In a few posts recently, I’ve mentioned our limitations. It’s a theme that has reoccurred through my writing and something that I think is worth exploring a little more.

I’ve found throughout my career, both in the gym and in the workplace that some people seem to have a disdain for the idea of limitations. This doesn’t just apply to themselves, but to the tools and technology around them. I remember after a server problem at a previous employer, the Managing Director asked the Head of IT how long the server would take to get back into service. As the database needed to be verified, the answer was “about 45 minutes”; to which the MD replied “make it 10 minutes”. This wasn’t possible, of course, things had to be given time to run their course; the job had to be done properly.

I have seen this in the gym before, I’ve done it myself. Do extra classes, push that bit too hard, then things start aching and hurting. Oops. Eventually, I discovered Tai Chi and Taoism and learned from these things and some very wise people that it was OK not to keep pushing the limits. There is more dignity to be found in accepting the limitations of our bodies, mind and technologies with simple realism, than in striving to do the impossible and cursing when meeting with failure. I also learned that you need to pay attention to your body and mind, that the warning signs of approaching limits are there.

When we fall into this trap, we all pay a physical and mental price for it. Stress and burnout are very real in our minds, they take an awful toll on our health and our bodies. We sustain numerous injuries, both minor and major, from refusing to accept that it’s time to stop exercising. But it is, through the practise of mindfulness and humility, possible to stop this.

I think that these are things that need more emphasis, as in this case they work hand in hand. Mindfulness helps us with our work or exercise and also lets us spot the warning signs; humility helps us put our egos aside and walk away unharmed.

Well, this is a nice surprise. Today, the KDE Community is 15 years old.

The KDE community has created an advanced desktop environment for the Linux and BSD operating systems.  Personally, I’ve used it on and off for some years and am now more settled on it as my desktop of choice as an OpenSuSE user. There is often a question mark over the staying power of Free Software projects and that perception is often used to attack these projects. This milestone for the KDE community shows this question mark for the inaccuracy that it is.

All that remains is for me to offer my own congratulations to the KDE community, here’s to at least another 15 years!

I saw the statement from Stephen Hawking last week about his view that the universe didn’t need a divine creator.  This was reported far and wide and as you have probably noticed, this has kicked up a bit of a fuss.

I can’t help but look at this and shake my head and wonder when people will make the realisation that all of this fuss is fruitless?  The Buddha warns us away from these questions, saying that they only cause suffering and angst, from  what I can see he was bang on the money!  Also, Lao Tzu also makes it clear that certain things are simply beyond our knowledge, in fact Taoism tends not to encourage knowledge hoarding.  I find myself agreeing wholeheartedly with this, we have no evidence on which to base any speculation on the events prior to the big bang.  In the same manner we have no real idea what things are like outside the universe.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, there are a lots of times when the only honest answer is “I don’t know”, and I feel that this realisation is quite freeing.  The recognition of limitations and the acceptance that there are things out there that are beyond our capacity is liberating, in a way it gives you your mind back.

That’s quite something to say, almost heresy in todays society.  We almost worship knowledge and to be the expert on something is considered to be quite the excellent thing.  I am starting to wonder if this is the “Information Age” or the “Information Fetish Age”?

The Tao Te Ching warns us against this in chapter 19:

“End sagacity; abandon knowledge
The people benefit a hundred times

End benevolence; abandon righteousness
The people return to piety and charity

End cunning; discard profit
Bandits and thieves no longer exist

Reduce selfishness; decrease desires

These three things are superficial and insufficient
Thus this teaching has its place:
Show plainness; hold simplicity” [1]

We hoard knowledge, which isn’t a bad thing all in all, but it can breed arrogance if you’re not very careful.  If you’ve seen Star Wars Episode 2 AotC, remember when Obi Wan suggests to a Librarian in the Jedi Archive that a planet is missing, that their records might be incomplete?

“JOCASTA NU: Well, I’m sure you didn’t call me over here for a history lesson. Are you having a problem, Master Kenobi?
OBI-WAN: Yes, I’m trying to find a planet system called Kamino. It doesn’t seem to show upon any of the archive charts.
JOCASTA NU: Kamino? It’s not a system I’M familiar with… Let me see…
JOCASTA NU leans over OBI-WAN’S shoulder, looking at the screen.
JOCASTA NU: (continuing) Are you sure you have the right co-ordinates?
OBI-WAN: (nodding) According to my information, it should be in this quadrant somewhere… just south of the Rishi Maze.
JOCASTA NU taps the keyboard and frowns.
JOCASTA NU: No co-ordinates? It sounds like the kind of directions you’d get from a street tout… some old miner or Furbog trader.
OBI-WAN: All three actually.
JOCASTA NU: Are you sure it exists?
OBI-WAN: Absolutely.
JOCASTA NU: Let me do a gravitational scan.
OBI-WAN and JOCASTA NU study the star map hologram. Episode 2, Jedi Archives Episode 2, Jedi Archives
JOCASTA NU: There are some inconsistencies here. Maybe the planet you’re looking for was destroyed.
OBI-WAN: Wouldn’t that be on record?
JOCASTA NU: It ought to be. Unless it was very recent. (shakes her head) I hate to say it, but it looks like the system you’re searching for doesn’t exist.
OBI-WAN: That’s impossible… perhaps the archives are incomplete.
JOCASTA NU: The archives are comprehensive and totally secure, my young Jedi. One thing you may be absolutely sure of – if an item does not appear in our records, it does not exist! “

… and we all know how that turned out, don’t we?

Sources

[1] – Tao Te Ching: Annotated & Explained, published by SkyLight Paths in 2006. (www.taoism.net)

Creative Commons

The Big Bang image above is by pshutterbug and is under an Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

I treated myself to a budget smartphone a week or two ago, which is running the Android Operating System.  I have to say, that it’s been a very pleasant experience so far.

With this in mind, I’ve been looking around at various Tablet computers and realising that the whole way we compute is about to change forever.  The IPad has started a ball rolling, and while I think it’s pricey for what it is, I do accept that it’s an idea whose time has come.

I have been able to write and answer emails, browse the Internet, test write a draft for this website and even perform simple network diagnostics from my phone.  The phone even has GPS and there is a free GPS suite called Skobbler that’s well worth a look, I’ve also found that the location aware services are eye opening.

With access to the Google Apps suite and a decent size screen, I would have less reason to use my laptop PC.  I honestly can say I think Android is going to overtake Apple’s IOS, and I can genuinely see cheap Android devices sparking a revolution in the way we do mobile computing.

The future is looking very interesting!

The slow changing of the way of life we take for granted here in the West is proceeding relentlessly.  Along the way it’s turning out to be fairly instructive to watch the politics and the posturing.  Quite a few of our leaders can be seen clinging to the old ideas, the old paradigms.  They’re trying to defend a status quo that is, at least partially, undefendable.

It seems to me that the logic used to do this defensive work is often that of duality. For example they put forward the idea that it’s “growth or ruin”, or in terms of transport that it’s “oil power or green tech”.  The list goes on and I imagine every reader could add an example.  All of this is presented to us in a very “good vs evil” dualistic way.  We are reassured by the simple plain views, the clear easy choice, but are these choices really that clear cut?

Take oil power or green cars for example, why no mention of a boost in public transport and the creation of walkable cities?   Also, economic growth vs deflation is presented with a few assumptions about which is best, but with no mention of the steady state society.  Also no mention of the fact that future growth might be very constrained.

I’ve come to the opinion that the point of this sort of thing is to prevent a real debate on the very important issues.  We are steered onto desired courses via a ‘false dilemma’ fallacy, presented with two choices chosen from a larger set with the aim of blinkering us to the possibilities. The whole aim of this seems to me, to be to present a series of false choices that defends the status quo to the bitter end.

We need our capabilities of skepticism and critical thinking more than ever.

I have to say that I believe that an awareness of our society’s problems with Peak Oil and the end of growth is creeping slowly further into the mainstream consciousness.  The assumptions that our Western way of life is based on are being called further into question over time and the voices doing the questioning are growing more numerous and louder with the passing of time.

With each problem, each speed bump along the way, more people get bumped onto the road towards waking up and people already on the road get moved along.  With that said, I know that many people have a colossal investment in Business As Usual, there are many who will fight the coming changes fanatically; even though their position in that of King Canute, their belief in the status quo is almost religious in it’s intensity.

For their part, the Vested Interests; the powers that be, are deploying every while and weapon in their not inconsiderable arsenals to fight this.  Every person whose consciousness is raised and who starts thinking freely is a loss for them, a body blow, and the more people that awaken to our situation the easier it is for others to do so.

For my part, I think the VIs are fighting a losing battle.  Once a person awakens, it’s impossible to unawaken; a consciousness raised cannot truly be lowered.  You may have denial and suppression but that’s all you have, consider that a religion knows that once the conditioning is broken that person is lost to them, it’s the same here.  This is a secular raising of consciousness that goes far beyond anything we’ve seen in religious terms.

But that’s a thought, and I will swing towards religion as my final thought in this post.  Religions hold views that are in some cases counter to the coming reality, those faiths are in for a shock.  For example consider Catholicism and contraception.  The coming population issues will challenge and break that teaching, the faithful believe the Pope is infallible, they are about to see both their leader and their faith shown to be in error.  Where does that lead?

I’d just like to start by wishing everyone reading this a happy Christmas and a great New Year.

Well, I’ve had another time of being distracted and quiet it seems, I’m hoping to return to a regular posting sachedule in the new year.

I got involved in a debate with a work colleague a week or so ago about the death penalty, he was for it and I was against.  It was interesting to notice the faith in Science to give the right answers in such a case, almost unquestioning, though I’ll ponder the question of Science as a religion at a later date.

What was interesting, was that his position seemed to be emotionally chosen, and this isn’t the first time I’ve seen this.  I’m very sure everyone reading this has come across people making decisions emotionally or holding positions on issues emotionally.  For example, the debate on climate change seems to be such an issue, with much shrillness and name calling, and that does the subject no justice given the massive importance of what they’re discussing.  I also recall Richard Dawkins telling us in his book “The God Delusion”, of some very senior scientists who, while holding no religious faith themselves, go to church or synagogue out of a feeling of “supporting the team”[1].

So why do we have emotions?  The study of the evolution of emotions began with Charles Darwin in his book “The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals”, which was published in 1872.  Darwin noticed that even in people who are born blind, many facial emotional expressions remain the same as in sighted people, research since has shown that many emotional expressions (joy, anger, etc) are common across even isolated cultures.

So why use them in decision making?  The answer, in my opinion, lies in the value of fast decision making.  Dr Dawkins covers this in great detail in the God Delusion, and I highly recommend that book to everyone.  In short, we often need to make quick fairly reliable decisions, if we take time to consider our actions thoroughly, then the odds are we’d be dead long before we made a decision.  Sometimes, you need to act very quickly indeed, and our emotions cut in before our thoughts [2], how often have you acted first and then stopped to think?  This is the nub of it, emotions hit first and then we override our emotions with complex thought.

So coming back to where I started, is it so surprising that we take emotional stances?  How often do we hear the question “How do you feel about that?” not “What do you think of that?”, so I did an informal experiment.  I put the phrase “How do you feel about that issue?” into our Google overlord.  Interesting results, both with and without the quotes, showing a range of subjects in both searches that should not be left to feelings to decide.  I’m not saying we should abandon empathy and emotion, far from it, but my searches turned up health care reform, abortion, stem cell research, choosing the gender of children, these things need more careful consideration.

I think we as a species need to engage in a little consciousness raising here, stop letting our emotions control us and start thinking with our heads.  Not only the use of Science, but the Buddhist emphasis on mindfulness and the Taoist emphasis on awareness all serve to lead us in this direction, I suppose that there’s hope for us yet, eh?

[1] The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins.  2007 Black Swan edition. ISBN 978-0-552-77331-7.

[2] Ethics as Emotions – An Evolutionary Approach.  Chris Lucas (date unknown)

Here’s a fun experiment, my friend Peter over at The Buddha Diaries has started a meme on the above subject and is asking his blogger friends to carry it on.  I’m going to very interested to see how far this spreads.

The rules are really quite simple:

1. Answer the questions
2. Link back to the original meme
3. Tag others to participate

So without further ado, let’s get stuck in!

1) How do you sleep at night? Is your sleep affected by the national angst? Do you drop off easily, as you always did? Or does it take a while to get to sleep?

Generally, I sleep soundly, when I eventually get to sleep.  I’m a bit of a martyr to lying awake tossing and turning, depending on what I’ve been doing before I turn in.  I tend to wake quite early as well, then lie there listening for the alarm.

2) What strategies, if needed, do you use to get to sleep? Pills? Sheep? Late night television shows? And/or…?

I’ve used a few over the years, one was a relaxation technique in which you begin at the feet and imagine each part of your body (feet, shins, knees, thighs, etc) to be warm and heavy.  Another is to mentally release my grip on whatever is keeping me awake, then imagine it floating away.  Sometimes, it’s just a quick bathroom trip.

3) Do you wake up in the middle of the night, plagued by obsessive thoughts?

No, once I’m asleep, I rarely wake.  But, lying awake plagued by obsessive thoughts, guilty as charged I’m afraid!

4) What strategies do you have to get back to sleep?

In all honesty, I’d just use the ones from question 2.

5) Are your dreams affected? Are they more anxious than before? Do they wake you up in a sweat? Or are they peaceful, innocent, undisturbed by the general malaise?

Here’s an interesting one.  I rarely remember my dreams, those that I do recall are either terrfiying or just plain surreal.  I’ve often wondered why I only rarely recall them, and at one point in my life, I genuinely believed I didn’t dream at all.

So, in the spirit of the original post, I’d like to impose on the following people:

• abarefootman
• Drops of Water
• Riding The Wind
• Surfing the Tao

I really must start posting a bit more often, but I seem to have a serious dose of writers block at the moment.

This is an interesting (if old) blog post that caught my eye and made me stop and think. It’s amazing how the things we build / ideas we put forward can be reapplied outside of their intended fields with unforeseen consequences. For example, the ideas of the free software / open source (delete as applicable) have been adopted by terrorist networks.

You can find more details here: “Bazaar Dynamics“, but this is the first I’d heard of this.  It’s fascinating and shows how a small network of people can take on a large well equipped force and stand a reasonable chance against them, though admittedly, this isn’t the example I like to give.  The actual progress of the Free Software community itself is a far better and more peaceful demonstration of this principle.