

The depth dimension lies within us. It’s often unspoken, largely unconscious and unknown but it creates the foundations and defaults of our daily lives. Some of it emerges in our dreams, some is revealed in our language and words, some erupts through in the strength of feelings.

I think if I want to understand someone, whether that someone be me or an other, I need to see them, hear them, discover them in all three of these dimensions.

That’s why a holistic approach in Medicine always seemed necessary to me and why a rigidly reductionist one was often just too narrow to be of more than just a little help.

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There’s a tiny little bird makes a tiny little nest, every year, usually in what seems to me to be a precarious part of one of the trees or bushes in the garden.

I don’t know where she goes and lives in the other seasons but she sure likes to come here in the summer, lay a few eggs, hatch a few offspring, then she’s gone again.

Take a close look at this nest. It’s not neat, it’s not even especially beautiful and there is actually a hole in the bottom – look next to the eggs –

However, what I got thinking about when I saw her nest this year was this……

“Free as a bird”. This wee creature does what almost all other creatures do – makes a home where and whenever it chooses to.

We humans have made things way more complicated. We’ve created a whole class of people called citizens who have certain rights and can make certain choices that their neighbours who aren’t classes as citizens don’t have and can’t make.

It doesn’t make sense to me to class neighbours differently. Why shouldn’t the people in no. 16 for example be treated the same as those next door in no. 18?

Why have some who have, say “temporary settled status” (in the U.K.), or who are given some kind of visa with limited rights and responsibilities?

Here’s my preference. Treat everyone who lives in the same street, the same neighbourhood or community the same.

They are all inhabitants after all. All living together, all sharing the same spaces, the same facilities.

I don’t get the added value of these various limited rights classifications. Anyone able to make a case for me? Maybe I’m missing something but this little bird building this little nest just where she wants to every year seems to have freedoms we’ve taken away from some of our neighbours. Who gains from that?

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Here is my box of curiosities. These are objects, some of them natural, some of them worked by human hand, some of them found on my travels, but most of them given to me by patients, colleagues and friends.

Each one of these objects connects me to a person or to an event. Each of them connects me to an experience and to memories.

But actually, the truth is, I just delight in them. I like to hold them, to run my fingers over them. I like to look at them. I like to wonder about them.

We all collect objects.

Mostly we don’t collect objects very consciously or deliberately, but we find things, buy things, receive things, and we keep them. Sometimes we collect them together. Sometimes we scatter them or spread them across our house. Sometimes we gather them into special spaces or places – on a desk (this box sat on the desk in my consulting room), on a shelf, in a display cabinet, or beside the bed.

Why not take a few minutes today to look around your house, or your room, and see what objects you have. Do you remember where they came from? Do you have certain memories attached to them? Do they connect you? And, if so, to whom or to what?

I read recently that objects of significance are becoming very popular in contemporary home design. In my grandparents day they all seemed to have “display cabinets” for their favourite objects, but that type of furniture has long ago fallen our of fashion. Will they come back? Or will we find different ways of gathering, collecting, and displaying what is important to us?

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I’ve done psychological analyses which tell me that curiosity is one of my main attributes. But, to be fair, I didn’t need a test to tell me that. I’ve always been really curious. When I was a little boy I used to subscribe to a fortnightly magazine called “Knowledge”, one of those part work publications which you collected into special folders every few weeks. I loved it. I looked forward to it and found it fascinating, whether it was about science, art, geography, history, or whatever. When I graduated from university I used my first month’s pay as a Junior Doctor to buy a complete set of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica. I still have it, although, the truth is, I use wikipedia and internet search engines to go exploring these days.

I’m pretty sure that this curiosity which I have has enabled me to learn what I needed to learn during my training and was also at the heart of my delight in hearing the stories of all the patients who consulted me over about a forty year period.

I’ve learned since those early days that curiosity is a great trait to have if you want to develop your brain…..and, in particular, if you want to develop the right hemisphere of the brain. Seeking out what’s new, having new experiences and hearing new stories, develops the healthy interconnections between brain cells and shape the brain itself. Trying to understand and to learn are, for me, expressions of my underlying curiosity.

I think that’s why I enjoy this particular image so much. I took it whilst on holiday in South Africa a few years ago.

What do you see? Take a moment to explore it. Are you aware of any questions arising for you? Follow that curiosity!

You probably noticed some strange objects in the sky first, and that’s the starting point for firing up your curiosity. Because I exposed the shot for the sky, and it’s taken at sunset, the sea and whatever is in the foreground is really dark. You can’t really see them, but holding onto wires attached to each of those sky objects, is a person, surfing on the waves. This is kite surfing. There are three of them close together on the left, and a single one, on the right.

If you look very carefully you’ll see a crescent moon high up in the sky and the shape of the moon in this phase is similar to that of the kites. That pleases me enormously! I love these resonances, echoes and symmetries. They create the beginnings of patterns that help deepen the meanings we can experience in whatever we see.

What I also notice is a large ship right on the horizon, and immediately I start to wonder….where has it come from, where is it going, what is it carrying? Is it a freight ship, or a passenger one? Those questions fire up my imagination and get me thinking about adventures, travel and exploration.

Well, I suppose I just want to share this image with you because I find it so utterly pleasing and I hope you will do too, but in addition I think it’s one of those images which makes us wonder – and wondering makes for a better life!

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This is one of my favourite photos of water tumbling over rocks as it heads down a Scottish hillside.

What I really like about it is the shape of the rocks – they look smooth, they look sculpted, they look “malleable”. In fact they seem to have a softness you wouldn’t expect in a rock.

I know it will have taken many, many years for the water to shape these rocks this way. That’s a kind of Earth-art, where Nature creates beautiful shapes, little by little, day by day, year by year, century by century.

But the other thing that appeals to me is the shape of the flowing water. It doesn’t just flow any which way. I flows over and around the edges of the rocks. In fact, it almost looks like this is a great rocky mouth, overflowing with water!

In other words, you can see from this single, still, image, that this is a dynamic inter-connected, process here. The rock and the water are in a relationship. Neither would be the same without the other. Both have their form and behaviour shaped by the relationship itself.

That seems a deep and eternal truth to me – there is nothing in this world which exists in isolation – everything and everybody is constantly changing, constantly being shaped, by a vast, complex web of energies and influences.

We are not alone.

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I have a number of photos of this type. You could say they are photos of the sea. You could say “there’s nothing in them”! (But I’d disagree). You could say they are photos of light.

For me this is a photo of three elements – water (obviously), fire (the Sun’s light reflected on the water), and air (the pale white sky). There might even be a hint of the fourth element, earth (just beyond the upper band of light…..is that land I can see?)

But primarily, I see this as a photo of light. I’m not sure why there are two parallel bands of white light, one in the foreground and the other almost on the horizon. I think that’s odd. Why aren’t there more reflections? Are there just two gaps in a cloudy sky letting the sunlight through to create these two narrow strips? I don’t know, and I don’t remember what the sky was like.

I know the sea can show us a rich palette of colours but I really like how, in this image, both the sea and the sky appear monochrome. This isn’t a photo shot in black and white, but the brightness of the light has bleached out all the colours.

Ultimately this image says to me – illumination – and that’s a favourite word of mine. I like to understand. I like to see things clearly. I like it when suddenly, in the middle of someone’s story, I gain insight into their unique, and personal life.

But, more simply, perhaps, this is just one of those images where I can sit and gaze at it, and lose myself…..slow down and lose my sense of time and place…..absorb myself into the scene and feel the artificial boundaries disappear so that I feel at One with the universe.

Maybe it’ll do the same for you.

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When you see a seed head like this, holding an abundant supply of seeds, all waiting for the next breeze to come and whisk them away, spreading them far and wide, you can’t help but have some sense of awe.

Isn’t it incredible to see this? Look at the structure and look at the sheer magnificent abundance.

When I come across this I do think of how abundance is the key characteristic of the universe – not scarcity. Changing the mindset from a scarcity one to one of abundance changes the way we engage with life. It helps us to move from insecurity to security, to embrace change, and to quieten down our fears and anxieties.

But looking at an abundance of seeds like this brings something else to mind for me – potential.

I mean, just look at the potential held in this one stem of seeds. Every single one of these seeds could be the beginning a new plant. Some of them might fall locally and start to grow where they fall, whilst others might be carried far in the wind landing in micro-environments, very different from the one where they were born. This dispersal vastly increases the chances that the plant will successfully propagate its offspring by sending them far and wide and giving them a huge range of opportunities for growth.

I think of an image like this whenever I consider any single person, because within all of us there are vast, you could say infinite, potentials. Most of them, we will never realise in one lifetime. What an astonishing gift! What an incredible scope!

Couple this vast potential with an abundance mind set, and the world opens up to us. We have so many different ways to become the unique selves that only we can become.

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Are you familiar with the concept of the “wood wide web”? It’s a term which has been coined to describe the vast, intricate, integrated network of communication channels which spread through every forest. The trees don’t just communicate with each other by sending out chemicals from their leaves through the air to other trees, or to repel noxious insects, nor do they just send molecules and messages to each other through directly from root to root, but their root systems are deeply embedded in vast webs of fungi and “micro” fungi (that’s tiny fungi!!). We’ve discovered that the incredible interactions between trees and fungi can share information and materials right throughout the entire forest…..to the extent that you can really think of the forest as one enormous organism.
Well, similar pathways and mechanisms have now been described in flowers. It seems that flowering plants, too, communicate, not just by colour and scent, but through similarly entwined symbiotic relationships with micro-organisms and fungi.
Guess what? We communicate in a vast variety of diverse ways too. Sure, we use language, but we also use facial expressions, body movements and positions, as well as scent, colour and touch. But more than that, our beating hearts send out electromagnetic signals around our bodies…a sort of energy net which can interact with the nets of others close to us. We also communicate by sharing micro-organisms and molecules all of which are too small to see without a microscope.
In fact, just like trees and flowering plants, our hyper-connected existence really means we are so inter-related and so inter-dependent, that we just can’t help communicating with, and influencing, others every moment of every day.
It’s partly because of that, that I decided to start writing these daily posts during the pandemic. It seemed to me that there is a lot of negativity around, a lot of “bad energies”, a lot of fear, anger and hurt. And all of that spreads around our “world wide web” of hyper-connected humanity, and, yes, even the rest of the hyper-connected, natural world. As best I can see, we are creating the kind of world we both imagine and experience, because these connections act as vast feedback loops and accelerators, spreading and magnifying the information which we send out.
So, here I am, every day, sharing with you an image which I hope will enable you to have a mindful moment, a few minutes to pause, and reflect, and to stir within your soul, some wonder, some joy, some delight, and to magnify the love that exists in your heart.
Because, hey, wouldn’t it be great if wonder, joy, delight and love spread around our planet? Wouldn’t it be great if they accelerated and increased as they spread?
Well, that’s my hope. And I hope you’ll do the same, sending out and spreading your own wonders, joys, delights and love around your family, friends, colleagues, and, yes, even strangers.

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