Constant change

It is cold, cloudy and damp and already getting dark at 15:30. So far, I have eaten twice today and exercised my voice by recording some of my lyrics. I have checked the email, Facebook and my blog, and have also been reading and dosing. Those are the main activities so far today and there is now this writing. I don’t know what it will be about.

• Existentialism for retirees.
• Why bother when the only constant thing is change?
• Why not go with the flow?
• We are stardust with a long past and future.

After the big bang many stars and planets emerged. Some died and became the raw material for the next generation. The cosmos is dynamic with some bits falling apart and other parts coming together – constantly.

Planet Earth has transformed itself since the development of our solar system. The gases in the atmosphere changed and now support life. Continental drift caused the movement of the major land masses and they are still moving. Life suffered major extinctions due to massive volcanoes and through collision with heavenly bodies - but new life forms evolved to fill the spaces.

Dinosaurs were the main type of backboned animals until a massive meteor wiped them out and left the world open for birds and mammals. Apes and monkeys evolved amongst the mammals and they included our human ancestors.

I have parents and grandparents going back from fully human to various kinds of ape men and women, and then to various kinds of fish. We evolved. Mother (Father?) Nature did not have a plan – they went with the flow. They produced children who were all different and some were ‘fitter’ than others. Natural selection. Survival of the fittest.

I am, and you are, built of huge numbers of footery bits that accumulated over time. Some bits were to do with the body and some were to do with the mind.

• Eg The body changed to permit standing upright but this made the birth canal smaller so babies had to be born sooner and required a lot of parent and community support.
• Eg The mind (brain) evolved the pre-frontal cortex to deal with higher level executive functions, especially interacting using language in social groups. There are conundrums eg being conscious of being conscious.

There are many instances of sub optimal design in our body and mind. This is most clearly observed in experimental psychology which has demonstrated that what goes on in our heads is well different from what we imagine. Huge amounts of stuff goes on in the unconscious which is essentially a product of churning star dust.


There is the notion of getting things in perspective. This involves establishing and defending a worldview usually covering a very limited set of the options that are now available through thinking about the cosmic zoom for time and space. Modern humans first appeared about 4.5 million years ago and were successful hunters and gatherers. Language appeared about 200,000 years ago and settled agriculture about 10,000 years ago.

And the rest is history. Fast changing, Machiavellian, stories of development and decline in a range of areas – social, technological, environmental, economic, political, legal, ethical and spiritual. (STEEPLES). (I have a web site dealing with the interactions. Click HERE)

SO - What is it about?

It might be unusual for a much-travelled person from a Scottish village in the 20th century to be fascinated by other ways to be human and to be challenged to make the world a better place; but there are limits.

Major activities since I last listed them include fitting the surgical stockings; lunch of pot noodles; footer with the piano keyboard; relocate the main microphone and music stand, and, try to make a good job of my songs with voice and guitar. (I failed!)

And the pre-frontal cortex is wondering about my contribution to the paradigm shift. Identify the key thinkers; get my head around their ideas; write short stories based on them and publish them to my blog. People log on from all around the world so maybe they will be inspired by the ideas which I present and maybe they will become better change agents as a result.