Navigation

If I'm going somewhere I like to have a mental map in my head. In the car I do use SatNav, but it's perameters aren't reliable & I prefer Ordnance Survey maps. I'm not always reliable either. I once turned right instead of left at the start of a long walk & by the time I discovered my error it was too late & we had to do the whole thing in reverse.

I also have a behaviour mental map. What I think is acceptable & what is not. We have to learn how to navigate, whether it's journeys or relationships. A fundamental part of learning to navigate relationships is parenting. The first 5 years of a childs life are the most important in terms of learning & the main role models for that child are their parents. Parents model both good behaviour & bad. The young child accepts the parents behaviour as the norm. However, as the child grows influences from friends, wider family, teachers, role models & a host of others can modify the behaviour patterns learnt. The child grows into adulthood reflecting the lessons learnt in how to navigate relationships. 

 

This process produces the huge variety of behaviour characteristics we can see worldwide. Humans are infinitely variable.

What concerns me is the tendency I am observing away from the moral code of all religions also a non believers moral compass. I see more agression, more unacceptable verbal abuse, a lack of tolerance of "otherness", a lack of truthfulness in people with power, wealth & influence, a tendency to isolationism & self interest.....Anger, territorialism, war, genocide, famine are all the result of this navigation to the "dark side".

I still believe we are inherently good. We certainly have the capacity to be good. To share, to be concerned for the plight of others, to be generous, kind & helpful, to put others first.

But it is a case of "use it or lose it". It truly is a battle between good & evil. Sometimes there is a cost to doing what is right, but we have to be prepared to pay that cost. The European Union avoided giving €200 billion of frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine's war effort yesterday because a few countries put their own self interest before support for a country fighting for it's sovereign existance. Shame on them. We all might pay a huge price for that decision.

If we do not navigate towards the light we end up in darkness. 

Light & Enlightenment

When I was a child I was convinced there were snakes hiding under the bed when I went to bed. I searched every night. When I switched the light off I thought that they were there in the dark, but they couldn't get to me. No idea why.

At this dark time of year religions have festivals of light - Diwali, Candlemass & Hanukkah for example. Buddism is based on the path to Enlightenment. Shetland has a Viking fire festival, Up Helly Aa, in January. Lamps, candles & fireworks are used to bring light to the world. Light is important symbolically, metaphorically & in reality. 

Without light we simply could not exist & without enlightenment we as a species will descend into darkness.

The Age of Enlightenment in the 17th - 18th centuries was an intellectual movement championing reason, individualism, and skepticism over tradition, superstition, and blind faith. Applying scientific methods to society to promote liberty, progress, and human rights. Fundamentally shaping modern democracy, government, and secular thought.

It seems to me we are in desperate need of a second age of enlightenment now. Reason seems to have flown out of the window. Tradition, superstition & blind faith are dragging religions back to the dark ages. Rational thought & scientific enquiry, which should be the backbone of how we manage our lives & our societies seem to be denigrated in favour of gut reactionism & complete lack of logical thought.

We, who are so blessed with intellect & the tools to find the truth backed up by empirical evidence, ignore these & are led into black holes of belief unsupported by any evidence whatsoever. We listen to leaders & influencers with an agenda based on their own aggrandisment & power. We allow ourselves to believe utter rubbish. We seem to have lost the ability to discriminate, to think even.

 

In the way a plant needs light to grow & fruit, people need the light of truth & understanding to be the best that they are capable of being. We seem to be light years away from achieving that. But there is a chink of light. We all have choice. We just each need to make the right one. 

 

Helping Out

There are things I simply can't do now. I can't kneel down, if I do I can't get up again. Even bending down to pick things up from the floor isn't easy. It's all part of wearing out, of ageing. So I sometimes have to ask for help. Mostly I pay for it. I'm very lucky that I can. Currently one of the small, but irritating things I can't do is replace the battery in the christmas lights on my front door wreath. I just can't open the box the batteries are in. Fortunately at some point one of the family will come & do it. Again, I'm very lucky to have family nearby.

We all need help of one sort or another at some point. The corollary to that is that we can all help others too. Human decency means that we should be able to ask for help & give it. 

Examples of the decency & willingness to help of many people are always there. Unfortunately it doesn't necessarily get as much publicity as the opposing tendency to ignore people who need help. To be isolationist & self centred. Me first, my family first, even my country first. 

 

Christmas is a time when charities ask for donations, hoping that the christmas spirit will encourage us to give a little of the money we spend on the festivities to others who aren't so lucky. But helping out isn't simply a question of donating cash, useful though that is. Often practical help is much better. A truly visible sign that you do care. Giving cash is relatively easy. Personal involvement demands more. 

One of the best volunteering things I have done was to help an organisation prepare the food for a free mass Christmas lunch in Oxford. They fed hundreds of people who would probably otherwise not have turkey & all the trimmings. Prepping huge amounts of veg that had been donated with a crowd of other volunteers was really uplifting. To me it said far more about the real meaning of Christmas than anything I had ever done at this time of year. 

Yes we should enjoy Christmas with friends & family. Simply sharing a meal & enjoying eachothers company is wonderful. But to my mind our way of celebrating Christmas, & also weddings today, has got completly out of hand. We are losing sight of the meaning of events like this. They have become a feast of over indulgence & spending.

The huge gap between the haves & the have nots is becoming unacceptable. Studies are showing that there is a shift in attitude. Pople are questioning how they celebrate in the context of circumstances both here in the UK & worldwide. I'm not alone in being a paid up member of the Bah Humbug club. 

 

Talent

I went to a concert in the Sheldonian in Oxford last night. I didn't know any of the Music, but am a fan of Mozart. We were in the cheap seats, no legroom, bench seats, the knees of people behind in your back... But the music transcended the pain. 

I watched the orchestra & marvelled at the skill of playing an instrument, reading the music, following the conductor, keeping pace with the singers & eachother - supreme multi tasking. Then there was the sound of a mass choir. I think there are about 150 of them. It is transporting. You feel the music in your whole body. A live performance is nothing like listening to a CD. You, the audience, are involved. 

It made me reflect on the talents, skills & capacities of human beings. Every form of human endeavour requires not just talent, but practice, determination, application. Those people didn't get to be there without a combination of talent & effort. Together they produced something sublime. 

The same is true of any field of endeavour, sport for example. Even learning skills like driving & cooking. In order to maximise the talent you have been born with you have to apply yourself, often for a very long time. You have to be prepared to practice. 

Not everyone can play an instrument or sing, but I do believe that we all have something special we are good at. Some of us build on that & hone it to excellence. Some allow it to lay dormant & do nothing to improve it. 

If  there had not been individuals who recognise what they have & work at it we would not have the wonderful music of the Mozarts & Haydens. We would not have the scientists who change the world. Or the entrpreneurs who set up companies. 

Society needs everyone to maximise the talent they have for the benefit of humanity as a whole. Even if the individual contribution is small, it is important. Everyone has value, we all just need to do what we can. Even if we fail, we should try. 

  

Homelessness - Pod Scheme Solutions

In the run up to Christmas I am thinking about the discrepency between the Christmas myth & reality. The happy family, roaring fire, traditional dinner, presents under the tree of the big stores adverts is the myth. People on the streets in sleeping bags, people sleeping in cars, people sofa surfing or living in a single hotel room is the reality.

We must be capable of solving this. Why don't the homeless go into shelters you ask? Many reasons;- 

• The shelters are unsafe or have strict rules
• Fear of theft or violence
• Mental health & addiction issues
• Desire for independence
• Shelters are not a long term solution
• Shelters are not available to certain immigrents
• After getting people off the streets in Covid many shelters closed.

https://www.bigissue.com/news/housing/rough-sleeping-everyone-in-covid-pandemic-homelessness/ 

I do not believe homelessness is a lifestyle choice. It is a state brought about by numerous factors. There has been a 21% increase in acute homelessness in England since 2022. Rough sleeping increased by 10% on any given night. Various charities will give you an informed picture, rather than the provocative & unbalanced view from some quarters.

https://england.shelter.org.uk/media/press_release/at_least_354000_people_homeless_in_england_today_ 

There are successful & innovative schemes in Europe that provide relatively safe shelter at relatively low cost. For example in Germany, the UK & the Netherlands. Crucially they also provide privacy. I saw something about an innovative idea of putting lockable garden sheds in a big warehouse. 

 

Ulmer Nest

 

Solohaus

 Amazing Grace pods

None of these solve the root problem, but at least they are a start. It cannot be beyond the wit of an intelligent species to solve homelessness. We should not be tolerating individuals & families who do not have a safe shelter to live in. We lucky ones who have homes should remember the story of Christmas & a baby born to a family in a stable. 

Over 2,000 years & very little has changed.  

Childhood & Christmas

Whatever you think about the immigration issue I want you to consider another perspective. 

When I was a child we didn't have sleepovers. We played in the street or the back garden. But we did play. We played with marbles, balls, water, sand. We had swings & parks. I lived in Birmingham, but I could walk to grassy open areas, two of which had rivers or canals. So it was like being in the countryside. Children were connected with both other children, adults & their environment in a way that they aren't now. We didn't have TV, but we listened to the radio & read books, which sparked our imagination, made us concentrate & think.

My childhood shaped me.

I'm not going to dwell on childhood today in the UK. You all know what it is like. It's light years away from what I remember. In some ways better, but in many I think children have lost something important.

I do want you to think about children in Gaza, in Ukraine, in Sudan, Somalia & the DRC. Children who are living in war zones. I doubt that you can imagine what it's like to constantly be surrounded by death, destruction, shooting, bombs & noise. I can't. What sort of a childhood do these children have? Even survival is not guaranteed - Theirs or their friends & family. The risk of life changing injury is even higher.

Then there are the children living in countries where humanitarian law doesn't apply. In Nigeria for example, mass child abduction is fairly routine. Children in many countries do not have a childhood, they work, voluntarily or not, from a very young age. The family needs them to work in order to be able to survive. Children are sold & trafficked. It's a form of modern slavery in every country in the world, including the UK, the US & Europe. In Africa children are sold for as little as 15$ - 70$.

 

I'm going to stop there. It's too harrowing.

My point is today is the start of Advent - Leading up to the "money fest" of Christmas. We are sold a tinsel & Santa image of happy families. The projected spend on Christmas in 2025 is £41.6 - £46.6 billion. 

More & more I find that unacceptable. Just think of the good, even a small part of that money could do, for the children & their parents living in the conditions I have described. Where is our humanity? Why are we demonising refugees & immigrents?