Creators not Consumers

The Emperors new clothes.

2011-12-28T04:25:00.017Z

The only value that Christmas has for me is as a time for contemplation. Apart from the oppressive sense of being surrounded by an entirely unexamined relentless tide sweeping towards this unwelcome annual intrusion I give Christmas as little regard as possible. Christmas eve found me this year grappling with a thought that was hovering somewhere on the outer reaches of my consciousness trying to get my attention. I've learnt not to rush these things and it was enough that it registered its presence, all I had to do then was wait. Over the past couple of days I've felt I've been doing something wrong and knew this was just the advanced message from the incoming thought. I am an active Facebook user and found I had little say over Christmas and all my usual comments and critiques of goings on in the world fell silent.

I read a Guardian article about the Boxing day sales and was struck by the picture heading the article of faces filled with happiness and, indeed, delight and was forcefully struck that these people had chosen to be exactly where they were, in the middle of sale madness. I tried to think of something pithy to say about this, but found myself oddly silent in the cloud of awareness that anything I did say would be an exercise in futility and vanity.

I posted the following on Facebook:

"It's strange how well these two stories fit together. I don't understand the mindset behind either and I don't really want to. What they represent for me is the bizarre disconnect in which the world is enveloped. The American Indian comes to mind because they saw this disconnect in the false words of the white man and the genocide that followed the European invasion of America. It was only a new world in the mind of the European, in fact it was an old world, a world that was profoundly connected in a people who didn't just understand their connection to the land, in some intellectual way, but whose entire being was filled with that connectedness. It wasn't just a way of living, it was their entire being. I am not sure if the western mind has ever had this, but I am very sure we need it."

There is very little point me banging on at others about the disconnect in the vainglorious hope of persuading them to my point of view, as an educator I know this is not how learning works. This is what schools do and the world is littered with learning phobic people, such is the result of an imposed curriculum. Far from feeding the innate desire to learn with which every child is imbued, an imposed curriculum shuts people down. The problem, then, belongs to no one but me: educator, educate thyself.

So, here is my problem. The socio political, religious, corporate system that is destroying the world and economies the world over is beyond my grasp and the reach of my personal intervention. I can tell the Emperor he's got no clothes on to my hearts content, or to my frustrations vent, but if the Emperor is convinced of his finery there is bugger all I can do about it and it ceases to be my business. My business is with me and how I choose to live my life and where my focus needs to be. That is a problem more than big enough for me and for which I have few answers. I have been raised and educated with the disconnect and it has taken me most of my life to even begin to connect. Questioning why the Emperor has no clothes on is a futile attempt to understand madness, doing so is simply going in the wrong direction. So I find myself afraid, afraid that I do not know the way out of what appears to be a closed system, a system that encompasses all I know, in which I am a minnow deciding that it's time to be out of the stream. As an educator I know that all I need to do is stay with the problem, keep working the problem, the answers, if there are any, will come in their own time as my work matures enough to enable them to appear, and I am ready for them. Learning is about expanding consciousness and awareness, what it is not is a series of bottled answers that merely require rote learning. In order for change to occur I must change and facilitating that change is about facing in the right direction and exploring unfamiliar and unknown territory.

I know how hard this is and how easily I will lose focus and fall back into old ways. I also know that there's no point beating myself over the head when I discover I've lost focus. Old ways and old patterns are the bedrock of the past, not so easily left behind, so I need to be gentle with myself remembering the lessons of the past and that you can't beat knowledge into anyone, least of all myself.

Just a thought

2011-07-19T08:44:00.003Z

Do not think for one moment that carbon emissions, wars or anything else we've created are destroying the world. The threat that exists in the world today has not changed one iota from the dawn of humanity. It is our thoughts, which become words and actions that are the real and only threat. If we sort our thoughts out, all else follows.

Mystery

2008-09-06T23:37:00.007Z

Someone recently posed the following - 'Time to show what you believe in, this is my faith. trust, hope, loyalty, love, what is yours?' My response was kept short for reasons that do not matter here, and was this - 'My faith is in the mystery of life, so much effort has been put into explaining life, yet I have never found that helpful, but enjoying the mystery keeps me open and awake to life itself.'

I don't have faith in love, because there is no requirement of faith to be loving, it's something you get on and do, or not. Trust and loyalty the same, these are existential issues that have nothing to do with faith. Hope? I am not sure that has anything to do with faith either, it's a kind of wishful thinking, much as nostalgia is a kind of wistful thinking.

In responding by saying my faith is in the mystery of life, I think I allowed myself to be drawn into something I would have been wiser to stay away from, because my answer strikes me as bullshit. I am surrounded by the mystery of life, I don't have faith in it, it is so palpably real I have trouble keeping it within bounds that I can deal with.

In truth I have no idea what faith means, so to answer that I have faith in the mystery of life was a lie. I can't have faith in something if I don't know what faith is. Ask me what holds the sky up.

Paradox

2008-08-05T13:07:00.002Z

To be human is to live with paradox. We each contain all that is required to be despots or saints, we have inside us all the virtues and all the deadly sins, they are common to all people, everywhere. I have both the ability to be selfless and selfish and must employ both if I am to be a well rounded human being. If I have no regard for myself and my personal needs, if I never consider, 'What about me', I am a damaged creature at best and will never function well. Yet I am frequently considering others and doing selfless acts, thinking selfless thoughts, that are of no direct benefit to me and, indeed, are sometimes costly to me. Such acts are for the benefit of others, near and dear ones or even perfect strangers.

If I ran on instinct alone, some kind of primal survival mechanism, I do not doubt that I would at some point probably kill in order to promote or maintain my own survival, that I do not is a mark of my humanity. I am much more than an instinctive creature and I manage the vast panoply of paradox that is life through my reason, intellect, compassion, intuition, sensitivity, care, consideration and so on.

I balance, 'What about me', and consideration for the needs of others. How well I do that is down to being self aware and through having developed the habit of self honesty. The greater my self awareness, the greater my ability to handle paradox and the conflict that can and does arise from time to time.

I am an angry man and have lived a difficult and pain filled life. Although much of my inner distress is the direct result of the actions of others in my life, if I choose the path of blame and accusation, I resolve nothing, I just become angrier and eventually bitter. It avails me nothing to hold the cause of my distress responsible for dealing with it. It has become and is my distress and is something I must manage. Whatever cards life has given me, is the deck I must deal from. Anything else is just fanciful maundering. I cannot indulge in 'what if?'. No child asks to be sexually abused, I know I did not, yet the paradox is that whilst I did not ask for it, I must deal with it, I must own all that it has caused inside me. Where once I had no choice, now I have choice, and it is in exercising choice that freedom exists, if it exists at all.

If I am to be free, I must acknowledge that I am not free, in so many ways. Freedom is not a once found always available issue, it is an ongoing process, a daily reality of the tension of being both free and un-free. In acknowledging I am in bondage to some feeling, memory or situation that has pressed all my buttons and on which I have locked like a guided missile, I must either remain the prisoner of each of those thoughts, feelings or situations, or engage with the process of releasing myself in some way. Some situations require action on my part, perhaps just a refusal to allow the situation to continue, others require acceptance and an acknowledgment that I can do nothing and therefore must let it be and accept it for what it is, like it or not. Such tension is normal, that's life, how well we each deal with paradox and the sometimes overwhelming tensions that arise in life, decides how well we are able to enjoy life and live it to the full.

In embracing paradox there is liberty, but it is hard won, just as accepting that life is hard makes it remarkably easier to deal with. That's reality.

Comic picture art.

2008-06-15T13:49:00.006Z

I am once again exploring comic picture art, this time with a technique I have developed since my earlier guddling below. I'm much more happy with this style and am daring to think in terms of a story board and a serious attempt at some comic action.

The imposition of science and reason.

2008-06-15T10:18:00.010Z

I took a picture of the above little creature yesterday in my garden and posted it on a photographic forum with the title, 'Little furry friend'. A member asked, 'any idea what kind it is?' to which I replied, 'Someone suggested today it might be a Red Admiral, but I am as ignorant as the day is long about such things, only a recent country boy. I'm still in the generic stage, trees, plants, flowers, grass, a low tech yokel.' Another member responded with, ' I think what you might have here is actually a moth - Rusty Tussock Moth or Vapourer Orgyia antiqua.'

As I read these responses I discovered something about myself. I am entirely incurious about what kind of caterpillar/moth/butterfly it might be and will almost certainly not retain the information that it is a Rusty Tussock Moth and definitely not the 'Vapourer Orgyia antiqua' bit. It is not yet, as pictured, a moth of any description.

It may matter to some people, gardeners, perhaps, and scientists, to know what kind of creature this is, but that isn't why I took the picture and it isn't how I function as a person. In naming this creature and supplying other information that I have not bothered to include here, this person has distracted and, I feel, detracted, from the story the picture is telling. I took the picture because I appreciated this little creature, it's colour, the light and, indeed, the vibrant life going on in and around it and me.

I do appreciate that people have gone to a great deal of trouble to name this creature and all (as many as they have 'discovered') the creatures that fill our world, but I have to wonder what real relevance that had in this case and in this situation? Does it matter in the least to know that in this picture is a Rusty Tussock Moth, or, if it is relevant, is it not equally relevant to ask what leaf it is on? Why be curious about the moth and not the leaf? If I knew what leaf it's on I might assume that if I could spot the plant again I might find another such creature on it. But again, I have no real interest in taking another shot of such a creature, my only interest was in this one, in that moment and in the very particular situation I was in.

I feel oddly let down in all this, as if science and reason have somehow intruded once again where they should not have done without my permission and without thought or consideration. I am, in fact, offended. This is my picture and the imposition of science and reason was entirely unnecessary and unasked for.

The picture requires no more information than it contains to be the very picture it is. If the viewer is curious about what kind of creature it is or what leaf it is on, then that is entirely their business and none of mine. And there's an end to it.

Returning to intuition.

2008-06-07T14:14:00.008Z

We do not start life as reasoning creatures, we begin our process of learning intuitively, absorbing, osmosing, observing, feeling, doing, being. We do not begin with a language or any explanations of the world we have entered, and reason has no place in us until we learn to reason some way down the road. It is perhaps the very fact that we do not have reason available to us that we learn so much in such a short time. Within two years we have not only mastered an incredible array of motor skills, including, amazingly, walking, but have learnt a language from scratch, having nothing on which to build as we do later in learning a foreign language. I am not sure, were reason available to us at that age, that such an incredible feat of learning would be possible. It is only once we have learnt to reason that we can decide something is difficult, or perhaps too difficult. Young children clearly get frustrated some times, but a well nurtured child will persist, day by day, for a child is naturally an intuitive learning being.

Sadly, the vast majority of us are taught to put aside that intuitive ability. As we grow older and begin to be 'educated', we are taught through a process of reason to use and rely on our intellect. It is a sad failing of schooling that intuitive learning has little or no place in education.

Intuition is still with us, though, we are still impacted intuitively by the world around us. We do not use reason or intellect when we see an awesome sunset or experience the majesty of a storm, it is our being that responds to beauty, we absorb it pre-reason, pre-intellect, in an intuitive, free way. At any point on our journey we can go back to intuitive learning and re-develop it. There are many ways to engage with the world intuitively, through meditation, art, music, creative writing and we can re-learn to be in the world in an intuitive way, to shut down our inner noise and absorb the world around us, to be in it and a part of it, rather than a mere observer.

Just taking off our shoes and walking on grass engages us intuitively, in a tactile experience that requires no inner processing, or a crawl on hands and knees, climbing a mountain, canoeing a river, swimming. The world awaits us, each leaf, each blade of grass, each breath of wind, each moment is ours.

Here's a thought.

2008-06-06T11:45:00.006Z

Study any tree or leaf and consider, would you ever call a tree or leaf a bad tree or leaf no matter what time and weather had done to it? Nature's odd because whilst the effects of nature can sometimes be disastrous, I'd look pretty silly if I said that nature was bad. There is really nothing bad in nature, it does what it does and everything has its place, even if I don't understand what that is. Nature is perfect all the time, doing what nature does, no matter the consequences of the sometimes cataclysmic upheavals that take place in nature from time to time.

The complications start with us humans, it is we who define things as good or bad, and some things certainly are good or bad and we must stand up for those things or we become lacklustre, lifeless beings lacking any real substance. But it seems to me we take it too far. When it comes to thoughts and feelings we seem to apply our good and bad criteria and come up with some pretty wrong headed conclusions. You may disagree with me and everything I stand for, but that does not make me wrong or you right. We are all a work in progress on a vast journey of discovery.

My thoughts are not static, I have changed dramatically over time and am certainly not the same person I was at 16 or even 50, my being has changed and it has changed despite my frequent resistance to that change. And here's a thing, I have never once thought my way through a process of change, even though I may have been frantically thinking all the time. Every moment of change that has occurred in my life has come about through a eureka moment, when all the thoughts, ideas and events of my life have precipitated a moment or a process of enlightenment, of breakthrough. They have a unique savour, a real 'wow' feeling and they have taught me to be less frenetic in my thinking because they come despite me. it's almost as if I get in the way too much of the time. I have learnt to trust growth as an intuitive process rather than a rational process.

This is all part of the new paradigm. We have come through an age when science and reason were supreme, and it is only relatively recently that science has come to realise that there is no such thing as dispassionate observation. Quantum physics has taught us that the observer is part of the life of the observed and cannot be separated from it. There are limits to intellect and reason, they are incapable of addressing all reality, just as one cannot reason ones way through grief, for example, one must go through the process, or shut it out and down. Reason and intellect cannot help us become intuitive beings, or to experience the world in an intuitive way. Reason and intellect are descriptive, intuition is something else, holistic, a way of being. It is broader and deeper than our faculties of reason can deal with.

Zen and other paths of enlightenment have long known this. Zen in particular is all about the 'Ah, ah' moment, the moment when you 'get it'. I feel we have been the prisoners of science, religion and reason for so long, it's hard to break out, but the process of breaking out is what is happening, and I am grateful to live in such times and in this place to be a part of, and engaged with, that process.

Out with the old.

2008-06-06T00:41:00.004Z

I find myself in the position of considering another way forward. I have been protesting against the old way for so many years it is second nature to me, corrupt politics, corrupt corporations, corrupt wars and of course it is right to protest and I shall continue to do so by whatever direct means are available to me. However, all that is not good enough, it fails to address that there is a new paradigm, one that I have been embracing for years yet have never found the internal space to explore or develop, caught up, as I have been, in censuring the old paradigm.

The new paradigm is that of a person centred, positive, moral and ethical way of being, one in which I embrace and accept the responsibility for my thoughts and actions and being on what is a jewel of a world over which those who are so very power hungry have not yet gained complete mastery and never will. I do not want to spend as much time in protest, so much as I desire to grow and to learn and to increase my own personal sense of worth and value as a human being.

We are all quite simply wonderful creatures and it is time, I feel, that I spent more time exploring my wonder than I have spent in protest against those who seek to denigrate our life and worth.

I have spent so many years feeling lost and confused and I have been slow to realise that protest can never establish who I am, it falls to me to 'be' who I am and to learn to be comfortable in my own skin no matter what anyone else does or thinks.

Protest is reactive and I now feel that a more proactive way of being is the only way forward. It is not going to be easy, old habits and all that, but it is time and timely to change.

Television.

2006-05-20T17:16:00.000Z

Wearyall tree with Glastonbury Tor in the background. 29 April 2005.

I am reluctant to write this blog because the subject is so unapproachable I wonder where to start and that in itself sounds a warning bell for me, so here goes...

About ten years ago I threw my television out after stabbing it with a carving knife, in passing, albeit slightly the worse for wear from drinking, at a particularly banal and offensively stupid advert. The parting of the ways had come, a decision I've had no cause to regret. But it has become something of a dark secret because whenever it comes up in conversation it is always met with the same response which can be encapsulated as - "Oh I would too, but I'd miss all the good programmes", to which I have never had a ready response and don't really need one, but it requires one. The figures for Television ownership are revealing, in January 2006, of all homes in the UK (25.8 million) 25.2 million had a television set and 16.2 million had digital television. That means I am only one of 600,000 households who do not own a television, but it also means I am assumed to be breaking the law by the television licensing authority with whom I have had enough dust-ups to know that I am out on a limb on the wrong side of the saw that's cutting it off.

We are naturally active/reactive beings but to my knowledge no study has been done on long term receptive passivity, yet television (the embodiment of receptive passivity) is not just accepted, it is expected today. Even if we talk about interactive television, we're only talking about a process that is reactive, it is in no way active, or, more correctly, pro-active, as in, thinking about, or making a decision to do, something independently.

Amongst my circle of friends and acquaintances, those who have a television on all or most of the time are in the majority. In the past this might well have been the radio, but the fundamental difference between radio and television is that radio is a purely audio experience and can therefore be listened to on the go, at work, and so on, where television is a combination of audio and visual and little can be gained by either one alone.

It is also worth noting that whatever one sees on the television may contribute to ones knowledge of the world, but it contributes nothing to ones experience of the world. Seeing a cow on television and standing next to cow in a field are two entirely different things.

If I consider real life as against passively watching television, life is like a rock face, in which I am constantly making decisions, having thoughts and feelings, in what is an intense, interactive process. In quite moments I can take time to reflect on my life experiences, away from the rock face, and consider my actions and where I am going and what it means to me and where I should go next. If I have a problem, there is no plot to follow, I must grapple with it and resolve it, perhaps with advice, yet any decisions I make are mine and I must bear the consequences for those decisions. Television is the exact opposite of this, it is always off the rock face, always passive, always has a story line, a plot, and requires nothing from me in terms of all that makes life meaningful to me.

Britain today is increasingly a controlled state, see my blog below, and I wonder if there isn't a link between our passive lifestyle, at the heart of which is television, and ever more intrusive government.

Drawing this blog to a close I still haven't found the ready answer I require for those who say they would get rid of their television but... I don't think such an answer is available. In order to make a decision about whether to have a television or not, there is much to consider, most of which is not available for consideration, little discussed and seldom, if ever, seen or raised as an issue, and certainly cannot be considered whilst the television is on. So it remains a personal lifestyle choice, yet one that gives me cause for concern for the world in which I live. I do not think it is healthy to be passive for long periods of time, and I think that passivity is having a dramatic impact on us as people and our society. I have no proof, other than personal observation and opinion, and perhaps that's all that matters in a world where observation and opinion largely rests in the hands of television corporations and the world of commerce that funds and maintains what appears on the television screen.

Should Blair name the day because he has a dog snapping at his heels?

2006-05-15T09:26:00.001Z

It has been assumed for some time that John Prescott will be the next leader of the Labour party in the UK. Since labours pounding in the recent local elections a vast amount of press and media space has been given to the demand for Tony Blair to name the day of his departure to ensure an orderly hand over.

I am no fan of Tony Blair, I would have liked him to have been gone before the last General Election, I do not like the man, his views or his politics. However, he is the elected Prime minister of this country and the braying dogs would do well to remember that. John Prescott does no one any favours, least of all himself, by snapping at Blairs heels. I have never been convinced that Prescott is the man to take over from Blair and am even less convinced now. He's behaving like a bull in a china shop, doing nothing but damage to himself and the Labour party. The Labour party is in enough trouble without all this infighting, they appear so out of touch with the people in this country that they barely know we exist, it feels they are having a navel gazing bitch fest. If they can't sort themselves out, then they deserve to lose the next general election and good riddance, even though the alternatives are far from inspiring.

A bit of cartooning.

2006-02-23T03:16:00.000Z

I have always wanted to do some cartoons but am lazy, though not indifferent my brother informs me, with a pencil. However, I spend hours with Paint Shop ProX and Adobe Photoshop Elements, not least in order to process my pictures, but also just messing to increase my skill in using them. I am quite pleased with the above which was inspired by my latest song:

And I wonder.

I’ve wandered in places
Amongst distant faces
I’ve seen people without dreams

I’ve tried to forget
Bad times and debts
And troubles in lands I’ve never seen

Pictures of people
Dying slowly
The desperate visions of our times

And hollow faces
In silent places
I’ve seen trouble all my days

Chorus:
And I wonder
What it means
To be free

I’ve seen corporate greed
And human need
Standing blindly side by side

Companies’ whore
Blessed by the law
I’ve seen crooks in suits and ties

I promise you this
As a Judas kiss
There will be no peace on earth

As long as one man takes
What he doesn’t make
And sells it for a shiny piece of gold

Chorus:

I’ve seen kindness break
The endless lake
Of bitter tears and hidden pain

I’ve seen hearts take flower
In their darkest hour
And stumbling, take to the road again

Chorus:
But I wonder…

The Controlled State

2006-02-23T02:51:00.000Z

Picture taken: Watersmeet, Lynmouth, Devon, 10 June 2005, 6:14 pm

In a quite extraordinary article in the Guardian Henry Porter closed with the following:

"People insist that we are not living in a police state but perhaps that is rather a 20th-century notion. What we are pioneering in Britain is a 21st-century version of the police state - the controlled state.

I implore you to realise that the fight is on to save our society from this nightmare, to put your fears into perspective and to make every politician understand that this is something the people will not tolerate. There has not been a more important struggle in Britain in the past 50 years."

In the UK the NSPCC website is headed up with the slogan, 'Cruelty to children must stop. FULL STOP.' When they first started using this slogan I wrote to them pointing out that it was unrealistic, unrealisable and naive to even consider this as a goal, unless they consider we should become such a watched society that every home and room would be monitored. As daft as this slogan is, it is entirely a sign of our times that people seem not only to not think it unrealistic but are immune to such nonsense and, indeed, buy it. When the unbelievable becomes believed, we have lost our way.

It would be a terrible world indeed if we became so controlled that any misdeed was impossible. Fortunately such a world is unlikely in the extreme to ever come about. It remains that if someone wants to abuse and has the opportunity, they will. That's life.

Tony Blair does not seem to like the idea that everyone has the right to commit a crime. The law cannot and should not be pre-emptive (as was the invasion of Iraq and wrong if for no other reason). Such a state should be fought to the death, for that is a worse crime than all the crimes the government uses oppression to suppress.

It is also worth considering in these days when words are used negligently and thoughtlessly that what stands at the interface of our every interaction with others is our word. If we are not true to our word and consider them for their life giving or taking quality then we are no longer ethical or moral people and no contract, law or bond can make us so. If I lie, it is ultimately myself I have cheated, for it is my own soul that I have sold out. Tony Blair needs to learn that you cannot force people to do right, that is oppression, people must behave ethically or do right out of choice or ethics and right have been lost utterly.

Western Fascism and Totalitarianism.

2005-12-17T14:34:00.000Z

Picture taken: Summer Soltice at Avebury, 21 June 2005, 5:09 am

Stalin and Hitler would applaud Bush and Blair.

Fascism and Totalitarianism have found new faces in the guise of western democracy.

Today much of what we see going on is treated prescriptively, or reactive/pre emptive description (spin) is used to describe events and actions that would necessarily be regarded as brutal, wrong, inhumane and criminal.

How different is the behaviour of working people in England and the USA today from Russian peasants drinking Vodka to drown their misery, frustration, anguish and despair?

We have become unused to reflective, critical, personal appraisal (of world events, if not of ourselves in a post modern negative way all too often) and accustomed to a descriptive, media driven view of the world, increasingly through television. Opinion rather than our own research, deductive reasoning, intuition and feelings dominate our worldviews, after all, more people die on the roads, or through poverty and disease, than have died through terrorism and yet we are told that terrorism is the great threat of our time.

The brute forces of dictatorship, epitomised by Stalin and Hitler, have given way to cunning, political rhetoric, spin, corporate and personal greed, manipulation and deception.

We are forgetting that words describing events, feelings and things, are not the things themselves. There is an old expression that ‘actions speak louder than words’, in the world in which we are now living, this is no longer the case.

We are increasingly a watched society. Whilst CCTV and speed cameras may have some impact on criminal activity, their watchful eyes are on each one of us and rather than tune them out or ignore them, we would do better to increase our awareness and examine their implications and impact on the more general populace. It has already been said that Identity Cards would have little impact on the very activities they were ostensibly designed to combat or prevent. How is it, then, that people in the UK seem to be putting up so little resistance to them and, indeed, seem ready to pay quite a large sum of money for something virtually useless for which they use the ready and facile argument, ‘If you are not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to fear’?

Many of us have said, and keep saying, that it is liberty and freedom themselves, which are at risk, but it has become that argument which is treated as facile, even puerile, and trivial.

The view of the world promoted by Bush and Blair is that of the benign farmer locking the chickens in the roost to protect them from predators. What is apparent to many of us is that there is little use in so doing if the canniest fox of all is locked right in with the chickens.

Let’s look at an example that bears examination. The BBC has a (recent) traditional role as an independent provider of radio and television entertainment and news. The BBC World Service is respected the world over for it’s unbiased coverage. The BBC provides that coverage through a licensing system payable by each television (in the past, radio as well) owner. The BBC has become a beleaguered institution, where it was once affectionately known as ‘Auntie’, it is now largely seen as a somewhat overblown and out of touch great aunt, a sort of Hinge and Bracket parody of itself. In recent times the BBC’s charter (1) is looking increasingly fragile and whilst most people might, perhaps, applaud the ending of the license fee, the alternative is seldom considered or examined. All other television channels are financed through advertising, businesses pay to promote their products during breaks in and between programmes. On the surface this may seem a rather effect less and convenient way to cover the costs of programme making. However, those businesses are driven by the need to make a profit and they will not pay to advertise on just any channel. They want a return, and will exert their muscle to ensure best delivery.

Interestingly, whilst the BBC license fee is under threat, and people resent having to pay it, satellite television is on the increase at a cost far higher annually (pay per view) than the BBC fee.

Under the guise of giving people what they want (choice?), ‘independent’ television (that is - paid by advertising) is promoting consumerism to such a degree that, for example, every school child knows the stigmatisation of not wearing the right product. We must, therefore, ask ourselves if that is the world we want or whether dear old ‘Auntie’ might not have a valuable place after all and some constraints laid on those cunning and foxy, so called, ‘independent’ channels? Or we might even question the role of television in our lives. Today it is assumed that every household has a television in the UK, and indeed there are few exceptions. In promoting a descriptive view of the world television has no equal, are we then, in this discussion, living with the consequences of that, and are we prepared to accept them?

The consumer society.

We are consuming our world at a frightening rate. Our natural resources of Gas, Oil and Coal, are nearly exhausted, we may have a few decades yet, but that is all. The pre-eminent consumer nation in the world is also the nation most resistant to any action to curb the rate at which we are consuming our planet. The government of the USA resists every attempt to address the problems that we are already facing as our natural resources decline and the effects our levels of consumption impose on the world, Global warming and ozone depletion, the destruction of natural flora and fauna and so on.

Few can doubt the motivation behind the recent invasion of Iraq was driven by greed for the oil resources that Iraq holds, for there is a power behind the government of both the UK and the USA. That power lies in massive corporations who make unimaginable profits, and wield unimaginable power through wealth. Indeed, it is clear that not only do they exert their power to influence our governments, the people appointed to power have many direct and indirect vested interests in those companies.

The effect of corporate greed on the world is so immense that it is impossible to grasp the enormity of it. Multi national corporations involved in Pharmaceuticals, Gas and Oil, soft drinks, dairy and food production, and massive supermarket chains are quite literally decimating not just the natural world but entire peoples and nations in their pursuit of profit and ever greater market dominance.

It is this greed that fuels today’s totalitarianism and fascism. It is this world of corporate predators that lies behind every decision facing us today in the world.

The way for identity cards has long been paved through what are called ‘loyalty cards’ promoted by companies hungry for our custom, who in return gain access to our spending habits, logged, monitored and targeted back at us, the consumers.

Entire national economies are now controlled by ‘Corporate Consumer Companies’. Nations succeed or fail by the dictates of the ‘Free Market Economy’, ‘Globalisation’ and ‘World Trade’.

Our governments are complicit in this and we each know, though it is hard to admit, that we ourselves are a part of this massive global problem. The most common feeling is that it is all too big, too much, for us to even begin to imagine what we can do. That may well be true, but at the very least we might begin to examine the problem, re-engage our critical faculties, maybe switch the television off for brief periods of reflection. At the very least allow ourselves to draw breath and re-engage with ourselves in a way that television, the media, consumption and the daily round of ever increasingly alienated job performance do not allow.

Whilst we may not be able to do anything about all ‘that’ yet, we might begin by reclaiming ourselves and learning to think again.

(1) The BBC is established by Royal Charter, and has been so from the very early days of its existence. The first Charter ran from 1 January 1927 to 31 December 1936, and we are now approaching the end of the eighth Charter. The fixed length of the Charter allows the Secretary of State an opportunity, every ten years or so, to look carefully at the BBC’s role, functions and structure.

Condoleezza Rice confirms the use of rendition.

2005-12-05T19:28:00.000Z

Picture taken: 30 August 2004, 8:47 pm

Today, Condoleezza Rice, The US secretary of state, confirmed the use of 'rendition': transporting suspects to countries where they can be questioned outside the protection of US law.

In the same statement she said, '... the US would use "every lawful weapon to defeat these terrorists".

We once again enter the world of political hypocrisy that is the vernacular of politics today.

The war against terror (and remind me which war that is exactly?) seems to abound in the rhetoric of fear and dogmatic assertion without burdening itself with any necessity of proof.

But worse, far worse, are the kinds of statements made by Ms Rice today.

To deliberately transport someone to a somewhere that is outside the protection of the law is de facto unlawful.

You cannot pursue terrorism unlawfully without yourself being a terrorist. You cannot prosecute an illegal war, such as the Iraq war, without being a terrorist.

Of course this kind of political hypocrisy has become so normal as to render it almost beyond the questioning of ordinary people like you and me, but question it we must.

Blair and Bush and Rice stand before committees and groups and speak with all the self assured confidence of religious fanatics, unless we question them and challenge them then fascism is a present reality in the name of democracy.

If rendition is unlawful, then how can Ms. Rice expect us to believe that those being treated in this way are not being tortured? Of course we can't and we should not.

She also said rendition had been practiced for decades and was "not unique to United States or to the current administration". Bad practice, no matter how widespread and widely used, does not good practice make, and just because my neighbour is a thief, a liar or despot is no reason for me to become one.

Co-operation

2005-12-03T11:47:00.000Z

Picture taken 9 Nov 2005 5:22pm.

The notion that the world only functions through co-operation is not often discussed. In these days of increasing polarity of wealth and resources and the culture of individual and corporate greed and indeed the 'cult' of self, I think it is time to take stock and remember, we exist only through co-operation. I do not know where the idea of the 'self made man' came from, but it is a myth whose demise is long overdue. Anyone who declares themselves 'self made', is a selfish, blind and ungrateful creature at best.

We each build our lives on the ingenuity, the labour, the deft hands and hearts of those who have brought about the world in which we live. We daily, moment by moment, employ the products of the labour of others. We all too easily take for granted the plates, knives and forks, carpets, keyboards, the houses we live in, the tarmac we drive on, the clothes on our backs. The list is too vast to comprehend of things we rely on from the hands of others. We assume the technology of today will continue, we assume, and indeed presume on, tomorrow, on the trust of labours past and present.

As John Donne said, 'All mankind is of one author, and is one volume... No man is an island, entire of itself.'

It doesn't matter, in this argument, who the author may be, it matters profoundly only that no island exists but it is entirely surrounded by sea. We live in the context of our times, not separate from it but completely dependent upon it.

This world, my world, your world, exists through co-operation. Every one is my neighbour, whose life and labour joggles elbows with my own.

Self denial is not a virtue.

2005-12-02T13:05:00.000Z

Picture taken 2 Dec 2005 11:18am.

Self denial may be the greatest religious virtue, it is certainly the most pointless, being personally and socially toxic. But then so is being self centred, selfish and egotistical, so it was an enormous pleasure to read this eloquent, sensitive, riveting Blog by Besprent. I cannot remember the last time I came across so sensitive a use of language and personal expression. This quality of self expression draws the reader in and leaves one feeling invigorated and refreshed.

On the same day I happily browsed into Besprents' world I also came across this Blog by Richard Eng. I am a cynical person and my first thoughts were, 'Here we go, I wonder what he's on?' A few posts in and I thought, 'This is a beautiful mind'. I am impressed that Richard should post his Blog under such a title, clearly he is aware and confident enough to know who he is and post accordingly needing none of the convoluted and pointless affirming folderol so many of us (self) indulge in.

I am grateful to them both in my first week of Blogging, I have found them an inspiration and a delight.

One in 10 pre-schoolers may be suffering mental illness

2005-11-30T11:34:00.000Z

Picture taken 16 Nov 2005, 5:28pm.

So reports, Adrian Angold, associate professor of psychiatry at the Duke University Medical Centre in North Carolina. It was once thought mental illness was triggered by growing up and therefore a problem encountered during adulthood. Prof. Angold said yesterday he was, 'genuinely surprised' that the study had shown the same rate of mental illness in preschool children, as young as two to five, as in older children.

I love stuff like this. Whilst the language of modern psychiatry or psychology was not around when I was young, I vividly remember the terror and fear that surrounded my growing up. The disabilities I have lived with all my life now have a language that I clearly understand and with which I am able to articulate the problems I live with. What amazes me is that psychiatry is only just now discovering this!

It is amazing how many problems do not exist until some expert says they do. It is also amazing how much we are still ruled by paternalistic attitudes where individuals are not believed until some expert makes the astounding discovery that a problem exists.

Incredible, too, is that so many problems are called mental illness when they are not that at all. To be mentally ill one must have a disease of the brain of some form or another. And whilst it has also been shown that the brain is affected by harsh words and treatment in childhood this is a far cry from the brain being diseased. It seems to me that it is perfectly reasonable to have a fully functioning brain and yet to experience dysfunctional activity within the brain. In this case mental disturbance might be a far better term than mental illness.

But, of course, it is a sign of our times that things must be cast as dramatically as possible in order to have credibility and, indeed, stand some chance of a little help. I am not sure this isn't a part of the victim mentality that surrounds so many of the problems people encounter these days, like alcoholism. As an alcoholic I will never believe it is a disease, it is certainly a problem related to all sorts of life issues, but a disease? I think not.

In ten years time an expert will discover that unresolved problems in childhood can lead to alcoholism in later life, as can any unresolved chronic problems, but then I am not a scientific expert, just an alcoholic.

The profit motive

2005-11-30T08:17:00.000Z

Picture taken: 20 Nov 2005, 3:59pm.

So long as the profit motive and Globalisation reign supreme, human disaffection and dysfunction are going to increase. I wonder what the difference is between Eurofreeze and Phillip Green, both indulging in the pursuit of wealth and profit, one illegally, the other legally - or at least with a nod and wink from UK law?

Human life is held in little regard generally, though perhaps a little better than animal life. I wonder if life will ever be regarded of worth in and for itself? It hasn't happened yet in all the annuls of history. Our technical sophistication manages to camouflage our personal and psychological naivete, but never quite hides it. History is littered with war, oppression, greed, hatred and intolerance. As a general social/political/economic model we haven't tried love yet, that is still the domain of hippies and loonies, perhaps it's time.