Communication & the Royal Wedding.

Being alone I now realise how important this is to human beings. We are social animals & have a deep need to interact with others. If we lose that ability, for whatever reason, we are diminished.

There are layers of communication, from superficial & shallow pleasantries to deep and meaningful sharing of our innermost thoughts. The former is fairly common, the latter requires real trust in another person, and is much rarer.

If you have that wonderful reciprocal sharing of yourself with another person, you may not realise it's value until it is lost. Replacing it then becomes an unfulfilled need unless you are very lucky.

I have become adapt at talking to anyone on any subject, but in truth what I do is ask questions & listen. It seems to me that most people want to tell you stuff - in detail. Once you become aware you realise that it is a very one sided conversation. They don't ask about you & your life, or if they do they really don't want to hear. They expect a one line answer. Many actually don't let you finish a sentence before moving on to another subject.

I'm sure this isn't meant to be hurtful or dismissive. I just think that we have become a very self absorbed & selfish society.

Prince William & Kate Middleton got married yesterday. It was a wonderful day & it seems they have this real bond of communication. I hope they manage to keep it. It will be hard in the face of the very public & demanding life they lead. Hopefully they have family & friends whom they can trust when problems arise, and they will. They are human beings, if very privileged ones. They will also have advisors on every possible subject because they are the centre of a PR vortex. Their wedding was literally seen around the world, as it happened, because of our modern, sophisticated, communication network.

I hope that they continue to listen to their inner voices and eachother through the years to come.

Spring Cleaning

I've just moved all my winter clothes into hibernation & got all my summer ones out. Haven't been as stringent about throwing stuff out as I'd hoped. My generation doesn't throw out clothes which aren't worn out. There's a hierarchy, best - casual & house - gardening & walking. So stuff doesn't usually get thrown till it's falling apart. There is something satisfying about washing the winter woolies & putting them away smelling lovely though. Something about this weather makes one want to sort out & clean. I'd already done the kitchen cupboards.

I wish I could spring clean my mind & my life in the same way. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. I'd really like to be centred & mindful in my mind. Something happened with some friends recently which I was really upset by & I spent a sleepless night going through it over & over again. A complete waste of time. It had happened. Nothing could change that & getting upset over it only affected me negatively, mentally & physically.  People are what they are & are rarely going to behave as I would. Having expectations of others is a waste of energy & unrealistic.

As for my life - I seem to spend all of my time facilitating my single existance. I want to have time to read, to be creative, to do nothing. It simply doesn't happen. I don't have a list - I have a notebook! I'm on borrowed time, diminishing returns. I should live each hour to the full doing what I want to do, not what I have to do.

Must make more of an effort!  

A Sick Society?

History seems to show us that civilisations go through 3 phases, the early developing phase, the mid flowering phase & the final decadent one. Living in the 21st century seems to me to be the final one. Mrs Thatcher told us that "there is no such thing as society". From then onward we in the West seem to have become more selfish, more insular, more greedy and more wasteful.

We no longer eat to live, we live to eat. When I first saw obesity in America decades ago it was so new to me I couldn't help being appalled & staring. I wondered how individuals could possibly eat so much and exercise so little & have so little love for themselves that they could allow their bodies to become so gross. Now I know that it isn't so simple. The huge multinational food companies have so adulterated our diets that we no longer know what rubbish we are putting into our mouths. People have become divorced from their food and become addicted to sugars, fats & salt.

Similarly we have become addicted to alcohol & drugs of every kind. Some people are never sated and drimk or indulge to near oblivion. Is the pain of modern life such that it can only be tolerated through a drug or alcohol induced haze? Are the pressures of 21st century life such that they can only be borne is such a state? That can't be true. We have gone through 2 earth shattering world wars without the ills of today's society. What makes us so uniquely unable to bear our lives to such an extent that many of us are like lemmings rushing off a cliff?

It seems to me we have become a dilettante society of instant gratification. We want "it" now and hang the cost, monetary or personal to us or anyone else. Worse still hang the cost to society, to the world, to the planet.

Civilisations have come and gone through the aeons & this one will too. It's just a question of when. Interestingly there are common reasons why civilisations eventually fail. One is using up natural resources for immediate gain regardless of the final cost. The Easter Island peoples died out because they cut down the last tree. We are hacking down the forest & watching ourselves do it. We are just in denial about what will happen to future generations.

I have two 5 year old grandsons, Sam & Theo. I don't want to think what they will inherit from this generation. Land wars - Water wars - Food wars. Will the lights go out? Will the motorways be still apart from the songs of birds? Will there be any birds?

Wake up world! Man is infinitely creative and inventive. But the tipping point may already be past. 

Mind over Matter

"Whatsoever the mind of (wo)man can conceive & believe it can achieve." W. Clement Stone. Or in laymans terms, "mind over matter."

It is true, the mind controls us emotionally and physically in ways we are only just beginning to discover scientifically. The ancient traditions of India and China have know it for centuries. We dismiss it at our cost.

Stilling the mind, appreciating quietness & solitude are skills that we have lost in the 21st Century. Listening to the world around us, not attacking our senses with all the gizmos & technology available to us & everybody else, is all but a vague memory. In the Western world we are putting ourselves at real risk by sensory overload. We are constantly "doing" rather than "being".

This is the time of year to really appreciate our world & the peace available to us within it. Spring this year is achingly beautiful. The pallette of sharp, clean, greens. The endless variety of leaf shape & form. The wondrous blossom & flowers. The hum of bees & the song of birds.

If we don't experience stillness & quiet in the moment how can we hear the messages our mind is telling us? How do we give ourselves the time to reflect on our lives & what we are, or are not, doing? Our sins of omission & commission. How do we question our assumptions & our actions if we are constantly bombarded by our lives?

In order to believe in ourselves & our capacity to achieve our goals we need to think. You can't think in the babble of the 21st Century. I wish we could all change gear & slow life down. I wish we could think about what we want to be, as individuals, as communities, as nations and as a world. Then maybe we might be able to be better. Maybe we might really change things.

Loss & Grief

"The pain is frighteningly fresh. ...it will always be fresh, ....I will never escape the hollowness, the echo of empty rooms in my soul and the anguish in my heart." (Patricia Cornwell - "The Last Precinct".)

I hope this doesn't sound maudlin. The empty rooms are real as well as metaphorical and they can't be filled. You have to deal with emptiness & silence after bereavement. I say to myself that lots of my friends are, and have always been, single. Not from choice, but because love was never strong enough for commitment or the right person just didn't appear at the right time. They cope as they have always coped and have good, meaningful self reliant lives.

That isn't the same though as spending all of your adult life with one loved person & dealing with them leaving you. Everything is changed in a moment. Nothing that you took for granted in your life can ever be the same again. You realise that you have no control over anything.The loss is too huge to bear at times. At other times you think that you have moved on & created a new life.

I wish we as a society were better at dealing with death. More important, I wish that it was talked about before it happens to someone close, so families and friends had a better idea how to behave. That only really comes with personal experience. But I do think we could be better at it if we made death a natural part of life.

Mothers Day

If the relationship is good, the bond between a mother & daughter is to be valued & nurtured. Provided it develops into an equal & adult relationship of mutual caring & shared but independent lives it is wonderful. I am very lucky, I love my daughter & I'm confident that love is reciprocated.

We live an hour's drive apart & see eachother reasonably often - about every 3 weeks. We talk on the phone & email, but not every day, maybe weekly. I know that it's important that her family comes first. she has a husband & two 5 year old twin boys. She also has a part time teaching job & a busy social life. She knows that I am independent & capable of living my own life at the moment.

So what has Mother's day to do with this relationship? I was spoiled on Sunday. A lovely meal & beautiful bunch of flowers. All hugely appreciated. But I don't need that to know that she cares about me.

What is important to me is seeing her & her family & hearing her news - good and bad. Sharing the highs & lows & helping out when I can. Also accepting help when I need it. A hug is more important than a bunch of flowers any day. A sympathetic phone call or a good laugh is a gift beyond any other. Shared experience - the opera, theatre or art gallery is great.

Mothers Day is fine so long as you accept that it is a commercial money spinner. It's just one day a year, hopefully it won't make or break a relationship. But time, regularly spent together, is beyond price. All relationships need to be worked at. They are like plants, they need constant attention and effort. It's worth it.

Optimism

I'm usually a glass half full person - preferably a nice dry white. Given that I wouldn't say that I'm a lucky person, I'm not sure why. Life has been quite difficult, nothing has come to me without a great deal of effort & hard work.

The past 2 years has taught me that there are things that happen in life that I can't control. I just have to deal with them in the best way I can. I always tend to think, like Dale Carnegie, that the worst case scenario is unlikely to happen. Mostly it doesn't. When it does I learn something from the experience.

I used to be much more obsessive - a control freak. Never trusting anyone to do anything as well as I would. It's a delusion. There are always more ways than one to do things. No one method is infallible or "right". If you are fixated on one way in life's journey you may well miss the more interesting side road.

Travelling independently in India I quickly learned that if I stuck to slavishly to my itinerary I missed out on the expertise of my driver. Although it was in his interest to have me do it his way, it made for a much more enjoyable & relaxed trip to relinquish my Western notions of who was in charge. He always had the whip hand anyway.

The same was true in Libya. I learned from watching others that shouting & losing my temper when the itinerary changed got me nowhere. Accepting that not everything was within the control of my land agent / driver ended up with a much closer relationship with the Libyans I met and a greater understanding of them & the country. This resulted in some very special moments & relationships.

It's better to travel thinking that everything will be OK, trusting to the inherent goodness of most people, having planned as much as you can. It's all about the importance of the journey itself as well as the destination. Similarly the journey of life.

By the time I get to my destination I hope I will have become a better person than at the beginning. It's all about Karma - good actions. I'm optimistic that my good actions will have a beneficial effect on the people & world around me. I know that I can't keep up being good permanently - but I do try!