From the land of Serendip

I received in the post yesterday a magnificent gift, quite unexpected: Nights from the Alhambra, a boxed set recording a live performance by Loreena McKennitt. The donor had no particular reason to suppose I would be favourable to her music: in fact I’ve never before encountered anyone else who shares my taste for it. I think people find her (Loreena, not the donor!) daunting: the intensity of her brilliance and presence, the way she gives herself totally in performance, holding nothing back, transfixing you with her more piercing notes, then caressing you with her feathery softness. She’s Canadian and her music is an odd blend of Celtic and Arabian, with other influences thrown into the pot. I’ve been enchanted by her since 1996. A gift shop in Glastonbury, town of legends, was playing her setting of Tennyson’s poem, “The Lady of Shalott”. I made inquiries and bought the cassette on the spot. One day I may be able tell you of an extraordinary encounter which occurred in that same visit to Glastonbury. I wrote about it but have been unable to find the document.

I watched the DVD and then again with the commentary turned on. As Loreena McKennitt first walks on to the stage, we hear her voice-over:

I once came across a quote from the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu: “A good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.”

I wrote it down. I never heard it before yesterday. Now if you look to the top of this page, you’ll see it has been adopted as the new epigraph for “A Wayfarer’s Notes”. I think it’s there to stay.

And whilst searching for details of that extraordinary encounter in Glastonbury, I found something else: a long-lost, long deleted earlier blog, predecessor to this one and started ten years ago. On its first day, I wrote four posts, three of which are reproduced below, verbatim.

You may notice that it conveys the same message as my post of two days ago, “Attitude”; only rather more plainly, I fancy. It leaves me astonished, wondering where this stuff comes from, still wanting to make itself heard, somehow independently of its author.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2004

Why do we do it?
I asked my fifteen-year-old daughter, who of course knows everything, whether she has a blog. No. Do some of her friends have one? Yes. Why does anyone do it? To show off.

Hmm. There is something in me which resists the stark simplicity of such a judgement. I could have asked her, “What is showing off? Why do people do it?” But she had already been helpful enough.

These are the sorts of questions I can ask myself, and by extension, the world.

Now this is my definition. A blog is a mirror. You gaze into it, making faces, examining your spots, perhaps, making plans and resolutions, frowning, practising new expressions.

A blog is one of those mirrors in actors’ dressing rooms. It’s surrounded by bare lightbulbs, so you can adjust your makeup to withstand the bright glare of the stage.

But where a dressing room has a certain level of privacy, being the ante-room to the stage itself, a blog is the stage. Within it, I pace the boards, endlessly declaiming my spontaneous soliloquy to all and sundry. Practising my art.

Before I finish, let me thank VL, whose blog I stumbled upon minutes after he first created it, for unconsciously providing the impetus to get going. Special thanks also to Robert. He asked me to show him how to set up a website. I tried to tell him it was more complicated than perhaps he thought. But I should have shown him how to start a blog. With that in mind I thought I better set one up myself, just to find out. But most of all K, for her constant love - and for much more that cannot be said here.

posted by Vincent at 7:00 AM | 2 comments

Showing off
As my daughter said, a blog is for “showing off”. And my immediate thought was, “Showing off is bad. We ought to be modest.” Which is a strange crazy thought, that comes from some childhood conditioning. It is someone else’s thought, planted into me long ago, that should be rooted out like a weed. Not because it is devoid of truth, but because I am grown up and deserve to think my own thoughts, not those which parents, teachers, parsons fed to me.

It is true that I have too often let my light shine under a bushel, whatever a bushel may be. I object to smart-arses and show-offs myself, so I don’t want to be one. But there’s a difference and it’s important to understand.

I don’t want to show myself as better than others. I don’t want to compete. On the contrary. You are my brother, my sister. You are wonderful. You have plenty to boast about. And when I say boast, I mean “proclaim with gratitude”. You are a vital part of this glorious creation and you better know it, appreciate it and improve it.

We look in the mirror not just to admire ourselves but to criticise and improve too; and recognise that with our gifts we also have limitations.

And there is something else I want to say. We are all busy, in our ways. Therefore we “don’t have time”. For what? To tell someone we love them? To give to someone? To give to ourselves? To let ourselves be loved? To listen? To play around reading and writing blogs? Hey, we choose all this. And in choosing we create ourselves. I had a boss once, very English, Catholic; perhaps from a Catholic family that could be traced all the way to the days of Henry VIII who stamped on Catholicism in England good and proper. He (my boss, not Henry VIII) had a tendency to stamp his views on his team; and one view was that the word “create” should be reserved for God.

Ha! Well it depends how he used the word God in his life. He might thereby enslave himself to you-know-what—the whole panoply of disciplines and bowing-downs. Or he might empower himself: “I will let God-in-me enhance the moments of my life, and embellish the world.”

For we have a conscience, and even a hotline to the best that we can know. And I still maintain that we do better to chuck out someone else’s thought, when it controls us against our own will.

posted by Vincent at 10:13 AM | 2 comments

Changing my mind
Allow me to disagree with what I wrote before—about a blog being a mirror and so forth. As if one was in one’s private boudoir, with no one to watch. It’s not like that. Let me explain.

Once I worked in a fancy new building on the ground floor. They had made the windows reflective from the outside. We could see out, but passers-by on the pavement outside could not see in, only themselves. One day a woman stopped and grimaced at herself then started to squeeze a spot on her face. “Uuugh!” we said. It was clear that had she known she was being observed she would not have done it.

I am not saying it’s wrong to let it all hang out, if that is what you want to do, if that is what’s helpful. Nothing is wrong! But it’s not what I want to do. You know when someone listens to themself for the first time on audio tape? “Ugh, is that what I sound like? Is this what others hear?”

But we can change. At least change how we project ourselves. And i don’t just want to pick at spots in my boudoir. I want to share. And this in part is recognising my common humanity. I admit to having taken a perverse pride in being different at certain times. You know, a solitary misunderstood misfit.

But on this wonderful invention, the Internet, which already we cannot imagine doing without, we can, in an uplifting way, track our similarities. And so now, I want what I write to be accessible, and helpful. I want it to reach you. And I hope you will reach me too, for your comments are as important, if not more so, than my posts.

posted by Vincent at 5:30 PM | 0 comments

Attitude

I made a discovery, nothing new to much of the world, just to me. Things are out there already, but you don’t learn anything until you find it “in here” too. Sometimes people call this “resonance”. A friend had been writing a series of pieces trying to discover what was wrong with his life, and how it got that way. I was trying to make helpful remarks, based on intuitive perception. It’s very useful to mull things over in this way, with another person. Our dialogue had been framed in such a way that he was the one looking for enlightenment & I was throwing in the odd helpful remark, but I discovered I was learning from him just as much, or more.

My methods were intuitive, I said. He reckoned that 90% of people would equate intuition with “gut reaction”. Yes, I suppose they do. What I’d said to him was

My ‘intuitive method’ consists of not thinking about a thing, leaving an empty space in my mind. Sooner or later something pops in. Sometimes it is a phrase fully formed. But then it requires elaboration. It’s like an egg, that has to be hatched. So when I spoke to you a while ago with the phrase ‘damaged sense of self’, I’ve been trying ever since to tease meaning from it—to see what it is and what it isn’t.

For I thought he was suffering from “a damaged sense of self”. I don’t know where I had got the phrase from, but it had resonance for me. No sooner had I said it, than I saw it describing my own case. Why had I not been able to formulate it this way before? Only because now I could see my own sense of self being healed, before my eyes, in the everyday routines of living. My attitude was transforming, as if I had only just learned to live.

I wanted to share it with you but that seemed impossible, too personal. I find neither will nor words tell the world about my damaged sense of self. Let it rest in peace. So I planned a post called “A Proper Sense of Self”, in which I would give examples of my new-discovered life. But I cannot do that either.

So I shall quote Scripture instead, like a vicar in his Sunday sermon. For something else popped into my head, leaving me wondering what its author meant, and what millions of Christians may have made of it since. To me, it’s merely an observation about how the world is:

For he that has, to him shall be given: and he that has not, from him shall be taken even that which he has.

Some people get richer for being already rich: that’s capitalism. Others are famous for being famous: that’s showbiz. It sounds unfair, and not something that Jesus would preach, if indeed he said those words. The gospel of Mark includes them as part of his address to a crowd beside the Sea of Galilee where they pressed round him so tightly that he hopped on a boat to get some space. I don’t think the loud hailer had been yet invented, so we can estimate the crowd as not very large. There’s an ancient tradition that St Mark wrote down what St Peter recalled from personal experience. One can imagine the fishing-boat belonged to him (Peter), so he’d have been able to hear everything perfectly. Authenticity of the source doesn’t bother me, as I’m not a Christian. The quote just popped into my head when I wasn’t thinking, and struck me as true.

For I see that when you have an undamaged sense of self, you walk a royal road, the sun shines upon you, people smile, doors open for you, as they would indeed if you were rich-for-being-rich or famous-for-being-famous. We know that such people have acquired a sense of entitlement, and it would still work for them if they were to go in rags, incognito, so long as they kept their attitude, a word with many uses but the one I mean is this: “individuality and self-confidence”.

But I still don’t call it a proper sense of self, when the entitlement comes from riches or fame. You need nothing. You may live in rags, permanently incognito. Only you must discover who you truly are, and that you fully deserve the space you occupy—even if you have to take steps to claim it! Then you have to acknowledge what you have received, and graciously give it back wherever you go and to whomever you meet.

This is what I have been trying to say to my friend, if only the words would come. And when words don’t get through, there is music, and examples in practice, and here I was led to Labi Siffré's song, “Something Inside So Strong”, and here someone else who did it anyway.

Why we do what we do

I was quite startled by a programme on the radio, especially the following transcribed excerpt. It’s a tiny fraction of a heavy book—literally*. I picked it up in the bookshop: not bedtime reading without strong arms.† Yet in a few words it covers pleasure, happiness, the meaning of life—and how to make the most of it even if there is no meaning. It goes a long way to explaining religion and addictions, while offering no explanation as to why we have reached this point in our history, in this world of palpable imbalances. Enough to think about without bothering to read the other 115,000 words. See what you think. I could say a lot, but at this stage will leave comments to you, and to the Malinke tribe in the video embedded below

“There is also a biological reason why growing power does not translate easily into greater happiness. Our mental and emotional world is governed by bio-chemical mechanisms that were shaped by millions of years of evolution. Our happiness is not determined by our wealth or political rights. Rather, it is determined by a complex system of neurons, synapses and biochemicals. According to biologists, nobody is ever made happy by winning the Lottery, buying a house or even finding true love. People are made happy by one thing and one thing only: pleasant sensations in their bodies. Unfortunately, for all hopes of creating Heaven on earth, our internal biochemical system is programmed to keep happiness levels relatively constant. Pleasant sensations are only momentary rewards that soon subside. For Evolution has no interest in keeping us pleased. It is interested only in survival and reproduction. Since our biochemical system has not changed significantly in recent millennia, there’s no reason to think we are much happier than our ancestors. Compare a modern London banker to his forefather, a mediaeval peasant. The peasant lived in an unheated mud hut overlooking the local pigsty; while the banker goes home to a splendid penthouse with all the latest technological gadgets. Intuitively, we would expect the banker to be much happier than the peasant. However, when the mediaeval peasant completed the construction of his mud hut, his brain secreted serotonin, bringing it up to level x. When in 2014, the banker made the last payment on his wonderful penthouse, his brain secreted a similar amount of serotonin, bringing it up to a similar level x. It makes no difference to the brain that the penthouse is far more comfortable than the mud hut. The only thing that matters is that at present, the level of serotonin is x. Consequently the banker would not be one iota happier than the peasant.

“No movement without rhythm”--click for documentary video ‡

“If happiness is really determined by our biochemical system, then further economic growth, social reforms and political revolutions are unlikely to make us much happier. Some argue that happiness shouldn’t be identified with pleasure; and that the real key to happiness is feeling that your life has meaning. The problem with that approach is that from a purely scientific viewpoint, human life has absolutely no meaning. Humans are the outcome of blind evolutionary processes that operate without goal or purpose. Our actions are not part of some great cosmic plan; and if planet Earth were to explode tomorrow morning, the Universe would keep going about its business as usual. Hence, any meaning that people ascribe to their lives is just a delusion.

“So if happiness is based on feeling pleasant sensations, then in order to feel happier, we need to re-engineer our biochemical system. If happiness is based on feeling that life is meaningful, then we need to delude ourselves more effectively. Is there a third alternative? One interesting alternative has been suggested by Buddhism. According to Buddhism, all feelings, whether of pleasure or of meaning, or of anything else, are just ephemeral vibrations that disappear as fast as they arise. If five minutes ago I felt joyful and purposeful, that feeling has now gone, and I may feel angry or bored. If I identify happiness with particular feelings, and crave to experience more and more of these, I have no choice but to constantly pursue them. And even if I get them, they immediately disappear and I have to start all over again. This pursuit brings no lasting achievement. It creates only stress and dissatisfaction. However, if I learn to see my feelings for what they really are—ephemeral and meaningless vibrations—I lose interest in pursuing them and can be content with whatever I experience. For what is the point of running after something that disappears as fast as it arises? For Buddhism, then, happiness isn’t a particular feeling, but rather the wisdom, serenity and freedom that come from understanding our true nature.

“If this is so, then our entire understanding of the history of happiness might be misguided. Maybe it isn’t so important whether people’s expectations are fulfilled; and whether they enjoy pleasant sensations. The main question is whether people know the truth about themselves. What evidence do we have that people today understand this truth any better than ancient foragers or mediaeval peasants?”

*Transcribed from Radio 4’s “Book of the Week”, for Friday 12th September 2014. Excerpt starts at 05:10 and ends at 10:51. It was taken from a serialization of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari. The link expires in a few days’ time. You may therefore find it more convenient to download a copy I made of the excerpt itself, here.
†The solution is to buy it as an e-book, less heavy on the pocket and arms, & very readable.
‡Alternatively you can watch the same video on YouTube, after you’ve got through the adverts.

The practice of compassion, part 1

Click for more information

The hotel where we stayed in Dublin stands on a crossroads. Facing it are:

• The Patriots Inn
• The Richmond Tower, gateway to the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA)
• the Kilmainham Gaol.

The Richmond Tower

We arrived on foot from our house in England, aided by 2 buses and a plane across the Irish Sea. Hunger and thirst took priority over shelter so we went straight to the Patriots, a fine old pub well-named and well-placed. Another day the thirst for culture took us to the IMMA and the life-changing perspectives offered in an exhibition of work by the Brazilian artist Oiticica, which I’m not up to writing about, nor would photographs capture the experience of immersion in his work. He teaches you how to be enwrapped in the world, absorbing it sensually and in mysterious other ways. I best liked his cubicle structures (Penetrables) which you can go in, except for the parts you cannot go in, which remain an enticing mystery. Modern art never reached me so wholly before.

It wasn't till our last morning, after checking out from the hotel and leaving our bags there, that we crossed the road in a neat manoeuvre to take in the Gaol’s guided tour. This too was an immersion, such that a retelling cannot provide the intensity of impact. But in history if not art, stories are told which imagination makes vivid, just as actually standing where history happened was vivid for us. Ireland as you may know was a British “possession”, a colony, populated by rulers and ruled, landlords and tenant farmers. From 1845-49 there was a potato famine, caused by a blight which caused the tubers to rot in the soil. It caused starvation but the landlords insisted on rent as normal. Empathy and compassion were scarce, but the high-minded British had built the jail with rehabilitation in mind. Each prisoner would have his or her own cell, apart from children who slept in dormitories. A great skylight allowed ingress of the sun’s rays, which were thought to be conducive to godliness. The idea of solitary cells was originally to give prisoners space to repent and reform.

The Patriots Inn, Kilmainham

So it was a pretty fine jail and the Protestant Ascendancy (see Wikipedia) were pleased with itself, inviting fine ladies to visit and see how humane it all was. Most of what I’ve said refers to the Victorian extension, rather than the buildings erected in 1796.

Starving people have been known to steal. Men, women and even small children were therefore jailed, until, during the Famine, the rule of one prisoner per cell could no longer be applied. Women were accommodated in the corridors, on bare floor, the windows above them having no glass. A man in a cell had one blanket. Food was meticulously measured out, for the avoidance of gluttony.

Petty thieves arrested in possession of a loaf or a turnip from a field received short sentences, as it became clear that many saw an advantage in being caught red-handed, as they would get shelter and food for a week or a month, and it might be a respite from trying to survive outside. Beggars too were rounded up, so ragged and dirty as to be a public scandal on the streets, a disgusting sight for the law-abiding gentry who passed by. The homelessness was due to the peasants’ eviction from their land, when unable to pay the rent.

These things don’t get forgotten, and around the turn of the century there occurred a Celtic Revival, claiming pride in Ireland’s language and legends, its artists and poets. A Home Rule movement gathered momentum with much debate, but the paternalistic British Government didn’t think the Irish were ready for that, not to mention certain vested interests. On Easter Monday, 1916, a poster was put up all over Dublin, proclaiming a republic. A copy of this was the first thing I saw when I entered the jail. I asked what happened to its signatories, and later found out, in precise detail. Note especially the two names at the bottom of the poster.

Joseph Plunkett was in no doubt of being rewarded with martyrdom. After surrender to overwhelming force he was immediately tried by court-martial and jailed. His request for compassionate leave to marry his fiancée was compassionately granted by the British Government. The ceremony was performed in the prison chapel with only guards as witnesses. The couple were granted ten minutes of married life together, counted out by a guard who remained present. They had so much to say to one another that they couldn’t even start, so they remained silent. Then Joseph was taken back to his cell. Next day at dawn he was taken to the walled courtyard—I was shown the exact spot—and executed by firing squad.

At first the common sentiment was against the rebels, stirring up trouble, disturbing a status quo which wasn’t so bad. Then the people were cowed by the influx of British troops. Finally their mood changed to one of revulsion against their paternalistic colonizers, now revealed as shamelessly brutal.

Outside Joseph Plunkett’s widow’s cell (she was also jailed here, in 1923)

What swung the balance and united the doubters was the treatment of James Connolly (Séamas Ó Conghaile). He had been badly injured in the fighting between rebels & British army. Doctors doubted whether he could survive another day. He was brought to the jail by ambulance, then carried to the courtyard on a stretcher. He was unable to stand up for the firing squad, so they put him on a chair, but in his terminal weakness he slid off. They roped him to the chair and shot him.

There are many other shameful things in British history. I don’t see any smouldering resentment in the Irish against us, for they have their own republic and a special sense of identity. In addition to the Celtic script, ancient language and legends, they proudly show themselves, and us, how to have everything worth having and still not be British. Smaller but in many ways better. Especially when it comes to empathy, compassion and helping out in the world where few dare go. That’s long been my impression, and furthermore, they don’t seem as bullied by Catholicism as they once were, but that’s probably recent and ongoing. I think of those I’ve known brought up by the Christian brothers, and the film Philomena.

Now there is a move in Scotland to assert its independence from the UK: a different history, no need for martyrs, a bloodless referendum will decide. Me, I’m ambiguous about being English. When cornered I might plead that I was dragged here against my will from Australia. I admit to having found pleasure in bigoted views against certain foreigners, the European Union, the BBC, Socialism, The Guardian and all it stands for, especially political correctness but I’ve tried to keep my prejudices out of this blog, present a face which belongs to Vincent, and not the other fellow who lives in the same body. But then Karen Armstrong comes to the rescue with a message of compassion, not just to me but the whole world. See this series of comments appended to previous post. I hope to develop the theme in part 2.