Pyramid of balls

The reason why I don't believe there is any such thing as a 'bad' person may be found elsewhere. But for today . . .

If the individuals are all okay, how is it that together they form a conglomerate that is, apparently, dysfunctional? (Think of spheres stacked into a pyramid.)

to be continued

Have a system

“Have a system,” is what our tutor at Teachers’ College used to tell us. “It doesn’t matter what system you use, as long as it works for you.”

That made sense to me. It still does 25-odd years after. I don’t know that I ever managed to apply it in my classes, but I’m going to try and put it into practice here. By ‘here’, of course, I mean this blog. Maintaining a blog has the potential to fulfill me. But it has to be done right. I need to set ground rules, so here they are.

Think, writing a little every day. I see myself devoting a year to the task and producing 365 little vignettes. ‘Little’ is the operative word. They short be short enough to read at a sitting. That is how thinking works too: you muse on one point at a time. Stitching multiple thoughts together into a sequence and forming a book or a philosophy is much more unnatural. (But I won’t rule that approach out.)

Okay, so I dream up a number of unconnected thought-splashes (not a stream), each being a self-contained post. How do I collate them? How do I keep them in order? What is the point? What is my goal?

Well, I use the blog as my desktop. I throw them down, slap them onto the canvas like Van Gogh, and let them mature. Eventually I’ll return to them. I’ll rewrite them, I may expand them slightly. And I’ll give each some tags. I might hyperlink them to related posts (of my own). Each time that I do that, I’ll update the date, so that they go to the top of the list. Which means that I’ll tend to revisit those posts at the foot that I haven’t recently read. That’s the spoon I’ll use to stir the pot. I’m counting on getting a little self-organization happening.

Of course, I’ll need to print them out. The whole Internet she-bang could go belly-up any day. And then where would we be? Better off, say some, but that’s as may be, and the subject of another entry.

I could edit and compose on paper just as well. If I do my alterations in red, and tick off with a green pen when I’ve made the adjustments on line, then that ought to satisfy any compulsive-obsessive bent I may have. Hey, it’s my system!

Initially I’ll need to scour my earlier notebooks and blogs for material I’ve already created. Waste not want not. Having done so, I’ll avoid the sensation of ‘here we go again!’ Been there, done that, déjà vu. There can’t we any question of being precious or exclusive. As they say—who?—every new idea is born drowning. So hold off with your judgementifications.

Now, as for the ultimate goal . . .

Authentic living

I was going to title this post 'My Bullshit-o-meter', but it covers some of the same ground as 'Ding-a-ling'. Both refer to an inbuilt sensory device that I'm blessed or burdened with. It lets me know in no uncertain terms when I deviate from what's right for me. And lately it's been over active.

Are you possessed with or by a sense of grandeur? You are gifted. You could save the world if you wanted, if you knew how. Greatness lies within you if only you could bring it out. That's been my case for all of my life.

It isn't 'wrong' - not for me or for you. But it can lead to a pattern of behaving or looking at situations that doesn't serve well.

Here goes: you rack your brains for the 'right' thing to do and the one thing to be involved with. Not this, not that, no that isn't going to satisfy me in any way. If you look for the one thing out of an infinity then you are going to have to say no for virtually all of the time. And anything that you indulge in such as listening to music, working on you fitness or relationships or whatever is going to feel like a waste of time to you.

It has to me.

Until I remember this: There isn't actually anything worth doing of its own accord. What - so you save someone else by doing what you do

Last thing on my mind

The last thing on my mind before I slept was ‘What Things Stress Me?’ The first thing on my mind in the morning was ‘What’s The Best Approach For Me?’ Let’s go for the second approach.

Very well then, but we’ll need to look at the situation as it is first, which is: I’m often overwhelmed by the requirements of living (note to myself: write about my internal Bullshit-ometer. Also, standing back from myself and viewing from the perspective of my shoulder—the old ‘I can be with my-father-in-heaven or here’ attitude)

So here’s the list of things that don’t exactly worry me, but have an effect:

The way the world is heading
Trying to absorb everyone’s ideas
Wanting to disengage from the predominant culture
Finances
The burden of possessions
Clutter
Training injuries
Feeling ‘I need to do something with my life’
Being obliged to deal with stuff that I don’t want to
Future planning
Polytechnic work
Dealing with people
Finding a voice (on ‘paper’)
Completing ‘Hadashi no Tabi’
The responsibility of maintaining a home
The breakdown of gadgetry I depend on
Neglecting meditation
Neglecting body work
Sexual drive

For one thing, let’s spend up to hour as regularly as I can just writing and thinking in this fashion. A walk around the block beforehand isn’t a bad idea either!

'The Sane Man is Nowhere' approach

Here’s my solution to the problem of documenting my exploration of ‘the meaning of life’ for the want of a better term.

If I proceed in the same manner of writing ‘The Sane Man is Nowhere’, then that ought to work, it seems to me. What I do is write freely, on topics that come to mind at random, possibly saving these as posts on the blog ‘Will? I am!’ and certainly printing these out and whipping them into a file. In terms of blogging—only if I can crank out and splash down what surfaces without feeling inhibited.

I won’t have to worry about an overall structure; that may come later—just as for TSMIN—whenever I shuffle papers about. I can add to each thought stream, or edit, just as I wish. I’ll simply just update the post and/or paper copy. I could even bundle posts on a them, and give each a code to see how they might link . . . but that’s as maybe.

I can easily go over everything I have now. It all ‘fits’. Just pile everything on. Repetition. Back-tracking. About facing. (Perhaps it’s a good thing to date what I write.)

As for the ‘Magnum Opus’—well, I can maintain that in its present form too. I can use the ideas from WIA to flesh that out wherever it develops. No problem, as far as I can see.

My Ding-a-ling

Let’s begin with my ding-a-ling.

I used to think I had a problem. I used to think that it was me. And so it might have been, but partly. Only partly.

Because now, recently, I’ve come to see it in a different way. After having read that depression is only a rational way to respond to an intolerable environment, and that drugs only mask that problem without addressing what is actually wrong—our culture—I see that what I had regarded as my free-floating anxiety—a symptom, perhaps of Asperger’s—may better be considered to be an inbuilt bullshit-ometer that measures existential angst.

It’s a tool—and a very sensitive one—that helps me to stay true to myself. It steers me in no uncertain manner away from making a fool of myself in one way or another (think Wellington 1976). It kicks in whenever I veer from my personal path.

Recently I’ve felt myself floundering. I’ve felt overwhelmed, on edge, ill at ease. And the guts of it, is that I need to take the bull by the horns. I’ve got to become proactive. I need to plot myself out a course instead of responding to what comes my way. Proactivity instead of reactivity.

For me what that means it that I’ve got to get my house in order. The first business at hand is to cobble together my unique world view. For this, I don’t need to start from scratch; in one way or another, from various angles, I’ve spent the better part of my life, no, the best, examining what it means to be me, or for me to be. (“Think carefully and clearly please.”) On the other hand, I don’t believe that this will be a weekend job. The work will be ongoing. But if I get the framework up, then that will do in the meantime.

A world view that incorporates all that I know—or grok—is necessary for me to live my life my way. It need not affect what I actually do (go to Atamai next year, for example) but it is crucial to satisfy my ding-a-ling/bullshit-ometer. How I see the world determines how I relate to it, operate within it etc. And so I’ll tackle that first before anything else. Rather conveniently, I have a month on my own (July, 2008) to devote to that task.

No Evil

In those shoes

One of my tenets is that no one is bad. There are no evil people, no hiss-the-villains. Here’s how I come to that conclusion.

First, I know there’s nothing wrong with me. I will not, cannot, act to intentionally hurt another being (human or otherwise). Of course, that doesn’t mean that others never get hurt or eaten on my account. But I try to minimize the damage. I have a yardstick.

Next, it’s my conviction that if I ever found myself in another’s position, really in that person’s stead, with the same background, upbringing, bag of genes and cards dealt out by life to play, then I would act exactly the same way. I’m talking about meat suits here and self sheathes. I’d be that person.

Being that person, I know I couldn’t be intentionally cruel. Ergo, neither could (s)he. Every action would be the best thing that that creature would be able to do, given the baggage that they were born/brought up with.

Are you with me so far? Do you understand without necessarily agreeing?

Mass murderers, child abusers, genocidal politicians–from their perspectives they are behaving rationally. They are operation also under the delusion—we would say—of doing the greatest overall amount of good. They have a different worldview where, there but the grace, go I.

To Explore, Experience . . .

To Explore, Experience, Express, Embody, and Enjoy Existence

Things fall into place. I can see that now, or that is how it appears. Evolution happens; it is driven. Over the years, within a single lifetime?mine?the increments accrue. You end up where you want to be. Or where you’re meant to be.

Here’s where I’ve arrived (or am arriving): my desired purpose is to fathom the workings of my life. I fulfill myself by delving into the meaning, or nature, of being. Looking back as far as my childhood, that’s what I was born to do.

Nothing grander. Nothing more academic or pompous. Simply that and nothing more.

It’s not what you do . . .

It’s not what you do; it’s how you do it. I tend to take this to mean that I must do good things well – a double pressure: correct choice, correct action. But really, it doesn’t matter what you do.

What someone else does may to another person, appear to be a waste of time. And indeed it could be – from both their points of view. Yet, in the final analysis, anything and everything can be thought of as having no significance. Nothing is inherently ‘worthwhile’. The test to determine whether what you do is of use is the amount of quality that you are able to extract from the exercise (or infuse it with). If you can manage that, then, no matter what others may say, you’re engaging in something useful.

Time spent with focused attention is always meaningful, not mater how ‘flippant’ the activity. Time passed in a fluster is meaningless, now matter how ‘important’ the work.

But is this really always so? What about serial killers? Well, I guess even here. If they do it ‘well’ with forethought and meticulousness then that is ‘better’ – less bad? – than going at it willy-nilly. For one thing they wouldn’t need to do it as often.

On the home front, a couple of hours of sorting used postage stamps or arranging photographs in an album is time well-spent if, for the individual concerned, the time flies by pleasantly.

Long in the truth

You can’t rush enlightenment. It’s an ongoing process that need never end. But neither can you (I) justify hanging around until it’s over (everyone is like a loaf of bread – you need to discover what temperature you bake best at). At fifty I feel that I’m long enough in the truth to see some action. (Wasn’t it Socrates who told his students “Know thyself!” Very well, but when you’ve ‘found yourself’, what do you do with that person – and what is (s)he good for?) At the back of my mind I’ve always been reluctant to teach or write unless I had something of value to say. Here we go, then . . .

I'm a monster (and I know it) clap your hands!

In the sense that I am different from other people, I'm a monster. You would see me as such. But I see you creatures as monsters too. It's true, there are very few people that I can relate to. Put it down to Asperger's if you want, but I think otherwise. How many of you are in touch with your inner self? That's where my strength lies, and I note its absence in the zombies around me.

A new website to mine (as in extract ideas)

http://www.myheritage.com/collage

MyHeritage: Celebrity Collage - Family tree templates - Family search

Recently I stumbled onto Dave Pollard's site: How to Save the World. The man has been incredibly active over the past few years. If I were able to think, organise, express, research etc, this would be what I'd like to have written. I resonate with his vision -- there must be a morphic field thing (a la Rupert Sheldrake) going on (some sort of overlap analogous to the collage above). He goes straight to the top of my links list (here).

One hundred things about me

1. The Doors is my favourite group
2. Eggplant is my favourite vegetable
3. Indian cooking is my favourite
4. I find public speaking easy
5. I usually fall asleep within minutes
   
6. My IQ is about 145
7. I have walked the length of New Zealand barefoot
8. I’ve performed a set of morning exercises most days for 30 years
9. I didn’t speak English until I had to start school
10. I’ve travelled by ship through both the Panama and Suez canals
11. My three children were once tri-lingual
12. I have a BSc in Biochemistry
13. I can’t use urinals
14. I spent more than 8 years writing a book, The Sane Man is Nowhere, which was never published.
15. I’ve written over 5000 haiku over a ten-year span
16. I’ve lived and worked in India and Japan
17. I was vegetarian for 25 years
18. I learned to meditate at the age of 15
19. I took piano lessons for 5 years and sat exams
20. I have high-level functioning Asperger’s syndrome
21. I’m on the verge of being able to unicycle
22. I’ve lost count of the number of marathons I’ve run (about 15)
23. I’m married for the second time
24. I always eat muesli for breakfast, during which I play Patience
25. I no longer watch TV
26. I rarely drink and have never been drunk
27. I’ve never done any drug
28. There are at least 12 stones in my gall bladder
    
29. I read The Lord of the Rings out aloud to my younger sisters
30. I was born at midnight, and so don’t know the date of my birth (or what my zodiac sign is)
31. I once walked 150 kilometres in 35 hours
32. I only got my car driver’s license at the age of 28
33. I bought one of the world’s first photo-editing work stations to design tapestries in the mid-eighties
34. I admire the Kwai Chang Caine, but not David Carridine
35. I was really into surrealism, op art and dada when I was a teenager
36. I have memories from when I was a baby (cribs, nappies, bath-time)
37. A great-grandmother lived to be 101, and so shall I
38. Two movies I really admired were Papillion and 2001: A Space Odyssey
39. I always need to go to the bathroom several times during the night
40. I wear earplugs against the noise of heavy traffic
41. I can read a book while I walk (barefoot)
42. The first cooking I ever learned was Indian
43. When I was 21, I rode across the USA by bus in a week
44. I only managed to tolerate New York for 45 minutes
45. At 51, I weigh what I do when I was 17
46. I remember when The Beatles broke up
47. I can remember Robert Kennedy being shot, but not his brother
48. When September 11 was going on, I felt guilty about not getting on with my lesson
49. I hated how my face changed when I turned 16
50. Robert Heinlein’s Doorway into Summer was the first book I stayed up all night to read
51. Our family got our first television set about the time the moon landing was televised
52. I am 16 years older than my wife (but we feel the same age)
53. I still have dreams about setting a personal best for the marathon
54. I’ll wear the same clothes constantly (but change the inner layer)
55. When I started cycle-touring, traffic wasn’t yet a problem
56. I really feel I have the meme to transform the world
57. Making decisions is often very difficult for me
58. I have never bought bottled water, and never will
    
59. I could be quite content with my own company indefinitely
60. My fingernails are weird - very thin, round and flat
    
61. I have the hairiest legs (and bottom!) of anyone I know
62. I don’t put salt on my meal
63. After I’ve had coffee, tea or something sweet, I regret it
64. After too much sugar I tend to sneeze
65. I usually sneeze five times in a row (and my mother seven)
66. My parents are in their eighties despite having smoked and not exercised
67. I’m not attracted to Western women
68. I can’t imagine being homosexual (though I’m not homophobic)
69. After Muhammad Ali retired, so did I (from watching boxing title fights)
70. I’ve never been able to interest myself in gardening
71. The instant that I learned about Peak Oil, I knew it was true
72. There are very few people who I can relate to
73. I could eat bibimbap every night
74. I'm the only one in my family never to have smoked
75. I never need to use an alarm clock
76. I have gone for more than a year without toilet paper
77. I’m allergic to nothing that I know of
    
78. I get almost all my clothes second hand, and I keep them until they wear out
79. I like computers, but they frustrate me
80. I’ve video-tapes a lot of Kung Fu and Monty Python episodes that I can’t bring myself to dispose of
81. I first started listening to music when a friend took me to see a Jimi Hendrix documentary
82. I always read on the toilet (I must)
83. I use the smallest dab of toothpaste when I brush
84. I hardly use soap or shampoo
85. I’m an excellent teacher, but it leaves me exhausted
86. I’ve never owned a dishwasher, and I hang my laundry outside to dry
87. I’m not averse to foraging
88. I plan to set a world record in 2008
    
89. I have tape cassettes that are almost 30 years old which still work
90. I’ve never been in trouble with the law
91. When I stroke the left corner of my mouth, the inside of my left ear itches madly
92. There was a sixteen-year period that I grew a beard
93. In my teens I read nothing but science fiction
94. Every year, my wisdom grows exponentially, yet I feel I’m just a novice
    
95. I could do anything that I set my mind to; I don’t want to
96. At school I progressed to become second in my class, but the other guy was literally a genius
97. In a face-to-face situation, I can’t speak to save myself
98. I’ve never had a broken bone
99. I haven't any tattoos or body piercing
    
100. I have always existed; I will always exist

Future Shock

Blogging is all very well. But there's no way on earth that I can keep up with the pace of my thinking. It's all a bit 'Future Shock'. Documenting my thoughts and responses to what I read or am otherwise exposed to (or fling into the corner of my delicious account) is absolutely out of the question.

Today, for instance, I read the following from Survival Acres. It pretty much covers the territory. What more can I say? The main thrust is that anything that's going to happen will. There's no such thing as needing to worry about the future of the human race. No point. Not important. What is important is for me to work on my own world view so that I can determine how I'll relate to global 'happenings'.

I was thinking of an eco-village. But if the only outcome is to perpetuate a from of the way of life we're already living . . . You see my drift?

It is taken as a given that the best thing to do is to maximize one's chances of survival (or one's family) but I don't subscribe to that at all. No longer.

Oh, and another thing. Just yesterday evening I heard a sentence or two about 'Morphic field' and 'Morphic resonance'. From what I was able to learn, the idea resonates with my own thinking. Another string to the bow of my arrow to follow and see where it lands.

You've seen Stephen Hawking, the way he is obliged to painstakingly tap out one letter at a time for hours. Then his computer drones out a sentence.

I feel that this describes the way I ponder. It's as if enlightenment dribbles into me drop by hesitating drop. I'm not a fast thinker. I don't think it is possible to be, or at least not if you want to be sure of your conclusions. (The number of times that I had to go over the reality of my first marriage before I could be 'satisfied' that dissolving it was the right thing to do . . .)

I'm deeply suspicious of logic. Science, Philosophy, Religion, Common sense -- none of them do it for me. I need to heft an hypothesis. I need to weigh it, toss it around, taste it, test it, try it on for size. In short, I need to grok it fully.

I do IQ tests reasonably well (step this way for Mensa, Sir). But I'd do even better if it weren't for the inbuilt time factor. What's the point in rushing? What good does it do? What does it prove?

Fickle and faithless

No sooner do I pledge allegiance to Thom Hartmann than I switch horses in mid-stream. Thom, you're still my friend (and Ran, Dan, Derrick, James, Richard, Carolyn, Dmitry, Sharon, Daniel . . .) but the best site I've found to fossick around in must be Dave Pollard's.

Besides, I sent him an email and he responded within a couple of hours.

William: Thanks for the kind words. Sorry I missed you during my recent trip to NZ.

How do I do it? Hmm...

• Helps to be old enough to know what doesn't work (57).
• Helps to be an empty-nester, no longer working for a big 80-hours-a-week sweatshop.
• Helps to have wonderful communities of readers and conversationalists who will talk about anything and tell you when you're full of shit.
• Helps to live in the countryside, surrounded by wild spaces.
  

But to tell the truth, I going to (I must) spend more time on spewing out words of my own. Not screeds, however. That isn't my style. I'm a great believer in succinctness. Let me get straight to the point.

All the answers lie within. Any external prompts is just a goad -- no false goads, what!?

Nice to meet Thom Hartmann

May I say what a pleasure it is to meet you, Mr Thom Hartmann. I came to know of you through What a Way to Go: Life at the end of Empire. After watching the documentary, I made its website my home base (for a while). For the past couple of years I'd been flitting around the Peak Oil blogosphere at an ever-increasing and disconcerting pace.

But as I say, your book, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight was one of those listed as recommended reading. Our local library holds six of your books--no, that's Rupert Sheldrake, who you in turn recommended. In any case, they have three of four of yours, and I couldn't resist The Greatest Spiritual Secret of the Century to start off with. Well, I mean, who could?

I have to say that for me your fiction isn't literature. I far prefer TLHOTAS in terms of style. Nevertheless, for me a book's style (age, condition . . .) come a distant second to the message, so I persisted.

And yes! On page 222:

Then Joshua said, "My son, the Greatest Spiritual Secret of the Century, of every Century, is 'We Are All One.'"

Not only that. On page 234 it is mentioned that there isn't any time or space. "Right on!" I thought, "Here's my new base!"

But then you didn't take it further. You didn't build on that or take it to its logical conclusions. I thought you would; you were on the verge, just as Neale Donald Walsch has been. Really, this truth needs teasing out in a manner that the ordinary person can grasp.

Well now, there are 6 billion answers (p224). One of those is mine. And, if I may say so, it works better for me than yours--naturally--and better for most people I'd venture to say. Okay, here's the deal. Just as I persisted with TGSSOTC (as for The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, I can't put it down :-) you've persisted with this open letter. And so, if you would, could I refer you to . . .

(to be continued)

Oasis

Thank you Nathan and Hummer for your comments ('William' please, I've never related to 'Bill'). Thank you also, Webmistress' for your private response.

I read that this guest book is simply an oasis, and so I shan't stake out a territory and camp. But I would appreciate catching my breath and my thoughts here from time to time. Do let me know if I overstay my welcome.

I'm in overdrive at the moment, and have been for the past 18 months, ever since I first learned about Peak Oil. It has led me on a journey through many inter-related fields (geopolitics, religion, history, psychology . . .) but the main thing for me is that it has reawakened my interest in examining the nature of existence. Daniel Quinn's books and ideas (and this site) have become home base for me, I'm pleased to say.

And yes, I have a meme or set of ideas that I and would be prepared to share with gentle people. I think that they, the ideas, can make a difference. My problem, though, is that in terms of writing and/or communicating that I feel that I'm restricted. I feel like someone who is paralysed and can only tap out words one painstaking letter at a time. Rather ingenuously, I had hoped that Daniel would take up that burden on my behalf, but I now realise that it isn't really any easier for him. I need to be prepared to take 12 years to put out what I want to say, I've been told. Well yes, I'm prepared to. But do we have that much time?

In Daniel's 'The New Renaissance', he speaks for the need for a revolutionary new way for humans to perceive reality (I'm paraphrasing loosely). I've just read Thom Hartmann's 'The Greatest Spiritual Secret of the Century'. Said secret is for us to see ourselves as one. Neale Donald Walsch has alluded to the same, and so, I'm sure have many others. But they haven't taken it any further. They've left it at that. And I don't think that anyone has truly grokked both the notion and what the consequences are (the corollary is).

After visiting www.ishmael.org

What I've managed to do is to use several mind experiments to come up with a mind-blowing new world view. It's still barely able to stand on its dodgy pins - as they say, every new idea is born drowning - so I hesitate to expose it to the world . . . and yet we've less than 12 years, I am certain.

So . . . I've had a crack at putting the idea into words. This is only the first draft, and I haven't yet tackled the implications. It's a start.

http://will-i-am-i-am-will.blogspot.com/

The you in me salutes the me in you

Will? I am!

Enjoying the Experience

Things fall into place. I can see that now, or that is how it appears. Evolution happens; it is driven. Over the years, within a single lifetime—mine—the increments accrue. You end up where you want to be. Or where you’re meant to be.

Here’s where I’ve arrived (or am arriving): my desired purpose to fathom the workings of my life. I fulfill myself by delving into the meaning, or nature, of being. Looking back as far as my childhood, that’s what I was born to do.

Nothing grander. Nothing more academic or pompous. Simply that and nothing more.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Peak Oil

I can trace my love-hate affair with TEOTWAWKI to the fateful day I clicked a link to Life After the Oil Crash.

I’ll admit I’d been living in some sort of warp. Everyone was totally wrong, but only I could see it. Since adolescence (or earlier) I’d had no faith in anything that anyone told me. I didn’t trust the authorities. I didn’t believe the media. I was completely at odds with the way that society functioned. What were my friends thinking? They ‘grew up’, quietly conformed, and unquestioningly took aboard the values and views of the establishment. I had to drop them. I had to leave them. I withdrew.

But I needed some support. At the the age of fifteen I learned TM. Then, at 20, I switched to another form of meditation. For the next couple of decades I did little else but explore the workings of my inner world. The outer world? Well, it wasn’t relevant. It could go to hell.

Much to my amazement, it has! Peak Oil has opened my eyes. It has forced me out of my shell. This past year-and-a-bit has been a whirlwind of a rough and tumble romance. For someone who used to shun the news on TV or in the paper, it’s been an education, I tell you!

How many books have I read? How many documentaries have I viewed. How many blogs have I earmarked meaning to get back to (there’s never the time)? How many posts have I actually managed to read all the way through? How many like-minds have I enjoyed making contact with?

It’s been fantastic. It’s been horrific. Though I’ve been to hell and back, I wouldn’t change a single instant or avoid a step of that journey. Peak Oil has brought me to full life!

Geology, geography, politics, religion, economics, psychology, ecology, spirituality. I’ve surfed a path to, through and around discussions of corruption, conspiracy, the media, corporatization, civilization, consumerism, capitalism, sustainability, permaculture, relocalization and relocation. In short—and in truth—it’s almost blown my mind.

But again, I’ve got to take stock and remuster. No more navel-gazing, though. This is something I must face full on with open eyes. It’s not going away. The thing is, there’s only so much I can take. The end of the world as we know it—wow! There’s nothing quite like that to wake a person up.

'What a Way to Go' as pornography

Did I ever mention the time that I discovered myself in a school hall alone with Al Gore? Well no, that’s stretching the truth . . . a woman in a wheelchair was also there, and our hosts, two or three members of the Green Party. The event was a public screening of The Inconvenient Truth. We were the only two citizens to turn up, either because snow was forecast or because no one was concerned.

We met again a few months later (no, not Al Gore – the woman with wheels). Again it was under the auspices of the Greens, but in a hired church nearer the centre of town. This time it was to view What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire. Perhaps the publicity had been better. Or maybe the weather wasn’t as threatening. Or could it be that people were starting to care? Whatever, this time our group amounted to a couple of dozen.

From the opening chords to the closing credits, I sat enthralled. To focus more closely I slid forward, resting my chin on the row in front. Strangely, I couldn’t stop grinning. This was fantastic! Of all the environmental documentaries I’d seen that year – during which time the price of oil had doubled from $60 to $120 per barrel – this one had the greatest impact. It socked me to the core. It stirred my innards with the power of pornography. It moved me. I felt enthused, elated and excited. I wondered whether the effect was universal, but when I looked around the room I saw only doom and gloom. Though I’d experienced an epiphany, I felt obliged to tone my reaction down. How to make sense of this?

In one respect WAWTGLATEOE is only another TEOTWAWKI flick. True, I share the sentiments of those who groan, “I’m sick of all this shit. Bring the apocalypse on!” but that didn’t explain why ‘the middle-aged white guy’ grabbed my gonads so tightly. Maybe the message came at the right time at the right place – I was ready to receive and appreciate its grander, more over-arching reach; it covered a lot of ground by saying less (although not at a slower pace!). Probably, though, I warmed to it because of the interviewees.

Over the months I’ve become acquainted with a great bunch of people: Heinberg, Quinn, Jensen, Kunstler, Prieur, Orlov and Baker. I’ve read their writings online and in books, and I’ve listened to them speak in videos and through podcasts. I’ve even contacted them by email and had replies. These guys are veritably family (there’s space for them in my lifeboat). On the Peak Everything coin, they’re the human face. The privilege of having come to know them is the plus that I glean from the global situation.

There’s nothing like the end of the world to wake people up. I used to identify more with writers who lived a thousand or more years ago –authors who felt nearer and dearer to me than most people living. But now I’ve come to know a like-minded group – people prepared to examine and if necessary modify their worldview. That groks!

Each has his or her take. They come at the issue from their own angle, and everyone has something to contribute. Everyone speaks and, what’s better, everyone listens! They all value and respect the sum and range of their collective diversity.

I share Tim Bennett’s premonition that I’m living through the end of the world. That vision has held me hypnotized. For more than a year I’ve been farting about, scrambling from one peak oil fix to the next (it’s a drug as well as pornography). I believe that What a Way to Go has finally shaken me free. Thanks for that, Tim and Sally!

During the last part of WAWTGLATEOE Tim strolls along an ever-narrowing road. I seem to have taken such a path too. Along the way I’ve discovered my voice. I’ve a perspective, and I’ve something valuable to say. That is the reaction that Way to Go has chain-started in me.

A nice quote

In Derrick Jensen and George Draffan's Welcome to the Machine (2004) there are many fine word-bytes. One of them is:

Our obsession with comfort makes us addicts to technology, and our attachment to security makes us servants of authority. As addicts and servants we neither control technology nor change the nature of power.

Kid stuff

We assume that the adult form is more ‘advanced’ than the immature version. We grow, get bigger, that must be better, no? Our memories accumulate – surely so does our wisdom. I’m playing around with the idea that ‘it ain’t necessarily so’.

If you don’t subscribe to the notion of time, then life is just one long jabberwocky that stretches in the fourth dimension. You have the head at one end and the tail at the other. Childhood is the head, you can’t deny that.

Often in middle-age I’ve returned to reformulate a concept that I realize knew perfectly well in my single digits without having to beat about the brain to pin it down. I seem(ed) to know stuff then that I since been encouraged to forget and then have to painfully retrieve. Maybe I’ll get to wisdom by the end, but it certainly wasn’t absent when I was starting out.

Go back to sleep

Recently I’ve tried a little mind experiment, and I quite like what I've come up with. At least, I’ll keep it in mind for the time being.

We’re so sure, and we never question, that the waking state is higher than mere sleep. I mean of course our level of consciousness is higher when we’re up out of bed. Or is it?

Ignore consciousness for the moment – let’s look at being. Specifically, let’s consider our connectedness to each other, the planet, the universe and our roots. No one is going to convince me that awake we’re more ‘at one’. Then there’s a sense of individuality and otherness. The illusion is of being a separate entity. We’re inside the drama. Time feels real, space feels real, the cinematography or our lives feels as if it's actually happening.

We forget all that when we sleep. At that time we’re centred. We’re where we’re meant to be, and we draw nourishment from that.

We’re not wakeful beings needing to sleep. We are the one source that dips into regularly into wakefulness to experience a dream.

I’ve often wondered why each day, for me, starts off as anew, and that I tackle tasks from square one out of habit. Perhaps the illusion is stronger in others: that theirs is a continuing existence that is punctuated by periods of unconsciousness. I know different.

Kicks, thrills and buzzes

All kicks, thrills and buzzes boil down to stimulation. And that boils down to being in an excited state – an elevated level of energy as compared to the norm. By definition, then, this is not a state you want to be in all of the time. It wouldn’t be natural. It wouldn’t be good for you. And yet the media and the advertising and our whole culture tell you that if a little of something is good, then of course more is better. I don’t subscribe to that notion.

For me especially, because I feel I’m already at a heightened tension (or am just more susceptible) I need to beware. Stimulation is not always positive, even in small and infrequent doses. It isn’t all that different in nature from trepidation, anxiety, fear, nervousness, irritation, exasperation, anger, violence and the like. What stimulation is – and I must explore that further – is a deeper penetration and identification with so-called physical reality – a more complete forgetfulness of our origin.

And so, too much excitement, socializing, drug-of-your-choice, food, pornography, books, study, work, speed . . . do you (me, at least) no good. Not more, not as much, but less than a little would do. It’s not that any of them are bad, but in large quantities they have an undesirable effect.

Reincarnation, but not as you know it

Reincarnation as an idea sounds so tame now, but I can remember a time when it seemed weird and wonderful in the West. Tell you what – let’s do a quick mind experiment to re-invigorate that old black magic.

What we have now is a concept that allows you to consider that a ‘dying’ soul leaps through time and space to take up residence in another body (within a womb). Got that, happy? You don’t mind that the deceased and the yet-to-be-born are in different geographical locations? You don’t mind that there is a gap – perhaps of years – between the two events. No, of course not. If Tibetan monks can unravel those mysteries and locate the next incarnation of the next Dalai Lama, then you can live with that too.

So now I want you to suppose that:

1. Multiple and serial reincarnations occur (this is a fairly standard concept, but it’s a little new to conventional Western thinking)


2. The life spans of the before-and-after host bodies may overlap


3. A soul may leap backward as well as forward


4. That process is instantaneous, and that . . .


5. It happens all the time, not just after ‘death’

Think about it.

It’s not what you do . . .

It’s not what you do; it’s how you do it. I tend to take this to mean that it behooves me to do good things well – a double pressure: correct choice, correct action. But really, it doesn’t matter what you do.

What someone else does may, to another person, appear to be a waste of time. And indeed it could be – from both their points of view. Yet, in the final analysis, anything and everything can be thought of as having no significance. Nothing is inherently ‘worthwhile’. The test to determine whether what you do is of use is the amount of quality that you are able to extract from the exercise (or infuse it with). If you can manage that, then, no matter what others may say, you’re engaging in something useful.

Time spent with focused attention is always meaningful, not mater how ‘flippant’ the activity. Time passed in a fluster is meaningless, now matter how ‘important’ the work.

But is this always so? What about serial killers? Well, I guess even here. If they do it ‘well’ with forethought and meticulousness then that is ‘better’ – less bad? – than going at it willy-nilly. For one thing they wouldn’t need to commit murder as often.

On the home front, a couple of hours of sorting used postage stamps or arranging photographs in an album is time well-spent if, for the individual concerned, the time flies by pleasantly.

Long in the truth

You can’t rush enlightenment. It’s an ongoing process that never (need never) ends. But neither can you (I) justify hanging around until it’s over (everyone is like a loaf of bread – you need to discover what temperature you bake best at). At fifty I feel that I’m long enough in the truth to become more active. (Wasn’t it Socrates who told his students “Know thyself!” Very well, but when you’ve ‘found yourself’, what do you do with that person – and what is (s)he good for?) At the back of my mind I’ve always been reluctant to teach or write unless I had something of value to say. Here we go, then . . .

To start with, an epiphany!

Waking up, I have a dream. I’ve gone into a busy library (or a mall) and there are people walking about everywhere. There’re all types, all races, and I’m struck with the variety and beauty. I look into everyone’s eyes (especially if the people are women, and the eyes are brown) and then suddenly I stagger. I stumble to support myself. I’ve just had an epiphany. This is what it means to be God!

In every pair of eyes I see consciousness lurking. This swarming matrix of humanity – no, life – is like a fire awaiting a match. This is omnipresence all ready to go. Am I the only one who sees? We’re only a spark away from the realization that all is one, and that we’re a membrane away from grokking ourselves for what we are (and always were) which is the timeless entirety. Imagine the simultaneous smile as that light dawns!

It isn’t easy being green

‘It isn’t easy being green,’ sang Kermit the frog. My tune might go: ‘It isn’t easy thinking outside of the box’. Thinking is the easy part, it’s the audience who are tricky. One day they'll urge,“Your ideas are so unique; write them down!” But on the next (and not only in another age) they’ll stone you to death! What the hell – here’s where I’ll risk tossing around heretical notions about the Meaning of Life and the Theory of Everything (and everythink).