Dear all
I continue to enjoy retirement from institutions. I realise
how ‘work’ kept my mindbrain busy with the cultural agendas of many significant
others. Now, due to practicing stillness, there is enough peace of mind to bear
non-judgemental witness to the thoughts, feelings and moods (TFM) that emerge
from the unconscious. This can result in liberation from the parochial and
xenophobic aspects of my natal and later cultures. This might be viewed as a first
step towards intellectual enlightenment.
I am grateful to have a comfortable house and garden just a
short walk away from a smallish supermarket that stocks foodstuffs from all
corners of the planet. I am also a short walk away from a garage that does my
car’s MoT and from a medical practice and pharmacy that tend to my body’s MoT.
A couple of weeks ago the world came knocking at my door.
The fair trade bananas in the supermarket came from the Cameroon and so did the
consultant psychiatrist who was checking me for dementia. I haven’t seen his
report yet but the meeting seemed to go well (my GP sat in on it). He asked me
to put myself on a scale from 1 to 10 for life satisfaction. I reckoned myself
to be quite close to the ten.
I have not yet forsaken curriculum development and the
production of one-pagers. The present focus is on evolutionary psychology and
brain science and on the need to have them interact with new ideas from a range
of associated disciplines.
When a cute idea turns up I write about it and publish it on
my blog. There have been 518 blogposts so far this year and page views average
45 per day – so the blog has not gone viral but it draws viewers from a wide
range of countries. Visitors rarely leave comments – why not?
The structure and function of the unconscious is a key
topic. Most of the mindbrain workings are hidden from conscious awareness but
by taking thought it is possible to enter a non-egoic state (flow, groove, zone
etc) which exemplifies the zen saying ‘No self, no problem.’
I have been experimenting with the creativity of the
unconscious; most notably while churning out these blogposts but also while
doodling. (There are now over 800 doodles – A4 b/w.) I sit with paper and pens,
and ‘stuff’ appears. ‘I’ vanish while the doodling progresses. In retrospect, it
is a good feeling but when in flow, there is no ‘I’ to have feelings.
‘I’ also vanish while reading, writing, meditating, watching
telly, shopping, cooking, eating, washing up and etc. This exemplifies the zen
saying ‘present moment , wonderful moment’.
My self-appointed task and purpose in life is to gather some
words about my unconscious from an insider’s subjective point of view. A
background concern is to connect with like-minded people in amplifying the
voices speaking about a new world order. This involves dropping the illusory
supernatural and replacing it with an enhanced appreciation of the normal-natural
and it’s place in the cosmic zoom.
My intellectual debts are many but key amongst them is the
Big History Project, the written and spoken ideas of David Eagleman on brain
science and, recently, Yuval Noah Harari’s best seller “Sapiens: A Brief
History of Humankind”.
I now belong to a group of four musicians and we are making
live arrangements of my songs although that project is on hold while we
practice a set of tunes for the xmas carol singalong on the 18th. I
am also a member of the JP Collective of singer/songwriters which will be based
in Portsoy come the new year. JP is Jim Paterson who is famous as the trombone
player with Dexy’s Midnight Runners. He will have his studio on Aird Street.
My medication was increased a couple of months ago and my
ability to play the guitar and bass has improved a bit. My singing voice
remains useless as is my handwriting. As part of my new recording studio I
bought a Zoom R16 multi purpose gadget which came with a copy of Cubase for
sound engineering on the computer. Both present steep learning curves and I
have not yet figured routes to the top but I am now easy about hanging around
in base camp.
ICT has a way of getting under my skin. Recent problem areas
included Windows 10, Cubase LE8, Microsoft Front Page, WordPress, getting FTP
to work, and several programmes on my old laptop that cannot run on the new
one. I foolishly expect stuff to happen without my having to read the manual.
Anxiety and panic sometimes threaten but ‘I’ see them
forming and this prevents them from taking over. Attention can be focussed on
meditation, reading, writing, housework, doodles. An alternative is to open the
many menus associated with programmes that I use regularly and learn some new
tricks.
I deliberately cut back on my social life for fear of it using
my time and energy which is better used trying to figure the big picture.
Changing my mind about my place in time and space.
Am I painting too rosy a picture? I don’t think so. I now
have the habit of gratefulness – especially for spicy meals, robust poos, and
for the warm electric blanket when I get into bed. Left to my own devices I am
never bored. I can, however, get impatient when listening to other people
prattling on about nothing in particular. So I go lonely as the rhinoceros.
My work life was varied but TFM about it rarely appears in
upfront consciousness. The ‘New Internationalist’ magazine arrives once a month
but I rarely do more than skim through it. Even so it tends to call up the
arrogant and colonial ‘white man’s burden’ line of thinking ie convert
everybody to the rapacious, greed is good, capitalist world view. (Note: Harari
is hot on this topic.)
Present moment TFM. I could list the books I have read and
the talks I have listened to this past year. But why? This year’s posts are
listed chronology on the blog. And there is a search box in the right margin.
Several doodles have little people sitting on the shoulders
of giants. I do not claim to have original thoughts. I aspire to facilitate
learning by presenting exciting, cutting edge ideas in plain language.
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