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Drug taking for health

June 14, 2014 by bobleckridge

There’s a lot of controversy this week about statins because NICE (the body which makes recommendations for the NHS in England) seems about to recommend a huge increase in the number of people taking statins. A group of senior medics have written to the government criticising this recommendation. The letter,

signed by nine doctors and academics including the president of the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), warns “public and professional faith” in the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) could be lost and harm could be done to “many patients over many years”. It accuses the standards body of seeking to “medicalise five million healthy individuals”.

Their criticism includes concern about the quality of the evidence being used by NICE. They say they are….

seriously concerned that eight members of NICE’s panel of 12 experts for its latest guidance have direct financial ties to the pharmaceutical companies that manufacture statins”. They also warn that “overdependence on industry data raises concerns about possible biases”

But whatever you think about the quality of the evidence, do you think it really makes good sense to medicate millions of healthy people? This excellent summary from John Middleton really struck home for me

The Nice proposals suggest putting five million extra people on statins to prevent fewer than 500 deaths a year. For every death postponed, 10,000 people will have to take a statin to no purpose.

Let me just be clear that I understand the potential benefit statins can bring to people who have heart disease, and avoiding strokes and heart attacks is a perfectly reasonable goal. What bothers me is the idea that the way to ensure a healthy life for already healthy people is to get masses of them to take drugs for life. That makes absolutely no sense to me.

Surely, if we want to stack the odds in favour of healthy lives in already healthy people, we need to be making the changes to our society which will ensure healthier ways of living, not prescribing more drugs to more people for more of their lives.

Posted in from the consulting room, health, life | 3 Comments »

Bored?

June 13, 2014 by bobleckridge

According to a government report workers who retire early risk “boredom, loneliness and poverty“.

Well, that’s something to look forward to, huh? Strange report – probably part of a fear campaign to try and keep people in employment for longer. What are they suggesting, actually? It’s better to retire later? Or that if you are working, even on a minimum wage, zero hours contract in your 60s and 70s you will avoid “boredom, loneliness and poverty”?

I suspect this kind of thinking says more about how we live than it does about the respective benefits of employment and retirement.

Funnily enough, I just stumbled over this quote from Goethe –

“A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I’ll be continuing to do that once I start my early retirement next month! And much else besides. I’m anticipating that the post-employment years will include lots of discovery, creativity, personal development and fun.

Meantime, here’s a little music

and a little poetry

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

– from Mary Oliver’s The Summer Day

and

Here’s a fine picture

glorious seedhead

 

Posted in books, creativity, from the dark room, from the living room, from the music room, from the reading room, life, music, personal growth, philosophy, photography, psychology | Leave a Comment »

Synchronicity

June 12, 2014 by bobleckridge

I don’t understand synchronicity but when it happens its always striking and exciting.

About a week ago I bookmarked a transcript of an RSA talk by Guy Claxton, and yesterday I sat down and read it. It’s a fascinating talk about what he terms “glimpses” (what others have termed spiritual or enlightenment experiences). I’ll let you read the full talk yourself, but in that talk he referred to W B Yeats’ poem, “Vacillation”, where he describes just such an experience –

My fiftieth year had come and gone
I sat, a solitary man
In a crowded London shop
An open book, an empty cup
On the marble table-top
While on the shop and street I gazed
My body of a sudden blazed
And, twenty minutes, more or less
It seemed, so great my happiness
That I was blessed, and could bless

Then, later the same day, I was researching the lifespans of different organisms (I’ll tell you why another time) and picked my copy of Richard Fortey’s “Life” off my shelf. I have a beautiful Folio edition which is a complete joy to hold. Imagine my surprise when on page 22, in his first chapter, where he is describing his early experience of an expedition, he writes about having a dispute with his colleague, then waking to a beautiful, perfect day and he says “The joy of such moments healed any differences between us. Like W B Yeats –

My body of a sudden blazed
And, twenty minutes, more or less
It seemed, so great my happiness
That I was blessed, and could bless

I don’t know how that happens. Do you? How do I read the identical passage of poetry in two such different, totally unconnected places within a few hours of each other?

 

Posted in books, from the living room, from the reading room, life, perception, psychology | 1 Comment »

Maslow’s hierarchy of murder

June 11, 2014 by bobleckridge

Remember Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?

Maslow identified what he called a hierarchy of needs which motivate human beings, starting with survival needs, such as food, drink and shelter, then moving upwards to social needs (relationship needs) of connecting and belonging, to esteem needs of being recognised and respected. Beyond that he postulated being needs, as opposed to these “deficiency needs”, which became evident as self-actualisation, something he thought wouldn’t happen until the lower needs were met.

This hierarchy has been criticised and its certainly not the case that human development follows any rigid, layer by layer, step-wise progression. (I think integral theory provides a more interesting way of looking at old hierarchies – from an integral viewpoint its not so much a hierarchy at all as layers which grow on top of each other with every layer continuing to exist)

Well, Gary Lachman, in his Secret History of Consciousness, mentions the writer, Colin Wilson, once researching the history of murder and finding something curious.

At first it seemed murders were mainly committed for gain – food for example. Then other types of murder appeared, which involved murderers protecting their lifestyle, their homes or their property. Towards the end of the nineteenth century the sex crime emerged (think of Jack the Ripper) where the murder was a kind of sex act in itself. In the twentieth century he noticed the emergence of murders for fame – to become known, and then towards the end of that century the appearance of the “motiveless murder”, the unpredictable, random killing sprees.

Wilson was struck that there was a parallel here with Maslow’s hierarchy – food, the home, sex, self-esteem –  and where did that lead to? Murder as a creative act? Murder as an act of self-actualisation? Wilson rejected this idea, rightly claiming that crime is not a means to self-actualisation. Criminals try to grab what they want, instead of putting in the time and effort to self-actualise. They will murder a celebrity to gain celebrity for example.

He posed the interesting question in relation to this discovery – was murder a kind of Jungian shadow, reflecting the level of development of human consciousness? If so, it might be further evidence that we are indeed moving as a species to a new stage of development, towards a focus on self-actualisation and creativity.

Wow! That’s quite a leap, huh? But certainly a thought provoking one!

Posted in books, creativity, from the living room, from the reading room, life, personal growth, philosophy, psychology | 1 Comment »

sixes and sevens

June 10, 2014 by bobleckridge

Any botanists reading this?

If so, what’s going on here?

Why do some of these flowers have six petals…..

Six

and some have seven…….?

Seven

 

Nature loves diversity

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, photography, science | 2 Comments »

Spider music

June 9, 2014 by bobleckridge

spider in web

web and castle

dew web

web

 

There’s no doubt that spider webs are beautiful, but spider’s silk is a very complex fibre which has remarkable qualities. It’s strength is legendary, but now researchers from Oxford, Strathclyde and Sheffield have discovered that one of the main ways spiders use their webs is, well, musical.

Most spiders have poor eyesight and rely almost exclusively on the vibration of the silk in their web for sensory information,’ said Beth Mortimer of the Oxford Silk Group at Oxford University, who led the research. ‘The sound of silk can tell them what type of meal is entangled in their net and about the intentions and quality of a prospective mate. By plucking the silk like a guitar string and listening to the ‘echoes’ the spider can also assess the condition of its web.

Dr Chris Holland of the University of Sheffield, an author of the paper, said: ‘Spider silks are well known for their impressive mechanical properties, but the vibrational properties have been relatively overlooked and now we find that they are also an awesome communication tool. Yet again spiders continue to impress us in more ways than we can imagine.’

Isn’t that amazing and wonderful? That spiders set and sense the vibrations and frequencies in the silk they weave to know how healthy their webs are, and to know, from the “music” of the web, what they have trapped.

Wonder!

 

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, perception, science | 1 Comment »

The A to Z of Becoming. W for Wonder

June 8, 2014 by bobleckridge

Wonder is one of my most favourite verbs.

I like the French word émerveillement which captures the essence of wonder for me. I think this is a great way to approach Life.

There are two aspects of the verb wonder which really appeal to me.

The first is to wonder in the sense of curiosity…….as in “I wonder what this is?” Here’s an example – “Is this a rock, or a tree? I wonder how these markings formed on this rock?”

 

rock weathering

The second is to wonder with a sense of amazement……as in “Wow! look at the patterns of the rock and the patterns on the stream, and how similar they are!”

rock waves

sparkling water

 

I would like to propose that an attitude of wonder increases the quality of your life, whereas, an attitude of scepticism, or nihilism…..hmm….well you tell me if you find those attitudes life enhancing.

Just as a wee bonus today, here is a great song about wondering…..

 

And, another bonus (well, it is my birthday!)

 

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, from the music room, from the viewing room, life, music, perception, personal growth, photography | 1 Comment »

My trilogy

June 7, 2014 by bobleckridge

september learning

A recent article in The Atlantic considers the big changes in demographics particularly in developed countries over the last one hundred years. It includes the statement that

For the first time in history, most people now being born can expect to live seven, eight, nine or more decades.

As I’m going to be 60 (tomorrow – 8th June 2014) I found this statement, and the rest of the article, to be a bit of an inspiration. I recommend you click through the link above and read it. The main issue is that we have hardly begun to consider how society will change with this increase in longevity. Other studies look at whether or not these “added years” are “healthy” years but I think that’s an important, but separate, issue.

What I’m wondering about is how we might begin to live differently as we become aware of this change.

I’m thinking that my life is like a trilogy.

The first part of the trilogy, for me, takes me to about 24 years old. That’s the age I was when I graduated with my medical degree from Edinburgh University. That first part was about growing, learning, playing, maturing into adulthood. The second part has been my working years as a doctor, and as I’m retiring at the end of this month, that part is concluding right now.

So, Part 1 was 24 years long, Part 2 was thirty six years long, and nobody knows how long Part 3 will be. According to the figures quoted in The Atlantic it could well be something between the lengths of parts one and two. Wow! That’s actually a BIG part. That’s what got me to thinking about my life as a trilogy. Not all parts of a trilogy are the same length, but it’s not actually the length of this third part which interests me most. What really interests me is what will be the underlying themes of this Part 3, which begins in a month’s time.

I’m shifting my focus from working as a doctor to living as a writer. I’m shifting my focus from salaried employment with all that entails, to living on a pension. To finish the routine, expectations, and responsibilities, as well as the rewards and pleasure of working as an employed doctor is quite daunting and quite exciting all at the same time. One thing I’m SO aware of right at this moment in my life is that the one certainty is change.

We are all becoming, not being………

We are all able to choose to become heroes, not zombies.

Part 3……..how shall I start?

 

Feather

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, personal growth, photography | 2 Comments »

A second look

June 6, 2014 by bobleckridge

bird

This isn’t what I usually do, but here’s the photo I posted yesterday. I wanted to show you it again to say something about using a camera.

I carry a camera everywhere, and these days many, many of you have cameras in your smartphones so you too will be carrying a camera everywhere too. I’ve heard some people say if you are looking through a lens you aren’t experiencing reality as it is. In other words if you are busy photographing what you are looking at, then you aren’t really seeing what there is to see.

That’s not my experience at all. Of course, I don’t walk around with the camera in front of my face. I look, I see, I notice, and then I photograph.

But what surprises me, and delights me, time and time again, is how once I get the photos loaded up onto my iMac and look at them on the big screen, I see things I really wasn’t aware of seeing at the time.

In the case of this photo, I noticed the bird on the stone when I was trying to photograph the reflection of the forest and the stone in the river, but by the time I focused the shot and pressed the shutter button, the bird had flown off. I thought I’d missed it.

But look! I didn’t miss it, and even better, even more amazing, you can see the reflection of the bird in the water as it flies off over the river!

Wonderful! And I really didn’t see that when I was in the forest.

Posted in from the dark room, perception, photography | Leave a Comment »

An observation test

June 5, 2014 by bobleckridge

Find the bird (s?)

 

 

 

bird

How do we notice what we notice?

Of course, it’s not the same looking at a photo as it is standing in a forest looking at a river, but I think what catches our attention is often what moves, or what is different. Either that, or we are looking for something, so we scan the scene to try and find it (that’s what you did with this photo)

What are you looking for today?

What might you notice if you have your eyes open for difference?

Posted in from the dark room, life, perception, photography | Leave a Comment »

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