abtw777

I could tell you the story I have of myself but that might just be a distraction from what I’d like to say in this essay. Instead, let me just start with the premise that everyone has a story of themselves. The story probably consists of a mixture of family, surrounding culture and personal circumstances – especially one’s experiences as a child. It’s taken me a long time to come to the place where I feel I have to forgive myself for my own story. This is not to say that I’m especially good or bad – just that, like everyone else – it’s really difficult to step out of our stories once they’re established. And also, forgiveness is not a one-off event – in my view. Whether you’re a religious person who believes in a God of forgiveness or you’re an atheist, I think it’s helpful to think of forgiveness as a process. And now, well, I’m turning towards at least being able to think about forgiving other people their stories. Again, this is not about whether other people are good or bad...

It occurred to me recently that we have a choice. We can have a little life – a life based on gradually diminishing pleasures until, one day, we snuff it. This is the life that converges on a cost-benefit analysis of life – on an accountant’s truth. Or we can have the kind of life that the heart is leading us towards. It is – we might say – a divergent life. Instead of settling for what’s possible, the heart dreams big – longing for new joys, new ecstasies – and along he way the heart accepts new fears, new pain, new heartache. And, well, I have to admit that often I still long for the little life – the life that’s controlled, managed and predictable. But, all the while, there’s a sense of that radical alternative life – the sound of giant wingbeats somewhere far off. It’s the wingbeats of a Wild Cosmos, speaking to the wild soul. So there’s no little life possible really – the Cosmos will always intervene. The lessons of the heart are tough – joy earned through heartache, pl...

I guess other folks do things differently. They make sure there’s enough money for food and clothes, rent or mortgage – you know, the basics. But me, well I’d always been more worried about the Universe. Not that I can do anything about it of course – and I guess that’s why most people don’t spend much time worrying about it. Sure, sometimes, they’ll look up at the stars on a quiet night and so a bit of wondering. But mostly – no. I – on the other hand – spend an inordinate amount of time gazing at the night sky – and indeed, the daytime clouds – and wondering. I’m not talking about the science. I’m thinking more about meaning. One person helped me more than anyone else in this. His name – Robert Pirsig. You might not remember him. He’s probably most familiar as the author of his famous book: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It can seem to be a puzzling book. But really, the gist of it is right there in the subtitle of the book: An Inquiry into Values. So, it’s jus...

As citizens, we want peace – world peace. And by that I DO NOT mean the false peace that is offered to us by the phrase: ‘If you want peace then prepare for war’. I mean a world with no war and no weapons of any kind. Of course, I recognise this is radically idealistic. But I can say that at the very least our politicians should be speaking of genuine peace from time to time and they should always be mindful that this is surely one of the ultimate goals of our shared humanity. It might take a change in human cultures across the globe. It might even take a change to human nature. But despite the almost insurmountable hurdles, we should not abandon this vision for the sake of some ‘pragmatism’ or ‘realism’ – which is really just expediency. Meanwhile, the UK government’s intention to proliferate our stockpile of nuclear weapons is noted. Let’s be honest here again and use the same language that the government uses for other nations – proliferation of weapons of mass destruction –...

We were left to find our own way to the park. And, to be honest, they didn’t seem too concerned about whether we turned up or not. As such, I wasn’t sure why I bothered to show up for sports. But I still went. It’s just that I didn’t join in with the sports. Instead, I lay down in the long grass. From there, I scrutinised the other kids, who chose to take part in the games on the mown grass. And even then, back in junior school, I got the sense that there was something a bit sinister going on – that this insistence on organised games on the part of our teachers had some peculiar motives. I was the only runaway, long-grass boy in my class. There were a few runaway girls. We spent our time together, getting our first inkling of rebellion. At senior school, this pattern continued. There was a group of runaway boys. We told jokes and had conversations at the edges of the playing fields. Now though the teachers were a bit more concerned by our non-participation. As a punishm...

Ours was a conservative church, that’s for sure. Serious men wearing back suits, black ties, black shoes, white shirts. The women likewise reserved in their dress and in their manner. But then there was a troubling development. Someone broke ranks. Someone, you might say, ‘got religion’. He came to be called ‘Jimmy the One’. Well, in theory at least, everyone was believing the same gospel – the Nicene Creed, the Westminster confession – all of that. But somehow it had come alive for Jimmy. He started speaking about being chosen by God, about being anointed by the Spirit – and hence, I suppose, the nickname. I was just a teenager at the time, and truth to tell, my vote was with Jimmy. At least he was something different. At least he was enthusiastic about his faith. But there were lessons there for me in the way Jimmy was treated. Jimmy the One, you see, may have thought that it was all about God, but his name sort of suggested that it was really all about Jimmy. He was, o...

Why call this essay Longing for the Wild? Because of the paradox that lies within us – the meeting of our rational human mind with the mammalian body. Because all the paradoxes of the Cosmos meet within us. Because home means to both keep the wildness of Nature at bay, yet at the same time it is the place to shelter our own wildness. Because a community of humans is a potential harmony – a potentially wonderful and creative space – but also a place where all the contradictions of the competing stories meet. So let’s start with something very specific. The news is filled with terrible stories and I fear that no matter when or where you’re reading this, it will still be the same. The stories are of the rape and sexual exploitation of women and girls. For a while I thought those stories got so much news coverage because the government wanted to distract us from all the dodgy things it does behind the backs of the citizens to whom it is supposed to be accountable. I also thought t...

It‘s true that we often speak about social issues as affecting our bodies. But there’s plenty of big, important questions out there, to try to find the answers for, so is this whole body thing really causing a bit of a distraction? I’ve seen it happen with artwork. Paint a huge landscape, and somewhere in the painting there are one or two tiny figures. People will shuffle up to within inches of the canvas and stare at the figures. And, heaven forbid, an artist tries to convey some deep meaning, by way perhaps of a visual metaphor, and places a nude in the painting. People, of course, just stare at the nude. ‘There’s a naked person there. What’s that about?’ one might say. ‘He’s made her too thin’, another replies. ‘No’, says another, ‘too fat’. So, I say to myself, why bodies? And the first thing that comes to mind is that very obsession that I’m talking about – the fact that people always look at other people – other bodies. At the same time though, many folk are in denial of...

I’ve chosen to write about three topics here – Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), climate change and war. The reason for choosing these three is that they relate so closely to matters already discussed in previous writings – Theoria, Poiesis and Polis. They are also considered to be amongst the most serious concerns for humanity in the current era. It’s not my intention to examine the three topics in detail – far less to offer solutions. Instead I’m looking to understand how these issues shine a light on how we all choose to live. Such existential threats can seem daunting and render us powerless in the face of difficulties too big to cope with. But if, rather than trying to solve the problems, we consider instead how they might inform and change our lives individually, then this offers us, in my view, a better approach. We have the opportunity of approaching the world differently rather than being burdened with guilt over being unable to change it. Turning first to AGI, it’s...

A good description of the Commons is given on one website: ‘The global commons is the set of natural resources, basic services, public spaces, cultural traditions and other essentials of life and society that are, or should be, part of a public trust to be enjoyed by all people and cherished for the public’s well-being. Another way to conceive of these assets is how it is said in Spanish: el bien común – the common good. Behind the commons is the fundamental idea that life, information, human relationships, popular culture and the Earth’s riches are sacrosanct and not for sale.’ Here I want to look at the shades of meaning implicit in the term ‘the Commons’. Perhaps in popular speech the term describes an area of land set aside for public use. Previously that use may have been pasture for cattle or space for food growing. Today, it is more likely to be for recreation – such as parks or beaches. The so-called ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ is based on a pamphlet by William Foster Lloy...

Some thoughts from the previous writing, Poiesis, to start this work: Value may be innate to the Universe, but this does not lessen the problem of constructing pragmatic moral rules. Some moral principles seem to be derived from aesthetics – fairness and equality, for instance. These can be understood by our ‘mammalian’ brain. Some moral principles require rational thought – via the uniquely human aspect of the brain. This split between mammalian and human – body and rationality – causes quite a bit of confusion for us, as embodied agents. We will often hear the body’s response, but we will then try to rationalise with our minds – not noticing any contradictions. Our sense of the sacred – even for ‘unbelievers’ – also has an impact on our sense of right and wrong – not necessarily connected to our bodily or rational responses. Finally, there is our human fixation with power – as explored more fully in what follows. (It would be nice if people obsessed with power were also people who...

There is a spectrum of human response to the natural world, from seeing it a resource to be exploited for human benefit on the one hand through to seeing humanity as part of a single living system. From the Environmentalist point of view, the destruction of natural habitats, pollution and climate change are all primarily threats to human well-being and as such they are potential disasters. Deep Ecology takes this a stage further and doesn’t really distinguish between humans and all other life. From a Deep Ecology point of view, humans are almost the disease! The rest of Nature would recover and continue without us if we were gone. However, without bacteria, everything else would be dead within days if not hours. And what about the seas without plankton? And ‘…once the bees are gone, the humans have got ten years’. (Albert Einstein) There are various ideas that offer us potential paths towards this kind of ecological balance and I summarise them here under the headings: Gaia, N...