Anthem

With international sports events now becoming one of the biggest draw-cards for television content directors, we have had the opportunity to be exposed to many national anthems on a regular basis. An anthem is typically a musical piece written as a response to some cause or call. Derived from Greek and Saxon words, the anthem has a place in religious events as well.

Anthems are often emotional expressions if intent, devotion and promise and prayer. In many instances, anthems are seen as tools to engender and unite people around a common cause or country, after wars, or struggles for example. Anthems come from the souls and the hearts of people only when they truly believe in what is being sung.

I thus find it difficult to contend with the modern trend of mixing several languages in one anthem. Unless you understand the language that you are using, how can you feel the emotions stirring in you from the context that comes with language, how can you be truly absorbed in the emotions? I understand that these modern anthems are attempts at consolidation of nations and cultures, but they fail to my mind, because they are compromises. Such a compromise is at best a reminder of something that could have been. I am sure that there will be many comments about my position, and that will be great. However, my idea here is to get to another position, that of the anthem of our souls.

I this piece, my aim is to consider what I call the anthem of the soul. For this, we need to go back to the roots of the word. The dictionary on my MacBook says that an anthem is a rousing or uplifting song, sung antiphonally (from the Saxon antefn and Latin antiphona, and originally from Greek, which indicates an “opposite voice” - or in answer to something). In church, the antiphon was usually sung in response to a psalm, or other part of liturgy. Gregorian chant is an example of the original form.

These chants and songs are devised in a way that makes the words and/or the emotions clear. It responds to a call, a higher voice. In some of my previous pieces on this blog I spoke about how the lack of playfulness, rushing around and an absence of hope whittle us down to nothingness. Our souls are dumbed down by constant insistence by those around us to deliver something, to do things now or to be accountable for even more things. We are brought up to listen closely to the voices of parents and peers, teachers and politicians, and those that can muster the loudest call. We are swamped by the messages and calls on television, radio and the other forms of media, including the internet.

We become deaf to the higher calling in our lives. We stray from the path we are intended to take, our own voices start to fail us, and our language becomes garbled. Where is the energy and belief that fire the devotion to our true role on this planet? It is swamped by the noise and our response to our life’s calling turns into a whisper. In an attempt to compromise, our personal anthem becomes just a reflection of the demands of those shouting us down. We answer in their voices, slowly disappearing as a unique voice. Our souls blend into nothingness, our value diminishes to zero.

We have no anthem left, no rousing song to take us through the day, no way to show our good intent, or to rise to the occasion when we are called to do those things that lift us as humans above the other animals. How can we care for our planet, for the frogs being poisoned, for the birds being pushed out of their habitats, if we have no soul that responds with an uplifting burst of song?
We all need to go back and ferret in the corners of our souls for the song we need to sing to the world. Each one of us must retrain our voice to sing in our own language, with crystal clarity about our call, our intent and our promises to the universe around us. We must not hide behind circumstances or the past. Write a book, draw something, sing the song you always wanted others to hear, play the piano, walk the dog, teach someone something you have mastered, learn from a friend, wave goodbye to old enemies, respond with energy to a sunrise. In fact, do none of the above! I echo Popper, who urged his students to listen closely to what he had to say, if only to be able to dismiss it and to replace it with their own original ideas.

Just bring your anthem to the liturgy of life.

The image above is from my personal library and my not be used without written consent. It is a recent photograph at a wine farm called “Anthem” in New Zealand. This piece is dedicated to my best friend and her quest to sing her anthem as her soul wants and her Creator wishes.

Star Jumps

How did it get so late so soon? Its night before its afternoon. December is here before its June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?
– Dr. Seuss (from the Dr Seuss iGoogle Gadget)

We live in hectic times! Hectic: I like this word, because when you understand where it comes from I think you will agree that it is a proper descriptor for this day and age. According to the excellent built-in writing tools of OSX, the word is derived from the Greek word hektikos, related to hexis, habit, or state of mind or body. In medieval medicine it was used in conjunction with a regularly recurrent fever. Someone with a hectic fever had flushed cheeks and hot dry skin.

We live at a frantic pace. The schedules are insane, the electronic diaries we keep are driving us relentlessly from one meeting or engagement to the next. Our days are chopped up into the Franklin Planner, and the 15 minutes of solitude every day remains as a stark reminder only of what we have again missed today.

Here we are in 2009, running around as if a deadly illness is driving our bodies up the wall, trying to be efficient and sane. We use all sorts of modern technology to help us survive. But I am starting to think that the technology is not helping at all. It is just cranking up the pace. The expectation is now that this blog will come out at around 750 words in less than an hour. This includes thinking about the topic, researching some of the things I wish to say and constructing a readable story, pumping it into the blogosphere and inserting, as a final touch, an appropriate image.

I have 11 applications open at once while I am typing away. Three of these are related to the topic, 3 are communication related applications, allowing me to see who is online now so I can organise and discuss other tasks, one is monitoring bandwidth usage and two are doing methodical searches for a document I am preparing on simulation. The other two applications hold images and drawings in several stages of completion. Today is Sunday, it is a slower day. By the way, one of the applications is a browser with four tabbed windows in it, because I am also looking for cheap car rentals, I am trying to track a flight so that I can see if it is on time and two windows contain weather information and news items.

What is the point of this, you ask? You have more things on the desktop, more things in the car, more things on the mobile phone, more beeps on the berry, and several thousands demanding attention from a device starting with “i” something. My point is that all of these things are making us hectic. The bringing together of so many information streams are taxing our bodies and minds. It is not integrated in a way that allows me to actually have time for myself. It is in fact often tools in the hands of relentless masters to ask why you seem to be inefficient. The reality is that all these tools are just that - tools: they do not create extra time for me to think. If the expectation was that this blog would take a day, and I still used the modern tools to do it, this might have been a really good piece. I could think about the flow, the arguments, and the aesthetics. Now, it is a quick piece, just a blog!

When I looked at the word hectic in a message I was sending, I realised that we are not maintaining our bodies and minds as we should, using the modern technology to be efficient, rather than frantic and hectic. We should now have more means to understand how to maintain balance. We should stop promising delivery to the levels of insane expectations of a few that have lost the plot already. Someone has to argue for quality and beauty to become norms again, to ask that people become appreciative of the way that the brain dumbs down if we do not calm down and to ask that we use time to consider the real problems we face on the planet.

We need to be able to walk away from it on a regular basis, to breathe country air, to walk in isolated places and to listen to the wind in grass and leaves, to imagine positive outcomes, where the schedule is subservient to the goal. Smile, jump, bring the fever down with a cup of tea, a good book, some calming music and a long hug of a fellow inhabitant of the planet. Then we’ll have energy to be smart, to be efficient and to make the time to play.

Star jumps are not just for kids, but before you try this at home, you have to relax and release, then imagine weightlessness and flying. The star jump also leaves you with a blush on the cheeks, but there is no fever. It is hectic in another sense - in the sense of experiencing the sheer thrill of being a kid again! Remember those endless days...?

In appreciation of my beautiful friend - the star jumper!
The image is not for re-use without her written consent.

Maps

My fascination with maps started early. I remember how my dad planned a trip from Windhoek in Namibia down to Kimberley in South Africa, using a large map. We poured over it, and I was transfixed by his calculations, and the tracing of the lines on the map with his pencil as he smoked his Rothmans cigarette. In those days large sections of the route were dirt roads, there were areas where we would cross rivers only if they were not in flood as no bridges existed and in many cases we would drive through dry river beds and we needed to know when to exit onto a road to stay on the route down to South Africa.

The important thing was that we would be doing this at night. We were driving down in December and to spare me the inconvenience of the incredible heat, my parents were going to start the trip at 16:00, driving through the night to arrive in Kimberley midday next. My dad was a real navigator. He would study a route and then just go to his destination. On that trip from Windhoek to Kimberley I was sitting in front in the white Ford Corsair, my mother was pregnant with my brother and she was sitting in back. During the night I remember looking at the light from the radio as it crackled and hissed over the short wave, my dad expertly navigating through the dark of the desolate Namibian landscape: Mariental, stopping for fuel and my dad asking for water for our thermos, Keetmanshoop, Grünau, and he sun rising at Karasburg, cracking open a real desert morning, cold and sharp, with Fanus Rautenbach on the morning show on the radio, my dad being tired, but committed to continue driving through those hours when sleep is at every corner of the eye. Eventually we would cross at Ariamsvlei and then it was a couple of hours to Douglas, where my dad took a break on the farm Duikersvlei, before doing the last stretch to Kimberley and the comforting smells of my grandmother’s house, mutton chops, potatoes, pumpkin, onions and her own preserved peaches in a thick syrup, all of it washed down with the then famous Kimberly Hop Beer. Oh, and Covent Garden Ice Cream...
And through all of this, the map was there. My dad was looking at it, folding it, estimating arrival times, etc.
When I went to school I collected maps, from the old territory maps of the British, to maps of the Union of South Africa, and beyond. I studied these drawings carefully, almost memorising distances, imprinting the key cities into my brain, and finally dreaming about all those exotic places. London, Stockholm, Inverness, Paris, Rome, Sydney, Tokyo, St Petersburg, New York, and great areas of land mass - Alaska, Patagonia, the Andes, Australia - this list is long. And I wondered what it would be like being there in these exotic places. Maps unlocked my imagination and my great passion for travel.
Maps have a long history. Early maps were done in clay, or on papyrus. Some were designed for the journey to the afterlife, others were used to show who owned what, and who ruled whom. It soon became useful as navigation tools, and later, in the days of the great maritime explorers, the art and science of mapping became the competitive edge of nations.
We take geographical and star maps for granted, expecting high resolution and accuracy, and maps that change to reflect our changing world. One of my favourite sites is the world sunlight map, that shows the cloud mass and the day-night partition of the planet. I like the maps from the Weather Underground on which I can see changing weather patterns in my area. I have their gadget set up in my iGoogle space for example. From my blog you can also go to the map that indicates where visitors to my blog came from (left bottom of the blog).
There are other maps hat we use every day, like Mind Maps, Concept Maps, and many other diagrammatic descriptions that allow us to navigate through information. There are even maps of the World Wide Web. And while we are talking about the web, I must mention Google maps as well. I believe that Google is doing us all a favour by building these maps and allowing us to use them as support to many new applications. As always, knowledge brings power, and danger. A map in the hand of a fool is a sure way to come to disaster.

The image above is from iStockphoto - and I have bough the rights to use it here. Before you use any of the images that the links take you to, consider the intellectual rights of the owners and get permission to use it. It is the right thing to do.

Excellence

Excellence: ěk'sə-ləns, a word that is only about 600 years old. Interestingly, this word is now being used quite a bit. As Centers of Excellence, Excellence Award, and then in lesser contexts like excellent food, excellent technique, and many more, it has slipped into the vocabulary of board rooms, the printed media and it has become a bit cheap as a result. What about words like superb, merit, distinction?

Love. A word in a similar disposition. I’ll leave it at that.

Soon I’ll be attending another Excellence Awards ceremony, where individuals will be praised for their achievements. Their lofty achievements will be recounted, it will be shown how noble they have been in their endeavors to achieve beyond their peers. But excellence is a close family member of the brother called exaggeration. Inflated statements may be made to substantiate the lofty claims.

How do we assess the quality of the work done? “Quality” is another slippery word. In 1988 I was given a copy of “Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance” by Robert Pirsig. My friend Jack Fletcher wrote (amongst other things) the following on the inside flap “Besides, no serious post graduate study in ‘science’ should proceed without first reading this!”. What was it that Jack wanted me to notice? Was it the turmoil of the search for understanding, seeking the deeper self and the dynamics of relationships, or perhaps the confounding behaviour of mechanical devices? Or was it about the metaphysical element ‘quality’? Pirsig’s main character argues back and forth during the 17 day journey about the dimensions of this word, looking at it holistically, analysing it, etc.

In the case of “excellence” one could claim that it is similar: can one find the place where the rational and the romantic perceptions come together to bring appropriate meaning to the word? I believe this is necessary if we want to lift the word back to where it belongs. So that it can describe the things that are out there on the edge of our experience, not within reach of everybody that puts in a bit effort. No, it must demand blood, sweat and tears; it must call for the sharpest of analytical ability being applied during its creation, and it must be seen as a guiding light for others trying to achieve in the same area. It must be beautiful.

If it is a book, it must be new, it must challenge the analyst, it must puzzle the zen student, it must make one nod in agreement, while you have a suspicion something is still lurking to be discovered and it must bring the romantic forward in all of us, blinding us with the sensation that we have happened upon real beauty, something deeply good. I believe the same goes for technology and science. In fact, for all human endeavor one can bring examples that will fit the template described above. The template may have dimensions I missed here, but I guess it is a start. Best for me to call in those that have been recognised for excellence to speak on it.

I leave you with this, from Shakespeare’s “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” Act IV Scene ii:

Who Is Silvia?
Who is Silvia? what is she,
That all our swains commend her?
Holy, fair, and wise is she;
The heaven such grace did lend her,
That she might admirèd be.

Is she kind as she is fair?
For beauty lives with kindness.
Love doth to her eyes repair,
To help him of his blindness,
And, being helped, inhabits there.

Then to Silvia let us sing,
That Silvia is excelling;
She excels each mortal thing
Upon the dull earth dwelling:
To her let us garlands bring.

I use images from my own library and other open sources, as well as commercial sites. All commercial images are paid for and may not be used without you also buying rights to them. Do the right thing, reward the efforts of the artists. Image in this piece from iStockphoto.

Charlotte's Web

Sometimes we need to make a promise that is seemingly beyond our ability to keep. Then we must keep it. To see the worth in others, to believe in the inevitable triumph of virtue over the mundane shuffle of ignorance and vice - the path of worth.
Working towards a goal that perches high on a cliff above the plains of your ability, this is truly a worthwhile enterprise.
To keep a promise.
The subtlety of living in the next life, the life after our own, is the highest cause. For our children, for those reliant on us. The quid pro quo is that we respect this and live and die accordingly, that we learn from this and complete the cycle.
Sometimes we have to believe blindly in what is written, sometimes we have to contribute to what is written without expectations of return in investment, and we must learn not to judge within the limited bounds of our flawed perceptions. Maybe this is at the core of growth and sustainability. How do we live a simple life, in sync with ethics in these times of spin and the webs of words? If only we can claim a core value - something like being a gentleman, being truthful, being able to walk away from the lure of fame, money and personal status, being a husband, a father, an honest son, a loving grandfather…
The day dissolves into the black ink of night. Sleep comes on silent wings to find each of us alone, facing the remnants of a day, the consequences of life, always as if in preparation of death. As we pray, we live our hopes and dreams, our fears. Some of us are privileged to find the arms of loved ones in this moment, some need to turn once more to a pillow for consolation, some are swallowed by the monster of chemistry.
Some have the luxuray to say “Goodbye”, “Goodnight”, “I love you” and even “Miss you”. But it all comes down to our moment of truth, did we live a lie or did we live a life of promises fulfilled. Every day, every life.
In memory of a gentleman: Piet Smit
Image from FreeFoto

In Celebration of Women

August is the month for celebrating women in South Africa. A fine institution, and one that helps every person to focus on the role and position of women in society. If you are expecting a long story on the superficial greatness of the female of the species, quit the page and surf on. This is not about celebration, unfortunately. It is mostly about the farce of equality.
We are not equal; yes, I’ve said it. It is true, from a physical perspective, through physiological evidence, to emotional reality, we are different. We are not the same - we are different - males are not females: the art of stating the bloody obvious. Even in same sex relationships we establish role diversity. Why do we want to erase the diversity, why is it so important to eradicate the great divide? Even when the evidence is piling up against this misconception?
If it is about the atrocious suffering of women under religious dogma, if it is about the incredible and obvious discrimination against the being of the female, if it is about the vicious violence perpetrated against these beautiful beings, then let’s rave and protest. But if it is about burning of the bra - move on!
South Africa is living a lie when it comes to the rights of women. We have a Bill of Rights that insists on equality, but we do not protect women from rape. Look at our statistics (if the MAN Bheki Cele will allow us to publish it). In many companies, the contribution and critical role of women in establishing and maintaining the social fabric, is negated by policy: 5/8 positions for women with small children are not allowed, women are discriminated against at bonus time if they were on maternity leave, stupid jokes are cracked when a women needs to go for a yearly check-up, etc. We are still in the age of barbarians - or worse, we have declined beyond anything human when it comes to how we treat women in this country, despite the ANC flighting a good array of women in government. Rape is still tolerated on the grounds of ethnicity, the past , drug abuse, and (for crying in the proverbial bucket of badly made beer), poverty!!!
When you read this, think about the women in your life, a mother, a sister, a daughter, a life partner, a friend with compassion. Open your hearts and regardless of your gender or your sexual orientation, enforce a moment of silence, of reverence and promise to work towards the future of humanity by celebrating our gender differences and roles. Be smart enough to acknowledge it and then work actively to enforce equality for every human under the law, but walk away from the fallacy of sameness. We are different, and I love it. I say this as I salute the exceptional qualities of the the women I know, and those that love me for what I am. And to my life partner, best friend, mother, pioneer and lover - thanks for making me exceptional.

The image is from iStockPhoto and I have bought the rights to using it here. Do the right thing - respect the rights of artists.

Play

This is a perspective from a child (at heart), one that grew up in the sixties and seventies in a country under a weird regime, on a continent filled with people of great complexity. I guess this implies that whatever I say here may be very local and simply too bounded by my “reality” to be true in general. I guess that’s true of most things, but I thought it would still be interesting to explore some ideas with you.

When do people cease to play - not games bound by some game rules, but play in a way where the patterns are only dictated by imagination? “On average at age ...” in your answer will work for me.

I have thought quite a bit about this over the last day or so. It seems to me that many people, driven by all sorts of social and environmental issues drift slowly out of the ability to imagine freely, to try things openly and to just go bravely where they have not gone before or to go bravely where they have failed before!! There are all sorts of reasons: social norms, for example. I want to get back to society and the style-cramping influence it can have a bit later. There may be environmental issues - lack of food or a harsh living environment in general. But the more I think about it, and the more I read and search the web, the more I see that even these things do not get in the way of the in-born need to play. In the worst of places, but if the physical energy is there, kids will still devise a game.

However, the societal erosion of our ability to be free souls deserves a bit of a discussion here. If one grows up as a boy in some societies, you are afforded more freedom to express yourself than the girls. Already this is something that is inexplicable in this day and age. Over time, the rules of engagement start to encroach on even the most vivid of imaginations. At a certain age certain things are not socially acceptable any more - why - no-one can explain. Maybe, some may claim, it will cause a chaotic society, maybe it will be too dangerous for the individual, maybe it may irritate or confront the “values” of majorities, minorities, or dinosaurs.

The impact of this degradation of imagination and freedom of expression in play is that the society dumbs down. I am willing to back this up by stating that we only have to look at those individuals that made and are making the big contributions to humanity. Imagine an imagination deprived Albert Einstein, consider a conforming Madonna, think of where we would be if all the jazz musicians of the world would stop improvising. Now look at how these people try and in many cases retain their playfulness. Joking, dancing, playing and often ending up being frowned upon by society for nonconformist behavior, these things are all part of the content of the books of life they write. They have their serious moments - we all do, for sure. Later, we tend to pine for them, reading their biographies.

You may be quick to point out that some are destroyed in the process. This is true. However, some individuals in society are destroyed by the sheer hopelessness of it all, the pure day-to-day grind. They may end up in the same morgue as the playful ones and on the same day. Which one is responsible for the bigger tragedy? The excuses at age 50 include that our dumbed down state cannot be changed this late, it is politically incorrect, that we grew up this way, that a mother somewhere caused it, that it is too dangerous now, and possibly even, that you will never like it anyway, or that stress prevents you from relaxing enough! “It is better to burn out than it is to rust”, exclaims Neil Young on the album “Rust never sleeps”.

I am not advocating stupidity. When I look at the kids running on a beach, racing their bicycles in a quiet neighbourhood street, when I see boys pushing and shoving each other around in an impromptu tag type game in a pool - then I see the spirit I am talking about. When I see the boys diving off a cliff on a warm summer day into azure waters below, I know that they have not been hit fully by the plague of “I will not try this, because...”, “It does not fit with my image of…” or “It is just not done!”. They see it for what it is - enjoying the richness of life by being deeply free to express their vitality. They still have a spirit of exploration.

Being able to run, to dance, to imagine, to try, to fail, to experience new things, to try again and again, to joke and to tease, to look at the clouds and to chase their shadows on a beach, these are the things that I believe form part of play. Playing with your partner in special ways in a relationship, trying new things to delight and surprise, encouraging your kids to run on the edge rather than to explain why everything is: wrong, ugly, grim, not done, not acceptable, a bit too weird - you name it - just this may be the first steps on the path to recovery.

This is a path that includes the deep emotion of a hug, the explosive fragrant crunch of a fresh pear as you bite into it and the heart-racing excitement of remembering as you kiss a lover on the forehead, when all the familiar things fire you up to renew, revitalise, to imagine and to say: “What if …. “.

My wish for you is that you may also be in the group of those that still play like this, even at the moment when death rips them away from this place.

The photo in this blog is by a friend, Michelle, who gracefully allowed me to use it on this blog. Have a look at some of her other work at Photo.net.

About the applications

As a techie, I tend to collect all sorts of applications. Yes, I pay for them, and even if they come for free and there is a way to donate to the creator, I do so. I was a programmer once. Anyway, before I put something on this page, I check it out for quite a bit, and only when I really like it, does it end up on my blog.
I have several interesting things here down the left and at the bottom. The first one is the clock. It is just so cool in how it "drips" into place. Very creative - why have a normal clock when you can have this? Why have a clock? Well, when people access my blog I like to give them a sense of place. To me, context is everything, and knowing that I am from Africa and a specific time zone adds to that feeling of "visiting" somewhere, don't you agree?
There are all sorts of other things here, one being the place where you can sign up as a follower of the blog. Consider it if you like the stuff here, and if you use Google's iGoogle, you can use the quick reader there to peek into the site without actually opening it - which is cool, because then you can decide if you want to actually surf over. Time is so precious.... think about it.
The Wikipedia sign is to remind you of one of the greatest things about our time - access to information. I contributed my Euros to their drive for some funds as I feel that I use the site without even thinking these days. Just to get some quick info, just to satisfy the curiosity - it does all of that and often more. Why don't you consider giving them a bit of money? Think how much you have earned using their free service....
Of course there is the Dilbert widget. Yes..... I am not a fan, and yes, I see too many things being portrayed that I see where-ever I go in organizations. It is tragic in a way, and a reminder.
One of my favourite apps is the one close to the bottom left, ClustrMaps. This nifty thing tracks access to my site and then shows a little dot to show where the visitors came from, or at least where the IP address says they came from (let's not fool ourselves). Recently I have subscribed for two years to the zoomable version and you can now click in to see a bit more detail. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Keep on clicking. My site is not advertised on Google and does not end up easily in the search engines. I prefer to keep it that way. However, feel free to send the link on to friends, and log in from your travel sites.
There is also a link that shows some photos uploaded to Picasa. It is a bit more about me and the family and our travels. At the bottom there are other bits and pieces. I update these every so often, and the Einstein quote is updated automatically daily. As you can see, I like good alcoholic beverages, music from the edge (mostly), and books are a passion (no - addiction). There is also that app that shows how the world is going to the dogs. Man, I keep it there to remind me to recycle, to think about the diseases we just cannot seem to conquer, and to think how we can be kinder to our planet in general. If you want to send an e-mail, use the stylish e-mail wrapper - why not....
Last, but not least: when I started looking for a name for my blog and online presence, I thought quite a bit about my life and that of my family. My father and my father-in-law came from poverty-stricken families, both were hard working and family focussed and both felt that one must always aim way above the target. My grandmother maintained that one must focus on your goals, pin back your ears like a whippet at the races, and go with all your energy towards that elusive prize if you ever are to achieve anything. Tenacity is called for, and honesty, integrity - like old Buzz Lightyear. Starting at the stones, the basic building blocks, the things in our immediate environment, we must aim for the big innovations, using what we have (even if it is only stones) to get to our bigger goals and dreams, the stars. Later, I found this quote from MC Escher: "So let us then try to climb the mountain, not by stepping on what is below us, but to pull us up at what is above us, for my part at the stars."

Hope

Hope - a “future” word. I hope I’ll feel better tomorrow. I hope the tests will be positive. I hope today will be a success. I hope I will be forgiven. I hope my dreams will come true. I hope I’ll get a job. I hope the boss will be happy. I hope they find a cure for HIV soon.

It is closely related to “Wish”. I wish I could be as smart. I wish this would work for once. I wish I was a painter.

Hope is recursive, it calls upon itself to salvage hope.
Pearl Jam: “I wish I was a sacrifice but somehow still lived on”.
Pink Floyd: “Wish you were here...”.
If only. If only I had done more… If only I had the dress…. If only they would see me for what I am… If only I could be there tomorrow...

Dreams. My dream is to be a doctor. My dream is to marry you, my love. My dream is to be the best pianist ever. My dream is to put food in the hands of multitudes.

Hope is survival, hope is at the core of existence, hope is close family of despair, hope is the partner to love and faith. Hope cannot die. Hope is released last from Pandora’s box - to conquer the other evils released by the insatiable curiosity of humankind. Nietzsche defends hope as the one thing that will save humanity from itself.
Yes, “Hope” is human.
I hope you see the point.


The graphics are from iStockPhoto, licensed to me. Free the creative spirit and oppose piracy - pay for your graphics and songs. It is the ethical thing to do.

The peculiarity of Skype-immediacy and physical separation

Many of us rely more and more on video links for or communication, using Skype for example to talk to people and to see them at the same time. This is a result of the internet becoming a ubiquitous commodity. In fact, the connectedness that comes with the internet is now so pervasive that one is often caught with a feeling of loss when you cannot quickly access the web to read something on Wikipedia, or to search for a phone number of a restaurant, or to get a quick response from a friend somewhere else on the planet.

We connect through mobile phones, netbooks, laptops and less and less through machines in fixed positions. We carry our communicators with us like a Start Trek scouting party, constantly sharing ideas with like-minded people on the web. As the access to bandwidth increases and the cost per MByte of data decreases, the feasibility of adding video to the mix increases. As an early adopter of technology and self proclaimed trail blazer when it comes to accessing the newest stuff that the web can offer, I have been using Skype for quite a while now in business and in recreation. Sharing a desktop via other applications like GotoMyPC allows one to show people what you mean, to run a presentation remotely and to be in the room with a simulated presence that is often so “immediate” that it becomes possible to communicate on a very personal level over thousands of kilometers. One can see how your audience reacts to your words and gestures, you can react through voice prompts and tonal variation, and bring the message across in a way that is only really second to being there physically. The interactive nature of the Skype experience, for example, is something that could not be imagined a decade ago when we started to use instant messaging via the web and cellular mobile links.

These days I use Skype or the Jabber protocols to chat, talk and video link all the time. From talking to loved ones here in South Africa, Australia, the UK, Canada or in New Zealand, to chatting with a collaborator a few kilometers away, working from our homes on a new document deliverable. Constantly in touch, constantly aware of your social network, you become more valuable as a resource. People can see when you are awake, where you are on the planet and even judge your mood by just looking at the cryptic message on your Skype, iChat or Google Talk application.

But on another level I have been experiencing some worrying side-effects of this technology. Being ready on demand to communicate is a time consuming business. Being open to what I often see as unmaskable interrupts inhibits the ability to work for an extended period of time focussed on a specific topic. One may argue that it is simple to just switch the link off, but that feels like, and probably is akin to, going into solitary confinement, or becoming a lonely hermit somewhere on a mountain top. I think it taxes cognitive abilities and it drains energy at a rate that we did not expect. It rushes us along from one message or link to the next to service all the interrupts as well as we can. It is more invasive than e-mails.

Video feeds, despite how positive I feel about the technology, also have a negative psychological effect in many cases. Let me explain: when I do a video call to a loved one in Australia for example, there is the emotional pain of separation, the obvious reality of the missing physical immediacy of that person, which is masked by the virtual presence on my laptop screen. For 10 minutes or so, I am intimately connected to the person on another continent, I see their eyes, hear their voices, read the body language and I am tricked into feeling as if I am being with them in one physical space. So close, almost touching, so alive, almost smelling their presence. And then you terminate the call. Immediately they are again in some far-away location, there are immediate feelings of loss, as if the person was snatched away from your embrace by sudden death. Nothing “real” remains on the LCD in front of you, where their presence only lingers as some digital activity marker on the Skype application interface. The joy of being united is replaced by immediate sorrow. It is as if physical pain sweeps over one at that moment. I do not know if this is a good thing, to be subjected to the trauma of separation on a regular basis.

How this is different from the lightly scented letter, written on fine paper in a familiar handwriting, which is read over and over again and inspected for the slightest of nuances and emotion, I cannot say. However, I have a feeling that the brain is tricked more successfully into a feeling of nearness by a Skype video feed, and that the loss is greater as no trace remains when the call ends.

This, I guess, is the price we pay for being linked so closely through communication technologies, while being able to move and settle globally with immense ease. We remain souls confined to physical instantiations - bodies. Those bodies need warmth and physical closeness, a light touch on an arm, a good hug, and someone to hold when you are happy or sad.

Can someone please invent that “Beam me up, Scotty” machine soon?!


The graphic in this post is from iStockPhoto, licensed for my use. You should buy the rights to it if you want to use it - it is the ethical thing to do.

Strategies for tough times

When asked recently to share some strategies for tough times, I was surprised to learn that very few of the people I queried on the topic actually had strategies and matching plans for the tough times we are facing today. Is it because we are so used to the rapid pace of change that we just allow ourselves to be swept away by it as we get older? Or is it that some of us feel we are experienced enough to manage? Maybe some of us are just so paralyzed by the imminent disaster that we are not able to think!

Let us look at some of the issues in more detail. I like to start with FEAR. Fear renders us incapable of thinking straight, of devising an escape, and we become like the frog in the water that is being heated and discovers too late that it is going to be cooked! The mechanics of fear and the influence (in the long term) on the brain is well documented. Living under the constant stress of the unknown, the stress of the inevitable impending disaster and the feelings of shame and guilt that often overcome us, the brain is physically modified. In “Destructive Emotions - and how we can overcome them”, Goleman recounts discussions between the Dalai Lama and several important scientists and explains how fear and anger disable our ability to reason. It makes sense: when you are being set up for lunch by a lion, there is no reason to think, there is only reason to run! If we are constantly bombarded by fear and negative emotions, the brain is modified physically, impairing memory, lowering our ability to fight off disease, etc. Being able to balance the negative emotions with positive images and stories, with laughter, resets the situation. Emotionally intelligent people have the ability to balance the negative and the positive and in this way regain control over the frontal lobe activities related to logic. Logic allows us to see fear and other negative emotions for what it is, and allows us to inspect the reasons for our misery. Only then can we consider the strategies and plans to overcome it.

The first part of our strategy is to cultivate positive images and thoughts on a regular basis and to consider the good things in our lives, even in the darkest moments. Read a good uplifting book, work in the garden, play with a dog or a cat, meditate, pray, go for a long walk and look for the beauty of nature around you, blank out the ugly, look at the bark of a tree and brush your hands over the bristly leaves of a conifer.

Once your brain is ready for the ideas to flow freely, get into action, WORK. “Work?”, you ask, “Is that not what causes so much misery?”. David Whyte writes in his astonishingly beautiful “Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity”: “Why are the stakes so high in our work? Why do we work long hours, ignore our children, neglect our spouse, spend enormous amounts of time away from home, and, at worst, stoop to theft, bribery, threats, and bullying to get things done?” And then: “ The one who refuses to forget their humanity and in remembering, helps everyone else to remember, too.” This is the key, work, any kind of work, volunteer work, your chosen career, work at the church on Sundays, all of these things are in fact opportunities to contribute to your fellow man, to act humanely, to go outside of the self and into the domain of those with needs around you and to help them. This is the counter-trend! Reaching out through work is powerful. It gives meaning to your being here, lifts the image of the self, adds worth to every second spent alive. Laced with the humanity of a smile, a joke at your own expense, a tender word, a touch and sometimes a quiet tear in deep sympathy, it becomes the wings of freedom for your brain to act in the most positive way of all - innovation.

The second part of our strategy is to work with a positive attitude in a servant manner so that you can see the opportunities for innovation. Even if you have lost your job, do not stay at home, get to the nearest community centre and volunteer, help the neighbours with something, contribute to the lives of others. It is strange how opportunity comes knocking when you are in good spirits.

Once you are focussed outside of yourself, you can start to make plans to move on, to turn the tough times into prosperous times for you and those around you. Working as a volunteer while your car is being repossessed has a negative impact on you and your ability to help others. One must be practical. I have learnt that one must have two plans at any given time. If plan A fails, move to plan B and promptly devise plan C and possibly even D. The first thing to do is to get to grips with what you have now squarely identified as your specific set of problems. Remember, standing back and working with others in a giving way and cultivating positive energy inside and outside yourself allowed you to see the issues you face for what they are, problems that can be surmounted by logic and planning.

“Where do I start though?”. By looking at the problems one by one and even if they are not linked, trying to find the one that, once resolved, will bring the biggest relief. However, this is not as obvious as it seems. Sometimes one can start with something that is fully under your control, just to show that you can take control. Give up something that is costly, like smoking or drinking excessive amounts of beer, or Coke. You have enough incentives: money, health, but above all, control over something.

In “Innervation - redesign yourself for a smarter future” Guy Browning tells us that creativity starts by standing back and looking anew at your circumstances. Identify what it is that prevents you from getting to where you want to be from where you are now. List these things. Ian Woodrow starts here in his brilliant little book “Close… but no cigar - six easy steps to solving business problems” and states that these are the little critters that must be sorted out. Within a few pages he develops a great strategy to understand the problems. With this under control, you can plan a course of action that will take you to the envisaged state in the future. The trick is to try and estimate the risks, those things that you must manage closely to ensure success. If possible, devise at least two plans to get to your goal, or even slightly different goals, but both desired destinations (maybe one is less desirable than the other, but both are much better states to be in than where you are now). Take cues from your work with other people, as their advice as well. Lastly, write down the plans with dates and milestones so that you can work towards fixed goals. If you miss a milestone, stand back, evaluate the problem, modify the actions, try again, ask for help, etc. If all else fails (sometimes the environment changes again), switch plans. Be positive.

Having a plan and putting it into action is the third essential part of the strategy.

Lastly, give yourself credit for taking control of the situation. Smile about the things that did not work according to the plan, and devise new plans. This is learning. It changes your filters of perception and allows you to see new opportunities. Sometimes we see so many opportunities that we forget to focus on our original goals. Stand back and decide that focus is needed. Some plans must actually be executed to conclusion before you will benefit from them. The best way to stay focussed is to devise an end-state that is not too materialistic, and also not too emotional and lofty. An end state is often a short paragraph, written as a story, telling you what it will be like to be in the desired state. With this fixed in your mind you can focus and evaluate progress properly. There is no secret here, no magic, just plain old common sense.

The final part of the strategy consists of focus and perseverance. Pin your ears back and race towards the finish line with all your might and do not be distracted by the wooly mammoths of fear and self-doubt!

Personally I set small short term goals and my long term plans are rather audacious. It must be worthwhile to embark on the journey, with a goal at the end that forces me to look up, otherwise the stones in the road may become boulders from where I stand.

The image at the top is from iStockPhoto. I bought the rights to it, and so should you if you want to use it.

2012, Pole Shifts and Global Warming

As a scientist I am often asked to speculate about theories, myths and legends. With the current focus on global warming I am often asked to comment on the reasons for the phenomenon, ways in which we can prevent the situation from getting worse and often, if it could be linked to other phenomena, predictions by the ancients and and even to partake in bets about the end of the world as we know it.

The last part is simple: as I have no evidence and information that I can use to even develop a feasible hypothesis about an apocalypse date, it is useless to take a bet on the end of the world. In any case, should I die before such a date, it would signify the end of the world for me, and would that be good enough as a deal breaker, and if I did win the bet (how?), why would I worry, as I cannot easily rake in the millions riding on it!

The other parts are more difficult, and more interesting to attack. I do not believe that global warming is so simple a phenomenon that we can point a finger at the big corporations spewing toxic fumes, or my old fridge or even the cows farting, as the major reasons for global warming. I just know enough about systems dynamics to consider a multitude of interrelationships that may be the cause. But let us consider a few of the popular theories at this time.

First of all there are the stack of prophecies. These range from what Merlin had to say about the impending catastrophe, to what the Mayan calender points to, the predictions of old faithful Nostradamus and obviously the I Ching, the Bible and several other “holy” texts. I have tried to read many of these “holy” texts or sections of them over the years, but I am not sure that I can safely claim that any of these are clear on the specifics of mankind’s demise. Sure, as a Christian I can tell you that the Bible is clear about a final day of reckoning, a time when all that we know as the world will be destroyed to be replaced by another place. It is also made clear that no man will know the date.

Merlin is a great character, but I have no evidence that that character belonged to a real flesh and blood human like the rest of us. Nostradamus did actually share the dust of Terra with us, and he did write some compelling things. However, every time we consider his prophecies we have to do so with 20-20 hindsight. Only after 9-11 could we link the prophecy to the event. Would it not be nice if we could do this with a couple of days to spare, or is this just the essence of doomsday prophecies: no way to know “when” until after the fact?

Which brings me to the current topic of many videos on YouTube, large discussion groups on all sorts of web pages and even prime time programs on TV: The Mayan 2012 prediction. Now for those living in ignorance, the long and the short of it is that the Mayans were really good at astronomical observations and that they also wrote down quite a bit of their work. They devised a very accurate (insanely so for the time) calendar of astronomical events like solar and lunar eclipses. This comes as no surprise as people were often offered to the gods on those special days and knowing up front about the impending solar eclipse would give one and one’s network of friends and family a great deal of bargaining power, not to mention the ability to survive mass offerings. Still, the events linked and predicted by these masters of calculation amazes us all and they predict a bit of a final event around 2012 (December to be more precise). I have some references at the end of the blog for you to surf to. My personal feeling is that 2012 was really far into the future for them, way beyond any retribution, and I am not sure, but it could also be that when they saw what was going to happen then, they promptly decided this was it - the end. In reality, planets will align in a certain way during 2012, but we have no reason to believe that this will cause the whole “engine” of the solar system to seize up and to go down in flames. It takes a bit of maths and calculations to show what the forces will be on the participating planets, but I do not see anybody publishing the results of those. My guess is that the scientists that can do this, discover that it makes no difference, and the rest just repeat what is read on the web and take it for the truth.

“But global warming is different!”, I hear you say. Yes, and so it is, but if you page through the web of links below, you’ll see lots of “links to show that this is no coincidence”. The human mind is a very susceptible thing and it is constantly looking for cause and effect links to try and understand the current situation. Our survival depends on this, and we have been very successful in the past doing just this, finding reasons for what we see around us. We have found many causal relationships and used these to predict the future and in this way we have survived and thrived as a species. Some things are a bit more non-linear, and to try and find simple links may cause us to miss the reality by quite a mile, thus ending exactly where we did not want to be, in the middle of (often) a self-made disaster.

Sometimes global warming is linked to the discovery of a proto-planet called Eris outside the orbit of Pluto, which was promptly relegated to a proto-planet itself. So now we have 8 planets and a couple of large planet like objects in the solar system. But back to this planetoid. This thing is seen as the mythical planet that will swing past earth and that will slow it down so as to stop the rotation of the earth. Back in the Old Testament of the Bible, there is in fact a situation where just such an event occurred. Anyway, you may go read that link below as well. Personally I am quite ok with these things, if the earth has to park for a day or so, to allow Joshua to sort out the enemies, cool by me. If it happens again, and we survive it like he did, even cooler. From a scientific perspective one must ask what the physics of such a situation will entail, and what would happen to the physical systems of the planet, including tidal action, weather systems, etc.

Back to global warming, which is often mentioned as a result of these events mentioned above. Is it possible that the current melting of the ice caps is a result of us doing damage, or is it these extra-terrestrial events, or a combination of it all. I do not know really, but I do believe that we are really messing with our local eco-systems. That is always a serious issue. Whether we can influence such a large system as that of Terra over a period of about 150 years is my open question. Most large system are really rather solidly set in their ways and no amount of arguing from the chaos guys will convince me that the earth is an exception. I believe we will kill ourselves in local optimisations of waste long before the earth system will just flip its lid. I think we are a bit too idealistic to think we can sink this ship by ourselves. Yes, we can make our lives a real misery by cutting down the forests, by fishing waters to emptiness and by pumping so much smoke into the air that we suffocate. Some trees will always survive this, some insects could care less, and many furry animals will go merrily on their ways with humans dead and forgotten.

Let’s face a fact or two here. We emerged from a small ice age in the 1840’s, something not brought on by the cool gadgets of the Renaissance. We have gone through hot spells around 1000 AD when the Vikings found it easy to sail to Iceland, colonise it and cut all the trees down. But soon it became rough and they lost links with Denmark and Norway. It became cold and the seas were not that friendly. Must have been the loss of the forests of Iceland I guess (!). People migrated across from Indonesia to Australia at some point when the land masses were linked because the ocean levels were low. Was it because of so much water captured in ice or because it was a hot period and water was not trapped in ice but actually in the ocean or in the weather system in general?

The blog is getting too long, so here goes with the 2012 “Flip of the Poles” theory. So if it is not serious enough that all the planets will align and thus tear us apart, the poles will flip in a day and wipe us out as the cosmic rays come in to fry us when the atmospheric magnetic shield of the earth collapses. Our electronic systems will fail, birds will go south (literally), whales will beach, people will be disoriented and snails will stop snailing. What happens to tortoises I am not sure, but supposedly they have survived previous flips. You see, we have had this in the past, but we are not sure that humans will survive it this time around.

The reality is that many scientists are sure that a flip is a slow process, taking a few hundred years and that the effects of such is phenomena will manifest in animal migration patterns being disturbed and modified, that our electronic systems will have to evolve to cope with the effects, etc. It may have an impact on weather and in fact many suggest that the current spell of global heating has to do with the sun and its recent polar flip, amongst other things. A polar flip may just steer us towards a small ice age again, who knows.

So there you have it. I do not know, and frankly, I have many more immediate problems to resolve. I worry about the water resource in South Africa, about poverty and diseases like HIV/Aids, malaria, etc, and about my retirement annuity. As a friend recently said, if only we get wiped out by a comet, it would be great. He would be the first on a hill somewhere screaming: “Bring it on!”.

Sometimes we have to be rational, face our problems and do something about that what we have control over. Sometimes “hoping” for a disaster of extraterrestrial proportions to end it all and to absolve us from the possible crime of wasting the planet ourselves, is just childish. If something like that happens I am sure the human spirit will come through for us if there is the remotest possibility of survival. For me, in God I trust!

_________________________________
This is not a reference list, but rather a list to help you see what is on the web on these topics
It is not the only places, but I found each interesting, for various reasons!

From a GAIA perspective

Doomsday

Related to other lore - human origins

The birds are going south!

NASA Sun Polar Flip

NASA Eris

Pole flip simulation (cool!!)

Bible Joshua

++++ Hey, my graphics come from iStockPhoto - and it is copyrighted. I bought the right to use them here, so please respect the property of those artists and buy their work if you like it. It is the right thing to do. ++++

Murder at 175 Haldon Road

South Africa is, contrary to what the government wants the world to believe, slipping even farther down the path of extreme, mindless violence and criminality. I grew up in Bloemfontein in a house situated on the edge of town (Google Earth screen shot left), because my father loved the fact that we could walk out of our garden into the garden of nature. There we played as kids learning about the richness of the Free State fauna and flora; the strong scent of wet plants after a summer rain storm still comes to me now as I write this piece.

We had many happy years there, in fact we lived there from 1969, when the house was built for us and when my father died in 1988, my mother stayed on in the house up to 2003, when it became obvious that it was too risky in the new South Africa for her to be living there alone and we sold the house. This house was acquired by the parents of a school friend of mine recently and they moved there as it was becoming too risky for them to stay on the small holdings about 3 km west of our house. Murders, burglaries and rape occur regularly in these parts these days, none of it even making it to the local news papers anymore. No, it is more important to report on the serious issues in Gaza at this time (and I agree that no matter where you stand in this battle, it is a serious issue). But I am sure that for us in South Africa what is happening locally is also of the gravest concern.

To return to the topic of this piece: Yesterday the elderly couple hired a painter to help them with some painting around the house. When the husband left to quickly buy some supplies from a nearby shop, the painter went into the house and killed his wife in a brutal manner. The reason: no-one is sure, but it could not have been for money, because these people were not wealthy, it was not for food as the government often claims, or for a job, as both had been provided for through his employment on that day.

Maybe it was just because it is easy to kill and walk away from it in South Africa. It is easy to target the elderly. Some would even say it is easy to get away with murder if you kill people from the appropriate race or cultural group in South Africa, as was witnessed earlier in 2008.

Not many people read my blog as it is not an “open” blog, but those of you that do stumble upon it while surfing the web, please stop for a moment and imagine what it would feel like if you discovered that a brutal murder was committed in the house where you grew up n harmony with so many people and cultures. Imagine your room where you went to sleep safely every night, now the scene of a hideous crime, blood staining the walls. Imagine the sorrow of those hat have lost a loved one for no other reason that law will not be enforced by your government before an election they fear they might lose. Imagine your sense of powerlessness as part of a minority in a country where complaints about this situation is brushed off the table as eurocentricity or racism of some kind or just not being able to live with the reality of a new dispensation. Then consider whether you want to invest or support such a country.

I write this from another city in South Africa, and my mother is relatively safe in her new house behind burglar bars, alarm systems and quick reaction panic buttons. But my friend lost her mother and for her there will not be any real recourse to proper justice. A murder was committed at 175 Haldon Road in Bloemfontein and it does not even make it beyond a small article in the local news paper. These are the atrocities that we live with in Africa.