History

"History is the witness that testifies to the passing of time; it illumines reality, vitalizes memory, provides guidance in daily life and brings us tidings of antiquity. "
Cicero, Pro Publio Sestio, Roman author, orator, & politician (106 BC - 43 BC)

At last the good weather is making a consistent return. Every year, it is more or less the same story, the British weather relives its chequered history of flirtation and disappointment and the occasional consistency. This pattern may well be a solid theme for the story of mankind, where repetition and innovation are well-represented. History is a more important subject than most people give it credit for. It permeates our thinking, shapes our belief systems and norms, influences our emotions and biases, informs our fears and hopes, enriches our knowledge and understanding, and basically runs our lives.

But is that always the case? Is it possible to be free of the past? Let's consider that for a moment. Thinking is of the past because it is directed by our past conditioning. So the route to escaping the past (if we really want to) is not to think. Hmm, that could be problematic. Is there a difference between thinking and observing? Absolutely. When we are present, there is not thinking, just observation. And there is no concept of time, so the past cannot play a role here.
Could we live our lives like that, and would we really want to? Well, a distinction needs to be made here between functional thought and psychological thought. As J Krishnamurti describes with great elegance in his numerous notes, pyschological thought is at the root of human suffering and the time prison. Functional thought has great value in the practical reality of being alive and thriving.

Anyway, that's a philosophical discussion. The truth about history in practice is that we have a choice. We can either repeat it, or we can go beyond it.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. "
George Santayana, The Life of Reason, Volume 1, 1905, US (Spanish-born) philosopher (1863 - 1952)

Heroes

"I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom. "
Bob Dylan, US singer & songwriter (1941 - )

I was delighted this week that Heroes returned to our screens. I rarely watch TV during the week (football matches are an exception), but Heroes was so engaging in the first series that I couldn't wait to get home on Thursday evening. Beneath all the action and thrill of the multiple stories, there is a constant theme for almost each character. They have a special power that gives them a level of freedom, and they must learn to control it and use it effectively, to grasp the degree of responsibility that comes with it.

We often think of heroes as those who show courage in the face of fear, and take action that saves the day... or at least saves something or someone. What is the key ingredient of heroism? Courage? Ability?Special powers? Courage seems to be a prerequisite, and ability does increase the likelihood of a successful heroic act. But do we not all possess courage and some ability? Most people do, and yet ... there are few true heroes. Why is this?

Well, Mike Litman states that "in life, you're either consistent, or you're non-existent". Could it be that heroes may have courage more consistently? Or do they simply have a better understanding of the responsibilities their abilities require? Or is it simply a question of energy? Does "fatigue make cowards of us all" as Vince Lombardi asserts? Or, is it the case that we are all like the characters in the series Heroes? Perhaps our powers do not appear as special or dramatic, but we do have gifts. And to the extent that we integrate these gifts into our lives and honour them, we have the capacity to be heroic...


"A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer. "
Ralph Waldo Emerson, US essayist & poet (1803 - 1882)

"Everyone is necessarily the hero of his own life story. "
John Barth, US novelist & short story author (1930 - )

"The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else. "
Umberto Eco, Travels in Hyperreality, Italian novelist & semiotician (1932 - )

Health

"As I see it, every day you do one of two things: build health or produce disease in yourself. "
Adelle Davis

A weekend spent playing nursemaid as my family have been struck down with a bug. I have now gone for a considerable period without illness, despite being regularly surrounded by it. Does that make me healthy? I guess I could say yes to a degree, but health is much more than the absence of illness. I see health as a state of well-being, mainly physical, but affected by the emotional, mental and spiritual. Health is like an intermediate point on a spectrum of Life and Death. Illness is an intermediate point on the opposite side of the same spectrum.

Although health is fundamentally important in our lives, it is primarily a context activity. Good health supports us in what ever our lives are ultimately about. But good health is not an end in itself. It is not a super-strategic function, although it is very important in supporting our strategies. Cleaning an office is not a strategic function, but a dirty office would quickly begin to adversely affect the staff, and ultimately the company's performance. Cleaning is usually outsourced - a third party company manages it. The main company don't have to concern themselves with cleaning - they just pay the invoice.

Health can be outsourced too. But not (necessarily) to a third party. The outsourcing is to your habits. Automation provides the service and frees you up to focus on your strategic objectives. You create good healthy habits and then they run by themselves, building energy and well-being, while you get on with the business of living your great life. You don't have to become obsessed with health. You just select some good habits and start them off. And yes, keep paying the invoice...

"Preserving health by too severe a rule is a worrisome malady. "
Francois de La Rochefoucauld, French author & moralist (1613 - 1680)

"Pain (any pain--emotional, physical, mental) has a message. The information it has about our life can be remarkably specific, but it usually falls into one of two categories: "We would be more alive if we did more of this," and, "Life would be more lovely if we did less of that." Once we get the pain's message, and follow its advice, the pain goes away. "
Peter McWilliams, Life 101

"Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing. "
Redd Foxx, US comedian (1922 - 1991)

Hate

"If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us. "
Hermann Hesse, Swiss (German-born) author (1877 - 1962)


Two weeks after the holiday and I feel very well rested. The only snag has been the fairly constant headache I have had since I got back. One day while working, I thought I felt a little drowsy too so I did a search on "headache and drowsiness" on Google, and the first hit was "Brain Tumour". I got back to work...

Fortunately, my headache is probably more to do with my eye strain than cancer, but the brief period of anxiety was instructive. It also got me thinking about how negative thinking patterns can affect physical health ultimately, rather like a editing a document on the computer affects what gets printed out physically. What about hate, specifically? What is hate? How does it come about? What is the effect?

Well, as always, I prefer to leave the wisdom to the quotations and instead examine particular aspects of a topic. I have a theory that hate is a form of laziness. My father once said, "If you really understand someone, it is very difficult to dislike them". I believe this is startlingly true. We lurch towards hate when we abdicate the responsibility and discipline to do the work of understanding others. Understanding requires energy and effort, and many of us would rather just...hate. But is that really it? Or is there something deeper and more insidious?

Hermann Hesse raises a key point when he talks about us hating people who exhibit parts of ourselves that we have disowned. Otherwise, we would be indifferent. So is the crux of the matter that we simply have not done the work of truly understanding ourselves? Of embracing the parts of ourselves that we have disowned? Of coming to understand those parts? If we were to do this work, would we be capable of hate? There is a saying that "Projection makes Perception". We project without, what we deny within. We perceive our projections and we don't like what we see. We hate.

It is no wonder that most spiritual practices urge the practitioner to "know thyself". This seems to lie at the heart (literally) of the matter. So next time you feel yourself hating someone, take that as a signal to examine yourself. Find out what is in you that you have not understood or embraced. We must all do this. The future of the world may depend on it...


"It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not. "
Andre Gide, French critic, essayist, & novelist (1869 - 1951)

"We hate some persons because we do not know them; and we will not know them because we hate them. "
Charles Caleb Colton (1780 - 1832)

"Always remember others may hate you but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself. "
Richard M. Nixon, in his White House farewell, 37th president of US (1913 - 1994)

"Hate no one; hate their vices, not themselves. "
J. G. C. Brainard

Happiness

"Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. "
Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of US (1809 - 1865)

Back from holiday and back into the full swing of things. The interesting feature of holidays is that they attract work - before you go on holiday, your workrate often intensifies in your frantic scramble to get everything done before you leave, and then when you get back, you pull out the stops to catch up. That's one of the joys of life. And speaking of happiness, I think it is time to pause and reflect on this intangible and often elusive state that many of us appear to be chasing.

Much has been written about happiness, and I will not dive into a long examination of the subject, although I have included some extra quotes below to provide a breadth of perspective. Let me present a different view of happiness. I see happiness on two levels - Level 1 and Level 2. If you consider your life to be like a film in progress, then Level 1 is the audience's view of events in the film, whereas Level 2 is the character's view of them. So regardless of what tribulation the character may be going through, the audience may still be enjoying the film because it is good or because they have simply decided that they are going to enjoy the film (and the popcorn). It is possible to be happy on Level 1 and unhappy on Level 2. Conversely, even if the actor is very happy in the film, the audience may not enjoy the film - it may be a stinker, or they may not want to enjoy it (believe me, some people are determined not to). It is also possible to be happy on Level 2 but unhappy on Level 1.

So what does this really mean? Well, Level 2 is what many people refer to when they talk about happiness, especially when it is derived from events, people and things. It is a more volatile state which comes and goes as one's life unfolds. It is the experience of the character in our life movie. Level 1 is more profound and is alluded to in some spiritual practices as well as in some personal development ideas. It is a less volatile state that lies below the surface. It is the experience of the audience in our life movie. Now, there is a case for also considering a Level 0, which is the director's view, and represents a high level of consciousness that could be attained perhaps through spiritual practice. This could be thought of as a blissful state rather than a merely a happy one.

So, let me leave it at that. The question we must ask ourselves is whether our movie is good (audience/director) and whether our character is happy. The Level 1 perspective is very powerful, especially when dealing with drama and tragedy in one's life movie. When things go wrong and you're feeling miserable(Level 2), change the film music to sombre or eerie, darken the picture, watch the movie (Level 1). In this respect, keeping a journal of events and feelings is very helpful, much like a having the film script. Let's make it an Oscar-winner...

"Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values. "
Ayn Rand, US (Russian-born) novelist (1905 - 1982)

"At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities. "
Jean Houston



"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. "
Mahatma Gandhi, Indian political and spiritual leader (1869 - 1948)



"I define joy as a sustained sense of well-being and internal peace - a connection to what matters. "
Oprah Winfrey, O Magazine, US actress & television talk show host (1954 - )



"Remember that happiness is a way of travel - not a destination. "
Roy M. Goodman

Habits

"Curious things, habits. People themselves never knew they had them."

Agatha Christie, English mystery author (1890 - 1976)

Today is Easter Sunday and it has been a very eventful day of celebration and festivity. A very brief pause to quickly reflect on the role of habits in our lives. It has been suggested that 90% of what we do is habitual. And most of our habits were formed unconsciously i.e. we did not choose them consciously. That is quite a sobering thought as we strive to extol the virtues of our humanity and free will. It seems that we are more like mechanical robots and automatons than we would like to believe. But there is tremendous opportunity here too.

Habits are very powerful indeed. It is like having an automated process that performs a task on your behalf, without your conscious intervention. Take brushing your teeth in the morning. Not something you want to dwell on or make decisions about. You just do it. Every morning it happens. Period. And there are countless other such tasks being performed automatically, freeing up your mind to focus on other more important or demanding items. Or, at least, this is the case if you manage your habits. Of course, you could have a portfolio of bad habits that could undermine you. The key is that you are effectively enlisting the help of an automated processing unit to take on the important drudgery of your life. So far we are focusing on physical habits.

The other key parts of the habit puzzle are the behavioural and mental habits, which play a very significant role in your life. Again, by getting to grips with these, initially consciously enforcing and reinforcing through repetition a desired pattern, you can establish a virtuous cycle that nourishes you. It also requires less and less conscious effort as it becomes a habit. Some people are loathe to form habits because they fear that these will condemn their lives to routine and boring predictability. The exact reverse is true. Having a solid platform of life-enhancing habits frees you up to pursue a life of passion and adventure. It is like the transition from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, where everyone was fully engaged in hunting for food and had no time to pursue any other interests, to the agrarian or farming lifestyle, where food supply was guaranteed by an increasing smaller subset of the population, freeing up the others to pursue other activities. This is the transition that can take place within us...

"First we make our habits, then our habits make us"
John Dryden

Grief

"Grief is the agony of an instant, the indulgence of grief the blunder of a life. "
Benjamin Disraeli, British politician (1804 - 1881)

What bliss - the unapologetic heat of Accra, the irresistible taste of my mother's cooking and the general restfulness of this holiday. Amidst all of this, there is the sense that grief abounds, with stories of deaths and injuries being told with increasing frequency. The inevitable consequence of these tragic events is grief. When we lose something or someone, we grieve. We may grieve for days for months or for years. Some people may actually grieve for the rest of their lives. With grief, there is no right and wrong. You grieve until you have stopped grieving.

Or is that really so?

What is the effect of grief on your life, on the people around you, on the people you love you, who depend on you? Over a few weeks or months, even full-scale grief can be absorbed and indeed, it may be cathartic to let the grief take its course. When the grief persists at full strength for a longer and longer period, then there may be something else at play. Our minds have a tendency to become comfortable in grief, to almost savour the pain, the delicious feeling of tragedy and victimhood, the attention and sympathy that we get, the sense that we have been dealt a cruel blow by life, a sense of being a protagonist in a drama. It is a paradox, but there is a trap in grief, one that is so close to a natural, honourable human experience that it is very easy to fall into and difficult not to sympathise with. But this may well be what is termed a life blunder...

"While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it. "
Samuel Johnson, English author, critic, & lexicographer (1709 - 1784)