Monthly Archive

Today is the only day of your life, and don't forget that.

Waking up in lockdown again. The Coronavirus has taken over the world - at least, the external world. So what are we going to do with the day, when many of the usual activities we take part in, are out of bounds for the time being?

 For me personally, it hasn't changed anything much except that there are a lot less people about. I'm retired, so my everyday carries on as before with one big exception - the Gym is closed where I usually go three mornings a week. So I'm substituting with Nordic walking and going into the countryside and doing a couple of hours of strenuous walking - burns some calories :-).

Actually, this lockdown reminds me that today is the only day I have, and that makes me feel very thankful.

 Every day I wake up. That might sound banal, but what have you ever done for that simple experience? Nothing. All we do is wake up. Except there will come the day when we don't. And for some reason, we ignore that. The most important fact, we forget and ignore.

There is no reason at all why I should awake. I'd like to; I want to, but that doesn't make anything happen, does it. And yet it does, and will, till it doesn't. The most momentous moment of your life is when you wake up and realise that you're still here. And I would very much like to be conscious of that moment. Mostly I'm not. I'm sleepy, maybe at the tail end of a nice dream. Or - and that has happened a lot - that have a nightmare and do everything possible to just wake up. But just sometimes, sometimes I wake up and realise I'm still here, despite me. And those moments are the ones I strive for, because they are wonderful. And the feeling that wells up is: thankfulness.

Thankful for being here, just being here. Not being something, just being. Because you know there is no reason for you to still be here or anywhere, but here you are. What else can you feel except thankful. And that is a great start to the day, even if it only lasts a few minutes, you can savour that feeling anyway.  

There's enough work to go around for all who want to, but..

Currently, there is a huge debate going on, on how to compensate all those loosing earnings because of the Coronavirus. Everyone agrees, it's not fair for some to lose all because of circumstances beyond their control.

This is a big opportunity for a complete reset on our illusion of what work is and how it should be compensated.

 In 1935 Bertrand Russell published a collection of essays, including one entitled In Praise of Idleness|, in which he suggested that the technology available at his time, meant that one could easily have a system where people worked for, say, 8 hours a week for the common weal, and that would be enough to produce sufficient quantity of goods or services of whatever was needed. How much more true this idea is today!

 The technological innovations of the past 50 years are staggering. One result is that many of the traditional manual skills have gone or have become increasingly redundant. At the same time, it appears to me that those who have a job, have to work increasingly more hours, whilst huge numbers remain unemployed. There is definitely something wrong with this picture. 

It goes along with a previous argument I've made, regarding money. There is an assumption that everything we do has an intrinsic value which is a function of time, skill and responsibility. That this is not the case is obvious to any worker. There are too many who are paid vast sums for doing very little, who may have skills, but it's mostly the skill of sales and obfuscation and who clearly do not take responsibility. 

To me, I have never quite grasped why a minute's time of one person is more valuable than a minute of somebody else's time. Given that I didn't give myself life and therefore time, how can I claim a specific value for one of my minutes? It doesn't make sense. I am alive, and I have to take part in life by using my body and energy. Putting a value in terms of money is meaningless. 

Add to that the fact that whatever you accumulate during this lifetime, all stays here when you leave life. So, again I ask, what does adding a monetary value bring to anything, except to foster greed and envy. It is only aspirational if everybody has the same chance. And we don't, whatever the Americans may say.

Work, using a skill developed and honed over time, has value. The biggest value is what the individual learns about themselves during the process. The next biggest value is in using the skill to help others in developing themselves or easing their life, allowing them to focus. It is not in scraping and selling skills to the highest bidder. We see the result o that system every day: child labour, forced prostitution, slavery, torture. Is that really the best system available?

My suggestion is to really consider Lord Bertrand Russell's suggestion of, in effect, a minimum ground level income allowing every human being to live with their basic needs supplied and treated with respect and dignity. Be glad if you can do something for others.

Money, money, money, makes the world fall down the plughole

And suddenly, it's not money that's important, but health. 

Thanks to the fears of coronavirus, the world is standing still, or almost. And likely to stay this way for a while. And then we should get back to normal.

Yeah, right! During this pandemic, production of all non-essentials has stopped. And we'll survive that - we are an ingenious creature which always finds a way through. Except when we don't.

I doubt if everything will go back to the way it was before the pandemic. All of us will have learnt that we can get by with a lot less than we believed possible. Whole industries have stopped working - the focus is on essentials - our health and food and water and sleep, and to keep the population peaceful, give them entertainment (Bread and Games, as the Romans said). The rest is nice to have. How can we think everything should be the same? Because we are creatures of habit and hate change, we desperately want to go back to what we knew, rather than face the unknown. And that's why this article is in the Illusion bit - everything is constantly changing, including us, and the illusion is that we can stop that process. Well, you can, by dying, although the process of change continues anyway with the left-overs.

Maybe we'll notice, that it's not money that makes the world go around, but effort. Effort in the form of work and using and obtaining energy. My partner has often said, if we got paid in pigs, we'd soon have enough. I've never really understood why one person with a maximum of 24 hours in a day available should be paid 1000 times what another person who also only has 24 hours available to them is paid. Ah, you say, that's because they studied. So what, I say, they had 24 hours to fill as students and others worked to ensure studying is possible. Now, a studied person can contribute with their learning. What is so special about that? The amount of responsibility, I hear you say. Rubbish, I say. In the first instance, what happens when a person on a huge salary screws up? Nothing - s/he is paid more to go away. No responsibility there. What about doctor's you say? What about them, say I? They have the same responsibility as everyone else has, i.e. to do the best they possibly can be using their learning and experience. What happens when they don't do that? That probably depends on where in the world, but so far I have seen very few instances where Doctors admit to screwing up and even less often that they have to carry the consequences.

So, right now, we have lock down going on in the Northern Hemisphere. And the main concern is on Industry. We are already moving away from health to wealth. As mentioned before, Work has to be there so we can live, but we have turned that around to where we see us as having to love to work. I have another article in mind, around the theme of Bertrand Russel's "In praise of Idleness" essay on this subject.

I sincerely hope that this current crisis lasts long enough for humanity to be able to reset their life priorities. We need to get away from this paper demon called money and get back to remembering the purpose of life. 

Being old means being stupid, apparently, in today's world.

Ageism is really strange. Why would I now be considered stupid and incompetent because I'm over 60?

There was a time when, families stayed together and were dependent on each other. With the onset of the industrial revolution, along came transport and with that the opportunity to find work further away than wherever one could walk to in a reasonable time. And as families drifted apart over time, so that the close ties between family members slowly disappeared. I notice, with my own kids and grandchildren, that close contact was a thing of the past and that the immediate personal situation overrides any considerations other than the immediate family household. Not true in all cases, I know, but far more prevalent today.

 Today, it's over the hill to the poorhouse for many old people. It may be an old people's home or it maybe a granny flat, but whatever, out of sight and out of mind. I came across "Older people widely demonised, ageism report finds". It included the following statement: 

Negative attitudes are rife in the workplace, in health and social care and in the media, with women and people from black and minority ethnic groups facing a “double jeopardy” of discrimination, the paper by the Centre for Ageing Better revealed.

The report – titled Doddery But Dear? – reviewed all existing research on attitudes to ageing. It found that older workers are seen as having lower levels of performance, less ability to learn and being more costly than younger workers.

In health and social care, the review found that stereotypes are even more negative, with attitudes focusing on death and physical decline, and ageing seen as a process of increasing ill health.

I've offered a time-based explanation why this attitude is prevalent. I suspect it's much more than that, though.

There was a time when, in most cultures, old meant wise. Why? Because here is a person who has lived longer and so has had longer to accumulate experience and learn lessons from that experience which can usefully be passed on to the younger ones. It also meant that an old person is more likely to think things through before acting, so that stopped rashness. Of course, this is all a generalisation, and it's the exceptions which prove the rule.

 Looking back at my life, I feel I have learnt some important things about life and living itself, which can't be learnt any other way except through experience and therefore, time. It's one of the reasons for this blog - given that most people I know are not much interested in discovering themselves, I'm writing this for those who are interested.

I do know something which younger people mostly don't know, in the sense that it doesn't figure anywhere in their daily lives, and that is that my life is finite. I'm going to die - I don't know the date and time, but I know I have lived considerably more than half of whatever length of time I'll have. Definitely over the hill.

And that makes me all the more conscious of the amazing life I've led up to now, and it makes me very thankful, because I know that it's not thanks to my efforts that I'm still around - I've been too close to real death too many times. If that thankfulness and joy of life is not something worth sharing and the experiences which make me who I am today, then what is? The young, without those experiences which time brings them, are dependent on those who have had the experiences. Maybe they will learn that we Grufties are not just to be written off as useless and a burden, but can and often should be valued for what they have learnt.

For me, Kindness is the true reality. All else comes from Illusion

Coronavirus is rampant and has changed our everyday life, possibly permanently. As one of the old people prone to this virus, it makes me change many of the carefully nurtured habits. One in particular I find difficult is not being able to go to the gym regularly. So I'm substituting with long walks with my Nordic Walking sticks. It gets me out of the house and does at least something for my health.

I have neighbours who are both over 90 and pretty fit, but who is going to go and do the shopping for them? Listening to the radio and reading the news, the most striking thing are the many acts of kindness occurring. Kindness is not what we can expect from governments or companies. They are done by individuals for individuals. That's our nature.

One of the first things I heard, was that many of the teenagers currently not able to go to school, have spontaneously set up voluntary groups to go shopping or help out and look after the kids, etc. I find that rather wonderful. Mostly teenagers are maligned as uncaring, but here is an example of the opposite.

Kindness is such a fundamental aspect of a human being. We like helping others, even more than we like being helped. All the masters of the past have pointed out that kindness - really kind acts, not done for gain - are an essential part of attaining consciousness. Prem Rawat once said that only love can make him cry. That is certainly true for me too. Cruelty and indifference are sadly the norm, so that the small acts of kindness are barely noticed: someone offering a seat on the bus, holding open a door, offering to carry something, giving a hug instead of a lecture, so many small things, which are truly noticeable. 

There's a TV programme here in Switzerland, called "Happy Days". In it, the focus is on bringing a little bit of sunshine into the lives of some who are in need and thanking others for their efforts of kindness to others. It's very popular, to me unsurprising. I suspect many of us would prefer to be overloaded with acts of kindness, rather than the plethora of negative stuff we are given as news instead. Kindness is truly newsworthy, especially for the recipients.

Get conscious, get real, be kind and experience joy!

Together against each other. Contradictory? Of course!

I've been thinking about "Respect". If I understand that I am as unique as every other individual on the planet, then surely I have to respect each person for their uniqueness?

On the other hand, apparently we have to constantly be in competition with each other. So the "I'm better/worse than you" is always applied to everything. How is that going to work with respect for all, better or worse - whatever these measures mean?

As Confucius stated, Respect starts with oneself. If I don't respect me, then how can I be expected to respect others? And there's the difficulty: how can I learn to respect myself, when I'm constantly being compared - at work, at home, in school, in my social life, to see if I'm better or worse than someone or something else.

From as early as I can remember - and it seems to me to have been the same for those around me - I was told to do better, to be better, to be diligent, to be careful, to be ........ Being me was not enough, I had to be somebody else. That might even have worked if it had been consistently a comparison between me and a specific person, but it wasn't. I was compared to someone or something else as deemed appropriate depending on what I was doing at the time. Very confusing: I should be better than someone at homework and better than someone else at sports.

Our whole educational system is based on this. I recall that I didn't just get a specific mark for my homework, but I also have a position in class rankings. So competition was always the underlying fact at school. Later, in jobs, it was no different. You might be the best at some task, but if your boss prefers somebody else, then being best was irrelevant. Nobody I've ever met could get me to understand that this inconsistent approach works to make us better human beings.

In particular, how can we work together to solve the huge problems currently facing the world, if we don't respect each other and are constantly competing against each other?

It really is an illusion to expect these two items as currently practiced to help us in any way. Respect and competition - we need to sort out which is important, before we all kill ourselves. 

There's Ignorance and then there's wilful ignorance

Wikipedia uses the phrase "Wilful Blindness" which is, apparently, also used as a legal term!

Wilful blindness (sometimes called ignorance of law, wilful ignorance or contrived ignorance or Nelsonian knowledge) is a term used in law to describe a situation in which a person seeks to avoid civil or criminal liability for a wrongful act by intentionally keeping himself or herself unaware of facts that would render him or her liable or implicated. In United States v. Jewell, the court held that proof of wilful ignorance satisfied the requirement of knowledge as to criminal possession and importation of drugs.

Although the term was originally—and still is—used in legal contexts, the phrase "wilful ignorance" has come to mean any situation in which people intentionally turn their attention away from an ethical problem that is believed to be important by those using the phrase (for instance, because the problem is too disturbing for people to want it dominating their thoughts, or from the knowledge that solving the problem would require extensive effort).

 There are so many examples of this kind of ignorance and increasing daily, wherever you look. I find the quotation from Isaac Asimov still applies today. It can only be wilful ignorance that forgets all the bad things people, not just Americans, have done and continue to do. But nobody talks about them. Why? Because it's uncomfortable. For whom? It's uncomfortable for every one of us, because in some measure we all allow stuff to happen:

• the wilful ignorance of the church and congregation, particularly the Christian Churches, towards the massive child abuse over centuries - can only be described as condoning it until it became "uncool" to do so, very, very recently
• the same can be said for a variety of "power groups", wherever there is an elite, abuse is taking place
• the stupidity of thinking one country can solve all its own problems - Coronavirus as the current example 
• the wilful ignorance of the majority of the people of the things done in their name

The worst, in my view, is that last. That we - you and me - do nothing whilst our Governments and functionaries do what they like in the name of the people's good, while all of us see that there is only a small number of people for whom it's good, and they don't include you and me - although, we do usually get stuck with the bill in the form of taxes. 

So what did you do about it? What did I do about it? Complained.

With today's river of information available to everyone, there is no excuse for ignorance. What's missing is the action to step back from the illusion and into reality, and then act accordingly. And that takes a lot of courage and perseverance.

Expectations and Illusion - why we always fall for it

The biggest illusion dictating our lives is Expectations. We expect life to follow a certain path: that was good enough for my grandfather, and it's good enough for me.

In all aspects of our lives, we have expectations. My children should be a certain way, my partner is supposed to be like something, my job is supposed to fulfil me, my house, my dog, my life.... Everything is supposed to fit into my expectations. And, does it?

Almost never. But that doesn't stop us. If once in 100 times, an expectation is fulfilled, we take that as being the norm and all the 99 other times when our expectations weren't fulfilled, we pretend they are the exceptions.

Why do we do that? What's wrong with the not knowing what's coming? Well, we like stability and will do almost anything to avoid change. Including deluding ourselves that our expectations are somehow justified, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. 

Together with false expectations are the endless comparisons: You should be more like so-and-so; why don't you behave like so-and-so; etc.
So whatever you do, it's not OK to be you. Couple that with the endless expectations which others dump on you. It's no wonder that we end up pretty crazy. There's an article in my head all about the teenage years and the effects of unreasonable expectations placed on our children and their effects.

So, if you want to escape the illusions, then the first thing to get rid of are the expectations. Acceptance is the key word.  

What is Love .... Reality or Illusion? Changeable or not?

I listen to the radio quite a lot, these days, mostly Ska - great radio station for that is Bob's Ska Radio - and I like Music Night on BBC4. Last night they had on the soul queens and that reminded me of my teenage years when Soul Music first came up. That music helped me get through the emotional roller coaster of feelings which were so powerful at that time. It also reminded me of how crazy that time is.

And the craziest emotion we have is love. It can feel like heaven and like hell - even at the same time! Listening to the lyrics of these "Love Songs", also leads to a reflection on that time and other times when I "fell in love". And it is a falling!

 Why do I say that? Well, just look around you and, depending on your age, what you'll find is the debris of "love". Broken homes, divorced parents, children suffering abusive parents, single parents, children in homes, mental anguish - the list goes on. I appreciate that there are some happy relationships that have survived a lot of years, but even there, I question the surface show.

I suspect that almost everyone would agree that love certainly doesn't remain the way it started. So why not?

Well - and here the illusion is fully at work - the key reason is that we link two things together, neither of which work, the most powerful of which is: EXPECTATIONS! Ugh! Along with these powerful emotions, come a whole raft full of expectations, the worst of which is that that powerful overwhelming feeling of first love will last like that forever! There is very little that is not crazy about that. Nobody lasts forever, nothing lasts forever, but this is supposed to last forever - all the songs say so, so it must be so.

Experience shows that our expectations are false, so why do we do it? Why do we believe that this is the right person, this time it's the real thing, when all experience tells you that isn't possible?

Possible it's linked to the second truly crazy belief that people have: this emotion I'm feeling is coming from the outside, from the other person! And yet, we know that all emotions and feelings only occur within us! So why do we use such phrases as "you make me feel...", "I feel like this because of you", etc. That's what fills the other kind of love song: the ones where s/he left me, and now I feel so terrible, because you did all this to me.

There are times when it seems to me that the whole music industry keeps perpetuating the myth of eternal love followed by disastrous break up. What is going on?

To me, that we have a need to feel love is abundantly clear, which is why so much effort goes into this. But it's the wrong effort, if it's directed to the outside.  Love - like all feelings - is inside each person, along with every other emotion. So why don't we focus on that source. It's always there and never lets you down. Isn't that what we're after?

There is so much more to say, but I'm going to have some time off, today :-) 

The problem with religion is.... the lack of experience

EACH SOUL, IS POTENTIALLY DIVINE.
THE GOAL IS TO MANIFEST THIS DIVINITY WITHIN, BY CONTROLLING NATURE. EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL.
DO THIS EITHER BY WORK, OR WORSHIP, OR PSYCHIC CONTROL, OR PHILOSOPHY, BY ONE, OR MORE, OR ALL OF THESE AND BE FREE.

THIS IS THE WHOLE OF RELIGION. DOCTRINES, OR DOGMAS, OR RITUALS, OR BOOKS, OR TEMPLES, OR FORMS, ARE BUT SECONDARY DETAILS.

Swami Vivekananda  - Frontispiece, Raja Yoga, 1897

I've never understood the role of those members of a religion who apparently profess to know more about the creative force than you or I. If, as all the masters in the past have said, the answer lies inside you, then I don't need interpreters for that, I certainly don't need those rituals, special clothes, special appearances, or anything else that religions offer. As one Master said: "Religion is what happens when the master dies". Suddenly, everyone is an expert!

Swami Vivekananda represented India and Hinduism at the Parliament of the World's Religions (1893). This was the first World's Parliament of Religions, and it was held from 11 to 27 September 1893. Delegates from all over the world joined this Parliament. Amongst other things, the following excerpt from "Raja Yoga" - a discourse given by the Swami - I find very clear:

In the first place I will ask you to analyse all the various religions of the world. You will find that these are divided into two. classes, those with a book, and those without a book. Those with a book are the strongest,
and have the largest number of followers. Those with out books have mostly died out, and the few new ones have very small followings. Yet, in all of them we find one consensus of opinion, that the truths they teach
are the results of the experiences of particular persons.

The Christian asks you to believe in his religion, to believe in Christ, and to believe in Him as the incarnation of God, to believe in a God, in a soul, and in a better state of that soul. If I ask him for reasons he says, "No, it is my belief". But if you go to the fountain head of Christianity you will find that it is based upon experience. Jesus wasn't a Christian. Christ said He saw God; the disciples said they felt God ; and so forth. Similarly, in Buddhism, it is Buddha s experience He experienced certain truths, saw them, came in contact with them, and preached them to the world. So with the Hindus in their book the writers, who are called Rishis, or sages, declare they have experienced certain truths, and these they preach. Thus it is clear that all the religions of the world have been built upon that one universal and Adamantine foundation of all our knowledge direct experience. The teachers all saw God ; they all saw their own souls, they saw their eternity, they saw their future, and what they saw they preached. Only there is this difference, that in most of these religions, especially in modern times, a peculiar claim is put before us, and that claim is that these experiences are impossible at the present day; they were only possible with a few men, who were the first founders of the religions that subsequently bore their names. At the present time these experiences have become obsolete, and therefore we have now to take religion on belief. This I entirely deny. If there has been one case of experience in this world in any particular branch of knowledge it absolutely follows that this experience has been possible millions of times before, and will be repeated eternally. Uniformity is the rigorous law of nature; what once happened can happen always.

The absurdity of religious organisation should be clear to every human being on the planet: look at what they have done and continue to do. There have been more deaths caused by religious organisations than anything I can think of. What all these organisations demonstrate, is their own lack of belief in a creative force. How can anyone say they believe in a creator and then go and destroy parts of that creation because they see things differently? It makes no sense on any level.

How can they abuse the position they claim for themselves within society and then abuse the members of that society? How can one person who is ignorant of themselves have the temerity to judge others they don't know at all? It truly is the blind leading the blind.

The worst combination - and I don't have to give examples, they are visible everywhere - is when religion and politics get together. That creates a very nasty child! Here are two groups, both of whom claim to represent power on behalf of the people, but on closer inspection, what is done is to make use of that power to get the ignorant to follow them. Ignorance is so dangerous and the worst kind of ignorance, is wilful ignorance, when people refuse to see what is happening in their name, and they continue to allow it to happen. That is truly disgusting and so, much of the world's population is truly disgusting in terms of their ignorance and refusal to take personal responsibility for their actions and lack of action when there should be action.

Fear and the Coronavirus - Don't let it get to you!

The headlines are full of the latest illness to be discovered by humans and named. Panic is causing disruptions on an unprecedented scale other than through a major war. But why?

As my teacher once put it: nobody thinks they are going to die until the doctor says so. And currently, the doctors are all saying it. But what exactly is new?

Fear of the unknown is at work. It would be good for us to remember that we are always confronted by the unknown, as we don't know the future, we can only guess. And we really do know that each and every one is going to die at some point due to some reason or other - it's guaranteed. So why the huge panic? I appreciate that it's primarily the young who are infecting the old, and it's primarily the old who are dying of this virus. I certainly belong to the group of old and not very well, but so what.

Not only that, but I'm not in charge - that's the truth. All I do is live from moment to moment. And I'm grateful for each moment. But I know it's going to end - I don't need to worry about that. So I don't.

Relax, it'll work out the way it has to, despite anything you, or I do. It's really simple: don't get it; don't pass it on!

Coronavirus - and the Future? It'll take care of itself?

The media is currently full of information regarding the Coronavirus. The impact is huge, with millions of countries and their peoples reacting in all sorts of ways. Panic buying of face masks and disinfection liquids, as well as stockpiling in case of there being nothing to eat or drink.

And now the finance markets are recording huge losses, as worries increase as to the effect of the virus and the measures being taken by governments.

The one thing it demonstrates, really clearly, is that we cannot predict the future.

Nobody saw this one coming - future prediction failure N° 1
Nobody saw this kind of panic as a result - future prediction failure N° 2
The actual spread of the virus wasn't predicted either - future prediction failure N° 3
The reactions of the different countries is very varied and the effects not foreseeable - future prediction failure N° 4
The market analysts have no idea how to predict the impact of all the people not working as a result - future prediction failure N° 5
The end of this is not in sight - future prediction failure N° 6

Etc., etc., etc.

And yet, we live our lives every day as though we know what's going to happen. Until the unpredictable happens. Like a volcanic outbreak, or a tidal wave, or rain that floods everything, or a tornado rips the house apart, or the aeroplane gets shot down, or my house is bombed, or the only child dies.

Life is very precarious. We all know we are going to die, but we don't take our life seriously until it's threatened. As someone once said: "we don't believe we are going to die until the doctor says so". This should be a wake-up call to all people: make sure you understand the value of your life, before you get to the last breath!

Science or what? The dilemma of the Observer Effect.

Here's a definition of science I found on Wikipedia:

Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. The earliest roots of science can be traced to Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia in around 3500 to 3000 BCE.

Modern science is typically divided into three major branches that consist of the natural sciences (e.g., biology, chemistry, and physics), which study nature in the broadest sense; the social sciences (e.g., economics, psychology, and sociology), which study individuals and societies; and the formal sciences (e.g., logic, mathematics, and theoretical computer science), which study abstract concepts. There is disagreement, however, on whether the formal sciences actually constitute a science as they do not rely on empirical evidence. Disciplines that use existing scientific knowledge for practical purposes, such as engineering and medicine, are described as applied sciences

I certainly don't disagree with anything in the above citation. However, the reason I include this article under the "Reality" category, is that for most people the external world (outside ourselves) is almost all there is. But there is another world, where the above methodologies are applied in only a rudimentary way: the inside world.

And why is it that these are deemed to be out of bounds and that it is impossible to apply "real science" to the inside of a person's mind? Of course, some would say that psychology is that science. As a person with a degree in psychology, I would not agree that this branch provides the kind of rigorous thinking that other branches of science prefer. The issue, here, is that the psychologist can't get inside the head of someone else. the only thing they have to work with is the other person's utterances and behaviour - all external factors, which are observable, but their interpretation is very doubtful. The key difficulty in this kind of analysis, is what is called "the observer effect".

The entry on Wikipedia regarding the observer effect in physics offers the following :

"In physics, the observer effect is the theory that the mere observation of a phenomenon inevitably changes that phenomenon. This is often the result of instruments that, by necessity, alter the state of what they measure in some manner. A common example is checking the pressure in an automobile tire; this is difficult to do without letting out some of the air, thus changing the pressure. Similarly, it is not possible to see any object without light hitting the object, and causing it to reflect that light. While the effects of observation are often negligible, the object still experiences a change. This effect can be found in many domains of physics, but can usually be reduced to insignificance by using different instruments or observation techniques.

An especially unusual version of the observer effect occurs in quantum mechanics, as best demonstrated by the double-slit experiment. Physicists have found that even passive observation of quantum phenomena (by changing the test apparatus and passively 'ruling out' all but one possibility), can actually change the measured result. A particularly famous example is the 1998 Weizmann experiment. Despite the "observer" in this experiment being an electronic detector—possibly due to the assumption that the word "observer" implies a person—its results have led to the popular belief that a conscious mind can directly affect reality. The need for the "observer" to be conscious is not supported by scientific research, and has been pointed out as a misconception rooted in a poor understanding of the quantum wave function ψ and the quantum measurement process, apparently being the generation of information at its most basic level that produces the effect."

 One theory that offers an alternative approach to discovering the inside of one's own head, is that offered by George Kelly, known as the "Personal Construct Theory". In this theory, Kelly suggests that what we, as human beings, do, is to build a construct of the external world in our heads. Given that everything we know about the external world is taken on board through the various bits of sensory equipment we are born with, then we have to "imagine" what that external world actually is like. That imaginary idea is what Kelly refers to as the construct. 

Basically he suggested that like any other science, we as individuals form hypotheses of that external world, which we test and interpret in our own unique way, depending on whatever we already believe we "know". Clearly, this construct changes over time, as we assimilate new experiences and ideas. The problems arise, when we become too inflexible to change, especially when confronted with some external evidence that just doesn't fit in with our construct. That may not matter for much, but if it is an experience or information which confronts some of the absolute basic parts of the construct, then everything threatens to tumble down and that we have serious problems accommodating such new ideas. A good example of this is when Einstein was confronted with quantum mechanics and the probability theories, which suggests that the world is not as stable as it appears. That was when he came out with the well known statement "God does not play dice". Quantum mechanics confronted a very important part of Einstein's view of the world of physics. 

So how can Kelly's construct theory help us understand ourselves better? As such, it can't. Various psychologists have made more or less successful attempts at applying the theory, but the fundamental problem still remains, that of the observer effect. Basically, there is no way we can get outside the inside of our heads.

Phenomenology as described by Edmund Husserl, the German Philosopher, tried a different approach. He tried to imagine what any part of the external sensory world would be like if we had no reference points to interpret them by. In a way, he was describing the world a newborn baby experiences: vast amounts of sensory input and no way of explaining or understanding it! Here we get back to Descartes and his "I think, therefore I am". It doesn't work at that stage of a person's life.

So, is there a way to get to know the inside of yourself? Of course there is.

I have always described myself as existing roughly 4 centimetres from the top of my head and halfway between the front and back of my skull. I am acutely aware that my experience of the external world is second-hand through the equipment of my sensory organs. But the inside of my head is my domain - nobody is closer to that than me. so if it wasn't possible to understand myself, then I wouldn't be able to understand anything anyway. My main guide are my feelings, not my thoughts, which are (as all the above actually say in summary) dependent on language, which comes after feelings.  

Can I learn to own and control my feelings? Of course, I can. There are so many examples of people controlling their feelings - often for other reasons, For example, I smoked for a large part of my life and I know that I am only one cigarette away from starting again - and that's after 15 years since giving up cigarettes. That's a feeling I control. There are many examples where each one of us exercises control over themselves. I don't need to go into that.

The trick is to go beyond those, relatively superficial feelings and control my mind. Now that is really hard! Like anything hard to learn, it helps if someone can help you to learn how to do that. And that takes someone who has mastered that. Find someone to teach you that and you're on your way!

I spend an hour almost every day trying to achieve the state where my thoughts don't distract me and I can feel who I am inside that skull. Who I am cannot be expressed in words, it has to be felt. Thinking always comes after feeling. And there's the problem again: there is no language in there. Language comes with thinking. When I say I feel good, you have no idea how that feels, but you will interpret that based on the words and what they mean to you. You would associate that statement with whatever feeling you have when you use that phrase. That that feeling is the same one I have, we'll never know.

Ludwig Wittgenstein recognised this limitation of language and in the Tractatus he suggested that we don't waste our time asking questions like "what's it all about", but that we should instead ask: what do we mean when we say "what's it all about", thus establishing meaning as the key to understanding.

Well, that's not good enough for me. I want to know what it's all about as far as my life is concerned. I don't mind or even care if it makes sense to anyone else, I need an answer that makes sense to me.

If you are interested in this kind of thinking as it appertains to finding out who you are, again I would recommend - especially to scientists - to download the book on Raja Yoga by Swami Vivekananda available for free in the links section of this site and perhaps to read any of the books I've mentioned in this article. Have fun :-)

They should do something about it, shouldn't they?

Yes, somebody ought to do something about whatever, or, it's your fault, or, it's because somebody did something, etc.

Whatever the problem, it's not my fault. I'm not to blame! I didn't do anything!

If, as I and many scientists claim, there is only the Moment "Now", then all this blame stuff doesn't work. It's the wrong question that's being asked, i.e. who did something? The real and only question is always the same: what am I going to do?

The blame game is the saddest and stupidest way to look for solutions. Has blaming someone ever solved the actual issue? No.

I've been listening to BBC Radio 4 for a while, but I can't listen any more. The interviewers - especially the news and politics reporters - seem only to be interested in catching somebody out in a contradiction or a lie. The problem that is the core of the discussion is not the focus; it's not about solving any issues, it's about blaming and demonstrating that the offered solutions won't work. Yes, the media, really does have to look at itself and ask what their role actually is, in bettering things.

There are so many areas where the blame game rules. Today, 8th of March 2020, the big "crisis" is the desperate plight of those seeking escape from the dreadful war in Syria. Thousands trying to get away from persecution, bombing, torture and plain murder. The "Christian" north does little except try and stop them crossing the border. Of course, these people want to get away from that. It's no different to the so-called economic refugees - of course they want to have a better life than starving under the leadership of some maniac corrupt politician who lets the country and its people starve instead of looking after themselves. Look at Venezuela or Zimbabwe, for example.

Each and every politician should be forced - as part of being elected - to live under the same conditions as these refugees for at least a 1 year before they are allowed to stand for election. It's only experience which makes it real. If it's happening to you, then suddenly your perspective changes too. I would go further and say, nobody should be allowed to represent the people, who doesn't have the same experiences as the majority of the people they wish to represent. But that's a dream.

Until then, we'll carry on blaming everyone and anyone else for our perceived problems. Be it on the local individual scale of a man beating his wife and children because he's had a bad day, or because the market means that a person is going to be fired because there is no job, or because I couldn't get a job because of the foreigners taking all the jobs, or because that ethnic group there doesn't conform to our ways, or because the killed someone so we have to, etc., etc. 

The blame game is so deeply ingrained, that stepping back and realising that the issue isn't the problem, it's my attitude to it that is.

STOP! Take personal responsibility for everything you do.

The illusion which hides in plain sight behind sexism

The illusion that men are better than woman is almost as old as mankind, it seems. Its basis is the power of muscle: "I (man) can beat the hell out of you (woman), so I must be superior". Clearly, the weaker sex.

A more pathetic illusion is hardly imaginable. If it wasn't for the strength of women, there would be no species. So why can't men accept women as equals?

There seems to be an ingrained habit which all education support - apparently almost world-wide - which leads us to constantly compare ourselves with others. The result is always

1. I'm better than you
2. I'm not so good as you

or

1. I'm better than you at ....
2. I'm not as good as you at .....

So where's the illusion? The same place as so many illusions are: in forgetting that each individual is unique, so comparisons need to be made very carefully. But they aren't.

The first group above (better/worse)  is a statement which has the dreadful always/never axis in mind, so that "I'm better than you" is taken as meaning "I'm a better human being than you on all levels" (or, of course, "I'm not as good a human being as you on all levels"). Which, given an individual's uniqueness, makes no sense at all. 

I am the only human being like me, not just now, but in all the past and in all the future. I am unique. All I can do, is try to be the best me I possibly can.

The second group of comparisons, looks at specific facets and as such is reasonable: I'm a better cook than you, or I'm not as good a cook as you, seems reasonable and allows us to develop our own skill set which is unique to the individual. But that is also misused, because it is often misused in the form: I'm better than you at ....., therefore I'm a better human being than you.

Pathetic! But propagated everywhere you look. What kind of educational systems do we have where that is the basis, instead of acknowledging and celebrating the uniqueness of each individual?

Years ago, someone I know (a white person) was dating a black Harvard lawyer who was actively supporting many prominent individuals against the disgusting discrimination these individuals experienced because of their skin colour. When I met him, I found that his behaviour towards this female white friend of mine, was definitely sexist and discriminatory in a covert manner. I reminded him, that although I found the work he did laudable, that the group who was most discriminated against, was women.

Everybody, it seems, has to be better than someone. So women are "predestined" to be the lowest of the low, because a man can always beat a woman into submission.

How sad a world. How sad an illusion.

Time for men to grow up and realise, that all human beings are equal. If there is a God of Love then that's how it has to be. Without each other, nothing will work.

Men are the stupid idiots who fight. Women are the nurturing part which picks up the pieces which fighting leaves behind. There is a lot of mileage in just this one sentence, which I'm sure I'll be coming back to at some point in my writing.

Important:

Of course I was brought up and educated in this way as well. I'm not a saint, and there is a lot of my past behaviour that I deeply regret. But I want to emphasise that it is possible to change and that it is necessary to change if we want to achieve any kind of reality. What it takes is understanding that each of us is a "createe" not a creator and that makes us all equal, not better or worse.

Late addition:

"Why Women Are Blamed For Everything: Exploring Victim Blaming Of Women Subjected to Violence and Trauma"
By Dr Jessica Taylor

Overview

She asked for it. She was flirting. She was drinking. She was wearing a revealing dress. She was too confident. She walked home alone. She stayed in that relationship. She was naive. She didn’t report soon enough. She didn’t fight back. She wanted it. She lied about it. She comes from a bad area. She was vulnerable. She should have known. She should have seen it coming. She should have protected herself.

Victim blaming of women is prevalent and normalised in society.

What causes us to blame women who have been abused, raped, trafficked, assaulted or harassed by men? Why are we uncomfortable with placing all of the blame on perpetrators for their crimes against women?

Based on three years of doctoral research and ten years of practice with women and girls, Dr Jessica Taylor explores the many reasons we blame women for male violence committed against them. Written in her unique style and backed up by decades of evidence, this book exposes the powerful forces in society and individual psychology which compel us to blame women subjected to male violence.

victimfocus resources

 

Illusion? What illusion? I know what I'm looking at - or do I?

Today, most commentators would agree that the world is in crisis. Nothing appears to be stable, despite the protests of politicians claiming stability, the spiral appears to be heading rapidly and apparently irreversibly downwards.

The definition of the word “illusion” as a noun found on Google, is:

• an instance of a wrong or misinterpreted perception of a sensory experience.
  "stripes embellish the surface to create the illusion of various wood-grain textures"
• a deceptive appearance or impression.
  "the illusion of family togetherness"
• a false idea or belief.
  noun: illusion; plural noun: illusions
  "he had no illusions about the trouble she was in"

Look at the image on this page, and what do you see?

This not an either/or situation - both exist in the same image, but depending on our focus, we see either a young woman dressed up or an old woman in a headscarf.

This is the kind of illusion we live in, where we live focused on the external and ignore the internal almost completely. We certainly do not have the same depth of understanding of ourselves as we do of the external world.

In this blog, it is my contention, that most humans live in an illusion almost all the time and sadly reality is perceived as the illusion.

Christian Science - Humbug or not? A question of interpretation

According to Wikipedia, Christian Science is a set of beliefs and practices belonging to the metaphysical family of new religious movements. It was developed in 19th-century New England by Mary Baker Eddy, who argued in her 1875 book Science and Health that sickness is an illusion that can be corrected by prayer alone.

I was introduced to the book written by Mary Baker Eddy when I worked as a Burger Cook back in the 60s. The husband of one of the waitresses working there was a practitioner and also introduced me to the early writings of L. Ron Hubbard (founder of Scientology). Both believed that mental focus is the key to increase conscious awareness, albeit with very different goals in mind. Whereas L. Ron Hubbard's ideas have - in my not very humble opinion - been perverted by the organisation which built on his ideas, the Christian Scientists have remained more in line with Mary Baker Eddy's ideas and beliefs.

Christian Science sees the so-called- miracles which Jesus is said to have performed, as an ability which anyone with the right internal focus can achieve. The person who introduced me to these writings had his own direct experience of healing through this medium. Her beliefs were based on the Bible, hence the Christian part in front of Science. Like Swami Vivekananda, both see it as a Science which anyone can practice and experience. The key difference is that she uses the Bible as her inspiration, whereas Vivekananda basis his views on experience gained through the scientific application of Yoga.

Reading the book showed me that it contained very similar ideas to those which I'd come across in the writings of Swami Vivekananda (see an earlier blog entry here). It's a matter of understanding that all things are related and what I can do for me when in the right state - i.e. through focused meditation and inner awareness - I can also do for others. Powerful stuff! Again, I can only point towards these signposts which helped me to get away from existential neurosis and move towards conscious awareness.

And please: I am not claiming I've got there, but I can say that I don't suffer from existential neurosis any more.