I question our celebrity obsessed, rockstar prone culture…
but probably not for the reasons the Luddites typically would.

Here's why
(A weird stream of logic,
but humour me my supreme kookiness on this one….)

I once had the opportunity to chat to a guy who, very humbly, claims to have "died the for longest time" of any modern human .....& then come back to life.Normally, I treat people who have had NDE's as nut-jobs. Maybe their experiences are valid, maybe not - I haven't died yet this time around yet - so I can't tell for certain myself.....But often I've seen their ego takes over and they go way offtrack… so I sidestep them, usually.

However, I sussed this guy out when he randomly crossed my digital radar & he has been confirmed as dinkum by some of the leading, serious-minded researchers in that space…
(For the purposes of this post - I don't think it matters who he is.)

So far - he hasn't sought out fame or attention for what has happened to him…
He shuns publicity, is modest & humble, & shares his experience and insights with wisdom, humour & humility. He primarily shares his story to give people hope. I can respect that.

I listened to what he had to say (he was very rational & didn't sound deluded)......because maybe he would have something to teach me that no one else could.Turns out , he did: This chap has an interesting perspective on reality generally. It stands in stark contrast to a lot of the fear-based thinking that dominates our popular media and mindsets.

• For one, he thinks humanity is not on a doom&gloom future track that so many prophetic "seers" & future strategists like to predict.
• In his view of reality, not only will we make the planet decently habitable again, in the not too distant future, through sheer human creativity & ingenuity....but in the next few hundred years we will stretch humanity's legacy to the stars & beyond.(See note below.)
• All that aside, the most important point (to me) was his overall perception that this is an incredibly exciting time to be alive… In whatever form.. or level of human "status" ..or being we might find ourselves....Even to be a mere atom in this time & place, is in his view a universal "blessing" of gaia proportions

For argument sake - and since we don't know everything & cannot irrevocably dispute him:

•     What if his assertion about that.... is the case ?
•     What if our current socio-economic & planetary problems are merely a critical blip on the history charts, which prompt change of the most positive form ?
•     What if we are on a positive track of almost unimaginable evolution that sounds almost sci-fi in its radicalness ?
•    What if we are a the brink of a fabulous future for humanity ….?
•    What if the generations alive today, are the ones who will literally make the profound difference ?
•    What if WE are the heroes we are holding out for, in hope ?
•    What if even being a tiny atom, at this time, on this planet, is a universally great honour & thrill ?
•    What would we do if we knew our failure would never really be "failure", in a most negative sense ?

And that's the context in which I have an issue with most (not all , but most) celebrity culture.

•  Who or what would we want to be, if whatever we ARE is intrinsically awesome ?
•  Would we want to be Rihanna or Beyonce or Gaga ?
   Or Beckham or Kobe or Federer ? Or some other famous person.
•  Would we fake ourselves to look, be or act like someone else ?
•  Or would we live fully, self-express to the Nth degree and be ourselves,
    in all our rainbow shades of humanity  - despite our flaws & foibles ?
•  How would we live it up or down , to make the best of the times & opportunities
   available to us.. being the piece of exquisite human consciousness that we are ?

Far be it for me to judge my fellow human beings for the choices they make….
But it strikes me that to be alive at this awe-inspiring time,
with these evolutionary opportunities available to us…
and then to try copy others…
Is a missed opportunity of profound import, wouldn't you agree ?

Funny enough,
I think some celebrities are even twigging onto this themselves. They are the ones who don't take themselves too seriously & wear their fame well. They can spoof it & self-deprecate themselves & their status ....& have great fun doing so....because , what the hell…. ...it's all good & what a ride we are all on...

It also strikes me as a bit hilarious...in an almost sufi sense…. that (if &) when these awemazing opportunities, to hop, skip, jump & kite ....our way up the ladder of evolutionary consciousness are available to us…you still find many wannabes who focus on having the biggest bathroom , the firmest, fake boobs money can buy...or the longest limo…or try emulate people who have those things….

Huh ?

Being ourselves... now, (literally) is as good as it gets.

In those days spirits were brave,
the stakes were high,
men were real men,
women were real women
and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri
were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.
  
    Douglas Adams

Ok…. Seriously..
NOTE:

The guy I chatted with has suggested that in people's hearts more and more these days, there is a deepening sadness that comes from the growing loss of hope and faith. Everywhere people seem to be losing their belief in the old view of God, church, government, icons, the economy, money, their families and friends, etc. So many believe that the world is in decline, that everything is 95% broken and that the future of mankind is dark and dangerous.

However, he firmly believes that things are headed in opposite direction and that we will have a paradigm shift from fear and hopelessness to amazement and the power of grace. Although he says it is difficult for us to see this now ourselves -  things are generally 95% better than they have ever been before, despite the present economy, politics and very negative fear mongering news media. He also suggests that all this present chaos and uncertainty will be a "blip on the screen" of history compared to our evolving purpose and destiny in the broader universe.

What he proposes is that in times like this, our true soul grace comes out and we begin to see the goodness, collective blessings and saving grace that are the essence of our true being as humans. He says we barely understand the fabulous emotional technology we have available to us via our "emotions" like love & compassion... and the unique experiences that "technology"  (for want of a better word) allows us to create.

He asserts that we, as humanity, have a long and brilliant future, here and beyond the stars.        

We can't tell whether what he says is true or not - but what if it is ?
What if we knew it to be true ?
How would we behave & what would we do ?
Maybe we should behave that way anyway & make it come true.

Ergo:
Screw the nihilist bullsh-t too....
And love on.

The other day I laughed when I read about a cannabis farm  accidentally discovered yards away from a Manchester Police Station. 

Reminded me of a hobo I knew many years ago.

Never knew his real name. He called himself Hennie Houtstok ("Hout" is afrikaans for 'wood' & "stok" means "stick"). It was a play on the "Woodstock"… because he said his one big regret in life was that he'd never gone to Woodstock…Which was twice as funny, because he was an amputee. He never had a wooden leg - but he often joked about it.

I met Hennie Houtstok at church. Against my parents wishes, I'd left home soon after finishing high school - and "going to church" was a concession to placate them that their daughter wasn't being "led astray."…. they got regular reports from the parishioners, it seems. It was like an alibi… little did they know… Diane Arbus

Hennie Houtstok was a character. He was a qualified fitter & turner - they were paid okay & apparently he was good at what he did ….but he chose not to work & to live on the streets.  (It's complicated.)

Hennie taught me quite a bit about human nature.

Many people don't realise that hobo's have social structure, similar to other human tribes. With pecking orders & whatnot. Hennie was a seasoned hobo, so he had prime bench in one of the best neighbourhoods in town. One day a stuck-up, do-gooder churchy type - who lived in a mediocre, middle class suburb - made a snide remark about "his type" as she walked past us, sitting on the back benches.  WIthout skipping a beat, Hennie Houtstok piped up: "I don't know what her problem is. My residence is in a much better neighbourhood than hers."

Hennie "attended" the church on Sunday evenings - for the tea & biscuits. However, I discovered  his ulterior motive when I figured out he had a healthy, sizeable cannabis crop growing at the back of the church, which he liked to keep an eye on.

Quite smart - if you think about it.

Most church types there were so prissy - they wouldn't have the faintest idea what growing hashish looked like, especially if he mixed it in with other plants. Durban's weather was warm & temperate - so no need for lights & stuff. (Durban Poison is a bit like Pineapple Express..). Occasionally the Church Minister would feel sorry for him & pay him to do part-time gardening - so he  got to check up on his crop at someone else's expense… How often do you think police officers would raid a hidden piece of churchyard for growing drugs ? I suspect Hennie must have had a few churchyards that he "tended" in a similar way.

He slyly told me one day that he was growing his stuff under "the protection of the Lord." 

Never tried to sell me anything though.
Which was interesting.

Hennie saw things differently.
Funny too.

I love strong people, with robust personalities… but I loathe bullies.

One of my favourite extracts, from the Velveteen Rabbit

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.

A man started to tell a joke at a party: "Two old jews were on their way..." 
Suddenly he was interrupted by a sensitive guest. 
"Why do so many jokes begin with Jews?" 
"Oh, I'm sorry," apologized the story teller, "I'll start again. 
Two old Chinese men were on their way to the Synagogue to see the Rabbi..."

A while ago I was working at a company which secured a new client they were excited about. He’d been taken for a bit of a ride by other similar companies and he approached them to try make what he was trying to do work. 

Discussing his problem, my feedback was we knew we couldn’t help him because his strategy and business model sucked – so we were best to point that out to him, thank him for his business, but give him back the few hundred grand he was willing to pay us. We could invite him to come back for our services when he had a better business model which we could help him enable. Alternatively – he could pay us that same money to come up with a better business idea or strategy that would work. 

My colleagues looked at me as if I was insane & quickly dismissed my idea...  

They didn’t disagree with me at all – they fully knew his idea sucked and had little chance of working – so we all knew he was most likely throwing good money after bad. 

However, they did not think he wanted to hear that his idea sucked –and they didn’t want to risk annoying him with the truth... (My thought at the time was, “Oh please. He’s a Big Boy. He’ll suck it up & cope somehow.”) 

Instead, they decided they would rather figure ways they could package what they knew was dud advice (in the best way possible, so as not to offend his ego).....and not tell him he was adopting an inappropriate strategy to realise value in the paradigm he was trying to operate in.

Now the company were on the bones of their backsides at the time. They desperately needed the cash flow the retainer he offered to pay them... but I felt their approach in taking his money at that point was short-sighted and tactical, instead of strategic   .

Firstly – I had an idea of what was coming up the pike financially – so tactically I knew that their financial problems would only be temporary and would start to sort themselves out in a few months or so (although I couldn’t disclose that to them that at the time, for various reasons.) They did, however, need to work on their poverty mentalitygenerally  – but that was another issue.

Secondly – I quickly found out from various sources that this guy was a bit of a maverick – but he was no fool. He’d been around the block a few times. 

• It was easy to pick up he was bored with the self-imposed semi-retirement his previous successes had allowed him & was looking for new challenges. 
• You didn’t have to be any genius to see that offering to be their client was a way for him to test whether they were worth doing business with....
• Furthermore, not only did he have the resources to invest in their business, should he want to – but he had a network of contacts and potential clients he’d be able to tap into. And he could offer seasoned business advice they probably needed.... so he was strategically someone they wanted to set the up the right foundations with from the start...
• If they’d done their research properly – they would have found out that he had been burnt previously a bit by business partners he couldn’t entirely trust. Regardless of how open & “take it on the chin” you are – such things always leave trust scars. Even if he did business with them, he’d probably be unconsciously assessing how trustworthy they’d be in the longer term.

You see, there was a method in my madness  in suggesting that we refund him the money and tell him to go back to the drawing board

He was itching to get involved in something. He’d spend that money with us, one way or another, because it was an entry fee to determining how we operated.  And he was dead keen to do that... Besides which , he's streetwise. What he was doing was a cheaper & better way to determine our commercial viability than getting some fancy schmancy auditors in to do a due diligence etc (which is usually such a hypothetical review anyway.)

My reckoning (rightly or wrongly) was that if we had had the balls to be honest enough to tell him his business strategy & model sucked before taking his money:

1. It’d have signalled to him that we were smart & savvy enough to identify that – possibly unlike the previous companies he’d dealt with... .

2. If we had positioned our response properly – he would have seen that we were approaching our relationship with him strategically, and we were not prepared to take short term self-serving tactical quick-wins, if it might jeopardise things longer term.

3. He might have been annoyed for a while with the honesty – but he hadn’t got to where he was in life by being an idiot. He’d have sussed out that he was dealing with a crowd who had enough integrity to play it straight with him. We were not insulting his intelligence – we were acting in his best interests, as well as our own strategic interests, longer term. In the rough and tumble of business – sometimes making that kind of trust statement is more valuable than money itself.

4. Lastly, it would have been a cocky approach – but it would have shown that we were prepared to walk away from something tactically, if it didn’t make sense strategically. That kind of strategic cockiness is worth more than gold....

....And I think he would still have spent the money with us if we’d adopted that approach– probably more happily as well.

As it turns out, a few months later, he figured it out for that he was wasting his time and canned the project himself, when the budget he’d set us had mostly run out. 

He still does business with the company – but I can’t help thinking that my mad approach would have been strategically more solid. A good, unequivocal trust bond is not something you can really put a price on in the long term... Sometimes the Big-Little things determine the long term outcome of things.

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. 
But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

Sir Winston Churchill

“My goal is to make it as easy to save the world in real life,
as it is to save the world in online games...” 

Jane McGonigal  
Ted Talk

Recently, I’ve been struggling to get my psyche around something which is just a little on the edge of my mental grasp.

That frustrating feeling: when I know there’s something vital in the periphery of my understanding – like a new dawn teasing you with light on the horizon... but I just can’t see it yet.I can feel it. I know the idea’s time is coming... – but I just can’t articulate the idea fully yet. 

Aaargh!

One of my lovely new age friends of decades past pointed out to me that  I have an uncanny ability to grasp concepts , ideas and words out of the ether – almost from nowhere – before they become part of the mainstream or zeitgeist, and then anchor them somehow in reality.  

It was as if I had an invisible  antenna... and could cherry pick things on the invisible horizon, which might become important. ...and then translate them down into 3D. She’d often remind me of this.... especially when I was feeling strange, out of sorts, ahead of the herd and particularly frustrated that they hadn’t caught up with me yet. In true hippy spirit, she attributed this –Linda Goodman style - to the fact that I was an airy Aquarian Sun sign  offset by sturdy Taurus rising.  

Anyway , I digress.

Recently my perception antenna has been twitching like a nervous rabbit, and I haven’t been able put my finger on just why or what’s potting. I know something is afoot in the subterranean parts of the human psyche – even if I don’t yet know exactly what was going on yet.

I was like a bull with a sore head.
Irritated with myself & everyone for not knowing how to fix it.  

I started to try and get my mental fingers around the unpredictable, unprecedented spaciness of it in my Morphine Princess post .

And I grappled with the frustration I feel with traditional games and their restrictive (often destructive, competitive and/or patriarchal) paradigms again in my last Games post.
 

“....humankind was engaged in a race between education and disaster. The world, he sensed, was becoming ever more complex and harder to manage. Each new invention brought unintended and often calamitous consequences as well as material benefits, and human minds could not always keep pace with the knowledge explosion. “  

H. G. Wells quoted in The Ingenuity Gap 

I remember reading a book called the Ingenuity Gap a while ago when it was first published. It spoke about the gap we have between the problems we face as a planet & a species versus the “ingenuity” we apparently have available to us to solve them when we need it... and how that ingenuity “gap “ a very worrying , widening and seemingly unsolvable concern for futurists and other strategic decision makers

At the time, reading the Ingenuity Gap left me feeling quite bleak.  Humanity faced these massive “adult” problems and how the hell were we going to solve them? It made the kid in me want to metaphorically haunch on the ground & cry salty tears of despairing hopelessness and existential angst, for everything and everyone.

That perplexing Ingenuity Gap motif has vested in the back of my mind for quite a while... like a humanitarian thorn....bothering & unsolved. Like a Tokoloshe.I also had other little thorns which had tagged at my peripheral attention - like forays into  Jean Baudrillard concepts of hyper-reality & simulacrums. Coincidentally watching Micael Douglas’ The Game also rattled my brain for some strange reason.

....et Voila!

And then, as it so happens, a book literally fell on my foot while I was loitering in Waterstones... which started to bring some sort of light onto the matter and mental cohesion to some of it for me.

The gist of the book-that-fell-on-my-foot is that reality as we know it is “broken” because it doesn’t meet human needs, Thus games are drawing unprecedented interest and resources in humanity’s psyche, because they provided an alternate to the “brokenness” of reality. 

The book puts a positive spin on this by raising the question: what if we used the human interest and energy that is increasingly being channelled into games, as a way to cope with and fix what is “broken” with reality – i.e. Games as channels to positively solve some of our key problems in real life... (Read the book , even if you are not a typical video gamer..... Really  fascinating stuff.)

However, while I was reading “Reality is Broken”...it occurred to me that the solution to many of my niggling frayed ends, might be right under our noses :

•  WHATIF Games are the way we solve the Ingenuity Gap dilemma. That if we tap into an unquantified reservoir of human ingenuity and creativity, in a targeted and networked way, to make ourselves better and change the world for the better in the process. We wouldn’t need faux hopefulness and Pollyanna positivism... we would just need to work constructively with what already exists.
   
•  WHATIF all  the creativity and resources we needed to solve humanity’s seemingly unsolvable problems..... already rested (synergistically) in the ability already vested in the existing 6 Billion minds on the planet ...
   
• WHATIF humanity’s seeming random interest in social networking technology and gaming, was a meta-motif; fulfilling a greater evolutionary directive, driving us to find solutions to way bigger problems... and evolve as a species.

I’m still grappling with this and what it means to me, as a person; my fellow humans and the planet as a whole.... 

Watch the video below.

Jane McGonigal shares why she think games will help us change the world because they cultivate:

• Urgent Optimisim (Extreme self-motivation. Epic wins are always possible...)
•  Weaving of a tight social fabric (gaming builds bonds, we like people better after they have played a game with us,  even if we lose)
•  Blissful productivity – we know we are happier working hard than relaxing-  gamers know this
• Epic Meaning (awe inspiring missions, planetary scale stories...)

And why we should aspire to start playing bigger and better games.
To solve real world problems... and create epic wins. In real life.

Maybe, one day we will have a Nobel Prize for the people who create the best “real life” games to solve humanity's IRL  problems ? You never know.  

A poor Jew finds a wallet with £700 in it. At his shul, he reads a notice stating that a wealthy Jew has lost his wallet and is offering a £50 reward to anyone who returns it. Quickly he locates the owner and gives him the wallet.

The rich man counts the money and says, "I see you have already taken your reward."

The poor man responds, "What are you talking about?"

The wealthy Jew continues, "This wallet had £750 in it when I lost it."

The two men begin arguing, and eventually they come before the Rabbi.

Both men present their case. The poor man first, then the wealthy man who concludes by saying, "Rabbi, I trust you believe me."

The Rabbi says, "Of course." The rich man smiles, and the poor man is devastated. Then the Rabbi takes the wallet out of the wealthy man's hands and gives it to the poor man who found it.

"What are you doing?" the rich man yells angrily.

The Rabbi responds, "You are, of course, an honest man, and if you say that your missing wallet had £750 in it, I'm sure it did. But if the man who found this wallet is a liar and a thief, he wouldn't have returned it at all. Which means that this wallet must belong to somebody else. If that man steps forward, he'll get the money. Otherwise, it stays with the man who found it."

"What about my money?" the rich man asks.

"Well, we'll just have to wait until somebody finds a wallet with £750 in it."

Sometimes , people wrongly assume that you just “don’t get it.”

That you are somehow a twat, who doesn’t know that a game’s on the go,
Or what the rules are....
Or how to play it...
Or you somehow lack ball sense and need advice on how to play....
And sometimes, they even assume they’re the ones to give it to you.

Actually, maybe they are the ones who “don’t get it”.

For example: sometimes, I choose not to play certain games; especially according to rules I do not appreciate or disagree with; or which I think are outdated or loaded against me to start with.... 

I’m not a naive, supercalafragilisticexpialidocious idiot. I do recognise most games are about relationships. And most of our hurts come through relationships ...but ....most of our healing and happiness is also likely to come through that strait too... so games are how humans interact & get what they want or need.

However, I find players who start out a game by pulling a nasty fast one on me or hurting me.....generally play & end the game the same way.... and is that really how I want to live my life ? Of course, people can redeem themselves mid-game,  fix things and set matters back on track – but, realistically, how often does that happen ?

Enough trite pop psychology, back to the original thought thread:

• Sometimes , I don’t play a game because I am redefining the game, on more fair terms and/or more fun ways, and that’s the only basis upon which I’ll play.
• Sometimes, I’ve played with those players before and they play too down & dirty for my liking... and there are cleaner players to play with...
• Sometimes, I look at the risks & rewards and consider whether it’s a game I even want to be playing. Or whether I would rather be playing a better one.
• Sometimes, I choose not to play because there’s a meta game on the go & that is more compelling to me at the time.
• Sometimes, I’m just tired of games.

Sometimes it’s a bit of all of the above.

And sometimes, if some rich screwge tries to do me out of the agreed 50 quid recognition for doing good by them, as some sort of one-upmanship game: Well, good for him.... but I’ll keep the sodding wallet... And if they want it back (along with their precious black Amex), safe & secure in their greedy paws, they can wire me my sodding reward.

When I look back on my life, it’s not that I don’t want to see things
exactly as they happened, 
it’s just that I prefer to remember them in an artistic way. 
And truthfully, the lie of it all is much more honest because I invented it.

Clinical psychology tells us, arguably, that trauma is the ultimate killer. 
Memories are not recycled like atoms and particles in quantum physics;
they can be lost forever. 
It’s sort of, like, my past is an unfinished painting; and as the artist of that painting, 
I must fill in all the ugly holes and make it beautiful again.

It’s not that I’ve been dishonest.......it’s just that I loathe reality.

For example, those nurses – they’re wearing next season Calvin Klein, and so am I. 
And the shoes ...... custom Giuseppe Zanotti. 
I tipped their gauze caps to the side, like Parisian berets,
because I think it’s romantic, 
and I also believe that mint will be very BIG in fashion next Spring.

Check out this nurse on the right, she’s got a great ass. 

Bam.

The truth is, back then at the clinic,
they only wore those funny hats to keep the blood out of their hair. 
And that girl on the left – she ordered gummy bears and a knife a couple of hours ago. 
They only gave her the gummy bears.

I’d wished they’d only given me the gummy bears.

Nurse: 
Morning Morphine Princess... How you feeling ? 
Look at you, I remember when I delivered you ...
You look just like your mother.

Gaga: 
Except...My mother is a Saint.
I'm gonna make it...
I'm gonna be a star...
You know why ?
...because...
I have nothin left to lose...

Our society is quite hung up on self-righteousness & literal reality lately.
We demonise the money lenders - but forget that we were the borrowers who lived it up.
We get all vegan & precocious about global warming 
- but overlook the fact that the planet is overdue an ice age by a century or so 
(if you look at the long haul ice age patterns...)
so maybe by driving around in our petrol guzzling cars & heating things up a bit...
humanity is subconsciously staving off an inevitable ice age 
- until humanity is better able to use our wits & technology to cope & survive it.

Who knows. Time will tell.

We could say that humanity is on a hiding to now-here.
We fumble around as a species.
Fiddling with planet-defining things like nuclear power & genetic engineering...
But maybe that's part of the the dramatical script ?
Maybe.

Perhaps it's not about whether we triumph or fail....
It's about how we play the game.
And, I suppose, Russian Roulette is not the same without a gun..... 
If it's not rough, it isn't fun.
If we are going to play the Reality Game, we may as well go full dramatical hilt...
pain, pleasure, joy, terror.

I also think there's a bigger picture....
A much bigger picture
We can't barely see at present.
All fogged up with past baggage, precedents & human history. 

Perhaps the real reason all the shoo-wow Mayan & Hopi etc predictions 
do not see past  2012, 
(like a blind folded fool standing on the edge of a cliff, 
with one foot about to step into the abyss...)
is not because it is the end of the End Game...
But the beginning of a totally new one...

And maybe humanity will make it...
Because...
Like Gaga at her lowest point...
We have nothing left to lose.

No one knows what's going to happen
What the next instalment is
Not even Nostradamus & his future-seeing pals...
Because we will invent it,
We will invent our reality...
Good or Bad, 
Fabulous or Indifferent
As we go along.
and if we don't like it, we will change it.

Maybe we'll crash and burn on the rocks below..
Or maybe we'll fly....
Like those extreme, crazy batsuit humanoids
freebase flying  around the Norwegian Fjords
.....high on euphoria, adrenaline & endorphins.

And if the latter is the case:
(I have a sneaking but strong suspicion it is...)
What a spectacular time to be human and alive.

(BTW: I think chocolate and mint will be BIG next season .... but.... what do YOU think ?)

The other day Zuckerberg made the announcement that he would only be eating the meat of animals he had killed himself.

Bit bizarre, in our modern abattoired society – but, if eccentrics like Howard Hughes are anything to go by, being a über wealthy does seem to do people’s head in, in different ways.

It got me thinking (again) about how often we proxy things in modern day life. We proxy people to create our food, make our clothes & cars, build our houses, teach our children. We proxy them to create software to run our computers, to create telephony & ICT systems that get vital messages to us. We even proxy them to live our dreams (of being special & famous) for us vicariously, when we watch dancing, cooking , singing "ordinary" people on reality TV.

That’s all good & well ....specialisation & efficiency are a good argument for all that... but there is a more sinister aspect to this.

Would Stalin have killed all those millions in the Gulag years, if he had had to do it himself? Would Hitler have been morally & physically able to implement the holocaust, if he did not have proxies to do it for him?

These men are portrayed as monsters in history – but the reality is that proxies enabled them to detach themselves mentally & emotionally from the instructions they issued... and let them get on with the business of conquering the world – unfettered by the criminal gore of the bloody, painful  human meatware, which resulted from their decisions.

I’m not saying that this is a good thing - I’m merely pointing out the dynamic.

In distancing ourselves from the actions which flow from our intent & instructions to the agents who act on our behalf, we are not only able to get specialists to do something we might be fully equipped or skilled to do ourselves. We also vicariously use proxies to make it easier for us to be ruthless, because we are not the hand that is pulling the trigger or switching on the gas chamber.... or killing the sweet innocent baby lambs....Someone else is doing that on our behalf & they might not share the same moral & psychological subtleties, which may trouble our own purer consciences, should we do the dirty deed ourselves.

By adopting proxies , and removing ourselves a few degrees from the coarser actions, as it wer e– we, in some senses, free ourselves up to do what is necessary to get the results we want.

I suppose, the argument could be made that, if someone has used proxies to vicariously beat up on us (mentally, emotionally, financially, psychologically and/or physically) and do us harm previously – to return the favour by using proxies to inflict similar harm on them could well be justified ?

It’s horses for courses, I suppose. And if you can’t put the horse down yourself – best you get a specialist vet to do it for you, in the most expedient way possible.

I think sometimes it is more important to be gracious than to win.
Dorothy Kilgallen

My Grandmother Muriel was one of the kindest people I've known in this lifetime. 
In the 30 years I knew her, she rarely said a bad word about anyone - even if they well deserved it.

Like the Dalai Lama, her religion was kindness.

Muriel said there was good to be found in everyone, even if we couldn't see it just then.
She grew herbs and believed in the power of prayer & angels... although she never tried to impose her beliefs on others.She had an inherent and persistent graciousness which evoked goodwill & the gained the respect of even the most curmudgeonly of human beings.

In her old age she mellowed even more. You could see the light of being a good human soul beaming out of her, even in the most trying of circumstances - like a lighthouse shining stoically in the middle of a dark, raging night.

When she died - the church was packed & some people travelled for hours to come say good things about her.

In short, she was the closest thing our family came to having our own Mother Theresa.

There was one time though, when I saw her be particularly nasty. It was SO extraordinarily out of character for her ....that it literally jarred my senses.

The details of the situation are irrelevant - but basically - people were trying to take advantage of her and other people in the neighbourhood they perceived as weak.They were taking them all for one nasty, greedy, money-husting ride...and showed now shame or conscience about doing so....They were just a bunch of charming, deceitful, gauche hustlers.

After attempts at trying to be gracious and understanding about the siuation... Muriel's sense of (in)justice could stand it no more.....
She got mad about what was happening.
Flaming furious, in fact.

It's a day & interaction I will never forget.

At the end of it, some less than scrupulous people had been arrested & carted off to jail
and others would never dare set foot near her door ever again.

Muriel's fiery anger was even more potent because she could call on her allies in the area and rally them - they'd respected her over many years & knew she'd NEVER be so nasty, unless people totally warranted it.

What I learnt that day was that it is good to be gracious & kind.... but there may come a time when it is necessary to be the exact opposite....If only to teach people who have overstepped the mark that your graciousness & kindness is not a weakness; and that they should therefore not mess with you.

Muriel had served as a nurse in World War 2
& always celebrated the 11 November with a red poppy... 
.....as a symbol of peace & hope for humankind.

She died peacefully in her sleep, on 11 November. 
As in life, so in death, some would say.

A part of kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve.
Joseph Joubert