Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Watching the Disillusionment of Loved Ones

There is something profoundly sad about watching the disillusionment of one that we love. The sadness is perhaps proof that we still love them. Disillusionment is nowadays called "Reality check", thanks to the Seventies hippie generation.

That we may have been partly responsible for sustaining their deluded state;
that we may have loved them because we wished to share their deluded state;
that we were unable to find for them a gentler let-down when the disillusionment finally came;
that we have to SHARE the let-down itself.

These are facts known to any intelligent mother, whom has had to grapple with the "Is there really a Santa Claus, Mum?" So Child would never have enjoyed the illusion that Santa Claus existed, but for Mum. Mum would never have loved the Child so much if they never believed what did not exist. Mum later tries to tell Child that Santa Claus does not exist, but cannot find an easy way. Mum feels pain when Child eventually discovers that Santa Claus does not exist, and both their whole frames of being are knocked down.


So it is sad. That's life. An endless string of illusions clutched, each followed by grasping at the harsh brutal truth. As I believe I have always tried to seek the truth, I feel particularly qualified to say that the truth is like the multiverse of universes. When you have uncovered one, so you find you are buried deep within another one that you yet do not understand. So too do I feel qualified to say that there is no pride to be gained, from understanding more universes than the next man.

Yet I want to be sad.
For spring here, faltering,
does not smell the same
As where I left.
I am homesick for a place that I lived in and loved for so long, but whose ruin I could no longer bear to watch.

Funny that, as if I hadn't seen most of it ruined, that I should have been so bothered. Perhaps disillusionment sometimes is the wrong diagnosis.
Perhaps realities change, and we are belittled by our powerlessness to halt the change.

So here in Britain, we wait for spring. There are daffodils out now, and crocuses, but none of the trees are springing into leaf. Nights are still cold, and nothing much is growing fast, even when we have a sunny warmish day.

Today is Budget Day. As if I care. All the farting economists in the world could be piled into a gas oven and it set alight, and I would not be any happier.

I call the world the Planet.
The Planet is too big for me to hold.
Its billions of people are too many for me to scold.
Its development is too much a horror for me to behold.

Thank God we die when we grow old.

Wednesday, March 09, 2011

Questioning the Philosophy of Self-Doubt

A few days ago I questioned the Philosophy of Self-Belief. With the following conclusion ..
I therefore suggest that it is a lie that we must believe in ourselves, or that we are helped by others whom believe in us. This lie is purely to sustain lies upon which our lives are built


Well, to be fair, and to be rational, I must treat its opposite : the Philosophy of Self-Doubt.

{Why do we need to doubt ourselves?}
or {Why do we need to be doubted by others?}
=> Why do we Need to be Doubted?

(The symbol => is the mathematical one for "implies")

Why indeed. We all know people who only rise up to a task when everybody doubts that they can. It's the challenge of proving people wrong that gives them extra impetus.

For ourselves, when we doubt ourselves, and then we master our doubts and rise up to the challenge, we feel even better for ourselves, don't we?

But is this just playing games? If you have a task, why should it be necessary to play the following game...
I doubt myself.
I refuse to accept that I can't do it.
I shall prove myself right that I can do it, while proving myself wrong that I can't do it.
What a waste of energy all this game playing is. Like playing football instead of farming.

And there, in the last line, there is a big hint of more...
"I shall prove myself."

Self-Belief, Self-Doubt, Self-Proof.

Are these good games to play as motivations to do a task? There should be enough motivation from the need or desire to do a task, without having to throw in motivational games of Self-Belief, Self-Doubt, and Self-Proof. I am probably mistaken, but this is what I think the Methodists did. Get rid of the game-playing, and get on with the work, either because you need to do it, or because you WANT to do it.

Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Pushing Away the Zeitgeist

There are Sheep and there are Wolves. There is Black and White but also every shade of gray.
So human beings can be found whom belong on every spot of the Sheep to Wolf spectrum.

I know I shift between the polarities of sheep and wolf depending on the world, my life, and me.

But what is this Zeitgeist? I have always been very sensitive to it and even gone out looking for it, but if you think about IT, what is IT?

Is the Zeitgeist a single miasma? I think not. Different levels of Zeitgeist exist for Sheep and Wolves and all in between.

Yet without a doubt the Zeitgeist I pick up through my antennae is the Official Cultural Zeitgeist of Britain, as sanctioned by the artists, the newspapers, the businesses, and the citizens. (Hmmm, interesting what I haven't included in that list...)

Is the Zeitgeist a set of activities, or feelings? Is it a set of attitudes? Is it a mood? Yes, I definitely think it is a mood.

The Zeitgeist of Britain is more oppressive than usual. The mood is not recessive, but a kind of prozacked depressive. As mentioned before, the nation is hot happy with what it has become or achieved. You can have the shiniest cars, the shiniest jewels, and the shiniest furs, but what good are they when you have just learned that you have to sell them because you can't pay for them? At the same time you have also been diagnosed with a malignant, slow-acting cancer and you are looking through all the quack remedies that promise you a cure.

I can't stand it any more. The Zeitgeist mood weighs me down so much that there is only one thing to do.

Push away the Zeitgeist. What use is the Zeitgeist when it does more harm than good?

I shouldn't even bother trying to re-shape the Zeitgeist - I haven't the strength at this stage.

Push it away. Sometimes, a man has got to be an island.

Saturday, March 05, 2011

Yeo Valley Rap

When I saw this, I just thought Wow!

Aren't they all beautiful?



If you live in a city or a town, you've probably noticed that none of the young men and women look this good - and even if they did, they wouldn't last long before they were sucked into lives of cocaine, heroin, alcohol or just plain sex addiction.

Well Done Yeo Valley and BBH. It's marketing, but hey, when it's like this, sock it to 'em

Friday, March 04, 2011

Question the Philosophy of Belief in Your Self

Google "Believe in Yourself" and you will be told that you have to, and why you need to. Look at the reasons from a philosophical standpoint.

(Why do we need to believe in ourselves?) OR (Why do we need others to believe in us?) =

Why do we need to be believed?

Isn't it strange that we are told that we need to be believed?

Are our lives built on such tenuous lies that without that belief we would DIE?

Isn't it appallingly feeble if this is true?

A) Assume that our lives are built on real foundations. Would we need to be believed? What purpose would it serve ourselves to be believed? I can see that it would be useful to others if THEY believed US, so that they may choose to copy how we build our lives on real foundations.

B) Assume that our lives are built on a fragile pyramid of lies. Can we sustain ourselves without being believed? Are we held up only by belief, whether that is coming from others or ourselves?

I therefore suggest that it is a lie that we must believe in ourselves, or that we are helped by others whom believe in us. This lie is purely to sustain lies upon which our lives are built.

I feel much happier knowing this truth! Is this philosophy?

2011 in Britain

It is 2011. Look at that frightening number.

Welcome back to Britain. I never left it, but I left you, dear Reader, this long.

My God, I thought Britain was bad in the Noughties. Now three years after we've had the 2007/8 Global Financial Crisis, things seem to be sufficiently worse that I really wish I weren't here.

This country has been floundering in a cultural depression for 3 years now. People are coping, but not happy, and not hopeful, and not even interesting. They drive to the supermarket, they shop, they eat, they watch TV. They live through life's struggles, and they go to work if they still have a job, but they all know that the country hasn't done well, and can't afford to go on living beyond its means. Yet imports still keep rising, and exports barely are holding.

It feels as if one cannot dare to dream any more in Britain, yet in theory, that is all the British can now afford to do. I say in theory, because in practice, they still drive around in cars that are too big, and they still use them constantly while they themselves get fat and useless. Cars are empty, trains are running empty, planes still fly everywhere. The cutbacks on waste have yet to become ubiquitous, yet cutbacks in the public sector are all you hear about on the news, or when chatting.

THIS COUNTRY HAS BECOME BORING AND USELESS? Yes, it really feels that way.

It was of course the fault of the three Labour Governments, that presided over the shift to Banking and the wholesale submission to Global Economics, which finally created a credit and property and finance boom that collapsed in 2008. Yet only in 2010 did that government finally get thrown out.

Since then, the new Government has barely made a mark, yet every move they make is loudly protested and entirely opposed.

How can things improve, and how can things get better, when we have a people who have been spoilt by wasteful Labour Governments, and a new government who can no longer afford to spoil them?

I despair, and it's no fun being here. And we've had another cold winter (so much for global warming) so I wish I were on a beach far away from here.

I want to dream. Love is like a shrunken dried up apple in my soul, because there never was much love in Britain, and now there is nowhere to dream.

What can I do?