Euan Semple's Blog, page 53

Always look on the bright side

And I do, even to the extent of believing that the ultimate extinction of the human race could be seen as a good thing for the planet.

But it could get very ugly and dystopian in the short term.

Watching America struggle to keep a grip of the norms of democratic society, and the rise of violent groups responding to, frankly, trivial provocation, it is worth imaging what would happen if climate change, for instance, leads to real global instability and gave people a real reason to riot…

The factors at play are so intricately interlinked and so complex that idealistic or simplistic interventions are likely to make things worse not better. And yet each of us are a part of that Indra’s Net that, increasingly apparently to me at least, underlies the world we live in, and as such we have more power than we believe to change the outcomes.

What we think, what we say, what we do, what we buy, what we share, who we connect with and how we relate, all have the ability to affect the whole of the universe, each and every moment.

Time

I am loving how COVID is messing with time. Well, perhaps not so much messing with it as loosening our perceived grip on it.

It is not time that is changing, it is change that is time. With less change time changes.

SOTN

Paolo and I had great fun last night recording the latest edition of our podcast. I hope you have as much fun listening to it.

SOTN 33

Let us know in the comments below.

Making a few changes around here

Some of you may have seen on my various social media feeds that I have decided to pull even further back from them. I have logged out of them in my various browsers and removed the apps from my devices. I will still pick up if people message me but otherwise I’m off.

One of the triggers for this decision was becoming frustrated at recording my reading in Goodreads. Worrying what people thought of my reading list, worrying about my reviews appearing on Amazon, worrying that I wasn’t finishing books that I had started, basically, like all social media platforms, worrying too much about what other people thought. But I do want to record my reading and will do so here. I will even mention books that I have given up on, which is many!

So that then got me thinking that some people might want to see my book reviews together so I thought “I’ll tag them”. I have come and gone with tagging in all sorts of contexts over the years but never managed to sustain it for very long. But from now on I will at least attempt to tag my book reviews and, who knows, maybe posts about walks, oh, and maybe about technology, oh, and…

Like I said, I’ll try, but don’t hold your breath.

Wanting *it* to stop

No matter how much I walk, or how fit I am, there is always a point on a steep upward section where I end up wanting it to stop. Muscles aching, lungs heaving, wondering why on earth I am doing this again – all I want is for it to be over.

But then I remember that this is part of the whole experience. Digging in and keeping going that makes the challenge worthwhile. The point is to experience the reality of the situation, even if it is unpleasant. It is the detail of the moment, the particular muscles that are stretching, the rhythm of my breath, the textures of the ground beneath my feet that make me feel alive.

The situation is not the problem, it is what it is. It is the wanting it to stop that causes the suffering.

This is true of everything. Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. Whether it is feeling frustrated at the COVID restrictions, feeling frightened driving a big truck, or even feeling grief at the loss of a loved one, wanting it to stop is the problem. Accepting that it is happening, and that this too will pass, offers a blessed relief from suffering.

Taking our thoughts too seriously

Longer walk today. Ten miles from home via Little Missenden, Old Amersham, Chesham Bois, Chesham, and Blind Lane (map here).

At both ends of the walk though I found myself thinking of violence triggered by ideas. Near the beginning I passed through Mantle’s Wood. This wood has remained pretty much unchanged for the 27 years we have lived here but in the past few weeks Forestry England have been thinning it out and it looks like a scene from the Battle Of The Bulge episodes of Band Of Brothers.

This got me thinking, yet again, of what a grim, grinding, battle that was and how those fighting on both sides were there, in part, there as a result of ideas expressed by Nietzsche and misunderstanding of Darwin’s ideas about evolution. Without those ideas Hitler would probably not have gained so much traction and we wouldn’t have ended up with WWII and the holocaust.

Towards the end of the walk I encountered the sad sign in the photo above. Thomas Harding was a local martyr burned at the stake because of his dissenting religious views. Again someone subject to violence on the basis of ideas.

Ideas are just thoughts, thoughts that originally appear unbidden, thoughts that can lead to millions of deaths. It would be great if we all learned to take our thoughts less seriously.

You in your small corner and I in mine

While on my daily walks I encounter other people walking, running or cycling. They are usually on their own or in small groups. We can see each other coming from a way off. And yet some choose to pass me without looking at me or responding in any way when I greet them with a friendly “hello”.

Are they so lost in thought that they haven’t even noticed my existence? Are they so afraid of meeting someone without other people around that they don’t want to provoke me? Or have we got so used to living in our own little islands that we just can’t be bothered connecting?

Enough

Moments ago my mind was focused on what I could buy with the money I got for Christmas. Current front runners are a fleece, a clicky keyboard, or a HomePod.

But then I stopped. I realised I didn’t need any of them. This was enough.

A good enough tree

I was going to call this post “Not all trees are equal” and make a point about how perfect this tree is.

But against what measure? What is it about this tree, and about our need for the world to match up to our ideals and concepts of good and bad, that makes it better than other trees?

If this tree is better then other trees must be worse, not good enough.

Thankfully the universe, and this tree, carries on happily being as it is – ignoring our self important nonsense.

Holiness

The word holy has the same roots as the word whole. We forget that we are part of nature, part of the world around us, part of the whole, holy. We see ourselves as separate, as fractured, split off.

Our unhappiness stems from our inclination to divide the world up with labels. Our vocabulary and grammar keep us apart from the world around us. This is the sour fruit of the tree of knowledge, the story of the fall.

My daily walks are more about recovering a feeling of wholeness than they are about fitness. An attempt to reconnect with the world around me, to mend the splits in a fractured world.

This is why I love walking in the rain. It is harder to pretend that I am separate from the world , that there is a space between me and the apparent objects around me that my brain has made up and labelled. The rain clings to me and envelops me. It becomes part of me and me of it. We become whole.