How much do you think love motivates you to do what you do, to say what you say, to think what you think?
Are there serious arguments against making love our priority, our touchstone, our foundation, our core?
What couldn’t be improved by bringing a loving attitude to bear?
I think good health care requires love….love in the form of caring about, caring for, and wanting the best for, every patient. Love in the form of non-judgemental listening and attending. Love in the form of respect for the unique individual. Love which values personal relationships above techniques, tools and processes.
I think good education requires love…..love for children, love for knowledge, love for wisdom, love for growth, development and maturity. Actually, education isn’t something we should restrict to children, we could all do with learning all our lives. We could all benefit from life long education based on loving each person and wanting to try to help them realise their potentials.
I think good work requires love….love for craft, for skill, for quality, for service to our fellow workers, our families and our communities.
So how about a politics of love and an economics of love ….. love of Nature, of Planet Earth, of our fellow creatures, and of other people? What would that look like?
Maybe it’s time for us to be less shy about love. Maybe it’s time for us to speak up and say it’s important. More than important….essential.
Can we learn from this pandemic and move towards a society based more on creativity and care, than the present model which is based on consumption and competition? Can we move towards a society based more on qualities than on quantities, challenging the current dominance of figures, statistics and “data”, and insisting instead on loving, caring relationships, on experiences, on individual uniqueness, and on diversity?
I love to be able to look over the vines and see the rain falling in the distance. Where I’m standing it’s dry. No raindrops keep falling on my head. But across there towards the horizon I can see where the rain is falling….and where it isn’t falling.
It looks like I can see the edges of the rain. The rain is appearing as sheets, veils, or fingers reaching all the way down from the clouds to the ground. You can see it too, can’t you? You can tell that some parts of the land are getting wet, and that some aren’t.
In other words it appears that we can see the boundaries of the rain – it’s reach, not just vertically from cloud to soil, but horizontally, over a certain distance, left to right, or west to east, or whatever. If we see these boundaries so clearly, then surely, we could measure them. I could find out exactly the height, the breadth and the depth of that rain over there.
The thing is, as best I know, I can only do that approximately, and only if I stay at a sufficient distance from the rain. Because the closer I get, the harder it is to see exactly where the rain is falling, and where it isn’t falling. If I did do a measurement then something interesting happens. I have the impression of exactness. I have the impression that I have a more accurate, more complete knowledge.
But that’s a delusion.
We can prove it’s a delusion just by actually standing in the rain. When we are being rained on, it’s pretty impossible to know if we are in the middle of it, at the beginning of it, or nearing its far edge. It’s a lot easier to see a shadow approaching or receding, than it is to see the rain. That’s at least in part due to the fact that the rain has no hard edges. Those clear boundaries we can see in the distant rain, disappear the closer we get. By the time we step into the rain, the boundaries dissolve. We can no longer see where the rain begins and where it ends.
Yes, I know, there are two exceptions to that……if we look far enough away through the rain we can sometimes see outside of it to land where the rain isn’t falling. That can give us an idea of the rain passing through, knowing that in a short time, it will be gone again. And the other exception is sometimes rain falls in intense highly localised bursts. I’ve been able to see the rain pouring down just outside my garden while I stand, perfectly dry, inside the garden. But that’s rare. And even then, the exact boundaries are far from clear as I approach them.
What this image and these thoughts inspire in me is wonder……wondering about how everything is connected, and how it only looks separate if we don’t look closely enough. The closer we look the more the boundaries dissolve, the more connections and gradations we see.
It also inspires me to think about the difference between observing an object and experiencing an event. I can see the rain in the distance as “something”, maybe even something I could measure. Certainly something with particular dimensions. I see it as an object. But when I stand in the rain I experience it as an event. I don’t see it as an object. I can’t measure it. I can just live it.
This is a machine. It is manufactured by human beings. It has a number of solid, pretty unchanging parts (ok, they all gradually wear out with use), which are assembled into fixed relationships with each other by other parts…. nuts, bolts, springs, cogs and hinges.
These parts don’t grow. They don’t develop or mature. They don’t develop new ways of connecting to each other and they don’t change their function. Their relationships are linear. A always leads to B.
This machine looks a bit complicated but everything can be taken to pieces and understood. We can learn how it works and predict how it is going to work. It does what it was designed to do and if it stops doing that we can find the parts which are “defective” and replace them with new parts.
Living creatures are not like this. Human beings are not like this. We are not manufactured by human beings. Every cell, every tissue, every organ within the body changes all the time. The massive network of inter-connected feedback loops create relationships in the human body between cells, tissues and organs. These relationships are non-linear. A influences B in the presence C, D, and a host of others, whilst B, in turn influences A. These relationships are not fixed. They are not predictable.
Living creatures, like human beings, are “Complex” not “Complicated”. You can’t take them to pieces and understand the whole.
We are all “complex adaptive systems”, constantly bathed in flows of molecules, energies and information, which we transform within ourselves before contributing to their onward flow into others.
Machines can exist in isolation. Human beings cannot. We live only because we are embedded in the complex biosphere of Nature, dependent on the lives of a myriad of other forms of life, dependent on our relationships with others.
Machines are not unique. You can produce millions of identical machines. Human beings are unique. There has never been “YOU” before in the whole history of the universe, and there will never by “YOU” again, once you die.
The truth is every one of us is special, and every one of us deserves to be treated as unique. Every one of us deserves to be understood within our individual web of connections, relationships and life story.
Pumpkins are one of the most prolific and successful plants in my garden. They appear even where I haven’t seeded them (they must be in the soil now after five years of planting) and once they start to grow they spread across the entire vegetable patch reaching out towards every border.
On their way around and over the other plants they send out these tendrils which catch on to whatever they can touch. The tendrils then spiral intensely creating these powerful bonds which the plant uses to anchor itself and pull itself up on the surrounding plants, fences, walls and so on.
I think these bright green coils are astonishing. I’m amazed by them. How does the plant know when it’s touched something else….another plant, a part of the fence, or whatever, and then how does it move its tendrils to wrap around whatever it has connected to, and then how does it “wind itself up” like this?
Plants don’t have brains. We know that. But they sure have the ability to sense – they can sense touch, they can respond to light, to gravity, and as far as I know can seek out the nutrients they need. They can unfold their leaves to gather up the Sun’s energy to transform it into sugars and structures. They can fold their leaves up to protect the plant from too much sun. We tend to think of plants are creatures which stay put, but I can tell you pumpkin plants to anything but stay put!
I think we under-rate the plant world. It is astonishingly diverse, incredibly resilient and is far more sentient than we realise. Plants have the ability to move much more than we realise because we don’t see them walk or run anywhere, and we know they don’t have muscles or limbs. But, goodness, they are not still. They reach out, spread, grow and seek what they need to survive and thrive.
I wonder how they communicate with each other? I wonder if the pumpkin here in this photo communicates with the tomato plant it has found and fastened itself onto? I don’t reckon they “think” or “speak” like we do, but they surely make connections, exchange energy, chemicals and information, and doesn’t that amount to a vast amount of communication?
Seeking, connecting, communicating, pulling together……..I guess we’re at our best when we do that too, aren’t we?
Sometimes the colours in the sky and those in the garden just match so beautifully it’s breath-taking.
Here’s my scene to share with you today – glorious pink in the sky and glorious pink blossom on the bush, with the petals falling in a perfect circle on the grass.
I didn’t take this photo today of course but it’s one which delights me every time I look at it. And, hey, why not share was spreads delight?
Here’s my question for you today – what will you choose to share with the world today? Because, the truth is, we share what we think, feel and do all the time. We might do that unconsciously most of the time, but we always have the opportunity to choose – to share consciously. It’s this conscious sharing that I’m interested in today…….which I why I hope this image brings you some joy, delight, and tranquillity. It’s a beautiful world.
I took a photo of this little street in Segovia for one reason – it’s name. I mean, look at the street. I’m standing at one end taking the photo so you can tell it’s a pretty small street. I don’t think the buildings on either side of it would entice you to go and explore it, but the cobblestones are attractive, and, probably more than anything that arch at the end looks very inviting. Which is interesting because seeing the arch, which invites you to pass through it, and seeing the countryside rising up the hillside beyond it is definitely tempting. But the truth is there are wonderful views of the countryside all around Segovia.
Here’s what caught me and convinced me to take this photo.
Now I don’t speak much Spanish but I know that this is the street name – and that the name is “Street of the Moon Gate”.
Street of the gate of the moon!! I mean, how can you read this and not feel your curiosity and your imagination start to stir! That archway at the other end of the street was probably where the original gate into the old town was. But why was it called after the moon? Was it the gate to enter by moonlight when you hoped not to be noticed? (actually you are less likely to be noticed on a moonless night)
I don’t know. Maybe one of you does. If you do, please let me know what you’ve found out. There is a Sun Gate in Segovia, but the other gates are all named after Christian saints.
However, here’s my point. It’s the name which caught my attention. It’s the name which has stimulated my curiosity and fires my imagination. I’m sure there must be stories set in Segovia which mention this gate, but if there aren’t, maybe I’ll try and write one!
Have you come across any places where the name made the location special?
What makes a good day a good day? Our daily experience is shaped and influenced by a countless myriad of forces, signals, energies and events. Most of those influences impact on us unconsciously….we neither register them, nor do we consciously respond to them. But they shape our days all the same.
That’s not to say that we can’t play a more active role. We can. We can be the co-creators of our daily reality. There are at least three ways to do that.
First, we can create the spaces and pauses which enable us to reflect instead of react. We do this by slowing down, taking time to more fully savour the experiences which nurture us.
Second, we can make choices, choosing to follow certain chains of thought, and choosing to let go of others. We can choose to keep doing, thinking or feeling the same thing, and so reinforce the path we have created, or we can choose to do something different, to think something different, and, yes, even to feel something different.
Third, we can seek out and/or create the contexts, events and environments which we know set us up unconsciously to experience what we want to experience.
Looking at this third option recently, I’ve decided there are a number of qualities which positively influence my day. There’s curiosity and wonder. There’s joy. There’s love, kindness and positive intention. The more I can seek, create, pay attention to, nurture any of those, the more I am setting my brain up to respond accordingly. Even when I’m not consciously choosing.
So, here is a photo I took the other day which I find fills me with both joy and wonder. It’s a photo of a wild fig tree which has been growing outside of my garden, and the Boston Ivy plant which has survived the collapse of the enormous old stone wall which runs along that border. That wall fell eleven months ago now, but the vine which seemed to tumble down with it survived, grew and, look – its leaves are a more glorious red this year than they have ever been.
Life amazes me.
I am amazed how a seed can fall somewhere apparently random, germinate, take root and grow….with no involvement from human hands. And I’m amazed at the resilience of plant which can be partially uprooted, which can have the vast bulk of its being destroyed, but can survive. No, not just survive, but thrive.
I didn’t add beauty to my list, but there is no doubt that contemplating beauty is good for the heart and the spirit.
So, here it is to share with you today……an image of beauty which I hope will set you up for wonder and joy today.
It strikes me there is a paradox at the heart of what it is to be human. We each have a sense of being different from other people. We experience what Freud termed “the ego”. It’s a sense of “self”, of a kind of centre of the universe from which we observe and interact with everyone and everything else. Our immune system is finely tuned to quickly recognise anything that is “not me”, to identify it as a potential threat and to mount inflammatory and/or allergic responses to contain and/or expel it. We need to know that we matter, that we have value and worth, and whilst some of that comes self-referentially as “self-belief” and “self-worth”, a lot of it comes from that other, somewhat paradoxical theme – the fact that we are social creatures.
We need to belong. Complete isolation is a punishment – we call it “solitary confinement”. We need to find common ground with others, to be accepted by a family, a group, or a community. We need to find and express what connects us to others so that we can share our experiences with them.
This paradox of separateness and belonging is never “resolved” if we see them both as opposite, unconnected poles. Although they are undoubtedly difficult to reconcile, they need to be “integrated” – in other words we need to find how we can connect them to each other in ways which will enhance and develop both.
It’s important to grow and mature as an individual. It’s important to feel free, to have personal autonomy. It’s also important to grow as communities, as a species, (if we want to evolve), and even as an integral part of all Life on Planet Earth. We share the same air, the same water, the same limited “resources”. We create waste which cannot be contained. What I do affects others. There’s no getting away from that.
If an individual takes a strong exclusive position on one of these two needs, they lose their necessary connection to the other one. That results on the one hand in selfishness and narcissism, and on the other, as auto-pilot, group-thinking, which sets them up for domination and manipulation by others.
These things make us sick. They set in train the forces of dis-ease.
To be healthy and fully human we need self-belief and self-knowledge. We need freedom and autonomy. We need to belong, to form loving, caring and mutually beneficial relationships. We need to find common ground with others. And we need to see ourselves as inseparable individuals emerging from, and embedded within, the whole – the whole species, the whole living planet, the whole universe.
One day in Paris I came across this electric scooter sitting just beside this rather imposing statue of Condorcet. I had the notion that the serious thinker was looking down rather disdainfully at the scooter.
Even as I framed the shot I thought this was an interesting juxtaposition. Condorcet was a leading thinker of the Enlightenment, a champion of rational thought. That’s one large, heavy tome he has in his hand there and he has the air of someone who goes through life, eyes downcast, as he thinks seriously about everything.
For the Enlightenment thinkers rational thought was the way to liberate mankind, to free them up from the chains of superstition and enslavement by autocratic powers.
The electric scooter, on the other hand, is our right up to the moment symbol of autonomous freedom. In a city like Paris you can pick one up wherever it’s been left, pay your hire price using your smartphone, step on, and away you go whizzing along streets and passageways faster than pedestrians, weaving between static traffic jams of cars, pretty much as free as you’d like to be.
Yet a scooter, for many of us, is a sort of toy, isn’t it? I had a scooter as a child, as did my sister. In fact, just the other day there she found an old black and white photo of us both on our scooters, and sent it to me. Scooters back in the 1960s of course weren’t electric, but, apart from that is the modern version really that different?
I have a notion that one of the appeals of the electric scooter is something to do with play. Think back to childhood, or observe a child in your own family. From the very earliest of years children learn and develop through play. They explore, they discover, the try things out, pressing, pushing, bending, tasting, touching, looking and listening. They are like little sponges aren’t they? Absorbing every possible experience they can have minute by minute through the entirety of their waking hours.
Curiosity, then, that fundamental building block of learning, is expressed, first of all, through play. But there are three other qualities to play which come to my mind as I write this.
Play develops the imagination. Children create whole worlds to inhabit. Worlds of creatures, monsters, fairies, heroes. They dress up and assume roles. We even retain the phrase “role play” as an adult activity, don’t we?
Play encourages creativity. Children express themselves through drawing, singing, and making. Play is the medium through which creativity is released and nurtured.
Finally, play is social. Although a lot of play can be solitary, children adore games – games played with others. They are always asking to play games. Come and play this with me! Let’s play…..! They learn to connect, to interact and form relationships through play.
So, yes, the Enlightenment thinkers promoted liberation through rational thought, but are we missing a trick by reducing play to something less important, something somewhat trivial, even “childish”, to be left behind as we grow and mature into rational, thinking human beings?
Hey, you know me, and my “and not or” mantra – don’t we need BOTH? Don’t we need to inhabit, live, develop and grow both our “play” skills and our “rational” ones?
“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”
There’s such a push now, during this pandemic, for people to work from home, and already it’s easy to find a host of articles about the dangers this poses to work-life balance. Yet, “home-working” could be liberating. I had a telephone conversation with a government worker recently and I could tell from the background noise that he was at home, not in an office, so I asked him if that was the case. He replied yes and said how much he loved it. He no longer had to commute for 90 minutes to work and another 90 minutes back home every day – so he felt he had gained 3 hours. And, he said, when he wanted a coffee he didn’t have to stand in line and pay a hefty sum for a cup any more, he could just reach behind himself to where he’d placed his coffee machine.
I’m exploring a new way of organising my time, and I’ll share it with you once I’m happy with it, but today I realise I need to factor in something else, something a bit more liberated, something a bit more imaginative, something a bit more fun – play!
Why don’t you join me, and spend at least a little bit more of today in play?
Reflecting – I’ve long since thought this is a vital tool in life. There are two main modes of being – reactive and responsive. When some information, some energy or a substance evokes something within us our default is to react.
For example, when we see something threatening our “fight or flight” system kicks in fast and prepares us to do one of those two things…..fight or flee! It’s a complex system involving nerve pathways like the “autonomic nervous system”, certain nodes within the brain, like the “amygdala”, and a release of chemicals such as adrenaline and cortisol. Accompanying all that are the organising influences of the emotions. It happens fast.
The energy of heat makes us react too. When we get too hot our body re-routes the blood flow towards the surface of our skin, and we start to sweat, to try to maintain a steady body temperature in the face of the environmental change. There are many such reactive feedback systems in our bodies to enable us to react to environmental changes. All without requiring any conscious, active role, ourselves.
When we inhale an allergen, such as pollen, then, if we have the potential to be “allergic” to it, we react instantly with sneezing, runny nose, itchy eyes, or whatever, all provoked by an automatic activation of part of our defence system.
All of these are reactions.
But we humans can also respond. We don’t need to be 100% on auto-pilot. We respond, rather than react, by creating what the psychiatrist and author, Iain McGilchrist refers to as “the necessary distance”. We have this remarkable super-power to create a pause, a bardo, or a gap, between the stimulus and the response. We can stand back, stand apart, and change our perspective. This gives us our chance to reflect and it is a major factor in enabling us to move beyond an auto-pilot way of living.
Meditation practices of all types help us to step out of auto-pilot mode too. They strengthen our ability to become more aware in the present moment, and so open up the opportunity for us to play a more active role in our own lives. But reflection, I think, brings an additional benefit.
If a major benefit of meditation is heightened awareness and a breaking of the automatic stimulus-reaction loops, then reflection allows us to bring both our analytic functions of reasoning and our ability to imagine to bear. We can look back, unpick and unpack an experience and use the benefit of hindsight. We can “figure out” what happened and why and choose to act differently on any similar future occasion. We can think through a series of “what if”s to become aware of different potential outcomes.
As a doctor, I was encouraged to do this all the time. It is a common practice for doctors to reflect on their clinical work. That’s how we learn. That’s how we improve. But it’s the same in all walks of life. Stopping regularly to reflect frees us up – you could say it turns us from “zombies” into “heroes” (hero in the narrative sense – the main character of our own story).
There are many ways to build habits of reflection into your everyday. I think the top three are “Morning Pages” – where you write continuously to fill three pages of a notebook, preferably before you do anything else in the day; “Gratitude Journals” – where you end the day by thinking back and noting anything today for which you feel grateful; “Journaling” – whether in diary form, sketching, painting, whatever you prefer, but some regular time spent reflecting and then turning that reflection into something creative – a short essay, a poem, a letter to an imaginary friend, a letter to your older, or younger self, a cartoon, a drawing…..it’s up to you.
Oh, I should add, that it’s essential that all reflection is as non-judgemental as possible. It’s not about beating yourself up, or finding people to blame. It’s about learning and growing and a judgemental attitude isn’t going to help that.
What works best for you? How do you encourage yourself to reflect?
I welcome constructive criticism and suggestions. I will not, however, tolerate abuse, rudeness or negativity, whether it is directed at me or other people. It has no place here. ANYONE making nasty comments will be banned.
Heroes Not Zombies 