http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAG1Ue_ODC8&sns=em
Sent from my iPad
Wednesday 25 November 2015
Tuesday 17 November 2015
Intuitive Recovery day 1: additional notes
Intuitive Recovery day 1: additional notes
The point I came forward to disagree with began with the instructor stating that because we had eradicated smallpox, put a man on the moon, split the atom and various other marvels of science, that if there were a gene for addiction it would have already been found. There is a common misconception that science knows nearly everything and just a few dots need joining before we have the full picture. I imagine at most times in our history a similar arrogance in our understanding has been ever present. In truth we can only account for about four per cent of matter. We have no idea how flesh can think. We haven't a clue about the causes of mental illness. Francis Crick who along with Watson discovered the double helix pattern of DNA famously found himself at some social do pestered by a younger scientist. In frustration he asked the young fellow if he could explain to him what a gene was. Of course the young man could not, Crick informed him that he too didn't know what a gene was. So if our foremost minds on the subject don't know what a gene is yet. If they are still struggling to agree on whether specific genes are common to much more observable conditions like cancers. If they still haven't fully worked out what 97% of DNA passes on to the next generation, suggestions that because no gene has yet been found to indicate addiction has a genetic aspect delivering a predisposition to forming negative behavioural patterns means there isn't one is way too early. Rather than working from bottom up it may be smarter to work from top down. There has been no progress of consequence to reveal how this lump of grey mush inside our skulls forms consciousness. There is no biologically detectable material substance to falling in love, yet we all know this exists. Isn't it obvious addiction exists in some individuals but why some can take drugs without any problems and some become addicted remains a long way down the line.
Sent from my iPad
The point I came forward to disagree with began with the instructor stating that because we had eradicated smallpox, put a man on the moon, split the atom and various other marvels of science, that if there were a gene for addiction it would have already been found. There is a common misconception that science knows nearly everything and just a few dots need joining before we have the full picture. I imagine at most times in our history a similar arrogance in our understanding has been ever present. In truth we can only account for about four per cent of matter. We have no idea how flesh can think. We haven't a clue about the causes of mental illness. Francis Crick who along with Watson discovered the double helix pattern of DNA famously found himself at some social do pestered by a younger scientist. In frustration he asked the young fellow if he could explain to him what a gene was. Of course the young man could not, Crick informed him that he too didn't know what a gene was. So if our foremost minds on the subject don't know what a gene is yet. If they are still struggling to agree on whether specific genes are common to much more observable conditions like cancers. If they still haven't fully worked out what 97% of DNA passes on to the next generation, suggestions that because no gene has yet been found to indicate addiction has a genetic aspect delivering a predisposition to forming negative behavioural patterns means there isn't one is way too early. Rather than working from bottom up it may be smarter to work from top down. There has been no progress of consequence to reveal how this lump of grey mush inside our skulls forms consciousness. There is no biologically detectable material substance to falling in love, yet we all know this exists. Isn't it obvious addiction exists in some individuals but why some can take drugs without any problems and some become addicted remains a long way down the line.
Sent from my iPad
Monday 16 November 2015
Certainty scares me as all lies do. Bewilderment,
Certainty scares me as all lies do. Bewilderment, insecurity, faithless in my own beliefs. Suspicion that any sense of purpose I enjoy is a passing delusion. Faith, in anything, has always been beyond me. Life is a series of revealed truths, certainties that once in bloom excite and intoxicate the senses before falling slowly, inevitably into decay. Political ideologies flare in momentary theoretical wonder before failing as reality mocks their deceit. My mind can't be alone in alighting on pattern and forming order from chaos. It is our nature to try make sense of all this. That which is utterly senseless. The young, equipped with neuroplasticity leap from position to viewpoint with the lack of guilt, pride or shame of frogs. As we age, our models of understanding inevitably crumble as information changes everything yet the tiring brain grows progressively more rigid. Senility sets in as the world that sculpted the man alters beyond his understanding. The young mind excites in revelation as opinion alters. That joy in being wrong and the ecstasy of being proved so is a mystical pleasure. Self is lost as the foundations shift underfoot. Preserving that joy in the new is the priority of the middle aged and beyond. The security of a fixed self becomes a madness and mistaken strategy for survival. In a reality of endless change, truths are passing whirlpools, flowers that grow, bloom, peak and wither. The drowning man clutches for handholds he knew were there but his grasp meets thin air. The world becomes disconcerting as all he knew, all he studied drifts off into irrelevance, comical embarrassment and finally to cultural idiosyncrasy. Amusing curios providing maps, keys to understand how our forefathers saw the world.
Recalling my life is a series of discoveries that when fresh appear wonderful. From psychonaut, to artist, to joiner, to furniture maker, to designer, to lecturer each seems innocent pure even good for a while. I see others around me convinced by others around them never questioning or developing a critical thinking in their progress. Always assuming if Mr jones says it's right it must be. In parallel my suspicion grows as aspects become apparent as I explore that aren't pure. Once the practice is understood I either have the choice to carry on knowing it is no good or at least flawed or abandoning it and pointing out the flaws. Most construct arguments to justify their actions. Joiners together, teachers together, designers together are doomed to construct narratives of self supportive justification. Any group left alone without outsider critique are free to grow obsessive and perverse. Online forums where minorities that would number but an isolated few in every town through digital inter connectivity can join together. Those four perverts in every town can form an online discussion board where their irregular outlook, their perversity of desire can find support. Desires that in ore digital days might be nipped in the bud now find a breeding ground, a primordial soup of nutrients from which to grow. Moral dysfunction grows unchecked.
Few are sufficiently confident to diverge from the consensus. From here radicalisation in all fields of human activity is able to grow unchecked.
From here, the largely unpopular designer maker furniture has found approval. During a brief window in the seventies early eighties, a movement of some thirty makers brought craft into fashion within contemporary furniture design. A craft revival across all media was taking place that echoes down time to the present day. The marriage of design and making into a singular process lent itself better to glass and ceramics where process remains integral to design trends. Furniture more easily splits in to separation of design and making. As fine craft furniture makers became known they took on makers and craft returned to the sidelines. The makers once more became irrelevant, a system similar to architecture and a phenomena that has increasingly crept into a certain category of fine art. Much like architects and furniture designers, artists such as Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst employ teams of skilled workers to create their ideas.
As the spotlight of fashion moved away from the designer maker craftsmanship orientated furniture and onto other production models the desire to make contemporary hand made furniture never went away. Some of the better designers were able to find markets. Through group exhibitions, the first generation finding teaching posts in universities and a steady flow of young people, largely but not entirely white males, a category of furniture continued to evolve outside of the mainstream. Value systems and aesthetic conventions developed within the sealed college bubbles. Online forums allowed these stylistic and moral beliefs to compound. This introversion and mutual affirmation of the styles and qualities created an isolated offshoot in the tree of furniture history that enjoys a popularity away from mainstream fashion sufficient to support several hundred businesses, many partly dependent on other interior joinery or fitted kitchen work. The model of operation is much the same as cabinet and furniture making workshops before modernism and the development of industrial manufacture. Perhaps it's greatest quality is the craftsmanship as quality and finish are valued over design. Within this bubble experimental innovation exists within the conservative values of craftsmanship. At its worst, well made but clumsy pieces slip through. At its best as much consideration goes into design. Group exhibitions such as the annual Cheltenham show present a disorientating display of unrelated aesthetic visions. Curated exhibitions of complimentary objects are rare but succeed in presenting a coherence group shows never do. Any bespoke production process dictates a cost exclusive product. Due to this, designer maker furniture, like bespoke tailoring, is of no interest to the vast majority of the population. Consequently the work has no impact or influence on the general look of the day, the look of the world continues to evolve through the vision of less exclusively minded individuals. Contemporary fine art, with its big free exhibitions continues to exert a greater influence though less so than at the turn of the millennium where the aesthetic sensibilities of Damien Hirst and Tracy Emin affected everything from shop fitting displays to wallpaper to packaging.
Meanwhile, in mainstream design, the furniture pieces finding exposure through design magazines, the design council, the crafts council, private and public London exhibitions and other windows that combine to deliver the zeitgeist, have once again embraced wood. All cultures go through innovative and conservative periods. Furniture has reflected this trend as sixties and seventies saw a widening of possibility in design, lasting in to the eighties where creative salvage exponents Ron Arad and Tom Dixon began before exploring further avenues. Reflective of the austerity policies advanced by both major political parties current furniture shows less diversity and experimentation than was explored in the seventies. An inward looking generation of designers have developed a style of simplicity. The determination to leave no angles of criticism and a sideways awareness of each other's work has left a period of polite and quiet modesty. The furniture of today sits quietly. Stylistically most easily comparable to Scandinavian design.
Sent from my iPad
Recalling my life is a series of discoveries that when fresh appear wonderful. From psychonaut, to artist, to joiner, to furniture maker, to designer, to lecturer each seems innocent pure even good for a while. I see others around me convinced by others around them never questioning or developing a critical thinking in their progress. Always assuming if Mr jones says it's right it must be. In parallel my suspicion grows as aspects become apparent as I explore that aren't pure. Once the practice is understood I either have the choice to carry on knowing it is no good or at least flawed or abandoning it and pointing out the flaws. Most construct arguments to justify their actions. Joiners together, teachers together, designers together are doomed to construct narratives of self supportive justification. Any group left alone without outsider critique are free to grow obsessive and perverse. Online forums where minorities that would number but an isolated few in every town through digital inter connectivity can join together. Those four perverts in every town can form an online discussion board where their irregular outlook, their perversity of desire can find support. Desires that in ore digital days might be nipped in the bud now find a breeding ground, a primordial soup of nutrients from which to grow. Moral dysfunction grows unchecked.
Few are sufficiently confident to diverge from the consensus. From here radicalisation in all fields of human activity is able to grow unchecked.
From here, the largely unpopular designer maker furniture has found approval. During a brief window in the seventies early eighties, a movement of some thirty makers brought craft into fashion within contemporary furniture design. A craft revival across all media was taking place that echoes down time to the present day. The marriage of design and making into a singular process lent itself better to glass and ceramics where process remains integral to design trends. Furniture more easily splits in to separation of design and making. As fine craft furniture makers became known they took on makers and craft returned to the sidelines. The makers once more became irrelevant, a system similar to architecture and a phenomena that has increasingly crept into a certain category of fine art. Much like architects and furniture designers, artists such as Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst employ teams of skilled workers to create their ideas.
As the spotlight of fashion moved away from the designer maker craftsmanship orientated furniture and onto other production models the desire to make contemporary hand made furniture never went away. Some of the better designers were able to find markets. Through group exhibitions, the first generation finding teaching posts in universities and a steady flow of young people, largely but not entirely white males, a category of furniture continued to evolve outside of the mainstream. Value systems and aesthetic conventions developed within the sealed college bubbles. Online forums allowed these stylistic and moral beliefs to compound. This introversion and mutual affirmation of the styles and qualities created an isolated offshoot in the tree of furniture history that enjoys a popularity away from mainstream fashion sufficient to support several hundred businesses, many partly dependent on other interior joinery or fitted kitchen work. The model of operation is much the same as cabinet and furniture making workshops before modernism and the development of industrial manufacture. Perhaps it's greatest quality is the craftsmanship as quality and finish are valued over design. Within this bubble experimental innovation exists within the conservative values of craftsmanship. At its worst, well made but clumsy pieces slip through. At its best as much consideration goes into design. Group exhibitions such as the annual Cheltenham show present a disorientating display of unrelated aesthetic visions. Curated exhibitions of complimentary objects are rare but succeed in presenting a coherence group shows never do. Any bespoke production process dictates a cost exclusive product. Due to this, designer maker furniture, like bespoke tailoring, is of no interest to the vast majority of the population. Consequently the work has no impact or influence on the general look of the day, the look of the world continues to evolve through the vision of less exclusively minded individuals. Contemporary fine art, with its big free exhibitions continues to exert a greater influence though less so than at the turn of the millennium where the aesthetic sensibilities of Damien Hirst and Tracy Emin affected everything from shop fitting displays to wallpaper to packaging.
Meanwhile, in mainstream design, the furniture pieces finding exposure through design magazines, the design council, the crafts council, private and public London exhibitions and other windows that combine to deliver the zeitgeist, have once again embraced wood. All cultures go through innovative and conservative periods. Furniture has reflected this trend as sixties and seventies saw a widening of possibility in design, lasting in to the eighties where creative salvage exponents Ron Arad and Tom Dixon began before exploring further avenues. Reflective of the austerity policies advanced by both major political parties current furniture shows less diversity and experimentation than was explored in the seventies. An inward looking generation of designers have developed a style of simplicity. The determination to leave no angles of criticism and a sideways awareness of each other's work has left a period of polite and quiet modesty. The furniture of today sits quietly. Stylistically most easily comparable to Scandinavian design.
Sent from my iPad
Intuitive Recovery
Intuitive Recovery
Day 1:
The group were made up of a wide variety of people. A guy who had a big cocaine habit that complement his drinking. Once at twenty cans a day he is now down to six a day. He has found himself in jail recently and hospital such was the severity from his seizures from alcohol withdrawal. A woman drinking a bottle of wine a day. A heroin and amphetamines user. A recently relapsed smack head, just embarking on the subutex. Another serious alcoholic who also used cocaine. A guy addicted to ecstasy, amphetamines. Myself and a couple of other abstinent ex users.
The programme has many good points. Ambivalence is seen as the characteristic of addiction. The angel on one shoulder, devil on the other. The carrying of opposing impulses. The uncontrollable desire to find the drug of choice aligned with periods of total commitment to never touching it again. This swing from one thought to the other, this ambivalence characterises addiction. Someone who happily abandons themselves to drug use without regret can be physically dependent but not addicted just as the none user. It's the swing from desire to use to desire to abstain that is addiction.
Basic brain science supports this theory. The animal brain linked to the amygdala controls involuntary processes such as heart beat, sweating, breathing etc. the amygdala records pleasant feelings such as finding warmth when cold, food when hungry delivering a positive drive. This animal brain records the pleasure of drugs in the amygdala. The animal brain steers us to impulses to recreate these pleasure able experiences. The neo cortex deals with conscious thought. It is the I. I decide the painful consequences of drug use must be stopped. This battles with the animal instinct to use.
Exploring childhood trauma, abuse etc is deemed irrelevant to the issue of drug use. Concepts of genetic predisposition are viewed as potential excuses. Categorising oneself as an addict, someone who has no free will in the matter is seen as freeing the person up. To shirk responsibility.
Much of it seems very good so far. I have thought similar things though articulated them differently. I do believe it is a choice. A decision. I also believe drug users really enjoy it. When the guilt and pain out weigh the good parts they are able to take the decision.
So many theories of addiction abound today. What is good is that this one seems purely practical.
There were contradictions. The presenter was adamant that there was no gene associated with addiction. This reminded me of Peter Hitchens assertion that doctors can not find any biological evidence that addiction exists. I pointed out that they also can find no biological evidence or neural correlate to falling in love. Nevertheless few of us have never fallen in love and few would argue that because science is as yet too primitive to detect the biology of love indicates it's none existence. Falling in love and addiction clearly exist. I see the point that an assumption of a condition often referred to as an addictive personality provides an escape route. A freeing of responsibility. But still it seems many use drugs recreationally without developing a psychological dependence and a minority do. Just because neuroscience has yet to find evidence it doesn't mean it won't. It seems to me in all likelihood it will. The course leader herself mentioned some find themselves victim of this ambivalence. She described minor ambivalence using ice cream and her health and weight concerns as a minor example, drugs being a major example. To me it seemed she was saying both but denying one as it didn't help. Now, I can accept this. Defining oneself an addict and attending meetings indefinitely exploring grief at shared lost love of substance use with others is not moving on. But I accept it in the same way that 'choosing' to believe in God despite contradictory evidence is a great survival strategy. Self delusion, denial etc can help one to recover just as it can enable one to continue.
Despite my instinctual bullshit detection. Despite my habitual analysis for philosophical and rational flaws in the arguments I find myself in broad agreement. Understanding reason is pointless when engineering a strategy of avoiding relapse. If it takes a little blinkering to gaps in the approach then so what? Result is all.
Before I went I was despondent. I still believe it comes down to whether you really want to stop. If you do, you can. If secretly you are still enjoying using drugs, no system can help.
The overview, that addiction is the conflict between desire to use and an equally powerful desire to stop. This ambivalence. If nothing else it has provided the simplest definition of addiction. One I agree with. It leaves responsibility in your hands. What is it that you want most?
I began the day with the open declaration that I love exploring different states of consciousness. The lie that the individuals who end up on such courses are victims of a virus that entered against their will is bullshit. We are there because we love intoxication. Admission must be of paramount importance. If the people there didn't like the drugs they have taken they wouldn't have continued to the point where their lives are falling apart. We are not innocent victims. It is our responsibility.
Sent from my iPad
Day 1:
The group were made up of a wide variety of people. A guy who had a big cocaine habit that complement his drinking. Once at twenty cans a day he is now down to six a day. He has found himself in jail recently and hospital such was the severity from his seizures from alcohol withdrawal. A woman drinking a bottle of wine a day. A heroin and amphetamines user. A recently relapsed smack head, just embarking on the subutex. Another serious alcoholic who also used cocaine. A guy addicted to ecstasy, amphetamines. Myself and a couple of other abstinent ex users.
The programme has many good points. Ambivalence is seen as the characteristic of addiction. The angel on one shoulder, devil on the other. The carrying of opposing impulses. The uncontrollable desire to find the drug of choice aligned with periods of total commitment to never touching it again. This swing from one thought to the other, this ambivalence characterises addiction. Someone who happily abandons themselves to drug use without regret can be physically dependent but not addicted just as the none user. It's the swing from desire to use to desire to abstain that is addiction.
Basic brain science supports this theory. The animal brain linked to the amygdala controls involuntary processes such as heart beat, sweating, breathing etc. the amygdala records pleasant feelings such as finding warmth when cold, food when hungry delivering a positive drive. This animal brain records the pleasure of drugs in the amygdala. The animal brain steers us to impulses to recreate these pleasure able experiences. The neo cortex deals with conscious thought. It is the I. I decide the painful consequences of drug use must be stopped. This battles with the animal instinct to use.
Exploring childhood trauma, abuse etc is deemed irrelevant to the issue of drug use. Concepts of genetic predisposition are viewed as potential excuses. Categorising oneself as an addict, someone who has no free will in the matter is seen as freeing the person up. To shirk responsibility.
Much of it seems very good so far. I have thought similar things though articulated them differently. I do believe it is a choice. A decision. I also believe drug users really enjoy it. When the guilt and pain out weigh the good parts they are able to take the decision.
So many theories of addiction abound today. What is good is that this one seems purely practical.
There were contradictions. The presenter was adamant that there was no gene associated with addiction. This reminded me of Peter Hitchens assertion that doctors can not find any biological evidence that addiction exists. I pointed out that they also can find no biological evidence or neural correlate to falling in love. Nevertheless few of us have never fallen in love and few would argue that because science is as yet too primitive to detect the biology of love indicates it's none existence. Falling in love and addiction clearly exist. I see the point that an assumption of a condition often referred to as an addictive personality provides an escape route. A freeing of responsibility. But still it seems many use drugs recreationally without developing a psychological dependence and a minority do. Just because neuroscience has yet to find evidence it doesn't mean it won't. It seems to me in all likelihood it will. The course leader herself mentioned some find themselves victim of this ambivalence. She described minor ambivalence using ice cream and her health and weight concerns as a minor example, drugs being a major example. To me it seemed she was saying both but denying one as it didn't help. Now, I can accept this. Defining oneself an addict and attending meetings indefinitely exploring grief at shared lost love of substance use with others is not moving on. But I accept it in the same way that 'choosing' to believe in God despite contradictory evidence is a great survival strategy. Self delusion, denial etc can help one to recover just as it can enable one to continue.
Despite my instinctual bullshit detection. Despite my habitual analysis for philosophical and rational flaws in the arguments I find myself in broad agreement. Understanding reason is pointless when engineering a strategy of avoiding relapse. If it takes a little blinkering to gaps in the approach then so what? Result is all.
Before I went I was despondent. I still believe it comes down to whether you really want to stop. If you do, you can. If secretly you are still enjoying using drugs, no system can help.
The overview, that addiction is the conflict between desire to use and an equally powerful desire to stop. This ambivalence. If nothing else it has provided the simplest definition of addiction. One I agree with. It leaves responsibility in your hands. What is it that you want most?
I began the day with the open declaration that I love exploring different states of consciousness. The lie that the individuals who end up on such courses are victims of a virus that entered against their will is bullshit. We are there because we love intoxication. Admission must be of paramount importance. If the people there didn't like the drugs they have taken they wouldn't have continued to the point where their lives are falling apart. We are not innocent victims. It is our responsibility.
Sent from my iPad
Friday 6 November 2015
A Note on the Bright Side
A Note on the Bright Side
A different view of the current acceleration of technology and its consequent depletion of minerals, extinction of species, general using up of the planet. Something it seems we are cognitively able to either recognise or care about. Another perspective is that with space travel becoming a reality and talk of habitation projects on other planets in the near future, the host fruit body is being used up to propel the seed. In using up resources to reach a point of propulsion off to other planets to inhabit is as natural as any action of any animal. The illusion that we control our actions or can manage our environment is becoming apparent. In realising just like all other animals our 'decisions' are no more conscious than our choosing to breathe or beat our hearts. To my mind we are only different to animals in the illusion of self and an imagined free will. We are unaware and have no control over the electrical chemical processes happening in our brain that result in our ideas and decisions. The germ of the thoughts we experience as choices made as free agents can be measured as taking place considerably well prior to our apparent free will. Up to ten seconds in some instances. No major life decision, that of partner, vocation etc is considered, these crucial selections are taking place in our unconscious. The perception we have control over global warming seems daft as denialists still don't even accept our responsibility. We got in to the mess before we had a clue what we were doing. So too as individuals we react then construct a narrative of reason. Life takes place too quickly for it to be any other way. It isn't possible to ride a bicycle or any vehicle at any speed through rational and considered movements. Just as other animals our unconscious is the only system quick enough to accommodate the steady flow of unpredictable variables. I play football with my dog in the graveyard and marvel at the complexity of computation it must take for him to negotiate the variety of differing objects. Sports team coaches, frustrated with their performance shout at half time to the players, "think about what you are doing!" Of course it is the opposite that is required. To react and inter react instinctually. Consciousness is way too slow.
In all probability we won't crash our bike. Despite the seemingly impossible negotiation of our current predicament I believe we'll get by. It may not sit easy with our conscience the vast extinction we are currently causing. But early man when he spread out of Africa where the bigger beasts had evolved alongside humans and developed systems to avoid being killed, in to Australasia and the Americas caused immediate extinction of all big animals. Within under a thousand years a large herbivore variety of species, just as big and varied as we see the remnants of in Africa now, existed in the continents we colonised. Having evolved free of predators like us, all these larger species were not afraid of humans, not geared up to run or hide. And we quickly hunted them all to extinction. It's in our nature.
So this seeming headlong blind dive into over population, growth and the consequent destruction of the planet may be a spring board. A system of using up the fruiting body to propel the seed, just like an apple. Our vast consumption of all resources is in all likelihood beyond our conscious control. It may appear a very tight gamble at present, but so does negotiating a town centre on a bike. I don't think we have any choice. It is hubris and over valuation of consciousness aligned to the illusion of free will that supports our pursuit of an unattainable sustainable cyclic system. Secluded hunter gatherer societies, reclusive tribal peoples can, but we took the wrong step years ago. Or the only step in our nature.
Sent from my iPad
A different view of the current acceleration of technology and its consequent depletion of minerals, extinction of species, general using up of the planet. Something it seems we are cognitively able to either recognise or care about. Another perspective is that with space travel becoming a reality and talk of habitation projects on other planets in the near future, the host fruit body is being used up to propel the seed. In using up resources to reach a point of propulsion off to other planets to inhabit is as natural as any action of any animal. The illusion that we control our actions or can manage our environment is becoming apparent. In realising just like all other animals our 'decisions' are no more conscious than our choosing to breathe or beat our hearts. To my mind we are only different to animals in the illusion of self and an imagined free will. We are unaware and have no control over the electrical chemical processes happening in our brain that result in our ideas and decisions. The germ of the thoughts we experience as choices made as free agents can be measured as taking place considerably well prior to our apparent free will. Up to ten seconds in some instances. No major life decision, that of partner, vocation etc is considered, these crucial selections are taking place in our unconscious. The perception we have control over global warming seems daft as denialists still don't even accept our responsibility. We got in to the mess before we had a clue what we were doing. So too as individuals we react then construct a narrative of reason. Life takes place too quickly for it to be any other way. It isn't possible to ride a bicycle or any vehicle at any speed through rational and considered movements. Just as other animals our unconscious is the only system quick enough to accommodate the steady flow of unpredictable variables. I play football with my dog in the graveyard and marvel at the complexity of computation it must take for him to negotiate the variety of differing objects. Sports team coaches, frustrated with their performance shout at half time to the players, "think about what you are doing!" Of course it is the opposite that is required. To react and inter react instinctually. Consciousness is way too slow.
In all probability we won't crash our bike. Despite the seemingly impossible negotiation of our current predicament I believe we'll get by. It may not sit easy with our conscience the vast extinction we are currently causing. But early man when he spread out of Africa where the bigger beasts had evolved alongside humans and developed systems to avoid being killed, in to Australasia and the Americas caused immediate extinction of all big animals. Within under a thousand years a large herbivore variety of species, just as big and varied as we see the remnants of in Africa now, existed in the continents we colonised. Having evolved free of predators like us, all these larger species were not afraid of humans, not geared up to run or hide. And we quickly hunted them all to extinction. It's in our nature.
So this seeming headlong blind dive into over population, growth and the consequent destruction of the planet may be a spring board. A system of using up the fruiting body to propel the seed, just like an apple. Our vast consumption of all resources is in all likelihood beyond our conscious control. It may appear a very tight gamble at present, but so does negotiating a town centre on a bike. I don't think we have any choice. It is hubris and over valuation of consciousness aligned to the illusion of free will that supports our pursuit of an unattainable sustainable cyclic system. Secluded hunter gatherer societies, reclusive tribal peoples can, but we took the wrong step years ago. Or the only step in our nature.
Sent from my iPad
A Note on the Bright Side
A Note on the Bright Side
A different view of the current acceleration of technology and its consequent depletion of minerals, extinction of species, general using up of the planet. Something it seems we are cognitively able to either recognise or care about. Another perspective is that with space travel becoming a reality and talk of habitation projects on other planets in the near future, the host fruit body is being used up to propel the seed. In using up resources to reach a point of propulsion off to other planets to inhabit is as natural as any action of any animal. The illusion that we control our actions or can manage our environment is becoming apparent. In realising just like all other animals our 'decisions' are no more conscious than our choosing to breathe or beat our hearts. To my mind we are only different to animals in the illusion of self and an imagined free will. We are unaware and have no control over the electrical chemical processes happening in our brain that result in our ideas and decisions. The germ of the thoughts we experience as choices made as free agents can be measured as taking place considerably well prior to our apparent free will. Up to ten seconds in some instances. No major life decision, that of partner, vocation etc is considered, these crucial selections are taking place in our unconscious. The perception we have control over global warming seems daft as denialists still don't even accept our responsibility. We got in to the mess before we had a clue what we were doing. So too as individuals we react then construct a narrative of reason. Life takes place too quickly for it to be any other way. It isn't possible to ride a bicycle or any vehicle at any speed through rational and considered movements. Just as other animals our unconscious is the only system quick enough to accommodate the steady flow of unpredictable variables. I play football with my dog in the graveyard and marvel at the complexity of computation it must take for him to negotiate the variety of differing objects. Sports team coaches, frustrated with their performance shout at half time to the players, "think about what you are doing!" Of course it is the opposite that is required. To react and inter react instinctually. Consciousness is way too slow.
In all probability we won't crash our bike. Despite the seemingly impossible negotiation of our current predicament I believe we'll get by. It may not sit easy with our conscience the vast extinction we are currently causing. But early man when he spread out of Africa where the bigger beasts had evolved alongside humans and developed systems to avoid being killed, in to Australasia and the Americas caused immediate extinction of all big animals. Within under a thousand years a large herbivore variety of species, just as big and varied as we see the remnants of in Africa now, existed in the continents we colonised. Having evolved free of predators like us, all these larger species were not afraid of humans, not geared up to run or hide. And we quickly hunted them all to extinction. It's in our nature.
So this seeming headlong blind dive into over population, growth and the consequent destruction of the planet may be a spring board. A system of using up the fruiting body to propel the seed, just like an apple. Our vast consumption of all resources is in all likelihood beyond our conscious control. It may appear a very tight gamble at present, but so does negotiating a town centre on a bike. I don't think we have any choice. It is hubris and over valuation of consciousness aligned to the illusion of free will that supports our pursuit of an unattainable sustainable cyclic system. Secluded hunter gatherer societies, reclusive tribal peoples can, but we took the wrong step years ago. Or the only step in our nature.
Sent from my iPad
A different view of the current acceleration of technology and its consequent depletion of minerals, extinction of species, general using up of the planet. Something it seems we are cognitively able to either recognise or care about. Another perspective is that with space travel becoming a reality and talk of habitation projects on other planets in the near future, the host fruit body is being used up to propel the seed. In using up resources to reach a point of propulsion off to other planets to inhabit is as natural as any action of any animal. The illusion that we control our actions or can manage our environment is becoming apparent. In realising just like all other animals our 'decisions' are no more conscious than our choosing to breathe or beat our hearts. To my mind we are only different to animals in the illusion of self and an imagined free will. We are unaware and have no control over the electrical chemical processes happening in our brain that result in our ideas and decisions. The germ of the thoughts we experience as choices made as free agents can be measured as taking place considerably well prior to our apparent free will. Up to ten seconds in some instances. No major life decision, that of partner, vocation etc is considered, these crucial selections are taking place in our unconscious. The perception we have control over global warming seems daft as denialists still don't even accept our responsibility. We got in to the mess before we had a clue what we were doing. So too as individuals we react then construct a narrative of reason. Life takes place too quickly for it to be any other way. It isn't possible to ride a bicycle or any vehicle at any speed through rational and considered movements. Just as other animals our unconscious is the only system quick enough to accommodate the steady flow of unpredictable variables. I play football with my dog in the graveyard and marvel at the complexity of computation it must take for him to negotiate the variety of differing objects. Sports team coaches, frustrated with their performance shout at half time to the players, "think about what you are doing!" Of course it is the opposite that is required. To react and inter react instinctually. Consciousness is way too slow.
In all probability we won't crash our bike. Despite the seemingly impossible negotiation of our current predicament I believe we'll get by. It may not sit easy with our conscience the vast extinction we are currently causing. But early man when he spread out of Africa where the bigger beasts had evolved alongside humans and developed systems to avoid being killed, in to Australasia and the Americas caused immediate extinction of all big animals. Within under a thousand years a large herbivore variety of species, just as big and varied as we see the remnants of in Africa now, existed in the continents we colonised. Having evolved free of predators like us, all these larger species were not afraid of humans, not geared up to run or hide. And we quickly hunted them all to extinction. It's in our nature.
So this seeming headlong blind dive into over population, growth and the consequent destruction of the planet may be a spring board. A system of using up the fruiting body to propel the seed, just like an apple. Our vast consumption of all resources is in all likelihood beyond our conscious control. It may appear a very tight gamble at present, but so does negotiating a town centre on a bike. I don't think we have any choice. It is hubris and over valuation of consciousness aligned to the illusion of free will that supports our pursuit of an unattainable sustainable cyclic system. Secluded hunter gatherer societies, reclusive tribal peoples can, but we took the wrong step years ago. Or the only step in our nature.
Sent from my iPad
Monday 2 November 2015
Fallen Angels
Fallen Angels
Fog
Moist decaying sludge of leaves
A statue of a young man who was sent to his death
In a field in France where European nations colluded in creating hell on earth
Sagging webs pulled in to sweeping parabolic curves by jewels of clear water droplets
Mapping patterns that mirror the curve of space time
The days grow short and dark on this toboggan run to solstice
All are drawn down this black hole to depression
To the Prozac of Christmas Day and whisky cocaine blur of new year
Our spirits can hold up to then by the speed of change and the spending of money
Till January opens her dungeon doors where we brave it out till spring
Singing songs as the boys did on their journey to the Somme
Bed
Rough sleepers dot the doorways
Slipped through societies net
Walking walking all day from cafe to bookies to library to public toilets to laundrette
Damp Tarmac keeps dog ends unlightable
So head for the precinct where overhead canopy brief patches cover
Only to find another has reaped the harvest earlier
Walking more, too cold to stay still, too early to bed down
Some pissheads discarded burger untouched bar a single bitten c from last night
Cold but untouched by rats, or foxes, else rejected
Fills the belly with queazy solace
Mud
Wet leather boots that never fully dry
Workers rise before dawn, leave home in darkness
Clock off long after dusk, return home in darkness
Heavy food, alcohol for those who can afford it
Muddies the mind to the loss of colour
The fall spectacular, a last shout of glory before the leaves fade
To greys and Browns, as light fades away death begins, finally to black leaf slurry
Older people wonder if they will make it through
Vermin are cut down in number
Broken birds in the gutter, their season done, brake apart in gore and feather as tyres churn and liquidise, children's boots kick the corpse around
Boys are dragged out to play sports and shiver in confusion
Log
walk through cemeteries, our countries best parks
Read the names and dates, feel the corpse field six foot below
Find a damp log and cap it with some cardboard to improvise a seat
Tearing open a discarded beer can to isolate the dome base as a cooking pan
Tip in brown powder, four hours begging paid for
The pinch of citric acid
Carefully carry cookery to a holly bush and tap jewels of dew in to pan
Once mix is read sit back down and cook brown potion
A strip of filter found dry in a plastic tube dropped by a roll up smoker
Drop this in, a boat in the hot brown pond, pulls works from glasses case and hold the needle up to the sky like a sword held up in anger at the world to find the sloping cut, the oval of the pins tip
Laying this flat cross grain over the filters fibres and draw up the warmth
By the churches wall, slumps down out of the wind, tourniquet of belt, find a vein and plunge home salvation
God
Laid beside the cool stone of gods house his lids heavy open
Diamond crumbs of shattered bottles glisten with refracted sunlight
Blue flashing strobing light washes over stone and moss
All is lit in colours, softened, warm, homely
Amongst the gravel fragile movement
A red admiral of purest Crimson and deep space velvet black
With broken wing dragged behind, grounded
A life short, beautiful, broken
Looking from the insect, struggling in a coin size circle, so pure and innocent, to the sky
The grey clouds, bruised and swollen break open
The sun shines down, golden, unconcerned like god
The two angels lay dieing, fallen to earth
Sent from my iPad
Fog
Moist decaying sludge of leaves
A statue of a young man who was sent to his death
In a field in France where European nations colluded in creating hell on earth
Sagging webs pulled in to sweeping parabolic curves by jewels of clear water droplets
Mapping patterns that mirror the curve of space time
The days grow short and dark on this toboggan run to solstice
All are drawn down this black hole to depression
To the Prozac of Christmas Day and whisky cocaine blur of new year
Our spirits can hold up to then by the speed of change and the spending of money
Till January opens her dungeon doors where we brave it out till spring
Singing songs as the boys did on their journey to the Somme
Bed
Rough sleepers dot the doorways
Slipped through societies net
Walking walking all day from cafe to bookies to library to public toilets to laundrette
Damp Tarmac keeps dog ends unlightable
So head for the precinct where overhead canopy brief patches cover
Only to find another has reaped the harvest earlier
Walking more, too cold to stay still, too early to bed down
Some pissheads discarded burger untouched bar a single bitten c from last night
Cold but untouched by rats, or foxes, else rejected
Fills the belly with queazy solace
Mud
Wet leather boots that never fully dry
Workers rise before dawn, leave home in darkness
Clock off long after dusk, return home in darkness
Heavy food, alcohol for those who can afford it
Muddies the mind to the loss of colour
The fall spectacular, a last shout of glory before the leaves fade
To greys and Browns, as light fades away death begins, finally to black leaf slurry
Older people wonder if they will make it through
Vermin are cut down in number
Broken birds in the gutter, their season done, brake apart in gore and feather as tyres churn and liquidise, children's boots kick the corpse around
Boys are dragged out to play sports and shiver in confusion
Log
walk through cemeteries, our countries best parks
Read the names and dates, feel the corpse field six foot below
Find a damp log and cap it with some cardboard to improvise a seat
Tearing open a discarded beer can to isolate the dome base as a cooking pan
Tip in brown powder, four hours begging paid for
The pinch of citric acid
Carefully carry cookery to a holly bush and tap jewels of dew in to pan
Once mix is read sit back down and cook brown potion
A strip of filter found dry in a plastic tube dropped by a roll up smoker
Drop this in, a boat in the hot brown pond, pulls works from glasses case and hold the needle up to the sky like a sword held up in anger at the world to find the sloping cut, the oval of the pins tip
Laying this flat cross grain over the filters fibres and draw up the warmth
By the churches wall, slumps down out of the wind, tourniquet of belt, find a vein and plunge home salvation
God
Laid beside the cool stone of gods house his lids heavy open
Diamond crumbs of shattered bottles glisten with refracted sunlight
Blue flashing strobing light washes over stone and moss
All is lit in colours, softened, warm, homely
Amongst the gravel fragile movement
A red admiral of purest Crimson and deep space velvet black
With broken wing dragged behind, grounded
A life short, beautiful, broken
Looking from the insect, struggling in a coin size circle, so pure and innocent, to the sky
The grey clouds, bruised and swollen break open
The sun shines down, golden, unconcerned like god
The two angels lay dieing, fallen to earth
Sent from my iPad
Sunday 1 November 2015
Halloween
Halloween
Back in the seventies, when I was a child, we would celebrate Christmas just as people today celebrate Halloween. The resurgence of paganism in replacing Christianity sees our nation go full circle. Indeed Christmas, that celebration of the birth of an illegitimate Jew was transported from the Middle East, the nation we now know as Isil, to replace our native pagan festivity, the winter solstice. It seems quaint to think back on how we celebrated the birth of a great Jewish political philosopher who's message was anti materialist and his aim to spread a poverty cult to avert man kinds growing cultural illness. Our Christian nation would celebrate the birth of the one who told us material goods and amassing wealth precluded entry to heaven. In truth, material excess precluded our species retaining the heaven we were born into. Since 1970 half of the planets species have been wiped out. We celebrated by holding an orgy of consumption, a celebration of greed. To hear christs message and turn it into Christmas must have been worse than being crucified for the poor fella. His message to what I will refer to as the communicated western civilisation, mankind is far broader, isolated tribes not corrupted by the materialism we aspire to still exist. Some tribes have yet to meet up with modern man and hopefully never will. Our species depend on these isolated communities, evolutionary equals yet far ahead of our consumer centric ideals, to continue Homo sapiens after our greedy sort have all died. For we will. Just as any animal that over populates its environment, pestilence will come. I see the clean clothed, polished shoes, haircut, car driving work addicts as miximatosis infected rabbits. As the rabbit goes blind so too has our man, or many of us, blind to the acceptance that half the planets species have been wiped out since the 1970s where I got my Christmas presents. That thought alone should shock any sane man or woman into abandoning their car, their job, slow down their consumption to an acceptable level. But most don't. A few brave individuals choose not to work or to work in ways that do not make unnecessary goods or use resources. Half the worlds species since I got my Slade and Gary Glitter singles, my action men, hungered for scalextric. The celebration of waste oppitomises the miximatosis. It would have been insanity for me to not finally wake up to my own mental illness. So enthralled by looking sideways at what others were doing I grew to think it acceptable to make luxury products for the super rich. Having abandoned my work I can only hope that in my remaining years I can go some way to atone for my mistakes. In my defence I was never rich. I fell into woodwork with innocence. The belief that a doorway that barely gets noticed but is used by generation after generation was as important as art. I began here yet somewhere I became corrupted. My trade, a service to the community became an exersize in vanity. I studied at Shrewsbury then high Wycombe and fell under the spell of the furniture designer makers. They had taken the working class trade, that service to the community, and corrupted it with their ego. The middle class man cannot serve the community, he must extend his self. He must sign his work. Working class trade was built on the shoulders of many men and preserved its dignity through anonymity, anonymity is anathema to the middle class craftsman. He must design objects, not to perform the needs of the community but to express his own vision of beauty. I fell in with these corrupt perverts. Being born to a middle class mother and a working class father with strict conservative values, I grew up a half breed. Never knowing what I was or where I fitted in. It provided me with a position from where to see the follies of the working class in their proud elevation of the stupid, as seen in joey Essex, 'swallowed a dictionary,' I would be taunted as a child if using long words, acting above my station, giving it the Charlie big potatoes. Though I could see the cringeworthy actions of the middle class, a class in motion, in upward mobility, displaying their seperation from the lower classes from where they had escaped through secret signs, language tricks, lavatory not toilet, Jamie Oliver cook books, chintz and designer clothes and furniture.
Through digital technology the designer makers of fine furniture linked up, formed a group and had an online forum. Now sealed off their perversion could grow unhindered by the passing observer. There was no one their to tell us. We had sealed the doors. No small boy could enter to shout, 'the emperor wears no clothes,' But I had sneaked in. Unnoticed my accent hidden by internet anonymity. I could have been black even. There is not a single black man on the corrupt forum. And I chose to tell them they were wrong. But few listened. That engrossed in self congratulation were they, they thought me a madman. Only through the sealed online communities can perversion grow and become deemed normal. Paedophiles were free of the irritating people who told them their desires were evil. Together with no outsiders to moderate they could discuss their hunger undisturbed. So it was true for the designer makers also.
I do think back nostalgically to those seventies Christmases we celebrated with a metaphorical reenactment of the crucifixion of Christ by celebrating his philosophy of modesty, meagre consumption and living in poverty with an orgy of greed, money, consumption of rich foods and rejecting the community to hide away in nuclear families, enjoying the money we had taken. Because, no wealth comes in purity. Every penny spent on unnecessary delights is the murder of a child in Syria or Africa.
Sent from my iPad
Back in the seventies, when I was a child, we would celebrate Christmas just as people today celebrate Halloween. The resurgence of paganism in replacing Christianity sees our nation go full circle. Indeed Christmas, that celebration of the birth of an illegitimate Jew was transported from the Middle East, the nation we now know as Isil, to replace our native pagan festivity, the winter solstice. It seems quaint to think back on how we celebrated the birth of a great Jewish political philosopher who's message was anti materialist and his aim to spread a poverty cult to avert man kinds growing cultural illness. Our Christian nation would celebrate the birth of the one who told us material goods and amassing wealth precluded entry to heaven. In truth, material excess precluded our species retaining the heaven we were born into. Since 1970 half of the planets species have been wiped out. We celebrated by holding an orgy of consumption, a celebration of greed. To hear christs message and turn it into Christmas must have been worse than being crucified for the poor fella. His message to what I will refer to as the communicated western civilisation, mankind is far broader, isolated tribes not corrupted by the materialism we aspire to still exist. Some tribes have yet to meet up with modern man and hopefully never will. Our species depend on these isolated communities, evolutionary equals yet far ahead of our consumer centric ideals, to continue Homo sapiens after our greedy sort have all died. For we will. Just as any animal that over populates its environment, pestilence will come. I see the clean clothed, polished shoes, haircut, car driving work addicts as miximatosis infected rabbits. As the rabbit goes blind so too has our man, or many of us, blind to the acceptance that half the planets species have been wiped out since the 1970s where I got my Christmas presents. That thought alone should shock any sane man or woman into abandoning their car, their job, slow down their consumption to an acceptable level. But most don't. A few brave individuals choose not to work or to work in ways that do not make unnecessary goods or use resources. Half the worlds species since I got my Slade and Gary Glitter singles, my action men, hungered for scalextric. The celebration of waste oppitomises the miximatosis. It would have been insanity for me to not finally wake up to my own mental illness. So enthralled by looking sideways at what others were doing I grew to think it acceptable to make luxury products for the super rich. Having abandoned my work I can only hope that in my remaining years I can go some way to atone for my mistakes. In my defence I was never rich. I fell into woodwork with innocence. The belief that a doorway that barely gets noticed but is used by generation after generation was as important as art. I began here yet somewhere I became corrupted. My trade, a service to the community became an exersize in vanity. I studied at Shrewsbury then high Wycombe and fell under the spell of the furniture designer makers. They had taken the working class trade, that service to the community, and corrupted it with their ego. The middle class man cannot serve the community, he must extend his self. He must sign his work. Working class trade was built on the shoulders of many men and preserved its dignity through anonymity, anonymity is anathema to the middle class craftsman. He must design objects, not to perform the needs of the community but to express his own vision of beauty. I fell in with these corrupt perverts. Being born to a middle class mother and a working class father with strict conservative values, I grew up a half breed. Never knowing what I was or where I fitted in. It provided me with a position from where to see the follies of the working class in their proud elevation of the stupid, as seen in joey Essex, 'swallowed a dictionary,' I would be taunted as a child if using long words, acting above my station, giving it the Charlie big potatoes. Though I could see the cringeworthy actions of the middle class, a class in motion, in upward mobility, displaying their seperation from the lower classes from where they had escaped through secret signs, language tricks, lavatory not toilet, Jamie Oliver cook books, chintz and designer clothes and furniture.
Through digital technology the designer makers of fine furniture linked up, formed a group and had an online forum. Now sealed off their perversion could grow unhindered by the passing observer. There was no one their to tell us. We had sealed the doors. No small boy could enter to shout, 'the emperor wears no clothes,' But I had sneaked in. Unnoticed my accent hidden by internet anonymity. I could have been black even. There is not a single black man on the corrupt forum. And I chose to tell them they were wrong. But few listened. That engrossed in self congratulation were they, they thought me a madman. Only through the sealed online communities can perversion grow and become deemed normal. Paedophiles were free of the irritating people who told them their desires were evil. Together with no outsiders to moderate they could discuss their hunger undisturbed. So it was true for the designer makers also.
I do think back nostalgically to those seventies Christmases we celebrated with a metaphorical reenactment of the crucifixion of Christ by celebrating his philosophy of modesty, meagre consumption and living in poverty with an orgy of greed, money, consumption of rich foods and rejecting the community to hide away in nuclear families, enjoying the money we had taken. Because, no wealth comes in purity. Every penny spent on unnecessary delights is the murder of a child in Syria or Africa.
Sent from my iPad
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