A Quiet Watercourse

I’ve been reading the coverage of the US election via BBC News and as I have a break at work, I’ll take the time to dash out a few thoughts.

First up, it’s damn good to see.  My emotional response is to punch the air, finally, a chance for a change of direction. 

In balance to that, I harbour a concern that the opponents of change may wind up trying to turn debates into a race issue in order to avoid facing up to the very real threats and challenges that we will face over the coming years.  We cannot avoid facing these and we must do so honestly and with all the cards on the table.

A comment on a BBC News reporter’s Blog caught my eye.

“When the sun rises over Arizona, many will shake their heads and fear for the future”

If you’re one of those people, and you’re reading this, I’m going to try and reach out to you and show you that your fears are unfounded.  I’m going to leave you a Chinese story, that of The Crying Princess:

(attribution: http://taoism.net/living/2006/200604.htm)

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Spring was Princess Li’s favorite season. She loved the blooming flowers in her garden and would spend hours walking there, taking in the colors and savoring the fragrance.

Today, something was wrong. Instead of enjoying herself, she sat alone and seemed unhappy. Mei, her handmaiden and companion since childhood, grew concerned and decided to approach her: “Princess, forgive me for intruding. Are you alright?”

“Oh, I’m fine, Mei. I am just thinking about my… engagement.” Her father the Duke announced in the morning that Princess Li was to be wedded to the King of Jin in a few months.

“I heard the announcement as well. The Duke said it was very auspicious and a great cause for celebration.”

“For others, perhaps, but not for me. I have never met King Jin and I have no idea what he is like. I love my life here with my flowers and have no wish to leave…. Oh, how I dread the wedding!”

The sudden intensity of Princess Li’s emotions surprised Mei. “Have you told your father that you do not wish to marry him?”

“No. Jin is a powerful kingdom. Our alliance with them, cemented by marriage, is something that will make us much stronger and more secure. It is my duty to do it. I cannot avoid it.”

“What will you do then, Princess?”

“The only thing I can - put it out of my mind as much as possible.”

Time passed. As the wedding drew closer, Princess Li became increasingly anxious. When the date finally came, she refused to come out of her room. This caused quite a commotion. “Unacceptable!” The Duke was displeased. “Mei, you are the only one she listens to. Go talk some sense into her. Quickly!”

Mei entered the inner chambers to discover the princess crying her eyes out. “Princess, what are you doing? Everyone is waiting for you.”

“I don’t care! I won’t marry him!”

Mei noticed that the princess had soaked her clothes in tears, so evidently she had been crying for quite some time. “Princess, did you not tell me yourself that this is something you cannot avoid?”

“You don’t understand! I really, really don’t want to go to the Jin Palace! I want to stay here!”

Mei took a deep breath. She knew how to get through to the princess, but even her ability and patience would be taxed to the limit this time. “Princess, you know as well as I do that everything has been set in motion. We cannot put it off any more than we can push back the waves of the ocean.”

The princess snapped back and Mei responded with her soothing voice. After several hours of this, the princess grew too tired to continue. She allowed herself to be led to the royal carriage. Finally, the wedding party was able to get underway. To the princess, the rest of the wedding went by like a blur.

After an initial period of adjustment, Princess Li grew accustomed to life in the Jin Palace. The King treated her well and kept her in luxuries she had never experienced before. The royal bed in particular was a marvel. When the princess slept on it, she felt as if she was floating on air. Moreover, every meal at the Jin Palace was spectacular. The princess had never tasted so many delicacies, cooked in so many different ways.

Spring arrived again. Princess Li was delighted to discover beautiful flowers blooming in the royal gardens of the Jin Palace. She wasted no time at all summoning Mei to her side, so they could go exploring together.

“You seem to be in high spirits, Princess.”

“I am! I cannot wait to walk amongst the flowers.”

“How strange! Can this be the same person who really, really didn’t want to be here?”

“Please don’t remind me,” Princess Li blushed. “I still cannot believe how foolish I was. It’s so wonderful here, I cannot understand why I was so afraid.”

Many years ago, I came across this little gem of a saying in the William Gibson novel “Neuromancer”.

I’ve been thinking more about it in the last few days, events have made it quite relevant, haven’t they?  I’ve been reminded of it in Secondlife recently, though I suspect that the people involved don’t entirely realise that they’ve been teaching me.

Moreover, I’m seeing the need for this saying in the crisis round the world.  If we’d measured twice, we’d have realised that this is the end of the way things have been.  We cannot carry on in the same manner for much longer and expect to survive long term.  I’ve seen this called The Long Emergency, that’s pretty much right on the mark.

• We cannot build a future on debt and commodity bubbles.
• We cannot build a future on grandiose consumption and unlimited growth.
• We cannot build a future in which most of the wealth is put in the hands of a few, while the majority suffer.
• We cannot build a future in which the resources of the world are exploited by only a few nations, in an unsustainable way.

We must build a future based on compassion, both for others and for ourselves, it the only way we can survive and prosper.  To quote Bill Adama “It’s not enough to survive, we have to deserve to survive.”. 

We’ll only get one chance to make the cut, let’s try and get it right.

I’m not an economist, but the recent turmoil in global financial markets really does get my back up.  The whole thing is run for the benefit of a few people, now it’s going wrong, they seem to be walking away with huge bonuses rather than serious consequences.

We’ve been running the entire western world on a ridiculous premise for years, the idea that growth is king and that it can keep happening.  Yeah, right.

We have a limited planet, with finite resources and space, growth is ultimately limited, with no way round that.  Eventually it must end.  To pretend otherwise is to live in complete denial of the real, to allow our illusions and wishful thinking to rule, something the Buddha and Lao Tzu warned about millennia ago.

We need to focus on finding a sustainable way of living, one that won’t wreck the planet and our lives.

I’ve been watching what’s going on in South Ossetia and Georgia.  Firstly with a sense of foreboding and then with a feeling of disbelief.

Let me sum up my understanding of what happened….  Georgia tried to retake a pro-Russian breakaway region by military force, Russia stepped in and Georgia got a kicking.  The west is not happy because we have an investment in Georgia, namely a BP oil pipeline.

Now a few thoughts, what the hell were the Georgians thinking by using force?  If the South Ossetians are that pro Russian, then the army is the last thing you need to use, by what I’ve read they dislike Georgia even more now and who can blame them?!

As far as the West goes, well, we’ve rampaged round the world dispensing democracy at gunpoint for too long.  The bottom line is that our way of running things is unsustainable, in trying to desperately keep the old failing system going we’re going to wreck half the world.  Our inability to recognise the simple truth that we need to change will wreck our own countries as well in short order.

Maybe we should put our own houses in order a little first.  We need to find a new, sustainable way of living and we should recognise have little to no moral high ground left to preach to anyone from.

It’s time for change.

I’ve been watching the Peak Oil debate for a little while now.  It seems to me that we’re in quite a bit of trouble, most of which is caused by our almost complete state of denial.

Planet Earth is finite, we only have so much of it.  This means that there is a definite upper limit to every resource to be found on our world, in fact the oil production figures are now declining for many oil producers.

There’s a lot of noise about alternative energy sources, which ignores the fact that they’re just not going to cover our energy requirements as they stand.  This would seem to mandate an enormous efficiency drive on our part (not just in terms of fuel) and a large change in the way we live our lives.

I personally think this will take the form of more local services and walkable / cyclable communites with much greater use of public transport.  The days of the private motor car may well be numbered, oddly enough, nobody seems to want to see that.

Anyway, I found this very enlightening (and worrying) 80 minute film on Google video, it’s called “A Crude Awakening” and it’s a very good summary of the problem.

Click here for the video.

I don’t usually like to do overly long posts, it’s a personal preference.  So when I saw this picture on a forum and it pretty much summed up the way I feel about the whole Afghanistan & Iraq situation, I felt I had to share it.

I saw this article on BBC News today, it’s worth a read, and I wanted to comment on it.

It’s about a group of athletes who’ve signed an open letter to the Chinese president condemning his country’s record on Human Rights.

For me the part of the item that helped the process of rebuilding my very recently dented faith in people is:

Britain’s former NBA star John Amaechi has backed the Olympians who chose to protest.

“If you are a person whose voice resonates around the world then it is your responsibility to try and effect positive change,” Amaechi told the BBC.

The 37-year-old, now Olympic ambassador for Amnesty, demanded that athletes “moved by conscience” speak out.

“To me, it is remarkable that we want to say athletes should shut up and just play,” said Amaechi.

“In everyday context they are good enough to tell us what cereals to eat, what shoes to wear, about anti-obesity or whatever, but when it comes to a fundamental tenet of human rights, somehow they are not good enough.

“If we want them to be holistic role models, then let’s let them be holistic role models.”

See the important point made in the 4th paragraph?  We’re happy to have role models who will tell us what what to wear/drink/eat/drive/anything, but beyond that, it’s case of they should be seen and not heard.  Or maybe you’re only good enough as long as you’re serving the aims of the corporate/political world, the “zeitgeist”. Once you’re in a position that mean you may say something that might serve to challenge the world view that supports them, they’re not so hot on it.

This leads me to another thought I’ve been thinking for some time.  With the way our freedoms are going down the drain with this “War on Terror”, and the things that have been done in the names of our countries worldwide, how much of a position are we in the “civilised” west really in to cast stones?

Maybe we should be turning as much passionate criticism homeward as well.

I found this blog post on The Household Economy courtesy of The Energy Bulletin and simply had to link to it.

This post goes into detail about the revival of the household economy and it’s invisibility in terms of accepted economic theories by using the example of making homemade Raspberry Jam.  It’s a wonderfully evocative example for me thanks to my memories of my own mother making homemade jam and marmalade when I was a child.

The article is highly recommended as it points out the difference between the official percieved economy and the truth of the economy, the things that happen under the radar.

I’ve talked in my most recent article about the difference between the map and the territory and the problems that can occur when the territory isn’t quite reflected in the map.  This article illustrates this principle (among others) very well with some very interesting comments as well.

This is an eye opening YouTube video that a friend at work sent in my direction.  It’s the MP George Galloway on a radio show tearing through a caller that supports the notion of attacking Iran.

This shows the level of credulous acceptance of media propoganda in Britain, Galloway does an excellent job of cutting through it.  This video shows why it’s important to do our own research and not just rely on the media for our facts.

A lighter post than the one I was expecting to make, but what the heck.

I’ve been looking after a friends house this weekend, also with the house come one or two animals.  Her dog, Lady, needs plenty of exercise and I stepped up to the challenge.

I though I was fit, but I’ve had it proved to me again, that all that time in the gym does not mean you’re real world fit.  Thanks Lady.

What’s been of equal interest is to observe Lady as we’ve been walking.  She often stops to sniff, clearly privy to a world that I would have walked straight past.  It brought it home to me how much of our daily world we take for granted.  We walk round with our heads in the clouds without realising that there could easily be a whole layer of the world there that we are blind to.

Walking the dog as spirituality, I never would have thought of it!