The coming of - the "End Times" - the Apocalypse - Armageddon

The Gospel of Luke describes a complete unravelling of the social fabric, with widespread calamity and war.
"Then he said to them, "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven. When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. For these are days of vengeance. There will be great distress upon the earth and there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves". The Biblical Apocalypse is believed to be imminent, with various current events as omens of impending Armageddon. The timetable will be triggered by future wars and moral catastrophe.

Well.....I'm not religious in the conventional sense in that I don't believe in any of the established monotheistic religions. But....I have to say this all strikes a chord with me. Wars in the Middle East - Syria,Israel & Palestine. Famine in Yemen & Ethiopia. Corona virus, just one of many recurring pestilences. Huge fires in America & Australia. Floods in the UK & many other areas. A plague of locusts. What more do we want to show us the errors of our ways?

We are destroying the planet we live in. Species loss is at an all time high. We pollute every area of land & sea. We walk by on the other side as people are "collateral damage" in wars. Human rights are ignored in many countries. Corruption among world leaders is rife. Politicians hang on to power & lie. We eat too much & exercise too little & abuse our bodies. I could go on....

Apparently there are 7 Stages of Empires:-

1. The Age of Pioneers (Outburst)
2. The Age of Conquests
3. The Age of Commerce
4. The Age of Affluence
5. The Age of Intellect
6. The Age of Decadence
7. The Age of Decline & Collapse

As far as I can see not only the UK has reached 7, but the whole world has. We have collectively sat by & fiddled whilst our world empire has declined & is collapsing.

Only young activists seem to realise the danger & are prepared to act. I hope they succeed.   

Navigating the Sea of Life

I see life as a series of tests & learning experiences. Both good & bad things which happen are opportunities to better understand others & yourself. - But only if you are able to hear & internalise the messages. The concept of "readiness" in Buddhism means we have to prepare ourselves & make ourselves ready to understand. However, like my younger self & Maths, there are things I am able to process & things I'm not!

One of the problems with relationships is how individuals process what family & friends actually say. Disagreements can blow up in all facets of life because what someone meant to say is not how the hearer receives the message. Similarly there is a lot of evidence about the fallibility of our memory.

"Eyewitness testimony is a potent form of evidence, but it is subject to unconscious memory distortions and biases even among the most confident of witnesses. So memory can be remarkably accurate or remarkably inaccurate. Without objective evidence, the two are indistinguishable".

https://www.psychologicalscience.org/teaching/myth-eyewitness-testimony-is-the-best-kind-of-evidence.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4183265/

Throughout my life there have been times when, in all honesty, I either said or did things tactlessly & spontaneously. There have also been times when I said or did things which I believed to be true, but was on dodgy ground because the other person wasn't able to deal with the message. If someone says something which we don't want to hear, our tendency is to be defensive & angry. So the situation escalates & morphs into something it wasn't meant to.

Now I'm in my middle 70's I have navigated a fairly turbulent & often difficult sea of life. I know what I believe in. I know what is important to me. I also know my own value & am not afraid to be assertive - One problem is that some people can't cope with assertive women. Women are still expected to play true to a certain type.

The sum total of my life experience has made me an independent thinker who faces up to whatever the sea throws at me. I do try to calm troubled waters, but not if it compromises me. It isn't always easy. 

 

Population Matters

I  watched Chris Packham's Horizon documentary last night.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000dl6q

There are 7.7 billion people in the world currently. By 2050 there will be 10 billion.

The statistics in 2019 for Megacities are stunningly frightening.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/the-worlds-33-megacities/ar-BBUaR3v
Tokyo is the biggest megacity with 37.5 million people.
Delhi is next with 28.5 million
Shanghai has 25.6 million
Sao Paulo in Brazil has 21.7 million & is literally running out of water.

I had been reasonably unconcerned about the huge increase in world population in my lifetime, having watched Hans Roslings "Don't Panic" documentary around 2013.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=FACK2knC08E

Now I can see that world population is as big an issue as climate change. Yet it is hardly mentioned. It is the elephant in the room. The earth simply cannot sustain population growth & the environmental damage it causes. Biodiversity loss, climate change, pollution, deforestation, water and food shortage are all exacerbated by population growth. Farming is literally destroying eco systems - land, habitats, water, forests, animals...

So I have joined Population Matters. 
https://populationmatters.org/
It took until the early 1800s for the world population to reach one billion. Now we add a billion every 12-15 years

 

I live in Oxford, certainly not a Megacity, & I avoid going into the city because of the numbers of people on the streets. Air pollution is an issue - Oxford is just about compliant now with E U requirements of annual average NO2 levels in towns and cities to below 40µg/m3. I am seriously considering where would be a safer place to live & what resources I would need for the next decades of my life - If I live into my 90's, as is perfectly possible. That is one of the problems, we are living much longer than resources can keep up with.

There are huge benefits to living in a city, but the downsides are significant. We need to tackle the impact of over population. We have the means. It needs political will. Population growth can be slowed, stopped and reversed through actions which enhance global justice and improve people's lives. One is educating & empowering women.

https://populationmatters.org/solutions

Habit & Routine

I get up between 7.30 - 8.00 year round. I generally don't have anything particular to get up for, so I could make a mug of tea, go back to bed & read a book. I don't, it's a habit.

I wash, then have breakfast in my pyjamas - cereal, porridge, toast, or yogurt, with a mug of tea. Not much variation there. I get dressed & brush my teeth. I wash up once a day in the morning, not worth using a dishwasher for one. I make my bed & put a clothes wash in the machine if necessary.

By then it's about 9.30 - 10.00 so I have a mug of filter coffee, which really gets to the parts tea doesn't reach. I drink it catching up with my emails, checking my Blog & Facebook page. I spend far too much time on my desktop. But it's the way I keep up with friends all over the world, the news, & the charities I support.

By then it's time to walk to the pool to swim. 36 lengths, about half a mile, just over half an hour, 4-5 times a week. I have to do it because it keeps me reasonably mobile. It is a strong habit - If I can't do it for some reason I feel really odd. However bad I'm feeling before, I always feel better when I've swum.

Home to lunch. Usually more or less the same things in a sandwich with a mug of tea & piece of fruit. I do a crossword or a codeword while I eat. Actually eating doesn't take long if you are on your own, so doing a puzzle makes it more of a break.

When people ask me what I do all day I struggle to say. Most of it is routine, habit. Not the stuff you talk much about. It is quite time consuming to do everything needed to keep a home & a life running smoothly if you are single. Paperwork, banking, insurance, maintenance, housework, food shopping, cooking.... Then there is socialising, going to the cinema for Screen Arts or to an exhibition or two, & volunteer jobs.

The thing is, all these habitual patterns of behaviour are stopping me from doing things that I want to do, because by the time I have had supper watching the news, I am too tired to do anything. So the evening is generally spent with my feet up watching recorded TV.

I would like to play my piano, paint, draw, work on textiles & embroidery, read more books. I suppose I mean spend more time doing enjoyable things, before it's too late.

When you reach my age you realise that a huge amount of your life has been, & is, routine & habit. We aren't free to be self indulgent & do exactly what we want to, when we want to. In order to do that you have to be very selfish. You have to be prepared not to put others first. You have to be prepared to let the boring stuff slide. You have to be prepared to say no.

I don't seem to be able to break the habits of a lifetime - being organised & conscientious, planning ahead, putting others first. I wish I could, but it's probably too late.

I'm not at all sure whether that is good or bad.