My unretirement

I made it through to retirement with two cottages, a pension and savings. My parents have long since passed away. I never married and I have no children. I worked in five different countries and held prestigious positions as a technical cooperation officer (TCO) working initially for governments and laterally for non-government organisations (NGO). I believed that the work was worthwhile most of the time and I functioned as a workaholic project junkie.

But I no longer work for the Man. I am now independently wealthy and free to do whatever I fancy. My independent financial advisor (IFA) suggested that I spend my money given that I cannot take it with me. But on what? I have done more than enough travel for a lifetime, I am a frugal consumer, and I am not much taken to good causes. At present the most popular notion is to leave my estate to local community groups. This might have a demonstration effect in terms of encouraging local level asset democracy.

I have a long-lasting and ongoing fascination with the concept of ‘changing minds’; both my own and those of other people. Nature, nurture and serendipity (NNS) stamped a natal culture pattern on me. This included the initial quirks of individual family and friends and the later habits and customs from my student days and the worlds of work and play. Having noted that the underlying blueprint was the Scottish Presbyterianism of John Knox (1513-72), I decided that there must be better ways to be human and that I would have to travel to experience them.

In 1968 I was a student of chemistry, psychology, botany and zoology. This was mind expanding stuff that developed a tendency to reject the 9 to 5 worklife in little boxes on the hillside. The existential angst as a student in Aberdeen and as a teacher in Edinburgh gave rise to 42 songs. There have been 24 songs since then reaching up to 1998 with a dry spell during 1980 to 1994. There are 22 songs on line in two albums – “A cure for the blues” and “The never ending highway”.

Here are a dozen lyric bits from the earlier phase:

1968 – My life unchanging is it worthwhile, Walk the same pavements, Cover the same mile

1969 – What the hell should care if the whole wide is wrong

1969 – I am the prisoner and the keeper, and I’ve just broke out of jail

1969 – The writing’s on the wall behind the paper, But the wall is tumbling down

1970 – Hang on to what you’ve got, You ain’t got much but it’s all you got

1970 – There’s a voice inside you, It’s the voice of other men

1971 – I don’t really want to have to break the rules

1971 – I married a harem of thinkers

1973 – Threw away maps and plans, To be a spur of the moment man

1976 – My thoughts are going simpler, My urge to work is gone

1978 – The man said, “there is no answer”

1980 – One more open road and a shining bright tomorrow

I remain true to that initial quest for better ways to be human.

Since speech evolved a lot of myth and magic has been generated. Most of it has been and gone. Everybody has a natal culture based on nature, nurture and serendipity (NNS). This is usually parochial and xenophobic and creates ‘them v us’ but it works in terms of populating the planet with people.

Our ancestors moved from foraging to settled agriculture and beyond. There was, and still is, much division of labour. This usually includes shamans, mystics, priests, poets and philosophers – the religious dimension. Much of this is institutionalised and fossilized. But it keeps the peasants in ignorance so that they are afraid and biddable.

But every now and then exceptional individuals turn up talking about liberation, release, insight, enlightenment. These are states of mind which can be switched on through the practice of mindfulness meditation.

Taoism has known about “The Way” for thousands of years. But it never caught on big-time in terms of liberation of the masses. Religion inevitably gets into bed with politics and helps to legitimize rule by a tiny elite. In life there is suffering. But the times are changing.

In these modern times there is a new and rapidly expanding way of relating to ‘reality’. The roots now lie with science rather than religion. Suffering is a devilment of the monkey mind that leaps quickly from one topic to another without any self-ish intention – the mind stuff emerges from the unconscious. Your mind has a mind of its own.

There are two types of cure for suffering. The first is to sit quietly and bear non-judgmental witness to what turns up. Notice, label, let it go.  The second is to focus on the task in hand and to drop thoughts of ‘I’, ‘me’ and ‘mine’. You are thus in ‘flow’ eg musicians and brick layers are in the ‘groove’, athletes and house keepers are in the ‘zone’.

SO – briefly – many modern people are capable of achieving non-egoic mindfulness. I am one of them. 68 years on the planet and still going strong. I notice what happens in my mind and brain and write about it on a blog so that other people may be encouraged to stay on the way.

Better ways to be human depend on changing minds