Save Our Species - S.O.S.

If you have time, please read the story and then answer the survey question at the bottom of the post. Feel free to comment in the usual way too of course. (more…)

There have been a few core values that have dictated every choice in my life. 

1. Self honesty
2. A belief that I can do what ever I choose to do
3. To do the best I can at what ever I choose to do
4. Respect for others
5. To reject outside authority unless it meets all the above criteria (more…)

Sitting down to write this, I have just realised that a lot of my wisdom seems to have come from interaction with my children. I knew that having and raising kids had changed me and I had learned a huge amount from being a parent. Its only  just occurred to me though just how much I’ve learned from getting down to their level of understanding mentally in order to be able to answer their questions in a way that they can understand.

Eight seems to have been a formative year for my daughter philosophically speaking. One day whilst I was sitting on the toilet, my 8 year old daughter came to speak to me. It doesn’t matter where I hide - there’s no respect for privacy in our house

“Daddy, I’ve heard people talking about a the glass being half full or half empty. Which do you think it is?”

Once I managed to get over the shock of being asked this question by an eight year old, I prepared to launch into my pre-formulated response. After all this is one of those Lego structures I finished years ago and I was pretty sure I knew the right answer.

I don’t know why, but before I spoke, I decided to revisit the question and try to see it from my daughters perspective. I’m glad I took the time because this time I came up with a completely different answer. It was probably 20 years since I had last thought about it but I was sure my answer wouldn’t have changed. Not only had it changed, it had changed to something I hadn’t even considered as as possibility last time.

Rather than just tell you what answer I came up with, I’d like to hear other peoples response to this question. SF you think you know what I’m going to say, well lets find out if your right. Please consider your responses and write your reply before reading other peoples comments. I want to run this like a small survey to see what the split of opinions is.

How do you see it? Is the glass half full or half empty? 

Who’s going to go first? (more…)

This inspirational music thing really isn’t my style, but I’m going to take a chance and run with the heard on this one. See, you guys are changing me already.

Unfortunately, the video doesn’t do the song justice and poor old Sonique doesn’t seem to be able to dance for toffee. So better to listen with your eyes closed or just read the lyrics

A post on Looking in the Mirror made me think of this song and it sends shivers down my spine. So just for a moment - Follow me….

Sonique - Sky

Oh yeah
Oh yeah, oh yeah

Look at me, it really was not easy, but I can breath
And I’m so grateful ‘cause I can see
I am free, to do exactly what I please
So come with me, to a place where we can be

Oh I wanna touch the sky, I wanna fly so high
Oh I wanna hold you, I wanna love you tonight
Oh I wanna touch the sky, I wanna fly so high
Oh I wanna satisfy, I wanna make you cry

Follow me
To a place where we can be absolutely free
To be exactly what you wanna be completely
Lose control that’s why I need you more
Give me the key to set your heart and spirits free, oh yeah

Oh I wanna touch the sky, I wanna fly so high
Oh I wanna hold you, I wanna love you tonight
Oh I wanna touch the sky, I wanna fly so high
Oh I wanna satisfy, I wanna make you cry

I know what I want and I know that I need it right now
Gonna take you on a journey to a far away place now
Gonna take you on a journey to a far away place now, uh

Oh I wanna touch the sky, I wanna fly so high
Oh I wanna hold you, I wanna love you tonight
Oh I wanna touch the sky, I wanna fly so high
Oh I wanna satisfy, I wanna make you cry

Ohhhh like a bird in the sky just a you and I
I’m gonna fly like a bird in the sky just a you and I
We’re gonna fly like a bird in the sky just you and I

I wanna love you now
I wanna take you high
I wanna give you everything that you desire

I wanna love you now
I wanna take you high
I wanna give you everything that you desire

I wanna love you now
I wanna take you high
I wanna give you everything that you desire

I wanna love you now

For Christmas my 8-year-old son asked for every conceivable piece of Lego Star Wars he could find in the catalogue. He didn’t get everything he asked for but he didn’t do badly.

We were pleased to see that when he got his Lego kits for Christmas, his enthusiasm and excitement dwarfed his fear of failure and he was eager to plunge in to his first project the AT-ST. You will see from the picture that this is a complicated construction with hundreds of pieces and a complex instruction manual aimed at children 14+. After a brief session showing him how to follow the instruction manual and explaining the importance of getting every single step exactly right before proceeding to the next, off he went. (more…)

As a child we live in blissful ignorance of the vast number of beliefs available on every single issue and blithely assume that everyone sees things the same way we do. That’s why as a child, every kid we meet can be our friend within minutes of meeting regardless of his race, colour creed or background.

Once we start to realise that not everyone believes the same things we do, it comes as a bit of an unsettling shock and throws up a dilemma - which belief is the right belief? Like a child at the sweetie counter overwhelmed by choice we stand in awe of the vast number of conflicting beliefs and wonder how we can ever choose.

One of the largest belief issues any of us will ever have to face is, which religion is the true religion. After all there’s a lot riding on getting it right. According to the vendors – our eternal souls no less. Millions of people have died to make their point so it must be important to get it right, mustn’t it? (more…)

Let’s open up this debate with some moral and philosophical questions about the nature of value, property and ownership just to get people all revved up.

• Does wealth confer the right to squander?
• Because someone can afford to waste things, should they be allowed to?
• If people don’t need things should they be allowed to keep them?

Politicians don’t like to talk about individual cases because they stir passions in people and passionate people worry politicians. They much prefer to live in an abstract world where passion and common sense are stifled in favour of reason and procedure. 

Me, I live for passion and I find moral dilemmas are much more fun with a real life example to spice them up, so here’s one I made earlier. (more…)

If something has no monetary value, society today regards it as being without inherent value, so the value of something is considered to be proportional to its monetary value. Since the distribution of money is far from even, the value of an item to an individual will be proportional to their personal wealth. If we adopt this value system, which sadly most of us have without being aware of it, the calculation of something’s value to an individual can be summarised like this

1 / (Value to individual = Individual Wealth - Monetary Value)

Or simply stated, the poorer you are and the more something costs, the more you will value it. Conversely, the richer you are and the less something costs, the less you will value it. The effect of this is that the wealthy live in a world where everything has less value and poorer people live in a world where the simplest things can have immense value. Each outlook will shape your existence accordingly. This wisdom was once summarised as,

It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God

(more…)

For many years I made a fundamental mistake and assumed that because we should all be treated equitably, all people were equal. Equal means “the same” we are evidently not the same, so we cannot be equal.

Every one of us is a unique individual. Our uniqueness is encoded in our DNA. Even if we have an identical twin with the same genetic code we are unique because we all exist at a different point in space and time. We may try from time to time but it’s physically impossible for us to experience the universe from another’s unique point of view.

It took me a while to let go of the concept that we are all equal but when I did, I was able to embrace my own uniqueness and trust my unique vision.

The Universe is one seamless wave of energy. Matter is energy and all distinctions between ‘this and that’ are arbitrary. We see where the ocean laps against the shore and in our minds we make the distinction between land and water but the two are fundamentally the same energy.

Everyday, as I go through life I see things, mundane things. Occasionally, in a flash of illumination I am connected with everything. In that moment I see how one simple ordinary thing is connected to everything else. A simple observation suddenly transcends into a vision of the whole. These moments tend to be first thing in the morning when I wake up, just before I open my eyes and my conscious mind kicks in with all its judgements and prejudices. The vision of the whole is too big to hold onto and it’s gone again in another instant.

Over the years I have seen glimpses of different parts of the puzzle. Each part has seemed distinct and frustratingly separate. Over the last 5 years the process has accelerated and at last the different parts of the puzzle are beginning to join up to from a picture of the whole.

This is what I want to share with you here on this site. I want to document the flashes of the whole as they are revealed to me so that they exist somewhere other than just in my head. I want to share my vision and see if it resonates with other people. If it does, what might we be able to do with it?