Finding Meaning in Life

My mother isn't one to give compliments lightly.
In fact, I can't think of many that she has given out.
But I can think of one.
And perhaps, the rarity of it, made it special to me.

It was over a year ago.
'I cannot even begin to comprehend what you have been through- but you must have something about you, some inner reserves to have come through all you went through, without bitterness and without being broken.
Which is why it's so sad that otherwise, you are so weak-willed, feckless and- useless.'

Backhanded compliment maybe, but fair.

I'm lucky now. Life is good. But it hasn't always been.
And if I find myself alone for any length of time- my flatmate has gone on holiday- I get intimidated by the empty flat.

Maybe I should explain a little. I really didn't do a great job of my early twenties, really. I went through a sequence of events, pretty much due to my own failings, which just wasn't the sort of sequence of events anyone wants to live through.

And it didn't break me.
In a sense it made me stronger.
But at a price.

It forced me into having to adopt an existence where I could never relax, or drop my guard for an instant. Where I was always looking over my shoulder, always watching my back, always having to watch situations.

The Adrenalin never truly stopped pumping.
And I lived like that for a long time.

It was a nasty life to live, really. The dance of the Quick and the Dead.
And when you come through smiling, when you get your life back to normal, when you can breathe again, you feel invincible.

You know yourself. And you know NOTHING can break you.
People see it in you.
Because in a physical sense, you no longer have fear.

You can face anyone down eye to eye.

But that doesn't mean you have no fear. The side of life you have seen, means that life to you, just can not be the same as it is to most people.
My adrenalin never really stops pumping.

Emotions are a luxury, and sometimes you have to disconnect them just to survive.
But how do you reconnect them?

You are now fully programmed to survive ANYTHING alone.
Fully programmed to distrust everyone.

You don't need anyone.



Except, in a real sense you do. Now you are through all that, you don't want to think about it anymore. Your life was ruined, and somehow you salvaged at least some of it.

And no, you wouldn't really know if this, if you met me. I'm outgoing, friendly, chatty- though I say it myself, I do come across as a nice person in real life.
People come to me asking for favours, knowing I'll do my best. People like being around me, because in many ways I am quite open.
I make an effort with people, because I do genuinely like people.

And people find it easy to let me in. In ways that sometimes, I wish they wouldn't.
People- especially if they know the stuff I've been through- see me as being able to carry their troubles.
The number of people who, on casual acquiantance tell me the shocking things they have endured in their lives, using me as a shoulder to cry on, can be very draining.

Because you see, I just can't return the favour.
I just really CAN'T let people in.
Except for a tiny circle of people.

And almost everyone else, I protect myself against.
But my flatmate sees me with my guard down, as does The Baker.

Sitting cross legged on the sofa, talking about how I feel.
Striving desperately to find some purpose, something beyond the next pay packet, the next blues game, the next party.

Because you see, somewhere along the way, I stopped caring. I survived by stopping caring.
I have suppressed my own feelings for so long, I have absolutely no idea what they are any more.
Except feeling high and feeling low.
Today is a feeling low day.

Mainly because I'm home alone.

But there is something over the last six months that has awakened me.
Because whilst I lost interest in myself a few years ago, I gained interest in something else.
When I wrote off my future, I took more interest in the future of the world.



Blogging has enabled me to come to terms with the fact that now, I only really have one aim in life.
To try and understand it.
As in Life, the Universe and Everything.

And maybe, understand the things wrong with our society.
So that wasted lives like mine don't have to happen one day.

And the rest, to me, has just become peripheral.

There isn't anything else I really want.

Crushed is not my raison d'etre, but it plays a part in giving me some level of satisfaction.

As Descartes said 'I think, therefore I am.'

Primary Reality- How Universes Work

We are told by physicists that we cannot conceive of primary reality- the fundamental state of existence itself, the fabric of reality within which univeres are set.

Yet I would like to attempt here to do exactly that.
To make basic statements about what reality is, what it is we experience.
And why.

I think I know WHAT is happening.
What universes are.

And it all comes down to Zero.
And (of course) thermodynamics.

What exactly are the laws of thermodynamics?
Because, as we have established, they operate even in a singularity.
They transcend this universe.
From the instant of the big bang, they came into operation gradually wearing this universe down to its end.

But why?

I think I get it.
There was a moment last weekend, where I found myself leaning forward in my chair and saying 'X, I think I've got it.'

OK, Boltzmann's Law.
Entropy is favoured by probability.

But Quantum Mechanics tell us ALL probable universes, exist in some sense.
But we only experience this one.
Why?

Because the logical inference of this, is that IN SOME SENSE, the universe which contradicts Boltzmann's Law happens.
The universe where nothing ever runs down.
Where decay doesn't happen.

According to Quantum Mechanics, an everlasting universe, where change never occurs, is POSSIBLE.

So is the universe we experience, simply JUST the one we experience?

I have already said, I don't think so.
I think the universe we experience is the one which stands directly opposed to this.
The universe we experience, is the one where entropy is reached fastest.
The one which empirical evidence suggests we live in.

And if that is so, then there is only one conclusion.



The universe decides, Planck Tick by Planck Tick, the route to pursue. It makes a decision on what to do next, on which reality to follow, to reach heat death soonest.

It gambles on the probabilities, knowing as 'time' (its own empirical experience) progresses, its choices will drive it to the quickest route to its own end.

The universe calculates something into nothing by the shortest possible number of decisions.

The number of decisions made by the universe per second, is truly mind boggling.

Imagine a photon (a Planck Unit). Imagine the distance travelled by a photon in a second (186,000 miles). Imagine how many photons need to be touched end to end to form a continuous string 186,000 miles long.
That is how many times the universe makes a decision every second.

THAT is reality.

So what is primary reality?

Primary reality is Zero.
Zero is the only true quantity.

All the rest are simply products of our universe.

True zero- the primary reality, has no time, no space, no dimensions.

Nothing that happens at zero can affect anything else at zero.
Everything at zero, is an isolated occurence, with it's own time, space, quantities, etc.

In fact, we can't even say that. We only know about one occurence- ours. We can confidently say that there MUST be other occurences, even an infinite amount of such occurences (infinite in the TRUE sense of the word), because zero has no spatial or time properties. It is infinite nothingness, with no scales or schemes of interrelationships.

At zero, anything can happen, therefore everything does happen.
And we cannot conceptualise any of that.

So what exactly is this primary reality?

I would say, rudimentary consciousness.
Bare logic.

If something appears at Zero, it will be calculated out of existence, to restore Zero.
To restore the equilibrium of nothingness.



So our universe is simply a quantity.
A quantity that appeared at zero.
And is being calculated out of existence.

Universes are a glitch- they are a problem that consciousness encounters as it calculates nothingness.

And then solves.

We live in one big calculation- how to turn Everything into Nothing.

Net Fascism- Join Me in Fighting It?

If you are like me, you know why you blog.
To share your thoughts.

And if you are me, you feel the bloggosphere has become a morgue.

Where has the dynamism gone?
Where is the debate?

Where is the TRUST?

Where the bloggosphere has not slowed down, it has become nasty.

Here is one nasty example of NETPOL disguised as a blog, here an example of a blogger hurt by fear of the net.

Standing back, it is all bizarre.

But it is all happening in too narrow a time frame, with too much co-ordination, at too significant a time, for it to be chance.

Well, I'll state it point blank.

THEY ARE TRYING TO SHUT US DOWN.

Tim Ireland is gone. James Higham is next.

And no stunt is too low.

It all comes from the same source.
Do you think they haven't been reading us for ages?




They want us to shut up.
They hate this public discussion of our lives, because it interferes with what THE SUN SAYS.

They know who I am, they know who you are, they know where we live.

Well, I don't care.
They'll have to break my door down first.

We live in a TOTALITARIAN, EXPLOITATIVE, FASCIST POLICE STATE.
And I'll say that until my door is broken down.

So let's all get blogging again.
Because it is the only way we will beat these bastards.

Tomorrow, I am visiting every blog on my blogroll, every blogger who has ever commented on this site, and I am going to find at least twenty new blogs.



Let's fight.
Let's fight because we're human.

I hope the rest of you feel the same.
Please people.

Let's breathe life into the bloggosphere.

Free Love- When Sex Is No Longer Dirty

The last of my posts on the possibilities of life ahead is possibly going to be the most controversial- because it is going to turn traditional morals on its head.

I am going to come out and candidly say, that our morals on sex are largely a social construct, and one which will soon be overthrown and inverted.
In fact that process has already begun.

Firstly, lets actually have a look at what makes biological sense.
Monogamy doesn't.
Which is why so few successful species practice it.

It is Genetic foolishness for any reproductive individual to put all its eggs in one basket, so to speak and do all its breeding with the same individual.

This is not just true of males, it is true of females.
Producing offspring with as many different partners as possible, is the best choice your genes can make to be passed on.

So why do we practice Monogamy?
Why has so much human energy been expounded in stopping people having sex?

Firstly, because we are not designed perfectly. The nature of our reproductive organs- the fact they also pass waste- makes sex a hazardous business. It spreads disease.

Secondly, in a civilised culture, people need to know what to do with the property of people when they die.
Since the concept of giving it to his children semed fair, you have to be certain you know who all his children are.
So you have to know which women he had sex with, and be sure no other men have had sex with those women too.

If everyone is going to have an opportunity to have sex, this can only be so if the culture adopts monogamy.

It involves a huge repression of human instinct- but it serves a cultural purpose.
And to further prevent unnecessary disease, you stop ALL sex, that serves no reproductive purpose.

And over the years, a fair amount of male dignity has ended up getting attached to this.
Men took pride in the idea that 'their' woman was 'pure'.



Except of course today, with primogeniture largely a thing of the past, and DNA tests around to ensure we know whose child is whose, and with a better understanding of how veneral diseases are spread- even the chance at their eventual eradication-, with contraception to mean that sex need not lead to pregnancy, there is no compelling social reason to maintain these taboos.

Except male dignity.

Men still inherit a distaste for a woman with a past- whilst both sexes are locked into the idea that their partner having sex with another person is a humiliation for them, an attack on their dignity.

Or so it would appear.
In fact, the cracks are already appearing.

An increasing number of couples lead happy lives in situations where honesty, not fidelity is what keeps them together.
I know couples who live happily in open relationships, even one open marriage.

What is more significant, perhaps, is how many women of the younger generation are keen to advertise their promiscuity.
Because increasingly, it is becoming a selling point.

Men have always wanted easy sex.
A women who advertises that she wants easy sex, and has had plenty of it, is going to receive takers.
And not, as was once the case, just to use her.
Many men now, are in fact looking for a self confident, sexually liberated female, who they can initially have a good time with, and demands will not be made.

And in fact, it's a better way to find the perfect partner. Because it actually allows two people to find eachother emotionally, physically and spiritually.




An increasing number of men realise that if you really love someone, you don't need to own them, as long as they are always with you and always give you their love.
And if they give you as much of their love as you want, then it really doesn't matter how much they give to others.

Furthermore, if you REALLY loved someone, the idea of preventing them from fulfilling their sexuality, would be abhorrent.
In a situation of TRUE love, a man and a woman would express their love for eachother, by seeing the person they loved sexually fulfilled in whatever way the person they loved was fulfilled.

If a man truly loves a woman, he will care for her children, because they are hers, not because they are his.

The idea that promiscuity is a negative, that a promiscuous man is sleazy, or a promiscuous woman dirty belongs in the past.

Both in fact, are being generous with their love and affection.
Breaking the nasty limiting ideal of witholding your sexual desires for intimacy with- and your capacity to love- every member of humanity, bar one.

This nasty idea of owning the person you purport to love is not the real us.

Future generations will look at our ideals of chastity and virginity as comparable to slavery.
Which in a sense, they are.
Imposing on anybody the request that they preserve their love for YOU, and only YOU is thoroughly nasty, selfish and symptomatic of an inferiority complex.

Put bluntly, I don't think I'm bad looking, or bad in bed, probably a seven out of ten on both, but if I really loved a woman, I'd be flattered that she enjoyed the ten out of tens regularly, yet still gave me her love every night.

Because it would mean that what we had, was a REAL connection- a connection of mind and soul.

THAT would be a special woman.

The real point is love.
We should only have sex with those we love.

But that shouldn't mean that we have sex less.
It should make us love more.

Sex also serves a purpose, as a pwerful bonding mechanism- it draws people closer together, cementing the bonds of humanity.

The real Sexual Revolution, and the real Feminist Revolution will have taken place when the women held in most respect by society, are those our culture has taught us to most despise.
When we see them, not as sluts or whores, but as true Goddesses of Love.

When a woman feels pride, not shame, in a long list list of sexual conquests.

When a real man would not want a woman who could not love others too.

Thats what Free Love means- everyone being free to give their love, without fear of judgement.

Love should never be shackled.
Love should never be judged.

Again, we need to grow up.

Jumping Off This Rock

One of the main factors which should scream out loud that our society is currently incapable of acheiving anything TRULY productive, is our failure to advance in any meaningful sense, to the problem of where our descendants are going to live.

Now partly, I think we are being slightly alarmist.
The world can easily feed itself today many times over- Africa produces four times as much food as it needs, it just doesn't get distributed properly, whilst us Europeans burn most of what we produce, even when we pay our farmers NOT to grow food.

The fact remains, there's good land sitting idle even in the UK, one of the most heavily populated countries on earth.
This is NOT an overcrowded planet yet, by any stretch of the argument.

If we managed our planet better- in the way I have described- I feel pretty sure we could feed 100 Billion of us and still have plenty of space. And the average global population density STILL wouldn't be as high as it is in the UK today.

It's about the technology and managing the infrastructure efficiently.

The environment is a worry. But only if we don't take control of our atmosphere. In a hundred years or so, I see no reason we why won't be able to install low flying devices that extract the Carbon back out of the CO2, simply leaving Oxygen.
And we'll need this sort of technology anyway.
Technology to create and regulate artificial Eco-systems.

Because, if we really want a bright future, part of it has to be about making great leaps forward.
Just as the navigators of the sixteenth century sailed the oceans and made the world one, one day we must expand the space we occupy.

The problem of population cannot just be solved with birth control. Birth control is inherently negative, in a sense.
It's great for freeing sex from unwanted pregnancy.
But as a deliberate strategy to limit human population, it is a mixed blessing.

Our current society doesn't feel it has the resources to waste on taking this seriously.
Instead, it feels that energy is better spent developing computer games- reality simulations- because we can't be bothered with the real thing.
Real risks, real dangers, real steps forward.

Because let's face it, the day the first settlers- as opposed to astronauts- land on Mars, it will be one of the greatest triumphs of our existence.



We worry about energy. Sitting out there beyond the asteroid belt are four gas giants many times the size of earth, which can power human needs for millennia.

The Solar System is our oyster- it is there for the taking, we pretty much have the knowledge and the resources NOW, to jump off this rock and expand the domain of Man to the Kuiper belt.

And one day- maybe further still.

It is not vanity, to want as much for Man as we can sieze. That is what life is all about. Loving Man, is about wanting Man to acheive his dreams.

This is one of the things that gets me annoyed, that makes me despise our society so much, when I realise what we COULD be doing, and I look at what we are doing.

Because any healthy species, any species with any drive about it, believes in a future where its population growth is permanently exponential and regards that as a positive, not a negative.

Only a species that has lost its sense of purpose wants to limit its numbers.
Because the more of us there are, the more intelligence we have, the more strength we have, the more creativity we have.

And of course, the more Love we have.

To me, this is what proves the system is failing. It is incapable of siezing opportunity for Man, and doing something useful with it.



Because I WANT my descendants to live in towering cities of glass, concrete and steel, piercing the very sky, cities where million, if not billions, live together, work together, play together and make love together.

And I really don't think the daily game of shift the assets around is a constructive way of getting there.

A Hope For a New World Order

I guess I've spent a lot of time telling you what I don't like about our society.
Some would rightly say, what would I replace it with?

Well, I have faith. I see a way things COULD pan out, and that's what I have faith in.
The Bright Future.

I think the coming crisis will be nasty, no two ways about it.

Most of us will have no jobs to do, and we can't be paid anyway, because no one can work out who is entitled to what- money has just vanished.

Possession will be all ten tenths of the law.
The government will only really be able to try and distribute resources, whilst the engines of industry sit idle.
And protect the material control of the haves.

If you do not have a material share yourself in the means of production and distribution, you too will be a have not.

But soon, those who carry the guns for these people will get sick of serving a minority of a few thousand across the globe.

Expect coups, martial law, rioting, pillaging , anarchy.
Maybe for decades.
Maybe even the odd minor nuclear war.



This IS the future.
It almost certain that most of you reading this, will live to see these days.
Sorry to depress you.

But hey, we're not really a stupid species.
I think common sense will FINALLY prevail, before we do ourselves too much damage.
And the expropriation will happen.

And the leading armies will unite to disarm the rest, before disarming themselves.

From now on, the world will need only a small reserve army, to make sure no others develop.

And now, in a world with no states, no armies, no money, no power structures, no private property, no hankering for the past, the best ideas of humanity can blossom.

We will now know that all the people of the world together, with every voice being heard, must jointly share the control and planning of the globe.

Everything must be put under democratic control.

No centralised power structures, but a true separation and distribution of power, with all power devolved to the body smallest enough to truly do the job efficiently.

If something CAN realistically be decided at Community level, it should be.

If it needs to be taken at global level, it should be.

So we separate the power, as Montesque realised.
We elect executives, with limited frames of refernces, say a Food Executive for our town, a Housing Executive for the District, a Transport Executive for our Region, a Space Exploration Executive for the World.

The legislatures, we won't need. Modern Technology makes direct democracy possible. We can all receive all legislation that affects daily electronically, and vote on it electronically.

We can govern ourselves without creating power structures to do so for every aspect of our lives.
We can run our daily lives, without Big Brother supervision.

Global Executives can concern themselves only with planning for true progress- Art, Philosophy and Science.



And Man will boldy face his future.

It will happen. I really believe it.

The Cracks Are Widening

There's no two ways about it.
Things are NOT going to get any better.
Not during this phase of human existence.

When banks and lenders start going bust, then the system really is in trouble.
It's only one lender, you say.
We'll see.

I think the recession to end all recessions is on its way.
The interest monster can no longer be fed.
The red side of the equation is about to equal the black, within the next few years.

And what happens next?
The collapse of all remaining industry in the west.
Money that no longer has any value.
The Great Depression, will seem like the Winter of Discontent, by comparison.

And we see it coming.
The powers that be have made sure that they are heavily armed, when the rioters hit the streets.
For the rioters won't just be the underclasses.
They will include the vast majority of the tax paying population who has worked all their lives, to find they own nothing.

We know, deep down, that all is not well.
Because we no longer care who governs us, it can make no difference.
Crime rates rise as society is stretched at the seams, as the powers that be squeeze every last penny out of the system, before it ends forever.

It's coming.
Five years?
Ten years?
Twenty years at most, probably.

We know we are in the death throes of the system, because life gets worse in every way that matters. Human life gets less safe by the year. Our means of existence- our jobs- get less secure.
There is no longer anything we can be sure of.

We live in a world of hysteria, where it is every man for himself and no one can believe anything they are told.
Trust me, our leaders can see it coming.
They can't prevent it, so they make hay while the sun shines, and arm the state against its subjects.

Life is getting nastier and harder for most of us, and will continue to do so.

And when the collapse happens, the scales will fall from the eyes of all of us.
When the Managing Director earning £100,000 a year, realises he too, is left with nothing. That he too, was never in on the real game.
That he too, was expendable.

Because the cash economy just doesn't work any more.
And no one knows how to get the food to the shops.



This is the nightmare everyone dreads.
And yet this is the very bit we SHOULDN'T fear.

Because that's when it all gets better.

That's when we realise, that the only things that will have gone will be money, corporations and the whole edifice of Capitalism.
And probably our governments too.

But the world will still have the same resources.
It will have the same infrastructure.
It will still have the same industrial capabilities.
And Mankind will still have the same intelligence and expertise.

And we'll all suddenly realise what a wonderful oppurtunity we have.

This will be one of the biggest revolutions in human history, because it won't just be a political one.
It will be a social one, as far reaching as the industrial revolution, changing the very way we live.
Through it, mankind will take one of the great cultural leaps forward, the greatest since the Enlightenment.



It will be when Mankind finally moves out of its adolescence, with its wars, its private property, its armed governments, its racism, its repression of women, its inequality of distribution.

And becomes the Species it has the potential to be.

Goodbye Northern Rock.

Friends- The Most Important Thing We Have

It has always been my belief that there is one thing in life that you just can't put a price tag on.
Friends.

Not acquiantances, or work colleauges, or drinking buddies.
The real type. The ones who will be there, no matter how your life changes, or theirs does.

The friendships that are more than just short term alliances, based on current circumstances.
The friendships that are based on the fact that you always will be, deep down, kindred spirits. People who see the world the same way and want the same things from life.

I think these sorts of friends are rare. In fact I'd go further- a lot of people don't really have friends of this type, and that's a shame really.
Because if you have friends like this, you don't need much else.

In this, I guess, I'm lucky. I've posted before on two of the three closest people to me, but oddly, not on the one who's probably closest of the lot.

I have known The Baker for ten years- we met at University. We had a lot in common- both closer to a surviving grandparent, than our parents, both people who had a 'try everything once, you only live once' outlook.
Over our time as students we discovered ourselves, but only because we mutually supported eachother on that journey.



In some sense, embracing life to the full, can be dangerous. Releasing yourself from the framework of acquired societal morals is a bit like playing Russian Roulette.
But in doing so, you actually learn through your mistakes. You learn through experience what the REAL rights and wrongs are, because you learned the hard way.

Looking back, some of the things we did then, were downright stupid and irresponsible.
But I don't regret any of it.

The amusing thing was, there two schools of thought.
One school of thought (incuding The Baker's grandfather) was that I was a terrible influence on The Baker, that otherwise he'd be a sensible, moderate hard working student.
The other school (including my grandmother) reversed those roles.

The reality of course, was that we encouraged eachother. We would carry on, where others would stop. We continuously pushed the boundaries, wanting to see what lay beyond.

Of course, we were young and naive then.

Over the years, we have moved on from the complete recklessness that characterised the pair of us at that age.
Both of us have developed our own sense of right and wrong, and life in the real world has taught us some sense.

But our shared experience of life, our similarities in outlook have meant that we have reached the closing years of our twenties with a closeness that is, perhaps, uncommon.

We can talk to eachother about things that most people would not talk to their partners about.
The discussions we have are all the more valuable, because they descend from ten years worth of conversation- there's so much that doesn't need to be said, because it's already been said.
I don't think there's anything that has appeared in any of my posts, which I haven't already debated with The Baker.

We live a hundred miles apart, but still spend on average, two weekends a month in eachother's company. It's the sort of friendship that is so close, that people often jump to the wrong conclusions about it.



I guess we can never really say we understand anyone apart from ourselves, because we have all followed different life paths and are all composed in slightly different ways.
But when we have people who know our opinions before asking, who know what we want before we ask it, who never think ill of us, no matter what we do, because they know us well enough to be able to understand us even we are wrong, we have something precious.

Precious, because if you don't have anyone you can be totally yourself with, someone you can actually discuss your darkest fears with, you can never know yourself, or value yourself.

Friends really are priceless.

Ozymandias

I'm going away for the weekend.

Here's a bit of Shelley to ponder on.

In a sense, it's a sad state on mortality, even the mighty are forgotten...

But then again, isn't there something heartwarming about that, too?

Life is about living today.
Not in the past. Nor in the future.
But never lose sight of either.

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

What Our Parents Taught Us

Thi post is really aimed at those in my age group.
The children of the late seventies and early eighties.
Thatcher's children.
The E generation.

The ones that are accused of throwing away the world we inherited.

OK. Let's look at what we learned from our parents.

And let's start by looking at what they did.

They were teenagers in 1962.
They heard about, but had not seen the horrors of the Second World War.
They saw the power of the atom bomb.
They saw the emerging freedom from colonialism, without the ideological baggage of Empire.

And for a few weeks, in 1962, they thought the world would end.



And they realised how precious life was. And how short it was.
Why not just experience it and enjoy it?
And if a rule was silly, if breaking it harmed no one, why not?

They saw War as the dangerous and nasty thing it is.
They saw sex as something that needn't be dirty.
They saw man as good, not bad.
They saw the world was small, the differences betwen people minor, but fascinating, that life was rich, if you aspired to more than the BBC offered.

And they stood up and said it.
And did it.

And yes, some of those values survive.
Some were sold along the way.



For the Yuppies of the Eighties, were the Hippies of the Sixties. My father, for example, went to the Isle of Wight to see Hendrix, but made it good under Thatcher.

They were bribed back to the system.
Ok, so they had made their point about Vietnam, The Deep South, Apartheid, but other social anachronisms remained.

The Third World got nastier.
The West got meaner.

Our illustrious parents supported a system, with no moral purpose.
Because they had rejected their parents values.
And now rejected their own.

And they tried to bring us up too, in a cold, pointless, emotionless, connectionless world, where making a visible success of yourself was all that counted.
The world of convention.
The world of the BMW in the drive.

They re-invented the archaic ideal of monogamy- which in their youth they saw as it really is- a kind of slavery, as another form of status symbols.

Where proof of Love is a fifty grand wedding.



So we rebelled too.
Because the world they offered us was plain nasty.
And cold.
And dead.

We believed in their values as little as they did in their parents' values.
But with better reason.

And we partied solid, as soon we were able to do so.
Why not?
They did.
We just didn't express it so politically.
We had seen how far starry-eyed principles got last time.



We just discussed it privately, as we still do.

Here's an interesting point.
The majority of hard party goers I know vote Tory- as I do.
Like me, they hate the principles, but see it works.

But we never really gave ourselves to any of it, the real bribes, the kitchen extensions on credit, marriage, decorating the home, all the signs of dead existence we'd swore we'd never do.

Except time is passing. People look at their own lives and say 'What the Hell, I'll sell, if you can't beat them, join them.'

This is what I really hate.
Because the time is coming for me to choose.
My third decade on Earth is drawing to a close.

I COULD make a packet out of servily bowing to every value I despise.
I could marry, raise 2.4 children in a five bedroomed showhome, spending my weekends on DIY, and never think about the rest of the world outside my cul-de-sac and my office.

Or I could reject self-lobotomy.

I think I've succeeded well in delaying the judgement, but everyday I see opportunities arise to get removing my frontal lobes and make a concerted effort to force a path to a pompous sounding job title.

I think this is the most important moral dilemma I will ever really face.
Because if I really do sell myself now, I really don't think I could ever look myself in the eye in the mirror again.
Not in the showhome.

Advice anyone?

Fighting Inner Reptile- Knowing the Darkness Within

Ok, last poll didn't really interest you- It was a tie.
Prisons not a hot topic here then, in spite of the media.

OK, this week, the question will be about you.

But first, let's remember Inner Monkey.
Happy Inner Monkey, trying to guide you towards Love.
Love for all your species.

After all, it does work better, as Inner Monkey knows.
But why are you so hard to guide?

Well, Inner Monkey is guiding you towards love.
Away from our deeper roots.
Because although Monkey is Loving and Curious, we have a darker history that we are climbing up from.

Inner Reptile.
Lurking deeper still- hiding inside Inner Monkey.
The urge to simply survive.
The urge to pure self.

The primal instinct that causes animals to devour their young or kill their mothers.

Mammals are lucky creatures. They rise above the true evils of nature, a nasty brutal survival game.
Survival of the nastiest, as much as survival of the fittest.
And the wonder is, that such a nasty concept, yield at its pinnacle to something like us.



But let go of Inner Monkey and Inner Reptile steps in.

Inner Reptile takes Love and Curiosity and warps them.
Warps them to Reptile way.
Warps to self.

And so we see Inner Reptile cutting us back.
Instead of unconditional love, Inner reptile makes it conditional.
A bargain.

'I'll Love you, but only if you NEVER show another man affection.'

All that is bad, is Inner reptile perverting good.
Each evil, is a love gone wrong.

Which of the seven sins does not entail Love?



Sloth- Love of rest, love of doing nothing. Wasting your life.

Gluttony- Love of the Earth's bounty, taking and filling yourself with more than you need, while others starve.

Lust- Love of Sex, but Love of it, to the exclusion of the Bond that should be felt to truly celebrate the gift of life.

Avarice- Love of the means to gain the fruits of the earth- and the means to rule.

Envy- Love of anything you don't have, but feel entitled to.

Wrath- Love of whatever drives you so much, you lose perspective of the more important Love- To Mankind.

Pride- Love of self, and Love of IMAGE of self.

Inner reptile is indeed cunning. He uses our own strength against us, seeking to drag us back to his ways.
Back to an animal, back to the nasty ways of nature we have climbed so far to escape.

That's Evil.
The act of impulse before feeling.

Evil is not a fallen Good.
Good is a risen Evil.



And Inner Monkey drives us forward.

So let's kiss goodbye to Reptile ways.
Let's stop owning bits of the earth.
Let's stop owning it's bounty.
And let's stop owning eachother.

And just enjoy it- enjoy life.
While we have the chance.

Because it truly is an amazing experience to live through.

So, is your Inner Monkey winning?

Have your say!

Freeing Inner Monkey- Knowing Ourselves as Humans

Sometimes we find it hard to accept what we are. We find it hard to admit what really drives us.
The creature we are, why we are the species we are.

And what makes us good. Or to be more honest, what dictates our sense of good? Where does our sense of good come from?

The answer is Inner Monkey.
No, I'm not being facetious.
Let's follow our history.

Our emotions- our sense of Love and Hate, and all our values of interaction, have roots in our Biological class.
Reptiles are pretty nasty really. So are most animals.
Look at how they live.
Ok, we shouldn't judge them by our standards, but if we DID- and this is the point- they have nothing we could describe as ethics. They live towards eachother in ways that to us, are evil.

They feel nothing to eachother. Each one depends on himself.
Even collective species, such as insects, are not bonded by love. They are just cogs in a machine.
They are functions, parts, a means to an end.

Mammals are different. They give birth to and nurture their young. This makes mammals different. Mammals need some rudimentary Love for eachother to survive. Because the newborn involve such efforts to produce and rear, they cannot be abandoned, like the young of other classes and phyla.



Amongst Mammals, Monkey is special. By Monkey I mean Monkey in it's widest uses.
Haplorrhine Primates.
Monkey, is a special mammal.
Because Monkey lives by his wits.

Monkey is an opportunist.
Monkey explores things, to see how he can use them.

Monkey is curious.
But Monkey is not a creature who lives by hate.
Monkey never kills the young of other monkeys.
Monkey likes other Monkeys.

Monkeys like living together.
Monkeys will help eachother if they can.

We should not be ashamed of being a Monkey.
Monkey is a creature who has risen above the general nastiness of nature, who has climbed away from the Black Widow Spider, the Crocodile, the Dung Beatle.

Monkey is driven by Love.
Monkey just wants sex a lot.
Monkey wants to feel Loved, because in Loving, Monkey makes more Monkeys, who spread more love.
That's how we work, pretty much.

We love eachother because we want to carry on spreading Love.
And in Monkey, Love is special. Because Monkey needs other Monkeys. He doesn't really want other Monkeys eaten by the lion. He loses a helper that way.

Love and Curiosity.
Monkey's unique combination.

They drove Monkey to explore.
You see, that's what makes Monkey special- You know the saying, give a Monkey a typewriter, in time he'll type the Bible?
Well- that's what happened.



Inner Monkey learned to walk on two legs.
Inner Monkey learned to make fires.
Inner Monkey learned to hunt.
Inner Monkey learned to talk.
Inner Monkey became the Lord of the Earth.
Inner Monkey tamed animals.
Inner Monkey planted wheat.
Inner Monkey made art.
Inner Monkey built cities of stone.
Inner Monkey smelted metal.
Inner Monkey wrote poetry.
Inner Monkey worked out the courses of the stars.
Inner Monkey thought about where he came from.
Inner Monkey crossed the oceans.
Inner Monkey invented complex ways to rule other Monkeys.
Inner Monkey invented the telegraph.
Inner Monkey invented railways.
Inner Monkey remoulded the globe.
Inner Monkey found great new ways to communicate to Inner Monkeys far, far away.
Inner Monkey went into space.

Because Inner Monkey is Loving, and Inner Monkey is Curious.



And the rest? The rest of the crap we live with? It's a just a system Inner Monkey has designed. Even our intelligence, just something Inner Monkey evolved to satisfy his Love for other Monkeys, and his innate curiosity.
Inner Monkey is good.

For so long we ran from the fact of who we are and what motivates us.
We are ashamed of it.

We come from Monkeys and we love to love eachother.

But this is our strength, because Inner Monkey is good, he is everything that is good.

Inner Monkey can defeat Ingsoc.
Inner Monkey WILL defeat Ingsoc.

Learn to Love Inner Monkey.

Be Wise, Like Unto The Monkey

Another tag, this time from Phish.



But those of you who fear the finger of fate, be glad.
The monkey came.

So.
What's with the monkey, you ask.

Focus on the monkey.

Alexys was surprised recently that I gave a slightly tongue in cheek response to a comment from her.
I think she would be shocked by the reality that RL me, is a very UNserious, frivolous seeming person, someone who never seems to really take life seriously.
Hey, it's a game.

I play to win.
But I DO try follow the rules.
If you took it TOO seriously, you wouldn't bother setting rules for yourself.
That's how games work.

Focus on the monkey.

My work colleagues think I can be very surreal. They think I have a monkey obsession.
But no, it is the philosophy.

It is about getting in touch with your inner monkey.

We are primates.
We evolved from creatures like monkeys.

The monkey is closer to us, than the dog.
Closer as in, to YOU, a closer genetic COUSIN.

The monkey has our emotions more so than any other type of creature.
An animal like us.
But but without our reason.

Without the love we bear eachother as a collective, communicative species that the monkey is not- not to our degree.

But without that hate too.



Monkey just reacts. He loves those who make him feel good TODAY. Monkey rewards today's kindness.
Monkey shows love to his fellow monkey. He doesn't need to analyse it, he feels it, or he doesn't. It relies entirely on whether you make him feel good.

Monkey forgives, but never forgets.

He doesn't carry the dark side of our humanity, the desire to own things- and people.
Or the bizarre concept that you can rectify the past by your actions now.

That's blame.
No use crying over spilt milk.
It is nice if the person who spilt it,cleaned it up.
But if they don't, it still has to be cleaned up.

Blame is useful, in that it enables people to find out why something happened, and how it can be stopped happening again.

But ultimately, the responsibility for unpleasantness continuing is not the person who started it, but the person who won't end it.

The past is history.
It is irrevocable.
The future is there for the taking.



Monkey knows this.
So be wise, like unto the monkey.

Hear no evil.
See no evil.
Speak no evil.

That's the real Monkey Magic.

So I'm tagging these people:

I tag anyone who feels that blame and revenge make them feel better.

The award? If you are in touch with your inner monkey, it's yours...

Power- It Will Always Corrupt

I posted recently about the Nazis and how something people thought so good turned out to be pretty awful.

Thing is, it's not just the Nazis.

Give anyone enough power for long enough, things go wrong.
And we need to get to grips with why.

The odd thing is, we should have learned two thousand years ago.

In 47AD, Julius Caesar decided the world was too complicated, Rome's empire was so big, it couldn't be trusted in the hands of popularly elected officials, who had bought their offices with Rome's new found wealth.

Whatever the semantics of whether or not he counts as the first Emperor, the fact is he created a true Living God.
A human being to be worshipped.
The Roman Emperors.

Now, we know this had it's downside. Good for the Empire as a whole, maybe, but human beings paid the price.
Not all the Emperors were all bad, but the fact remains it didn't pay to be close to the Imperial throne.

And we can see why. Adulation is addictive. Responsibility for the welfare of the world is a huge responsibility for one man.
The sort of person who can stick at this sort of thing and make it work, must be hugely driven, narcissistic and multi-talented.

They will fear for their lives every day, yet never be able to let go.
Go back to being mortal?
Never.

Slowly it takes it's toll- especially for the best of them. They have made so many correct decisions, the worship of the World seals their grip on the tiller- it becomes a death grip.
This when they entrench themselves.
And then the paranoia starts.
And the sense of omniscience.

Everyone can be sacrificed, because they now truly see themselves as Messiahs.
Sometimes, a part of them is.

The weak become Caligulas, the strong become Stalins.



Curtailing the power of these types is usually a start, but even so, after ten years running a country, most of them have lost the plot.
We have put a person in a position the stress of which could cause a total nervous breakdown, and give them the codes to our nuclear missiles.

And after a while, they almost adopt the royal 'we'.

Thatcher after eleven years had certainly taken in too much of her own myth. I dread to think what she would have been like, had she had dictatorial powers.
But looking at the Miner's strike, I can guess.
And let's be honest, I think Tony's Thinkpol would have been extremely sinister, if he'd had the chance.
Look what he's managed without dictatorial powers.

So too much power in too few hands, just isn't really a good thing.
Centralised Executives are pretty dangerous, because the office holders go a bit nuts after a while and starting using their powers in the wrong ways.

It's just not sensible.
It's a burden. It should be shared.

As a responsible species, we should all be taking up that share in our own government that is the true ideal of true democracy.

Not screwing up some poor deluded guys who were looking for a buzz and found a burden, then wondering why people get hurt.

The Beautiful Game- One of Life's Pleasures

One thing I don't much post on, is football.
This would surprise the outside world, if it knew I blogged.

I don't blog on it, because I get to talk about to my heart's content in real life.
When I'm in the pub, I talk about football a LOT.
And I watch a lot of it.
I'm seen as being in the football obsessive group of males, and I admit, I am.

Football for me, is deeply satisfying.

For one thing, as a man, it helps me get in touch with my masculine side.
The game appeals, because it is the sport that most satisfies our warrior instincts.
The game is simple.
No silly rules, no touchdowns, conversations, strange point systems, sets, etc.

Just goals.
Ball in the back of the net= One Goal.

That's it.

Everyone knows the rules as well as the ref.
If you are actually there, watching it live, you know when he was wrong.
It's just it was his call, not yours.

Doesn't stop you joining in the ancient hymn;
'Who's the W**ker, Who's the w**ker, Who's the W**ker in the black?
Who's the W**KER IN THE BLACK?'

That's football. Wearing a shirt. Getting tribal. Being part of the crowd. Releasing you anger, your hatred, your bile, releasing your pent up male aggression on twenty two men and a ball.



The other reason I love it, is it appeals to my analytical side.
In a sense, it's a warlike game.
That's why I love to really get into team psychology. Football is about interpersonal dynamics.
For someone of my way of thinking, football is a great study of human passion, tactics, interaction, etc.

I love watching the game, making observations, making predictions and seeing how my estimates pan out.
Which is why I watch so much.
I take the entire World Cup as holiday and watch every match.
I want to experience the WHOLE World Cup.



Over the years, this long study has paid huge dividends. I know a lot about the game, the dynamics behind it, and enough to be a fairly accurate amateur pundit.

But here's a point.
I feel much the same about General Elections. I get very in to those as well.

Except I love my football team whereas I find the party I vote for morally and spiritually bankrupt.

I'm proud to wear a Birmingham City shirt.

The Nazis- Why the Fascination?

Turn on the TV on a Sunday afternoon and go trawling through the channels in the vain hope of finding something worth watching, it is a pretty sure thing, you will run into a programme somwhere which has to do with the years 1933-1945.

Sometimes, we can get weary of hearing about this period, yet still the fascination lingers.

What is it?
Why do we dwell on it so much?

Partly, for some, it is just morbid. There will always be a market for books on serial killers and the like, it's a nasty but all too real fact of life.
And the Nazis were serial killers on a gigantic scale.

Which brings us on to why the rest of us stare in fascination.
How did this happen?

Partly, World War II is the creation myth of the modern world; The nineenth century was born early in 1789 and died late in 1914.
The modern world emerged in 1945.
This period, the Inter war period was something different again, so near to us in way of life, it intimidates us, our grandparents were alive then, they had television, radios, telephones, etc.

But they weren't us YET.
They hadn't endured the world changing horrors of the 1939-1945 conflict and the world that followed.
It was a more naive world in 1939.

A world which had learned the lessons of one war, but in which some generally abhorred attitudes today, had survived and were accepted.



We really want to know, just how the Nazis pulled it off.
How did they hold the German people so spellbound?
Because that is very uncomfortable to deal with.

What do we know, that they didn't?
What did they see that, with the benefit of hindsight, is obscured to us.

If it were us, would we have been duped?
Because that, is a very uncomfortable thing to deal with.
There's a whole subculture deals with this by embracing the sicker elements of the Nazi creed and adding a slight tinge of Heavy Metal and Satanism, is if to highlight their evil status.

But here's the hard truth. The Nazis didn't sit around being evil. They actually thought they were the good guys. Deluded, maybe, but sincere.

Even scarier, I think they felt a lot of love.
Only for Germans, true, because pretty much everyone else wasn't worth it.
Twisted love, true.
Destructive love, well, obviously.
But it was their version of it.

The uncomfortable truth many of us find hard to deal with is that millions of Germans voted for this guy, and believed in him, right up to the better end.

I look at my friends, and realise we'd have been the type who would have done. The movement tapped into the right emotions.

Let's look at what it offered- It offered a theory as to why the world was messed up. It was a conspiracy theory, but one of the best of all time, and one which had the added luxury of actually being believed by its leaders, most of the people in Germany, and large sections of the world at large.

The Elders of Zion were seen much as Al Queda are now.
Pure conspiracist fantasy, but we're stupid enough to believe the same rubbish now.

It was scientifically credible. It used science, when it suited it. It's version of Darwin's theory of Evolution, was that Aryan man, was the most evolved race of man. The rest hadn't got so far yet.
So Aryan man must rule, to ensure progress.
This is good news for Aryans, should they get enough guns.
Let's not forget that they used a lot of good science as well.

They were just streets ahead of their time with PR and being forward looking.
First Aeroplane Election campaign- Hitler Over Germany.
First Motorway.
First Rockets.
You'd have been proud- proud to be German, grateful to Hitler.

We'd have cheered as he marched through the Arc de Triomphe.
Because we're human. The emotion would have got to us.



And, if you were lucky enough to be German- of the Aryan type, anyway- It offered a Socialist ethic, it was after all, the National Socialist party.

To really understand how people fell for all this, might I recommend 'Inside the Third Reich', memoirs of one who learned the hard way, Albert Speer.
There's a conscience that must have ached.

So what's the lesson?

Not one we really get, I think.
The result of their efforts weren't evil, just because their ideas on race were objectionable.
The results were evil, because they were destructive.

We defeated these and buried their creed.

We are quieter when it comes to those whose creeds we can't bury and never beat, because how do we explain them?

The Nazis were not an isolated phenomenon, this is the point. We need to understand the dynamics of how it happened.
When people get carried away by slogans and emotions.
When they worship their leaders.

When they get complacent and allow others to think for them.



We find the Nazis fascinating, because we want to know how the trick worked.

Let me tell you, it still does.