Heroes Not Zombies

“Cities are built around plazas where friends, family and co-workers sit, eat, drink and talk. That turns out to be good for you even if you sip vermouth and eat crisps at noon. Reams of research show that social contact is critical for physical and psychological well-being.”

economist.com

I took this photo in the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris last Tuesday afternoon. There are lots of spaces in Paris which encourage people to walk, sit, stroll, relax, chat, take a pause.

This second photo was taken in the centre of Beziers. At one end of a long, wide, tree lined promenade sprinkled with benches, is the “Plateau des Poètes”, a beautiful garden, with several busts of French poets. Not only does this encourage people to spend time together, but it celebrates poetry. What a delight!

We need social spaces, places to connect, to exchange, to chill, or to pause. We need poetry, and stories, and art. We need beauty and plants and trees. Because we are human.

I was in Saint Remy de Provence recently and spotted these two windows. Nostradamus was born there in 1503, and that window on the right depicts him with his scientific instruments gazing out at the world. He remains famous for his predictions, and, science is in the business of making predictions. The scientific method has evolved over the years and is now focused on making measurements, carrying out experiments and seeing what can be predicted from “reliable” measurements.

The window on the left is a real window, with glass in it. In this photo you can see what the world was like in the moment when I took the picture. Blue sky, early trees without leaves or blossom yet. A beautiful, early Spring day.

When I look at this image again I’m struck by how the window on the right is a work of art, the produce of a creative imagination. Back in the day when Nostradamus was alive, art and science were not as divided as they are today. Both disciplines require a good imagination and skilful observation. The focus of the window on the right is the future….what’s coming next?

The window on the left, you could say, is more utilitarian. It’s part of the architecture of the building. It’s designed to let light in and to allow the inhabitants to see out into the street below. Its focus is on the present, but from my perspective as the photographer, it’s showing me a reflection, not what can be seen directly by looking through the glass.

Both windows are a re-presentation – one through reflection, the other through painting.

They make a nice pair, don’t you think?

It’s easy to think that creativity is what professional artists, musicians, poets and inventors have. But actually creativity is a fundamental human characteristic. We all have the gift of imagination. We are all born with the ability to play and experiment.

We are adaptable problem solvers, and we are great storytellers, telling ourselves and others the stories which make sense of our lives and allow us to connect with others.

We have the ability to express our feelings and share our experiences through art. This is how we connect subject to subject.

Creativity doesn’t need to be serious. It begins in childhood with curiosity and play.

Have you had any fun creating something recently? This photo, by the way, is of an external wall of a shop in Saint Remy de Provence.

Here’s how our brain works…..all the signals from our environment, and from within our own body, flow up from our sensory organs, through a vast network of nerve fibres to the right cerebral hemisphere which then hands off the information to the left hemisphere. The job of the left is to abstract, to focus on parts, to label and categorise. In short, to re-cognise, in order to help us grasp, both physically and mentally, the world, so we can manipulate it. The left hemisphere, having done its job hands back its work to the right which contextualises it all….puts it all back into the vast web of connections which the left extracted it from….so we can see the whole, so we can see the connections and relationships.

The left hemisphere fundamentally creates a re-presentation of reality. It’s a map, a model, an abstracted layer. It’s not actual reality. The right deals with reality as a whole.

OK, that’s all a vast over-simplification of the process, but it gives you a basic understanding of why we need both halves of the brain – it’s not a matter of one side good, the other bad. They do different jobs and we need them to work together.

But there’s just one more nuance to lay out here – they are not equal. The right hemisphere should be in charge. Iain McGilchrist’s thesis in the Master and His Emissary, is that we have developed cultures and ways of thinking where we give greatest credence to the left hemisphere….even to the extent of dismissing what the right can tell us. This separates us. It’s separates us from each other and from the rest of the world. It’s not real.

Whether I consider the physical changes I make by living on this planet…the oxygen I breathe in, the water and nutrients I ingest and digest, the molecules I excrete, the radiation of heat from my body…..or whether I consider the impact of my words, my creations and expressions….the intense interconnectedness of being a live human being means that every day I change the world a little, just as the world changes me.

So, I’m reminded of a much taught piece of advice – if I have a choice I should choose kindness. Whatever I pay attention to, I should pay a loving attention to. Whenever I can, I should care.

We make this world a better world by building and nurturing integrative relationships – mutually beneficial bonds between well differentiated parts.