Category Archives: thoughts

current affairs, history, thoughts

Historical Precedent?

I’ve been thinking recently about the UK’s current political mess. I don’t pretend that what follows is necessarily new or entirely original – I’ve certainly seen parts of it elsewhere, see for instance here and here – but I do find it illuminating as well as rather worrying.

It seems to me that the situation we’re in at the moment is a very nice combination of Henry VIII and Charles I. Bear with me …

First there was Henry VIII telling he Pope for f*** off (1532-4), for no reason other than his own vanity; and being excommunicated for his pains (1535). He also managed to ensure he was able to amend, or institute, any law he chose, at any time, with never-ending powers (effectively ignoring Magna Carta).

A hundred years later we have Charles I who thought he could rule by divine right, while ignoring and/or riding roughshod over Parliament. But Parliament was having none of it, thus leading to the Civil War and Interregnum of 1642-1660. Parliament, of course, won. When the Commonwealth fell apart (as such chaos so often does), the Restoration in 1660 brought a country with a more robust form of parliamentary government.

This seems to me to be more than a little like where we are at the moment.

We have a government (executive) who are basically telling the EU to f*** off, with exactly the reaction one would expect from an EU who hold all the cards. The executive are granting themselves Henry VIII powers – the ability to amend large swathes of legislation, as they choose, with no reference to Parliament. And they’re attempting to side-line and/or bully Parliament. Yet again Parliament is having none of it (despite not knowing what they do want) and is fighting back.

Ultimately I suspect Parliament will win (possibly with a little help from the Judiciary), but not before there’s been huge damage inflicted on the country as a whole. Eventually (in maybe 10 or 20 years) the country will hopefully emerge with strengthened parliamentary government and a fully codified and written constitution, although perhaps at the expense of a break-up of the federation.

But it will take many decades for the country to recover economic prosperity, and then only if the plunge into being an under-developed third-world country can be avoided. However I’ll not be here to see it.

It isn’t going to be pretty, or comfortable.

May your god go with you.

beliefs, thoughts

Ten Commandments for Atheists

I came across this the other day. It’s a few years old but still a worthwhile humanist take on the dreary Christian meme.

These are the ten winning beliefs of the Rethink Prize, a crowdsourcing competition to rethink the Ten Commandments. The contest drew more than 2,800 submissions from across the globe with the winners being selected by a panel of judges.

  1. Be open-minded and be willing to alter your beliefs with new evidence.
  2. Strive to understand what is most likely to be true, not to believe what you wish to be true.
  3. The scientific method is the most reliable way of understanding the natural world.
  4. Every person has the right to control of their body.
  5. God is not necessary to be a good person or to live a full and meaningful life.
  6. Be mindful of the consequences of all your actions and recognize that you must take responsibility for them.
  7. Treat others as you would want them to treat you, and can reasonably expect them to want to be treated. Think about their perspective.
  8. We have the responsibility to consider others, including future generations.
  9. There is no one right way to live.
  10. Leave the world a better place than you found it.
arts, freedom of speech, thoughts

Art, Nicety and the Patriarchy

Over recent months there has been a certain amount of fuss over the appearance (or not) of art which is deemed inappropriate for public spaces (metro systems and the like) but which is acceptable in a museum context.

Elle Hunt’s article …

Repulsive to children and adults: how explicit should public art get?
Censorship in metro stations and other public places reveal limits
to how far we’re prepared to be challenged by art

… was printed in the Guardian on 8 October and looks at some of the recent controversies including the refusal of advertising regulators in Germany, US and UK to allow explicit, uncensored images by Schiele, and the brouhaha in Stockholm over images by Liv Strömquist depicting menstruation on their metro (below). To this I would add Carolina Falkholt’s giant penis mural in New York.

I’m sorry guys, I don’t get it. There really should not be a problem.

  1. It’s art, and art is supposed to reflect life.
  2. Even if it isn’t art, it still reflects life – and life that we all know exists.
  3. I know, it pollutes children’s minds. Pah! That’s about as likely as me being Chinese. Just as they do nudity, children take these things in their stride unless they’ve been taught not to. Children know about these things and they’re curious; if they don’t know then they need to learn, and/or have an explanation. That way they become well adjusted adults.
  4. As I keep saying, sex, bodily functions, anatomy, nudity etc. need to be normalised for the good of our health – mental and physical. They do not need marginalising and criminalising.
  5. Isn’t the ability to display such images all part of freedom of speech?
  6. Obscenity, pornography etc. exist only in the mind of the beholder. There is no external arbiter. It’s down to you, and what you were brain-washed into believing.
  7. Why do public institutions (like metro companies) think they can be the arbiters of what’s appropriate? If some people get upset, so what? There are many things I find distasteful from dog shit to rococo architecture, but I’m not about to have a hissy fit if there’s a poster of one on my local bus shelter; nor would I expect it to have been censored – I may not like it, but that’s my problem not yours. No-one is responsible for another’s thoughts, emotions or beliefs. We have to trust people to make up their own minds and look after their own emotions – ie. treat them as adults.

But let me go one step further. Is all this concern that people might get upset not all part of the patriarchy controlling people and keeping them in their place so the great, the good, the white and the male remain in their dominant positions?

It’s long overdue that everyone woke up and realised there was coffee brewing; lots of flavours of coffee too!

beliefs, personal, thoughts

On (not) Being Angry

There’s an important post by Sensei Alex Kakuyo over on the Same Old Zen blog about approaches to anger and angry people under the headline Buddhism and Professionally Angry People.

It’s important because although Kakuyo approaches it from a Buddhist standpoint it is applicable to all of us. For me the key messages are:

I have a choice. I can be angry, pissed off, and exhausted for my entire life, or I can practice acceptance.

… acceptance is not surrender. Rather, it’s a recognition that there is only so much that I can do with one body, in one lifetime. It’s an understanding that life is filled with suffering, and the only thing I can control is how I react to it.

So, I do what I can within the confines of my own life, and I accept that other people will make other choices. I accept that I may not like those choices …

… professionally angry people get riled up over things they can’t control. They cause suffering for themselves, they cause suffering for others, and the world keeps turning exactly as it did before.

… “Is there direct action that I can take to solve this problem?” If there is something that I can do that will actually solve the problem or alleviate my part in the ill affects, then I do it.

It isn’t always easy, indeed it can be extremely hard, and I know I fail at this more often than not. But it is something I try to live by. There’s only so much one can do and it is necessary to pick one’s fights. There’s no point worrying about things you have no control over; they have to be allowed to wash over you.

beliefs, personal, thoughts

The Need for Cosmogony and Ceremony

One of our favourite Zen Masters, Brad Warner, recently wrote the ridiculousness of religions, what he called “religulous belief”. As regular readers will surmise, these are views with which I have much sympathy. However along the way Brad did explain why liturgy remains important to me despite my lack of belief in deities.

Here is an editied version of Brad’s article, as it partly explains something which has long puzzled me:

Bill Maher and like-minded people such as Richard Dawkins always make the same complaints about religions. They attack the religion’s cosmogony – its myths, its creation story, its ideas about heavens, hells, angels and all that. They point out that this stuff is ridiculous. Then they figure the job is done.

Most religions have pretty dopey stories attached to them … Even mainstream religions have ideas that sound pretty silly when you examine them; virgin birth, parting of seas, swallowings by whales, people rising from the dead, and so on. Some Buddhist ideas … are just as weird.
…
I don’t think most people join religions because they are convinced by their cosmogony. People don’t say, “You guys teach that God lives on planet Kolob? That sounds reasonable. Sign me up!”
…
Being without faith is a luxury for people who were fortunate enough to have a fortunate life. You go to prison and you hear people say, ‘I got nothing but Jesus in here.’ If you’re in a foxhole you probably have a lot of faith. I completely understand that. But how can smart people believe in the talking snake and people living to be 900 years old and virgin birth? …

The answer is that we’re all in a foxhole. We’re all in prison. Maybe not literally, but metaphorically. We’re all going to get sick and die. We’re all imprisoned by society to one extent or another. Even “fortunate” people have to suffer misfortune. It’s inevitable …

People will cling to anything that makes the sadness of life a little easier to take. Being wrong but happy feels better than being right but miserable.

… Buddhism, at least in the Zen school … doesn’t insist that we have to believe in Buddhist cosmogony. Most schools of Buddhism don’t have a strong insistence on belief in Buddhist cosmogony – although some do. But the Zen school is probably the most radical in its rejection of such beliefs.

Yet … Zennies … still retain many of the trappings of Buddhist schools in which such beliefs are held more strongly. They still have ceremonies in which they honour mythological figures …

Nobody ever insists that you have to believe … yet we play along just like people who do believe these things.

… these ceremonies have practical value. They help people get along together. They give them a sense of belonging and community. Their “lies” … ease some of our worries and fears. And they can do this even if we know perfectly well they’re not true …

This is very interesting as it says to me this is (at least partly) how liturgy and ceremony work: by reinforcing community, easing worries, despite our better judgement. Although I still think there is something even deeper, more magic, about really good liturgy like Tridentine Latin Mass.

I think it may be similar to the way it feels good to hear someone you love tell you it’s going to be all right when you’re sick … We all need that …

Some good food for thought!

beliefs, personal, thoughts

Personal Boundaries

Sometime earlier I came across the following on Twitter. It seems to me to be a good summary of how we should be, and how I try (not always successfully) to be. If you think about it, it is indeed all to do with boundaries, as the initial postulate says, and looking after oneself.

What do boundaries feel like?
•  It is not my job to fix others
•  It is OK if others get angry
•  It is OK to say no
•  It is not my job to take responsibility for others
•  I don’t have to anticipate the needs of others
•  It is my job to make me happy
•  Nobody has to agree with me
•  I have a right to my own feelings
•  I am enough

I would add one thing to this, really for the sake of clarity:

•  I am not responsible for other people’s feelings and emotions

Ultimately, it is my responsibility to look after me and only me, both mentally and physically; it is your responsibility to look after you and only you. No more, no less. Think about it. All our emotions, beliefs, needs, feelings, come from within; and you are the only person who can access and control your particular set of baggage.

It isn’t always easy to do all this – indeed it isn’t always easy to remember all of this, especially when we live in a world where the prevailing ethos is predicated on “doing unto others” rather than looking after one’s own well-being. But I try; I do my best; and one cannot ask more. As John Cheever said:

Could I do better, dear heart, better is what I would do.

medical, personal, thoughts

On Depression – VI

Another in my very occasional series of articles on depression – my depression. They are written from a very personal perspective; they are my views of how I see things working and what it feels like on the inside. Your views and experiences may be vastly different. My views and experiences are not necessarily backed by scientific evidence or current medical opinion. These articles are not medical advice or treatment pathways. If you think you have a problem then you should talk to your primary care physician.

Noise and Depression

Helicopters, leaf blowers, sirens, car alarms, washing machines, motorways, food processors, construction sites, microwaves, air conditioners, lawn mowers, hair dryers, motorcycles, motorboats, cell phones, TVs, stereos, car doors, people constantly talking loudly, aeroplanes, screaming children …

We have non-stop noise these days in our lives.  How can we possibly have mental clarity and peace?  Our minds are constantly being jolted and thrown violently back and forth by this sudden noise and then the next. [1]

We live in a noisy world – we shouldn’t. No wonder we get so fraught, anxious and depressed.

It is well established that noise is a major disrupter of health – both physical and mental – and seems to be a factor in depression [1,2,3,4,5,6].

Is depression the inevitable aftermath of unabating stress on our bodies, minds and souls living in this noisy, fast-paced modern society? If depression can be caused by a depletion of chemicals that our body naturally produces when in harmony, how can we expect to have this harmony in such an environment that violently assaults our natural relaxed state with noise at two-second intervals? [1]

Noise is certainly a factor in my depression, which is often triggered by pure overload. I don’t want to be assailed by noise – any noise, but especially secondhand noise – just as I don’t want to have too much to do heaped on me.

I need quiet. Much to Noreen’s bemusement, I seldom play music these days; or have the TV or radio on. I used to have something playing all the time but I now cannot function with continual background distraction. Continual (especially man-made) noise – even just the hum of my PC – drives me up the wall.

We live in a noisy world – far too noisy. To demonstrate just how noisy our world is, try doing my 10-minute test.

  1. You will need: pencil and paper, a watch.
  2. Go and sit outside, somewhere where you aren’t going to be disturbed for 10 minutes: your garden, your balcony or the square you live in.
  3. Sit quietly and listen – really listen, 100%.
  4. Write down every single noise you hear as you hear it. (If you hear it more than once, write it down each time.) What do you hear?
  5. At the end of 10 minutes have a look at your list. How many noises have you written down? How many are natural sounds (birds, animals, the wind, the stream); how many are man-made (cars, planes, appliances)?
  6. Ideally you should be able to hear only natural sounds – the more man-made sounds you hear, the more your environment will be stressing you.

Now compare with what Piers Plowman would have heard 500 or more years ago while eating his lunchtime bread and cheese under a tree: birds, sheep, a distant dog barking, wind rustling the trees, his horses’ whinnying, a babbling brook, maybe the swoosh of the windmill. How often do any of us hear these natural sounds?

Unless you live in the depths of the countryside I wouldn’t mind betting well over 50% of your noises are man-made and/or drown out the natural. That, at least, is my experience. OK, it isn’t scientific, but it is likely to demonstrate just how noisy our environment is. Is it any wonder we feel hammered?

What can you do about it? Here are twelve things which may help you:

  1. Avoid places with high noise levels; if necessary walk away to somewhere quieter.
  2. Avoid open-plan offices; research shows they are a major disrupter of work and mental processes [2].
  3. Don’t have the TV, radio or hi-fi on unless there is something specific you want to listen to/watch (and then give it your undivided attention).
  4. Don’t play music, especially through headphones, as background; this doesn’t make it better [2].
  5. Complain in bars, restaurants and shops which play “musak”; if they don’t like it, go somewhere else; remember you have a choice.
  6. Keep your mobile phone on vibrate and your PC speakers on mute.
  7. Try to avoid having the phone ring; try using text messages instead [5].
  8. Avoid noisy household appliances like hair dryers, food processors, lawn mowers and leaf blowers.
  9. Try to find quiet household appliances.
  10. If you have hearing aids and want more quiet, take your hearing aids out; it isn’t rude if it is looking after your mental well-being.
  11. Spend time away from the city; go somewhere you can listen to the birds or the sea.
  12. Plan for some quiet time every day.
References

[1] Noise Pollution, Depression, … and Nature As Our Guide
[2] Seven Ways Noise Affects Your Health
[3] Decibel Hell: The Effects of Living in a Noisy World
[4] What Did You Say?! How Noise Pollution Is Harming You
[5] Depression: On Noise, Answering the Telephone and Making Decisions
[6] The ubiquity of the modern beep

beliefs, personal, sexuality, thoughts

How to Be a Better Spouse

For Valentine’s Day, yesterday, Scientific American posted an article entitled How to Be a Better Spouse. You can read the detail in the article, but the four headline tips are:

  1. Be nice as often as you can
  2. Think about what your partner needs, even when fighting
  3. Just notice them
  4. Ignore the bad, praise the good

Yes, well, they’re sort of obvious really. But do we do this? Well, not as much as we probably should – I certainly don’t despite 38 years married (eeeekk!!!!), although I must be doing something not too wrong.
But then do these all not amount to the old adage: Communicate, communicate, communicate?
And think on this too … Are these ideas not things we should be doing to everyone, and not just our partners? Do they not all fall under the umbrella of Treat others as you would wish them to treat you? Reductio ad adsurdum.
On the other hand we do have to have these things pointed out to us occasionally so we don’t forget them.

amusements, ramblings, thoughts

Predictions for 2018

So I retrieved my crystal ball from the back of the wardrobe and dusted it off. Having been staring into its mistiness, on and off, for most of the last month, these are my best guesses at what it’s trying to tell me for the next year.
As before, I’ve divided the predictions into three sections: UK, Worldwide and Personal – the latter are documented but currently redacted, as are a couple of other items which some might consider over-sensitive.
Disclaimer. I remind you that these are just my ideas of what could happen; they’re based solely on hunches and gut feel; I have no inside knowledge and I haven’t been studying the form – so if you base any decision on any of this I will take no responsibility for your wanton act of idiocy or its consequences.

UK

  1. Brexit. It becomes clear that no Brexit deal is possible, but no-one has the courage to cancel Brexit so the UK is sleepwalking over a cliff to become a third world country (economically and socially) by 2020
  2. The government will ensure that, despite its expressed wish, Parliament does not have a meaningful vote on the final Brexit deal
  3. Increasing sexual harassment claims in Parliament and involving members of the government, on top of divisions over Brexit, are likely to bring down the government
  4. However, it’s unlikely there will be a General Election, but if there is it will be won by Labour with a tiny majority
  5. Michael Portillo is given a peerage and a seat in the Cabinet
  6. Boris Johnson is replaced as Foreign Secretary by one of David Davies, Liam Fox or Michael Gove
  7. Part of the Palace of Westminster collapses and the whole building is evacuated long-term, and may even have to be demolished
  8. UK interest rates rise twice during the year, each time by 0.25%
  9. Inflation remains at 3.0-3.5%
  10. Stamp Duty relief for first-time buyers pushes property prices up by 10%
  11. Tesco try to buy another supermarket chain but are prevented from doing so by the Monopolies Commission
  12. Waitrose close 20 stores across UK by YE and record an operating loss
  13. Ryanair buy/merge with EasyJet
  14. Move to regulate and meter all London taxi fares (including all private hire)
  15. Uber wins the appeal over its withdrawn operating licence in London
  16. Heavy flu season with many hospitals unable to cope with demand, contributing to 10,000 excess deaths
  17. At least two major disasters (industrial, train crash, plane crash etc.) with a combined total of over 200 fatalities
  18. Driverless vehicles kill six cyclists in the UK
  19. Red Arrows are disbanded after another fatal accident
  20. Murders. [[REDACTED]]
  21. No snow in London for the whole of 2018 with temperatures 2°C above average across the year
  22. Prince Harry’s wedding day will be wet
  23. Meghan Markle. [[REDACTED]]
  24. Deaths: Prince Charles, a current England cricketer, [[REDACTED]], [[REDACTED]]

World

  1. There’s an attack on Donald Trump’s life, which results in the death of several bodyguards and assailants, but only minor injuries to Trump
  2. Average of one terror-related attack a month across Europe (including UK) with total fatalities in excess of 120
  3. It’s unlikely North Korea will fire a nuclear weapon at the US to start WW3, but quite possible the US will fire first probably with conventional weapons
  4. Kim Jong-un will fall from power in North Korea
  5. There could be military conflict over China’s appropriation of islands in the South China Sea
  6. Vladimir Putin is re-elected as Russian President; in fact there’s a good chance he will be the only candidate
  7. US lose a submarine and are unable to rescue the crew
  8. Ukraine is proven to be illegally selling radioactive materials, and cannot/will not identify all the buyers
  9. Saudi Arabia. [[REDACTED]]
  10. Civil war in Zimbabwe which spills over into South Africa due to uncertainties about the South African presidency
  11. The Pope is embroiled in controversy possibly surrounding a significant shift in core Catholic theology
  12. At least one space disaster (possibly on the ground) which kills two; and at least one major inter-planetary mission is lost in transit
  13. Euro – Dollar – Pound parity
  14. There’ll be major financial crash, with long-term knock-on effects, although it’s not clear if this will be in US, Europe or the Far East.
  15. At least two household name companies are hacked with over 100 million sets of personal information exposed
  16. Uber buys Lyft
  17. Two of Amazon, Google and IBM merge
  18. Scientists believe they have discovered extra-terrestrial life (not necessarily intelligent)
  19. Major eruption of Vesuvius or Mt Etna with widespread destruction and mass evacuation, but fewer than 50 fatalities
  20. Magnitude 7 or above earthquake in California which, with continuing drought, all but destroys their fruit production
  21. At least one major US city will be destroyed (and quite possibly permanently abandoned) due to a severe hurricane (possibly New Orleans, Orlando, Miami)
  22. Massive collapse of another Antarctic glacier or ice sheet
  23. Poland beat Russia in FIFA World Cup final, with Denmark and Brazil as losing semi-finalists
  24. Other deaths: Dalai Lama

Personal

  1. Anthony Powell Society. [[REDACTED]]
  2. Family. [[REDACTED]]
  3. Cats. [[REDACTED]]
  4. Friends 1. [[REDACTED]]
  5. Friends 2. [[REDACTED]]

Obviously I’ll keep a tally and will publish the results at the end of the year. Let’s hope I’ve seen further and more clearly into the mist than last year.