Haiti - the pall of ignorance lies heavy

We know what caused the catastrophe in Haiti. It was the bumping and grinding of the Caribbean Continental Plate rubbing up against the North American Continental Plate: a force of nature, sin-free and indifferent to sin, un-premeditated, unmotivated, supremely unconcerned with human affairs or human misery.

The religious mind, however, restlessly seeks human meaning in the blind happenings of nature. As with the Indonesian tsunami, which was blamed on loose sexual morals in tourist bars; as with Hurricane Katrina, which was attributed to divine revenge on the entire city of New Orleans for harboring a lesbian comedian, and as with other disasters going back to the famous Lisbon earthquake and beyond, so Haiti's tragedy must be payback for human sin. The Rev. Pat Robertson sees the hand of God in the earthquake, wreaking terrible retribution for a pact that the long-dead ancestors of today's Haitians made with the devil, to help rid them of their French masters.

Ladies and gentlemen, witness the poverty of the theological mind.

A little child was pulled out from under the rubble after 7 days. 'Oh my God it's a miracle!' screamed the daily newspapers. Survivors have turned to god. One said: 'I have turned to God. He saved me. There is a god after all'. Presumably God was too busy to save the lives of the other 150,000 souls who we're not too fortunate? Maybe he could have saved us all a lot of trouble and not bothered with the earthquake in the first place? Saying that 'the ways of God are unknown to us' is a slap in the face to those who lie rotting on the streets. Say it to the 4 year old whose corpse still lies putrefying under the roof of her classroom.

Where was God in Noah's flood? He was systematically drowning the entire world, animal as well as human, as punishment for 'sin'. Where was God when Sodom and Gomorrah were consumed with fire and brimstone? He was deliberately barbecuing the citizenry, lock stock and barrel, as punishment for 'sin'. Dear modern, enlightened, theologically sophisticated religious person, your entire religion is founded on an obsession with 'sin', with punishment and with atonement. To quote the President of one theological seminary:

'The earthquake in Haiti, like every other earthly disaster, reminds us that creation groans under the weight of sin and the judgment of God. This is true for every cell in our bodies, even as it is for the crust of the earth at every point on the globe.'

It makes me sick to the core. Ladies and gentlemen, natural disasters are not man-made. Nor do they concern themselves with human affairs. They are the result of physical forces that we now understand. They don't happen because of sins, or misdemeanours in a past life, or because of some other inexplicable reason. These explanations that earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, lightning strikes are caused by conscious divine agents such as gods and spirits and dead ancestors belong to the childhood of humanity. They were an explanation then because then man was still a child and didn't understand the working's of the world. We have now grown up. Science has lifted the veil from our eyes. But I still feel the presence of the pall. It still lies heavy over Haiti like a plague of locusts.

________

Money - how to make it less abstract!

Money is a wonderful invention. But have you, for a second, stopped and asked yourself what exactly is money? When you purchase a coffee from say Starbucks you hand over £1.95 and in return you get a nice (alright decent) tasting coffee. But what is the real cost of this coffee? Is it £1.95? Answer: No. That is not the real cost. The real cost of buying a coffee is the 'opportunity cost' and the opportunity cost is different for everybody.

What is opportunity cost?

Opportunity cost is the item/service/thing you could have bought for £1.95 that would have given you more pleasure than the Starbucks coffee. But you didn't buy it because you bought the coffee instead. And another reason why you didn't buy it is because you probably didn't know about it. Similarly when you go to the cinema you pay, say £10 for a ticket. The real cost of the cinema ticket is not £10, it is something else you could have purchased that would have given you more enjoyment than the cinema ticket. This 'item' could be a book, or a CD, or a meal in a restaurant, or a bottle of wine. The problem is we never really find out what this other thing is. When we buy something we just buy it. We never ask ourselves: can I spend this money on something else that will give me more enjoyment? This is because most things we get are impulse purchases determined by emotional factors and the whims of our lives.

The wise man (or woman) uses the concept of 'opportunity costs' to make more 'effective' money purchase decisions. How do you measure 'effectiveness' of use of money? Well the simplest and crudest way is to consider how much happiness you get from spending money one way rather than another. For example you could say: I will not spend £80 on this shirt from AllSaints. Instead, I will use the money to buy 2 books for £19, 2 DVD's for £20, a loaf of fresh bread and cheese, a bottle of wine, one cinema ticket, and a packet of cheesy Pringles' and a bubblegum. The opportunity cost is the item(s) you forgo by going down a particular spending route. You could buy a camera, or, you could go on holiday, or you could sleep with a prostitute. Which is it to be? It all depends on what gives you more pleasure or happiness. Measuring happiness is not as easy as it sounds. Most human beings mistake happiness for instant gratification. Happiness is a chronic state of the mind that it less prone to the pendulum like up's and down's of the human condition. Happiness is the microwave background radiation of our lives and those starburst moments of exploding nebulae (job promotion, becoming a parent or the first time, marriage, social acceptance etc) are spikes of brilliance in a static crackling background leftover from the birth of time.

Money is a gift. But it can also be a curse. Too often it becomes the reason for life rather than its lubricant.

poor is he who spends a fortune on a car that gives him measly pleasure

wealthy is he who spends a fraction of that on a trip to Outer Mongolia.

Lesson: fuck the car. Go to Outer Mongolia!

_______

The BigThink with Stephen Fry

This is the one guy

I want to meet

Before I die

He's utterly charming

and brilliant too

packed full of brain cells

and Phil O Sophie too

He wanders through the Mystery

of everything there is

and with a magical wave of a hand

he say's (in low tones and confident cadences):

"live for today - this is all there is!"

Fairy Meadow in Pictures

Kodak moments

I remember it quite clearly. It was high up in the mountains. In the clouds as they say. It had taken me the good half of a day by donkey and mule transport to get up there. The donkey had shitted all the way up and my bowels were not doing too well either. The path was too narrow for motorised transport. The place was so high and remote that it had its own micro-climate and alpine flora/fauna. The air was fresh and as you went higher you could feel it cleansing you of those toxic free radicals. 'Fairy Meadow' they called it - on account of the fairies that lived there. The modern world had barely touched it. It was unsoiled. A virginal valley amidst splendour I can barely do justice in description. So I won't bother. The day cycle was dictated by the movement of the sun. So you got up at first light when the sun winked at the window and you retired to sleep at the end of the day when it got too dark to see or do anything. There was no electricity. Some of the other folk had generators, but the guest house I was staying in, had to make do without. So no television (not a bad thing). Reading would have been impossible at night had it not been for my ingenious solution. At night it would get freezing cold and you had no option but to bury yourself under the blankets. So there I'd be under layers of blanket, with the sheets wrapped around me like a tent, making sure all holes where a cold draft might get in were plugged. I had one of those Magna-lites with the handle clenched in my teeth, with the beam end illuminating my book. This continued for a few nights until the battery ran out. So time to find some batteries.

Luckily there was a shop. Just one shop and what a well stocked shop too! (see above). It stocked everything from Paracetamol to balloons. From Nestle's baby milk to nasal balms and horrid pakistani branded chocolates - that claimed to be chocolaty but tasted like mud. Luckily they had batteries. A Chinese brand called 'Hero'. This is a very popular brand name for Chinese products. Most things made in China are called 'Hero'. I have no idea why. It puzzled me then and it puzzles me still. I did ask the shopkeeper why this was so but he was rather spare in his reply. Perhaps in his tiny shopworld with its extensive range of merchandise - my question was a little stupid!

The shopkeeper was a very friendly fellow though. He offered me a bottle of Coca-Cola (I did ask for Coke Zero but he didn't have any) and we chatted for what seemed like hours. We discussed his business plan. Yes he had one! He said he was thinking of branching out - literally. His shop you see was made of wood er branches and he was thinking of cutting some branches down and extending the length! He asked me (me being a savvy western educated finance professional) what the latest craze was that he could sell in his shop. I replied in the manner of someone who has been asked a question that they clearly know the answer to: "MP3 players". He looked at me rather doubtfully. He said the 'elders' would not approve as music is frowned upon in these wee parts. Eventually we settled on Colgate toothpaste - a less risque option I thought. The local children kept coming in and sitting in the corners watching us in conversation. Or watching me converse. I think they thought me a little odd. Like a new toy or a new cat that you play with like crazy for the first few days only to get bored of it and discard it later. I was, at that moment, their new toy and they had every intention of winding me up and watching me go.

I was doing pretty well in the communications department. I was speaking in a broken Urdu tongue - but I could make myself understood (I have this gift you see). Even when we got mired knee deep in metaphysical territory, I would use my hands and draw shapes in the air to express my point. To my surprise and shame the shopkeeper turned out to be more learned than I gave him credit for. Initially I'd taken him for a country bumpkin conservative philistine type but he turned out to be rather radical in his political and socialist hues. Basically he was a thinker (though he might not look it in the image above. Initially I thought he looked like a thief!). He had a lot of free time on his hand you see; as the shop was not very busy (not even during rush hour - which was at 3pm when school finished) and he spent it wisely - thinking. The children found the whole thing most amusing and after that I was a bit of a celebrity with a fan-club that would follow me all over Fairy Meadow.

I still have fond memories and I hope to go back one day. During my stay I also went into the local school (there was only one with two classes - a boys and girls only class) and sat at the back during English lessons. The teacher was great and had achieved much under difficult circumstances (like lack of teaching material). He was proud to have me there and it was great! I even went to the front and gave a five minute lesson on a subject I don't quite recall! Certainly a Kodak memory. One day I will go back again but this time with books and materials for the school. And also, I'll be sure to take some Duracell batteries...and some decent chocolates, for some serious night-time adventures, under the sheets, when the night is old, and the sheets are cold!

_______

Cold Winter Nights (Part deux)...

...and the river in question is called...philosophy. And the great thing about philosopheee...is that it is freee! for everybodyyy....

Ok, enough of the larking about. But it is true. My words speak the truth in abundance and are pregnant with the bastard child of wisdom. Any idiot can be a philosopher you know. It doesn't require a qualification. Nor does it require any specialist training. Or a brain the size of a planet (though it may help). You don't have to be the owner of an enormous IQ, nor be a Noble Prize winner, or a graduate of Imperial College (though it may and will certainly help). The truth is, that we can all be philosophers. Yes every single dumb-stupid-fat-skinny-ugly-pretty-freakshow one of us. Even the fat man working in McDonalds and the part-time accountant who thinks he's rather cool. All it takes is a healthy skepticism. An enquiring mind. A wry sense of humour. A sense of the absurd, an appreciation of the profound (like a good relationship with God and Queen) and finally...a nice bottle of red wine, preferably a vintage Rioja, to zzap those brain cells into profound oblivion.

Philosophy though, I admit, has a bad reputation. It is oft considered stuffy, and anachronistic, and a dusty old profession that nobody really takes seriously anymore. This view is not helped by the philosophy books you find in the library. They seem to be written in a foreign idioma and in a style that is deliberately obscurantist and designed to put you off your stride before you've even begun! Forget the books. Forget them. Leave them in the dusty old library vaults. You don't need them. Why should you? As I said all you need is to be alive (which you are as you're reading this. If you were dead you would not be reading this, right?) and you also need to be in possession of your senses (assuming of course you have not drunk the entire bottle of Rioja). We can all be philosophers. Let's think of a problem, a topic, a subject matter, and let's analyse it, and study it, and crack it open, and peer inside, and see what lies within, or what lies without.

Now the first thing to do is pick a topic. Any ideas? Anyone? I would like you to pick a topic, doesn't matter what (as long as it's not sexually explicit or obscenely gross in nature - or maybe it can be sexual? I don't mind). I will let you decide. It's your class. It's your life. Once you have picked a topic, I will show you how, without delving into a book, or an academic course, you can use the tools at your disposal (your brain and your senses), to scrutinise - analyse - decipherise - and finally, to reach a conclusion so startling, so original, that it will leave you speechless, and change your life from here onwards till the day you join the angels. Oh yes, I mean it. The thing is we all too often forget what fun it is just to be alive. To be able to think - it's such a joy! I know you think I'm crazy don't you? - there are times, many times, when I am walking along the pavement, often whistling, often mumbling, usually jaywalking, and I am struck by a thought (sometimes I am struck by bird-shit but that is an altogether different matter), or I am on the bus or the train, or in a cafe, or on a plane to someplace in the mountains, and I'm philosophising, and it hits me (no not the bus - though that can happen too), and it hits me, some thought of such (and I'm going to use a BIG word here) profundity, that I am left gasping in sheer exhilaration. It's almost as if I am breathing in pure oxygen from the top of Everest, or some gas that regular humans don't breathe, and it's such a wonderful feeling. I want you to feel that. I want you to feel how I feel and see how wonderful it is!

Well maybe I am mad? So what? I'm the better for it, and you my dear friends, the luckier for having a crazy fool like me as a teacher. The best teachers are the mad one's. I used to have a chemistry teacher at Secondary school and he was pretty radio ga-ga/radio blah-blah - and I learnt much from him - about carbon atoms and the Periodic Table and a shaggy haired Russian chemist called Mendeleev. But anyway, what I was saying was that you need to pick a topic so we can pick a pocket and pick a fight with. I want to show you the good stuff in-between the gaps in your lives, and show you how it resembles, when you look a little closely, the infinite space between the galaxies...

[to be continued]

Cold Winter Nights - Warm Winter Thoughts

Modern times are a puzzle. Most people in Western countries are richer and healthier than they have ever been. Their lives are made easier by gadgets which cook their food, chill their drinks, wash their clothes, warm their homes in winter, allow them to remain connected to family and friends. Their lives are made pleasant by gadgets that entertain them on bright viewable screens, or in storage devices that fit in the pocket. There are transport devices that take people where they want to go in warmth and padded comfort.

Yet, according to many observers, people are less happy and fulfilled than their forebears. They feel discontented, not satisfied, and anxious. There is a vacuum in the centre of their lives and into this hole they throw many things to fill it: relationships, family, friends, DVD's, electronic gadgets, self-help books, religion, pets, holidays and the so called 'career'. But the frustration; though it may abate somewhat as a result of these remedies, still persists and the people cannot identify its source. All they know is that the more gadgets and more money they have, the more they feel the need to supply their lives with meaning or at least solace.

Some turn to recreational drugs such as alcohol or skunk weed and some to medicines like Prozac to relieve the tedium of existence. Others turn to religion. Both drugs and religion erect a safety barrier against the discontent, although by different means - drugs work by obliterating the conscious awareness of the vacuum itself, and religion by providing a ready made filling. Others hope to find the solution in love and family life, but find matters made worse by the failure of their expectations. Some turn to the occult, others seek relief in psychoanalysis, behavioural therapy, astrology, feng-shui, crystals, aromatherapy, the teachings of 'the east' and tarot readings.

All these efforts have something in common. They are all based on the assumption (rather apt in our capitalist society) that the problem's of life can be made to go away and can be solved by handing over money to some sort of 'expert'. Another thing all these efforts have in common is how often they fail. They might seem to work for a time, but eventually, they become frayed and worn and the emptiness begins to show through again.

You see, there is a universal defect in the human being that has created a widespread delusion: that only 'I' am discontented with life, and that everybody else I see around me, is not. Not true! Take a look around. Take a look at one of the richest nations in the world: Dubai. Do you honestly think that Dubai really would; if it did indeed gain spiritual solace from Islam or had ample self-esteem, go to the trouble of building the Burj Khalifa (the tallest building in the world)? - The economics are well known. Buildings grow upwards when floor-space costs are uneconomical. The only reason they built the worlds tallest building in the middle of a desert (where floor space is plentiful) was as a show of ostentatious wealth. "Look at me! Love me! I want to be loved and liked and talked about by the whole world". But how long will this feeling last? The novelty will wear off and somebody else in their folly will build something higher. The only reason why people build or own such garish things is because they have a hole the size of a little moon in their hearts.

Yet the best resource for dealing with the inexplicable void in the heart of rich, well-fed, healthy, well entertained Westerners lies very close to hand. Oh yes! We Westerners are like thirsty people drinking from a muddy puddle that lies not far from the banks of a great crystal-clear perspicacious river. The river has a name. It is called...

[to be continued]

Coming soon...The Best Travel Camera In the Whole Wide World (A review)

Thaw

Snowed Under / Stumbling

We've been having a wintery spell here in England. So I thought I'd take my camera obscura out of its protective shell, and stumble about a little, in the snow and ice. [All images taken with my new Panasonic GF-1 (20mm 1.7 pancake lens)]

_______

Stumbling through life

that's us.

Do you remember

when you we're sixteen

Now that you look back

were you not stumbling then?

What about at twenty-two

when you fell in love

did you not stumble through that too?

What about now -

do you think you are in charge?

Why should today be any different

from yesterday

For tomorrow

you will look back at today

and see that you were stumbling

all along

_________

Nightmare in Mesquito (fiction)

The old town of Mesquito sits perched high up in the Andes where the angry God's dwell. Surrounded on all sides by impenetrable Andean passes and jagged mountain peaks it has always attracted those seeking adventure, fame, fortune and death. The route that leads up to Mesquito (a skinny path fit for one) begins at the valley floor and snakes to the left as you cross the river, and then with a sudden hair-pin, rises sheer to the sky. Albatross's swoop overhead, their gigantic wing flaps casting a wide berth below. As you move higher up, inching your way to the gods and certain death, the river slowly dims to a silky stream that plays with light whose shards wink diamond like. The sun beats heavy and like a gong it rings in the ears. The air is brisk but starved and the lungs struggle to get the oxygen they desperately crave.

Today, Mesquito is a dot barely on the map that hardly raises a flutter in the tourist salons of the big city of lights. However, if you trawl through the history books, if you take a little breather and do a little research in the State library, you will find that it was not always thus. In fact Mesquito was, once upon a long time ago, the sight of a most extraordinary series of events, that quite literally, changed the world. The past in Mesquito, for those who care to look, is buried under layers of topsoil. But you only have to dig a little to uncover the unmistakable lurid signs of the secret that it wishes to conceal. Conceal from whom? Itself or the world? Infamy is best forgotten lest it torment the living who must live with its weighty burdens. But secrets! No matter how hard one tries, they cannot really be erased. The slate of history is singed with the hot breath of the human condition This history passes through the conduits of the universal human consciousness - via the mediums of whispered oral tales, written words, the incantations of the priesthood, the nursery rhymes of childhood and the lay, lie and breadth of the land.

We now begin our story and we it begin many years back. Seven hundred to be kind of precise. A Spanish Galleon vessel; its hull rotting and eaten through and through by worms, is about to burst its seams upon an alien shore. You can almost hear the screams of the carrion birds as they encircle above. Their shrill cries bouncing on the beats of cannibal drums.