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More Good Days

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 26, 2026| Leave a Comment »

I’ve created a podcast. If you’d like to listen to it come to my Substack page.

Here’s the transcript of the first episode.

“Hello”, that’s what we say when we answer the phone, isn’t it? 

Hello. 

A simple little word we most likely say automatically. It’s kind of a habit, isn’t it?

But we don’t say it only when answering a phone. We say it to acknowledge other people. To connect, even if only briefly. 

When I moved to France I quickly noticed how often people said “bonjour”. Pretty much everyone who passes when I’m out for a walk says “bonjour”. Even teenagers. That was a shock! In fact, teenagers will often say “bonjour, monsieur” which sounds even more polite than just “bonjour”.

I quickly noticed that every conversation starts with “hello”, or “bonjour”, I mean. So, when it’s your turn at the check-out, the check-out man or woman will always say “bonjour” before starting to process your purchases. And you will say “bonjour” in return. It would be impolite otherwise. In a smaller shop, say, a boulangerie, a cafe, or the local post office, people will say “bonjour” when entering the premises. They might say “bonjour, messieurs, dames”, “hello, ladies and gentlemen”, if there are other customers already in the shop awaiting their turn. But, even if there are no other customers, the first thing to say is always “bonjour”. 

I like that. I liked it from the first moment I encountered it. Saying “hello” is an acknowledgement. It’s a way of making a connection. It says, “I’m here and I see, or hear, you”. It establishes a “we”, even if only fleetingly. It makes the world instantly feel a more friendly place. 

When I was a teenager I used to listen to the DJ, John Peel, and I’ll always remember one autumn when he talked about all the leaves that fall on the ground. He said he liked to carry a pen with him. I guess, these days, it would be a “sharpie” or “marker pen”. And he’d stop from time to time and pick up a leaf, write the word “hello” on it and place it back on the ground. He liked to think it would brighten the day of some stranger who’d notice the leaf, pick it up, and read “hello”. 

It’s a small word, and little habit, but, in my experience, it makes the world a better place. 

Hey, that’s a big claim, isn’t it? I mean, it’s just “hello”, for heaven’s sake! 

I can only say, check it out for yourself. How often to people say “hello” to you? How often do you say “hello” to others? Does it seem to make a difference?

That’s a general principle I have – noticing. We’ve got a tendency to live a lot of our lives on autopilot. In fact, my blog, which I’ve been publishing for many years now, is entitled “Heroes not zombies” – you can find it easily by typing heroes not zombies into any browser. I called it that because to address exactly that issue – that we have this tendency to slip into autopilot, living an only semiconscious life, driven this way and that by others, pushed and pulled by circumstances, like zombies. That makes us vulnerable and biddable, with corporations, politicians, and others pushing our buttons to make us respond their will, rather than use our own. But if we wake up, become more aware, pay more attention, then we can increase our autonomy. We can make our own choices, create our own narratives, become the heroes of our own stories. I mean hero in this way. I don’t mean like a sort of super hero with special powers. I mean the main character, the hero, of the story….of your story. 

Over the years I’ve posted articles and shared photos on my blog, all with the hope that others will be inspired to wake up, pay more attention, and resist slipping into autopilot so much. 

So, about this saying “hello”. I’d say try becoming more aware of it. Notice when people say “hello” to you, and grasp the opportunities to say “hello” to others. Then, you decide. Does this help make a better day, a better life, a better world, even? 

In more recent years, here in France, I’ve noticed that there’s another word people are using every day. It’s “bonne journee” – ok, it’s two words, a phrase, not just a single word. But it’s everywhere now, it seems. When leaving the check-out, when leaving the cafe, or the shop, almost always now, you’ll hear, not just “au revoir”, which, by the way, is such a nice way of saying goodbye, because, literally, it’s “until seeing you again”, but, in addition now, you’ll hear “bonne journee” – the French equivalent of “have a good day”. Once I noticed it being used so frequently, I started to use it myself, and it’s my routine now. As I leave the check-out, the restaurant, the boulangerie, I say “au revoir, bonne journee”. 

Actually the French have rippled out this phrase into a whole range of context-specific forms. So, it’s not unusual now, on leaving a boulangerie on a Friday to hear “Bon weekend”, or if you’re there on a Sunday “Bonne dimanche” – “have a good weekend” or “have a good Sunday”. There are loads of others!. 

What I like about this is that it’s an expression of good will. It’s saying to someone else, you wish them to have a good day. 

Well, all that focus on good days got me thinking. What is a good day, anyway? What makes a good day, a good one? And that’s what led to this podcast. 

My hope is, that together, here, we will share what goes to making a day a good day. Because, as I used to say to my patients, you are only alive today, here and now. If you spend all your time in your head going over the past, regretting it, re-experiencing the pains of it, or if you spend all your time in your head in the future, wondering what if this, and what if that? Then your head is filled with hurts, sorrows, anxieties and fears. But what if you deliberately stop that and turn your attention to the here and now? What if you just slow down for a moment and notice what is around you? Not just notice, but pay some attention. Engage. 

Well, then, maybe you’ll start to find some relief. 

Maybe you’ll start to have more good days.

I’d like to help you to have a good day, and I think the best way for me to do that is to share with you what I’ve learned from my experience with thousands of patients who told me what makes a good day for them, as well as sharing what makes a day a good day for me. 

We are all different. We live according to our own values, tastes, desires, our own relationships and issues, so what goes towards making today a good day for me, may well be different from what makes a good day for you. On the other hand, we are all human, and so we have a lot in common. 

I worked as a doctor for four decades, and I’ve often said how I’d look forward to Monday because it was the start of another week. A week where people I’d never met before would come to me and tell me their unique, individual stories. 

I never lost that sense of awe which I’d experience when people told me about their lives. In fact, it wasn’t just the “new” patients I looked forward to seeing. I was just as keen to meet again with those who’d come to me before, maybe many times before. 

We prioritised continuity of care at my place of work. As a patient you could expect to see the same doctor at every visit. It would be unusual if you didn’t. 

This meant we developed long term relationships with our patients, stretching over many months, many years. In some cases, even over different generations. What a delight it was to help a young parent, who’d I’d originally helped when she was just a toddler. Human beings amaze me. Always have done. Still do.

Everyone I met had a unique story to tell. Everyone I met was different. And, yet, everyone I met also had many similar experiences, suffered from the same common symptoms, and manifested very typical patterns of behaviour, and of illness. 

I first expressed the desire to be a doctor when I was three years old. I don’t know where that came from. Nobody in my family had ever worked in health care. I had no relatives who were doctors or nurses. 

I reckon it’s always been a kind of “calling” for me, even though I know that’s not a common word to use about work these days. 

Why did I want to be a doctor? To help people. In fact, I’ve often thought that there’s a purpose to my life….that I’m here to contribute to the creation of a better world. That I’ve a responsibility to try to leave the world a little better place than it was when I entered into it. 

I guess the main way I’ve tried to do that has been one person at a time. If I can help reduce this particular patient’s suffering, if I can help them to heal, to cope better….if I can help them to grow even, then I’m making a contribution to making the world a better place.

We all live our lives a day at a time, and the only place we have power to make a change is right here, right now. So, in this podcast I want to share with you the ways I’ve discovered to help make today a better day. 

As I started to think about what made a day a good day, it seemed pretty clear to me that if we experience more good days, then we might begin to feel that our lives are more worth living. But I don’t think having good days is just about having more happy days. I think it’s about having more days which feel meaningful, valuable, more days where we enrich our relationships and where we grow. 

If more of us have more good days like that, more of us will have the experience of living lives worth living. Then, maybe, we will be able to contribute to making this a better world. 

I have this picture in my head of three concentric circles. Each circle representing a zone of time and space. The innermost circle is where we experience and create the present. 

It’s where we can have our good days. 

The more good days grow in both frequency and intensity, the more they contribute to the creation of the next circle….lives worth living. This is the zone of a lifetime. 

Our lives can feel more worth living, the more good days we have, and the more our lives feel worth living, the more good days we are likely to experience, because in a life well lived there are more opportunities for good days to happen. 

Good days contribute to lives worth living, lives worth living create more opportunities for good days. 

But there is more to a life worth living than is contained within good days, which is partly why this second circle is bigger than the first one. 

We need more than good days. We need more than happy times, enjoyable and rewarding moments. We need to grow, to develop, mature. There’s a French word I love – epanouissement – which means to flourish or to blossom. It’s used to describe what flowers and trees do, but it’s also used in psychology to describe what Jung would call “individuation” – a growing, developing psyche. 

In future episodes we can explore some of the things which help us to grow, to flourish. 

It seems to me that when more of us experience lives worth living, then we will be on track to make the world a better place. That’s the third, outer circle. The zone of the world. 

Nothing exists in isolation. Our lives and our days all occur within particular contexts, specific environments. If we improve these environments, we’re making a better world, and, in turn, we are creating the conditions for more of to live lives worth living. We live in the shared physical, social, and cultural environments, we find in this third, outer circle. We influence these environments through our choices and our behaviours, and these environments, in turn, profoundly influence us. 

A better world will, I believe, be one where we take care to improve these environments. That’s how we will increase the chances of more and more of us experiencing better lives and having more good days. 

One more thing before I begin. I don’t see the world through a binary lens. What do I mean by that? Well there aren’t two kinds of days. Good days and bad ones. It’s not so “black and white”. In every day there will be experiences we appreciate and others we’d rather have avoided. Life is nuanced, and its mixed. 

What we pay attention to gets magnified, so let’s start by paying attention to what makes for a good day. And see where that leads us. 

Here’s to more good days. 

Whatever we pay attention to gets magnified. The more attention we pay to something, the larger it will feature in our minds. Any gardener will tell you the less attention you pay to your plants, the less likely they are to survive, and, in fact, we can say the same about our children. The attention we pay to babies isn’t only crucial for their survival. It literally shapes their brains, influencing both the number of connections created between brain cells, and also the strength of those connections. 

There’s a whole field of developmental psychology devoted to attachment styles….how the kinds of attention paid by main carers shape a child’s personality and behaviour. Patterns which persist right through adult life. 

Paying attention, especially a loving, and caring attention, profoundly affects both survival and thriving. It shapes how we see the world. It lays the foundations for both how we experience and how we interact with the world.

Philosopher and psychologist, William James, described the natural behaviour of attention as “wandering”. That’s what attention does. It keeps wandering. We all have that experience, don’t we?

It’s pretty difficult to keep our attention focused on anything specific. We have to work at it, because attention doesn’t only keep wandering, it’s always on the lookout for whatever is new – a movement, a sound, a characteristic. 

Have you ever noticed how quickly you can spot the movement of an animal, a bird, or a person, when gazing out over even vast landscapes? When something changes in our field of vision, we notice it straight away and turn our attention to it. The same thing happens with sound. It’s not just that we jump, or get startled by sudden loud noises. If we are in an environment where there is a constant background, perhaps machine noise, the moment it stops, we notice it has stopped. We are wired to detect change. To pay attention to what’s new.

The social media giants, mainstream media, and especially the advertising industry all work hard to try to grab and keep our attention. 

One way they do that is by continuously feeding us new things – images, sounds, or information. The invention of “infinite scrolling” where you can never reach the end of a “feed” is one of the most effective, addictive tools they use to keep our attention – to keep our attention on their website, their platform. I read an interview with a software engineer who invented this “infinite scrolling” and he said it was one of his biggest regrets because it has such enormous addictive power.

Apart from noticing what’s new, there’s another way to grab our attention. Stir up strong emotions. 

Just as attention magnifies whatever it is focused on, so can attention change our world by making us angry or fearful. The more we fill our inner experience with anger and fear, the more we pay attention to whatever that anger or fear is attached to. In fact, not only what they are attached to, but the anger and fear themselves, which become all-consuming, setting up our whole being into “fight or flight” mode, with surges of adrenaline, and cortisone, which creates a state of chronic inflammation in the body. What does on in our minds doesn’t stay in our minds. It cascades throughout our entire body, changing it as goes. 

Sensationalist headlines do exactly the same. They aim to catch our attention and keep a hold of it, turning us into anger and fear zombies in the process. 

But we don’t need to live our lives on autopilot. We can make some conscious choices about what we want to pay attention to. We can choose to notice, and to focus in on, beauty, for example. Or we can look out for whatever inspires wonder and awe. 

We can deliberately pay attention to positive emotions, to whatever stirs our souls and makes us feel gratitude for being alive. We can choose to use what the poet, Mary Oliver, called “loving attention”, the kind of attention which generates care, compassion and gratitude. 

Because if we choose to use attention consciously, to choose, in particular, to use loving attention consciously, then our lives and our minds become ever more full of love, wonder, delight, care, compassion and gratitude. 

We just have to practice it, and to practice it every single day. 

In my medical career, I frequently met patients whose suffering was magnified by their attention being trapped in the past, going over and over old wounds and hurts, or by their attention being trapped in the future, imagining all the worst possible outcomes and fearing them. Part of the work of releasing them from their suffering involved helping them to turn their attention to the here and now, where, around us, every day, there are phenomena which can delight and engage us. 

I think we all can begin to experience better lives by, first, becoming aware of where our attention wanders to, and where it gets caught. Only then are we able to make more conscious, personal choices about where to direct it. 

Remember, attention is a great magnifier. It grows whatever it is focused on. So, let’s choose what we want to focus it on. 

How about we focus it on awe, on wonder. My favourite French phrase “L’émerveillement du quotidien” captures exactly that – the wonder, or amazement, of the every day”. What have you noticed today that caught your attention? Did anything stop you in your tracks, or slow you down, to focus on it? Maybe you paused to get your phone out and took a photo. I do that a lot. It’s a great way to slow yourself down, to pay better attention to the here and now, and to give you more chances later to re-visit that moment, to see it again, but with fresh eyes in a different context. And it gives us a chance to share with others what has amazed us. 

Do you use any social media? Maybe you’d like to share some of your photos on Instagram, Facebook, or, in my case, on Bluesky. If you’d like to see my every day photos come and follow me on Bluesky. You’ll find me at this address – @bobleckridge.bsky.social If you do come to Bluesky, send me a message and say hello, so we can connect there. I’d love to see what amazes you every day. 

But my good days aren’t just about what generates awe and wonder. I find that if I decide to focus on whatever delights me, what touches and moves me, then that too helps to create more good days. For me, that includes poetry. I have a little notebook where I copy out by hand my favourite poems, the ones which I come across and which draw me in, move me, inspire me. 

And it includes music, too. I’ll tell you more about that in another episode, and I’d love to hear from you what songs, what compositions, really delight or touch you. Come and find me, either on Bluesky, at @bobleckridge.bsky.social or at heroesnotzombies.com where I’ll post the transcripts of each of these podcast episodes. 

Another of my great passions, which is a huge source of joy, delight, wonder and awe for me, is art. I enjoy seeing what others have created. I love sculpture, especially sculpture outside, in natural environments. But I love a wide range of visual art and always seek out a good gallery or museum if I’m on a city break, or staying somewhere on a trip. Art has incredible power to communicate what we find difficult to put into words. 

I do love words, too, however, and most good days involve some kind of encounter with stories….either the stories of patients, family or friends, of the stories I find in books. I’m an avid reader. 

I don’t know how many of these activities you identify with, but I’d love to hear about your own examples. In the podcast episodes to come, I’ll share with you examples of all of these, and more. 

When it comes right down to it, I recommend we focus on whatever it is that stirs our souls, whatever it is that generates feelings of gratitude and love. That way, I’m pretty sure, we’ll have more good days, more of us will experience our lives as worth living, and together we can create a better world. 

Let me finish today with a Mary Oliver poem, “The Summer Day”. 

The music I play as an intro and an outro is “What a Wonderful Day” by Shane Ivers. Here’s the credit – Music: What A Wonderful Day by Shane Ivers – https://www.silvermansound.com

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Life after death

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 4, 2026| 2 Comments »

“There are such things as ghosts. People everywhere have always known that. And we believe in them every bit as much as Homer did. Only now, we call them by different names. Memory. The unconscious.” The Secret History. Donna Tartt. 

Throughout my career in Medicine my everyday was spent in one to one consultations with individual patients. My focus was always the person present before me. So you might think I’d be a firm believer in the physical world, and, indeed, I am. 

I found that patients who were suffering were often separated from the here and now, and that, one way to help them find relief was to bring their attention back to the present, teach them to notice and wonder about the everyday. 

I described myself as a wholistic practitioner because I understood each person as a whole being, not divisible into separate realms of mind and body, and certainly not reducible to the body alone. 

But is there more than this? 

When a person dies, is that it? Last chapter written. Book finished. Gone. 

That’s not my experience. Here’s why. 

A human being, a person, is not contained fully within the skin and bones of a body. We exist in relationship. We come to be within relationship. Relationship to others, certainly, but also relationship to the world in which we live. Our senses are activated by the signals they receive from the environment (and, yes, they are also activated by our own minds and bodies). Our world view is created by our experiences and events. We are beings constantly changing, constantly becoming. We are creative beings, always in the process of receiving, giving, expressing, making the everyday unique. 

I read someone recently saying that when they lost their parent, they suffered two losses….the loss of their loved one, and the loss of that part of themselves which only existed in relationship with that loved one. I think that’s an incredibly important insight. 

We are multi-faceted creatures, with a Self which is best understood as a “community of selves”. We experience, and others experience, a different self at work, from at home, a different self with a close friend, with a lover, with a competitor. 

It’s helpful to understand that we are the totality of the multiple relationships in our lives….past, present and future. Yet, where are these selves? Despite advances in neuroscience and imaging techniques we still cannot pinpoint these different aspects of the Self. We know some of the key brain areas involved. But we’ve also discovered that complexes of nerve networks, and chemical messaging pathways in the gut, around the gut, around the heart, and, indeed, throughout our physical body, are also involved. 

Within psychology, neuroscience, and the developing disciplines of psychoneuroimmunology and psychoneuroendocrinology, we have learned that our emotions and our cognition is “embodied”. In other words, they are not confined to our brains. Others have shown that we are good at outsourcing some of our cognition to the extent that we should think of our psyches as not simply “embodied”, but also, “extended”…..extended into the environment and into others. I suppose that’s become all the more obvious with our new technologies. Our phones have taken over vital parts of our memory functions, vital parts of our cognition. We use technology to create what is popularly called a “second brain”. 

But, even though we now understand that no human being lives in complete isolation, even though we now understand that we are not fixed beings captured within physical bodies, isn’t there even more to be understood? 

I think there is. And there’s a clue in that quote from “The Secret History”. We humans have always believed in ghosts, but, nowadays we call them by different names – memory, the unconscious. 

I think we see this best when we consider great artists and musicians. We can recognise a Van Gogh, even if we haven’t seen a particular painting before. We can identify Frank Sinatra even if he’s singing a song we’ve never heard before. We can spot a Mary Oliver poem, a Shakespeare play, a Hemingway novel. Can’t we? Because that’s the thing about the great creators. They were great at expressing their uniqueness. And when that uniqueness resonates with so many people, it can ripple down through not just years, but centuries. 

Even within a single family, there are characters whose uniqueness made such an impact that their “presence” is still felt, and known, generations later. 

There is something about the person which exists and persists outside of, and beyond the body, beyond the mind-body, beyond the brief period of history marked by two dates, a date of birth, and a date of death. 

It’s partly memories, but it’s also partly unconscious patterns of behaviour, patterns of speech or thought, sayings, expressions, the undercurrents of our everyday. It’s the lingering traces of uniqueness. 

You see, we can’t help but change this world, just by being alive. We consume, we metabolise, we send out into the environment molecules, energies, waves, thoughts, ideas and feelings. The world is never the same tomorrow as it is today, and that active, constant process of movement, of adaptation, of growth, of actions and reactions, ripples outwards over much greater distances and timescales than we can be aware of. 

We don’t just stand on the shoulders of giants, we live with them. Don’t you think it might be worthwhile getting to know some of them? We can still reach so many of those unique and amazing people. We can still develop healthy, creative relationships with Bach, with the Beatles, with Van Gogh, Turner, Picasso, with Jane Austen, Keats, T S Eliot, Rodin, Michelangelo and Leonardo, even if they are “long since gone”, because their uniqueness lives on. 

We don’t have to focus solely on the past either, because there is no doubt we are influenced by others every day. We can choose who we want to pay attention to (even if certain massive egos make it hard to ignore them!). We can choose which songs to listen to, which poems to read, which people we want to spend time with. Or we can just be blown along like zombies, driven this way and that, unconsciously, unthinkingly, our days determined by those who seek to influence and control us for their own purposes. 

There are such things as ghosts, and some of them, aren’t even dead yet…..

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And not or

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 2, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Some time ago I wrote a book called “And not or” – the idea of “and not or” came to me as a good way to approach life, and it’s since become something of a family feature. One of my grand-daughters, mentioning to a friend who queried it, said “What is “and not or” not a thing in your family?”

Essentially, I believe that “or” is divisive. It’s about “this OR that”. It divides the world into pieces, looking through binary lens. “And” on the other hand, builds bridges, forges connections. It is the link between apparently polar opposites. “And” reminds us that no particular experience or view is complete. We never know all that could be known. “Or” is more judgemental. “And” is more humble, more open to learning more.

Here’s the text of the opening chapter of my book, “And not Or” ………..

No man is an island entire of itself; every man

Is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;

If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe

Is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as

Well as any manner of thy friends or of thine

Own were; any man’s death diminishes me,

Because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore never send to know for whom

The bell tolls: it tolls for thee.

John Donne

Ubuntu – « I am because we are » 

None of us are entirely separate, neither from other people, nor from the rest of the natural world in which we live. On the other hand each of us is unique. It seems as if one of the most fundamental paradoxes in human life is a tension between belonging and uniqueness, between connections and separateness. Do we have to choose between these two options? Or is there some way to reconcile them? Many years ago I was wondering how to share my photos with other people. I looked at one option on the internet – a web service called Flickr, dedicated to storing and sharing photos. I also looked at the fairly new idea, at the time, of personal websites, or “blogs”, where I could post photos and write some descriptions of them. I could combine some creative writing with my photos by sharing some of the thoughts inspired by each image as I reflected on them. It didn’t stop there. There was also Facebook, and Twitter, and a kind of mini-blog site called Tumblr. How could I choose? Each of these options offered some features which the others didn’t, and each service seemed to have its own group of users. I knew that if I shared photos on Flickr, certain people would see them, but if I shared them on a blog, on Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr, then different people would see them. As I researched the different options and read reviews, I realised I wasn’t the only one finding it difficult to choose. 

Then I came across a phrase taken from the language of logic and computer programming – « and not or » – and a light bulb went on in my head. I could share my photos on more than one of these services. I didn’t have to choose only one. In fact, I discovered that there were many ways to create connections between the different services. I could write a blog post, linking it to a photo hosted on Flickr, whilst automatically sharing it one or more of the other services just by clicking a button named « publish ». 

None of us can be reduced to only one part of our character or nature. We are all multiple within ourselves. Have you ever done the thought experiment where you plan a party for everybody you know, and everybody you’ve ever known? You’d hire a large hall and invite absolutely every relative, friend, colleague, client, well, just anybody who has, or has ever had, a personal connection to you. Pretty quickly as you think about all the people who would be there, you realise that almost the only thing they would all have in common is their connection to you. Chances are you quickly realise this isn’t enough to create a cohesive group. The people you know from different contexts in your life may well not share that much in common with each other. The people you’ve known from different times in your life might not share much in common with each other either. Yes, of course, there will be common threads, common interests, values, shared histories, but their individual and even group differences will amount to more than their similarities. You can imagine that several of your guests won’t really click with each other. It turns out that whilst each of us has many different aspects to our character, which particular aspect comes to the fore is highly context sensitive. I could slip easily between my roles of husband, father, son, doctor, colleague, teacher or friend, just to name a few of the more prominent ones. I am not stuck in any single role. I should be able to behave appropriately according to the social context. 

And not or. 

This is how we live. We constantly change. We flow back and forwards between different aspects of our selves. We don’t choose one role and then attempt to live a whole life within it. 

But wait, I hear you say, we have to make choices all the time, don’t we? There are many circumstances where have to make a decision, to commit to one direction rather than another. We can’t have our cake and eat it. 

You are right. We often have to choose. In fact, we have created an entire economic system on having to choose. We have even turned choosing into one of our highest virtues. Freedom equals the freedom to choose. Choosing is based on the word « or ». You can choose this political party in the election, or that one. You can apply for this job, or different one. You can spend your money on this, or that. It is the basis of competition and a free market economy. Competition is the basis of both capitalism and our modern interpretation of Darwin’s principle of selection. Different options are set against each other. One wins, the other loses. This is just how things are. 

When I say « and not or », I’m not advocating the famous « have your cake and eat it ». Nor am I advocating indecision or indifference. The way of « or » is inextricably bound to the way of « and », just as our need to be unique and separate is bound to our need to belong and to connect. Choosing « and » neither restricts us, nor does it stop us from making decisions.

I’ve come to believe that « or » has become too dominant in our culture and in our everyday lives. I’m anxious that it is separating us from each other, setting us in opposition to each other. We seem to be living through a time when polarities and mutually exclusive identities are proliferating, and on the back of that we are witnessing more strife, more anger, and more division. We hear the rhetoric of « us not them », which stokes prejudice, hatred and suspicion. We have created a civilisation of oppositional camps, each creating their own little worlds, each speaking only to like-minded others in shared echo chambers. We talk of « winners and losers » where the winners take all and the losers are advised to « suck it up » and « move on ». There are more walls going up, more doors being closed, less bridges being built, and less agreements made. Competition and winning are seen as strong and desirable, whilst co-operation and consensus are portrayed as weak. 

I want to contribute towards a redressing of the balance. I know we have to make decisions. I know we often have to choose. But when we invest too much in « or » then things start to fall apart. « Or » divides, separates, alienates and creates dis-ease. 

It’s my contention that we need more « and » because «and» connects, creates healthy bonds, encourages sharing, and a sense of belonging. We need «and» in order to heal. 

« Or » stops thought. We choose, we separate, we finish. Why would I be interested in anything else when I’ve already made my choice? 

« And », on the other hand, pushes us towards novelty and connections. It stokes our curiosity, demands our humility, sustains our open-ness to others and to change. It can teach us how to handle uncertainty and unpredictability. It can develop our capacities for awareness, reflection, flexibility and adaptation. 

Every living organism survives and grows by making connections, by being open the flows of materials, energies and information in which we all exist. Every living organism survives and grows by responding to, and adapting to, the ever changing environments and contexts in which we all exist. 

Maybe the best way for me to explore and share this idea is to tell something of the story of my life. Maybe the best thing I can do is to share some of my experiences and to reflect on how those experiences shaped me, and shaped my life. 

This is my story. These are some of my stories. I’m writing this to help me make sense of my life. Maybe reading my story will help you make more sense of yours, too, and I’d be delighted if that were the case, but, ultimately, you will have your own stories to tell. We all do. 

You can find a Kindle version of the book here – https://amzn.eu/d/akoOnrz (or search Amazon in your own country)

A paperback version, with colour photos, is available on Blurb – https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/10155078

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Creative environments

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 23, 2025| Leave a Comment »

My area of work was health. I worked as a doctor over four decades and I learned a lot about what made for a healthy environment and what was a more toxic or harmful one. I reckon the characteristics of healthy environments are pretty universal. We all need to breathe clean air, drink clear water, eat nutritious food, have nourishing and caring relationships. There’s a lot of evidence about the positive healing effects of natural environments. I say “natural” but what I mean is, as opposed to built environments. Trees and forests stimulate healthy changes in body and mind, but busy six lane motorways, not so much. But even within these universalities we are all different, so, for some, it’s healing to walk by the shore, or to gaze out at the ocean, breathing in the salt air. For others, the most healing environments are in the mountains and lakes, breathing the clear, fresh air of a little altitude, surrounded by birdsong and wildflowers (“and not or” remember…..both these environments can be good for the same person) 

I read a section of Rick Rubin’s “The Creative Act” recently (I’m working my way through, reading and meditating on, one section a day just now. It’s such a rich resource)….this morning’s section was “Setting” where he discusses what environments are creative, illustrating how very different ones allow us access to different flows from the universe, each of which can stimulate our intuition. He points out how tranquil natural environments allow us to appreciate the direct information from the universe, whereas, busy peopled places, like cafes, town centres etc, can allow us to tune in to the universe as filtered through human beings. In all situations it’s a question of detached awareness, so that we can notice patterns, but not allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by them. That made me think of the phenomenon we call doomscrolling, where we get caught up in social media feeds. They too can be sources of creative stimulation if we allow ourselves to notice the patterns and themes, and not get caught up in them. 

In fact, Rick also suggests cultural environments where we focus on reading, music, visual art, etc to pick up the information from the universe filtered through culture. 

The most important point he makes is that we are all different. His conclusion is that we need to “hear the chimes of the cosmic clock ring, reminding [us] it’s time. Your time to participate.”

It is.

It’s your time to participate, to become aware, to trust your intuition and to engage. Which environments do you find most conducive to creativity? What factors make a positive contribution to your creativity?

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Handling uncertainty

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 8, 2025| Leave a Comment »

I read an article in New Scientist by Florence Gaub and Liya Yu entitled “Nothing’s certain”. The authors explore two different ways that we handle uncertainty. Their specific take is a “political neuroscience” one. Now, let me just say I have a paradoxical relationship with the “neuro” tag. Firstly, it attracts me. I’m interested in the brain, scored my best exam result ever in the neuroanatomy exam at Medical School. I’m interested in pyschology and in the “mind-body connection” (although that, too, is a phrase which can both attract and repel me). Secondly, “neuro-” has become a bit of a fashion, with everything from “neuroscience”, to “neuromarketing” and this “political neuroscience”. I just don’t think neurology can explain everything about human behaviour. Alongside that, the correlations between neurological observations and behaviour are just that….correlations. We still haven’t explained how the physical brain can have subjective experience, and whether or not subjective experience creates the changes in the brain, or vice versa. 

However, what they had to say really interested me. They say “Political neuroscience shows that the brains of people with conservative views favour security and avoid open-ended solutions with no clear closure. They tend to have increased volume in their amygdala, the region responsible for threat signalling” And, “Liberal brains have a higher tolerance for uncertainty and conflict, as they have more grey matter volume in a brain area implicated in the processing of ambiguity called the anterior cingulate cortex.” 

They point out that when uncertainty is high, the former “conservative” people are attracted to whoever offers the idea of certainty (think Hitler and his 1000 year Reich), and are fearful of novelty, whether that be technologies, foreign people or cultures. 

They conclude that we need to learn that “cooperation across identity and interest groups” can be beneficial, and that we can overcome our big global challenges “only by overcoming our brains’ vulnerabilities together”. 

I’m not sure that MRI scans of peoples’ brains reveal their political preferences, and I’m a bit uncomfortable with how this thesis basically implies that “Liberals” need to help “Conservatives” get over their fear and anxiety, but apparently “Liberals” don’t have anything to learn from “Conservatives”.

I say that despite seeing myself as firmly in the “Liberal” camp, not least because I was trained as a General Practitioner, a speciality sometimes described as doctors who specialise in managing uncertainty. Uncertainty was my daily professional experience, one unique, novel, unpredictable patient at a time. 

However it does seem that the “Right” are on the rise across the world, and this might well be connected to an increase in the amount of uncertainty which people are facing in modern times…..uncertainty about climate change, about technology, about both national and personal security. 

So, if I want to make a positive contribution, perhaps I need to understand and address the anxieties and fears of those people with a larger amygdala…. 

In other words, how can I help people to deal with uncertainty more comfortably? How can I help them to enjoy novelty, to delight in diversity and difference, and how can I help to create a more secure society for us to live in together? 

In addition to that, what do I have to learn from those who may be more sensitive to uncertainty than I am? 

Let me start with the last point first. We humans need sufficient certainty. We couldn’t go on without it. When I buy a train ticket, it doesn’t cross my mind that the train I’m about to step on won’t make it to its destination (despite the fact that between Stirling and Glasgow I’ve had several experiences of trains being delayed, cancelled, or even terminating a few stops before my intended one). The point is that I’ve had enough experiences of reliable trains to actually get on a train and expect it to take me to where it says it’s going to go. 

When I first went to university in Edinburgh, my mum, who clearly had a well developed amygdala, used to send me newspaper cuttings about crimes in different parts of the city, with the accompanying advice to avoid those areas. When she sent a story about a boy who was stabbed in Princes Street, I had to ask her to stop sending these cuttings, because there was no way I was going to be able to spend at least the next six years of my life in Edinburgh without walking along Princes Street! 

When we wake up in the morning, most of us don’t wonder if this will be our last day. But one day, it will be. No, we have to have enough confidence, enough of a sense of certainty, that we will make it through to bedtime. Otherwise, how could we even get up? 

My point is, that we need certainty. Or, do we? Is it more that we need confidence? Confidence that, no matter what the day brings, we will get through it, we’ll handle it? I suspect confidence and certainty aren’t the same thing, but the greater the certainty, probably the more confident we feel. And, probably, vice versa, because the more confidence we develop through our practice and experience, the more we will experience certainty in our day to day lives. 

I think this is the key lesson those with a larger amygdala have to teach us……although certainty, like perfection, is an impossible goal, it is still important to have it as one of our goals if we are to survive and thrive. 

We can do that as a society by attending to the circumstances of life which lead to security…..abolishing poverty, driving down inequality, creating decent houses and work for everyone, creating and protecting clean air, clean water, and nutritious food, as well as providing freely available, good quality education and health care to all. 

We can do it individually by attending to the rhythms, rituals and habits of our lives. We pass a lot of each day on autopilot, finding ourselves trundling along the railway tracks of our own well established habits. I wouldn’t be surprised if you told me you wake up about the same time each day (or, certainly, each Monday to Friday), follow the same sequence of toilet, toothbrushing, showering, maybe shaving (well, I do), and having a “regular” breakfast. If you are employed, you’ll probably make your way to your workplace, without any great awareness of your surroundings (unless something unexpected occurs on the way). You’ll have your work routines, with the well established break times, and finish time, before heading back home, retracing your steps. The French have a phrase for this – “Metro, Boulot, Dodo” (metro for the commute, boulot for work, and dodo for sleep) – which captures this sense of a routine, hamster wheel, existence. 

It’s not a bad thing to have habits and routines. They can provide a certain security, a certain sense of certainty, an unchallenging, comfortable, structure. But you can see that, pushed too far, they can create a mode of living where life itself seems to pass us by. 

That brings me to the first question I posed to myself….how can I help others to deal with uncertainty more comfortably? My lifetime work experience would lead me to suggest doing whatever gets us to focus on the here and now. I saw hundreds of patients with paralyzing anxiety and/or mind numbing fear. What they all had in common was that their inner world, the world of their thoughts and feelings, was trapped in a kind of loop, or whirlpool, with one anxious thought feeding the next one. Whilst they were absorbed, even overwhelmed, with this inner world, they were consequently disconnected from other people and from the rest of the world. So, we’d begin by pulling their attention to what was happening around them, in this moment, in this particular place. We had built a hospital around a beautiful garden and I’d take patients out into it to walk along the winding paths, noticing the different plants, blossoms, flowers, birds and other animals along the way. We’d sit on one of the benches and just notice….notice what we could see, what we could hear, what we could smell, what textures we could touch. 

There’s a French phrase I’ve loved since I first encountered it – “L’émerveillement du quotidien” – which translates, roughly, as the wonder of the every day. The truth is that every day is unique. Every moment is lived for the first and last time. And each day is filled with encounters which we’ve never had before….a particular moment with a Robin, a moment when the light catches the dew on the newly woven, intricate spiders web……

Paying attention to what is around us, paying loving attention to what is around us, opens us up to a world filled with wonder, with diversity and novelty, and gives us a lived experience of change, of surprises, of unexpected delights. 

Well, that’s a beginning. It’s a way to calm down that amygdala and strengthen the anterior cingulate cortex, perhaps. 

What’s your own take on uncertainty? How high is your tolerance to it? And what do you do to balance consistency and novelty?

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Creative environments

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 26, 2025| Leave a Comment »

My area of work was health. I worked as a doctor over four decades and I learned a lot about what made for a healthy environment and what was a more toxic or harmful one. I reckon the characteristics of healthy environments are pretty universal. We all need to breathe clean air, drink clear water, eat nutritious food, have nourishing and caring relationships. There’s a lot of evidence about the positive healing effects of natural environments. I say “natural” but what I mean is, as opposed to built environments. Trees and forests stimulate healthy changes in body and mind, but busy six lane motorways, not so much. But even within these universalities we are all different, so, for some, it’s healing to walk by the shore, or to gaze out at the ocean, breathing in the salt air. For others, the most healing environments are in the mountains and lakes, breathing the clear, fresh air of a little altitude, surrounded by birdsong and wildflowers (“and not or” remember…..both these environments can be good for the same person) 

I read a section of Rick Rubin’s “The Creative Act” this morning (I’m working my way through, reading and meditating on, one section a day just now. It’s such a rich resource)….this morning’s section was “Setting” where he discusses what environments are creative, illustrating how very different ones allow us access to different flows from the universe, each of which can stimulate our intuition. He points out how tranquil natural environments allow us to appreciate the direct information from the universe, whereas, busy peopled places, like cafes, town centres etc, can allow us to tune in to the universe as filtered through human beings. In all situations it’s a question of detached awareness, so that we can notice patterns, but not allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by them. That made me think of the phenomenon we call doomscrolling, where we get caught up in social media feeds. They too can be sources of creative stimulation if we allow ourselves to notice the patterns and themes, and not get caught up in them. In fact, Rick also suggests cultural environments where we focus on reading, music, visual art, etc to pick up the information from the universe filtered through culture. 

The most important point he makes is that we are all different. His conclusion is that we need to “hear the chimes of the cosmic clock ring, reminding [us] it’s time. Your time to participate.”

It is.

It’s your time to participate, to become aware, to trust your intuition and to engage. 

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Identity

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on October 24, 2025| 2 Comments »

I find “identity” a tricky concept. In my work as a doctor, I’d often encounter a patient who had identified with their illness so much that it had become the primary identity they presented to the world. They might introduce themselves by saying “I’m John, I’ve got MS”, or, “I’m a cancer survivor”, or “I’m a diabetic”…..in some ways, this is a phenomenon driven by the medical profession which, way too often, focuses on a patient’s illness or pathology, rather than on the individual patient. 

I would start a consultation with an open question, like “Tell me about yourself”, or “Tell me your story”. A very common response would involve the patient telling me their diagnosis, perhaps some of the tests they’d had done, and procedures and treatments they’d had, or were still having. Then they’d stop. I’d stay silent, because at that point they hadn’t told me anything about themselves at all. I’ve no doubt this was because they were giving the response they expected doctors wanted. Sometimes I’d need to follow with something like “Tell me, then, what’s been your experience of [x]?” or “When were you last completely well?” followed by “Tell me what was happening in your life at that point?” The personal story, the individual experience, was always more complex and nuanced than the reduced, medicalised one. 

Identity is used as a shorthand way of saying “This is me”, but there are several big problems with that. 

It seems to me that behind the issue of identity, and, in particular, “identity politics”, lies a desire to be seen, to be acknowledged, accepted and treated fairly. All, perfectly reasonable, and important goals. But I still find it problematic because I’m not a fan of categorisation and labelling. I don’t want to be reduced to either one main label, or even a small set of them. 

Too often, identity is reduced to gender, ethnicity, sexuality and/or age. Some wear these labels proudly, and if that suits you, then fine, but it comes with a huge risk – the risk of not being seen, not being acknowledged, accepted or treated fairly as the individual you are. 

Adopting an identity can be a way of belonging. It can be like a membership of a club where all the members share the same identity. But such grouping also comes with the creation of “in” groups and “out” ones. Whilst it may give a sense of belonging to the members, it can create a sense of “the other”, both from the group towards those not in the group, and from those not in the group, towards the group. 

Identities, in other words, tend to be simultaneously inclusive and exclusive, supporting the creation of relationships with others who recognise the same identity, whilst separating and dividing them from others who don’t.

However, my biggest objection to identity really is the fact that no human being can, nor should, be reduced to single feature, characteristic or category, not least because no human being remains the same throughout a lifetime. 

Rick Rubin writes – .”…we are always changing, growing, evolving. We learn and forget things. We move through different moods, thoughts, and unconscious processes. The cells in our body die and regenerate. No one is the same person all day long. Even if the world outside were to remain static [which it can’t] the information we took in would still be ever-changing.”

The fact is, the universe had never created a life identical to yours before you came along, and it will never create another, identical to yours, after you die. Your uniqueness is a complex, ever changing blend of molecules, energies, and information, in constant co-creation with others and with the rest of the world. You can’t be truly understood, truly seen, acknowledged, accepted and treated fairly if your individuality is reduced. 

Reduction opens the door to control, and the tech giants, the corporations and governments want control, not by seeing you and treating you fairly, but by categorising you and manipulating you. By limiting and monitoring you.

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What strikes you?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 15, 2025| Leave a Comment »

A key theme of “heroes not zombies” is waking up and becoming aware. It’s too easy to drift through a day in a state of semi-consciousness, doomscrolling social media, following routines, swallowing the stories corporations and governments want you to swallow. The Romans used “bread and circuses” to control the population. Modern capitalism uses algorithms.

But there’s a way to break out of these mind-numbing loops….paying attention to what strikes you.

In homeopathy, there’s a teaching about looking out for the “Strange, rare and peculiar”, the symptoms a patient relates which strike you, which stand out, which seem particularly relevant, or particularly unusual. These symptoms might be the key to understanding the patient and finding the right remedy for them. It’s a practice which is the opposite of seeking what is “usual” or “typical”. The thing is, in diagnosis you need to grasp both – the typical symptoms can point to a pathology, but it’s the particular, the personal, and striking ones which point to the patient who has that pathology, which open the path to understanding what the patient is experiencing, how this disease emerged in their life and how it’s affecting them.

I’ve often written here about the power of wonder and awe. I experience wonder and awe when something strikes me. I’ll be wandering through the forest and suddenly see a flower I’ve never seen before, or I’ll hear a bird call I’ve never heard before (or, certainly, not around here). The important thing is to follow that noticing. When something strikes me, I’m drawn to it, I slow down, stop, and explore further. I allow myself to pass a few moments appreciating whatever it is.

We can do the same through the day with lines we read in books. I’m sure you have the experience of reading a novel, or a non-fiction book, and a particular phrase or sentence leaps it out at you. It strikes you. When that happens, why not note it down? Why not slow down, and consider it? I use a mix of methods in this situation. In some books I’ll underline the particular phrase. In others, I’ll get out my phone and take a photo of the passage, then save that photo to my Notes app. Or I’ll get out my notebook and copy it down. “And not or” is my motto. I’ll often do a combination of those things.

Sometimes we’ll be struck by coincidences, or by a feeling of deja vu. These moments can be gold. They can stop us in our tracks and inspire some wonder, some reflection. They are worth noting down too.

Other times I’m struck by a phrase I hear, maybe just a snippet of a conversation, or a remark in the cafe, or in a queue. Again, it’s worth noting these down, taking a moment to consider them, to enjoy then, to reflect.

When I visit a gallery I’ll move fairly quickly through a room, scanning the works of art, then, almost always, some particular painting strikes me, grabs my attention, and stops me. Those always become my favourite paintings.

Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, noticing what strikes you changes your day. It jolts you out of zombie mode, and gives you an opportunity to make the day your own, to make the day special.

Try it out….notice what strikes you today, and explore it.

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Materials, energies, information flows

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 13, 2025| Leave a Comment »

One way to understand how deeply interconnected we are, and how change, not statis, is the norm, is to think of three flows – flows of materials, substances, atoms, molecules, and other particles; flows of energy, electromagnetic, gravitational, sounds, and other energy waves; and, information, language, symbols, ideas, and thoughts? You might have other examples for each of these three flows. You might dispute one or more of the ones I’ve chosen, but let’s stick with the general idea here – there are flows of materials, energies and information which swirl around this planet. The flow around, into and through us, for the most part, invisibly. And they flow out of, and beyond, us…changed.

It’s almost like we are a wave, or a vortex. A whirlpool perhaps, a coalescence, an efflorescence, transforming these flows into something which has self-integrity, something which appears separate, and consistent over the course of a lifetime. We, like everything else on this little planet, are transient, and exist only as a temporary flux. Some writers describe us as being like a wave which appears briefly on the surface of the ocean, a wave which can be pointed to, a wave which can located, even named. Waves don’t leave the ocean, and they don’t last for long, soon dissipating and disappearing back into the vast waters from which they came.

The chapter I read in Rick Rubin’s, The Creative Act, today, describes the idea of data, entering us, filling our inner vessel, where it is changed, not least by the relationships which from between it, and what was already there. He says these relationships produce our beliefs and stories, and, ultimately, our world view.

We can choose what we want to make with all of this – our unique stories, our art, our creations – and then we can choose to share them, where they set off, hopefully, to encounter others, other stories, other creations, other people.

I don’t like the word “data”. I’m sure it’s just a personal thing, but I have a feeling or disgust, or repulsion, when I come across the word “data”. I know, for many others, “data” is the stuff of their daily existence, maybe even what gives their lives meaning. But, I just don’t like it. I prefer the word “information”. I prefer “stories”. I prefer “encounters” and “relationships” and “patterns”. But, as I say, maybe that’s just me. I’m also not a great fan of the idea of a “vessel” inside us…..just as I’m not a fan of the idea of memory being like a filing cabinet in the brain somewhere. So, I prefer this concept of flows, flows of materials, energies and information, which we alter as they enter our inner “vortex”, and emerge changed as we breathe, or act, or talk them out into the world again.

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We are all creators

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 8, 2025| Leave a Comment »

There’s been a shift in social media channels. Not long ago many people presented themselves as “Influencers”, but now, not so much. Increasingly I’m seeing the term “Content creator” instead. Or, sometimes, “Digital content creator”. I must say, the first time I noticed this shift I wondered mainly about the word “content” – I don’t find it appealing, but I understand it will cover anything from text, images and videos, to the spoken word or music (and maybe more, I’m not sure!). I do think of myself as a photographer and a writer. I do both of those things frequently…..pretty much every day. But, I guess none of that is “content” unless I publish it (or upload it) somewhere, like here on my blog, or on a social media platform like Bluesky (or Facebook, Threads, Mastodon, Substack, or whatever). However, having wondered for a while about what constitutes “content” I shifted my attention to the second word….”creator”.

A few years ago when thinking about health, and how did I know a patient was becoming more healthy, I hit on a three word acronym – ACE – for Adapation, Creativity and Engagement. Briefly, for me, the healthier someone became the better I saw their ability to cope, to deal with whatever they had to deal with, to adapt and change. In addition, I’d notice they were becoming more creative, more able to solve problems, to come up with new ideas and ways of living, to be better able at expressing themselves. And, finally, I’d see they were becoming more engaged, building connections and relationships, deepening connections and relationships, paying better attention to the here and now.

It struck me then, and it continues to strike me, that we humans are naturally creative creatures. Maybe you learned from a religious teacher that God created us in His likeness? I always thought that meant He created us as creative creatures. (We are more than simply creative creatures, and there are several other factors we can consider which contribute to our “human-ness”, but I’ll explore that another time.

Rick Rubin’s “The Creative Act: A Way of Being”, begins with a chapter entitled “Everyone is a Creator”. He writes –

To create is to bring something into existence that wasn’t there before. It could be a conversation, the solution to a problem, a note to a friend, the rearrangement of furniture in a room, a new route home to avoid a traffic jam.

He goes on to explore how through our senses and our brain/body processes, we create experiences for ourselves, we create our internal reality, from the undifferentiated external reality. In other words, just being alive is a creative act.

Finally, he writes –

To live as an artist is a way of being in the world. A way of perceiving. A practice of paying attention……your entire life is a form of self-expression. You exist as a creative being in a creative universe. A singular work of art.

I couldn’t agree more.

It’s not just “content creators” who are creative, it’s you and it’s me and it’s everyone you know. How does it change your perception of someone once you start to explore their creativity? What do you notice when you start to ask yourself, “in what ways is this person creative?”

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