Are men clingy

Some one the other day described men as "clinging".  By that they meant that men coming out of a relationship were unable to cut the tie and make a break for a new future. Needless to say the view came from a woman and was heartily seconded by another.
So is this the view of most women and is there any truth in it, do men find it more difficult to separate when the relationship is at an end. Are men more sentimental than women, do they build castles in the air from which they find it hard to escape.
We are dealing in generalities of course each situation is different. The Jane Austin era depicted women as heavily dependant on men and therefore the breakup of a relationship was of economic importance even more than emotional. This view was portrayed in the writing of most authors up until the end of the Second World War when women's emancipation was made fact by the numbers of women who had to fill the men's shoes whilst they were away fighting.  Education and the confidence that it brings has obviously made women believe in themselves as individuals and not as previously, appendages to a matrimonial arrangement.
Where has this left men. The gender characteristic of provider and defender has fallen away and now the current view is of an equal and shared relationship with the edge now passing to the women through  her retention of the rights that were fostered when she needed protecting and her ordained supremacy when it comes to matters of children. The man, in matrimonial terms is now the follower, perhaps it is this subordination which makes him seem "clingy".  Just as the women were in Austin's day, his hold over any situation is tenuous, he is at the call of an individual who for many reasons, some medical, has wide mood swings and is, like the wind on the sail of a boat constantly changing, needing a skilled hand on the tiller to steer a steady course. It demands the patience of Job and the tactical skill of a Caesar to have any hope of reaching the safety of the harbour. 
Clingy is a depreciating term and yet a man who stood by his partner through thick and thin was in the past to be commended so where do we find an understanding between the yin and the yan, and the differences between men and women of which are many. 
Women are more resolute they seem to be able to compartmentalise things better than men do. It's often the claim that women can handle many tasks at once keep all the balls in the air so to speak whist men seem better at tackling the single project to the exclusion of all else. Men presume much more and assume that the world of their creation is in place, even when clearly it isn't. They are more romantic. I know this is not how it's portrayed but I think men in creatng false castles, forget to maintain them on the assumption that, being of their making it has the strength of their resolve and that is enough. Men come to relationships slowly and are hard to dislodge from the safety of their pack but once dislodged they are putty in a woman's hand because they still have the confusion, sown in their minds in childhood that their role is one of leadership and protection whilst in fact they are but bit players in the life of the family. Women make the hard decisions and are good at it. It comes from the maternal protection built into every women that they know best with regards to the child, be there a child in the relationship or not, its in the psychological make up of survival and there is no hesitation in take hard decisions. A man will sentimentalise his rational for doing things, a women never. Her road is clear, her eyes are fixed, her attention unswervable. 
Are men clingy, probably yes but it makes them the more loveable in the sense that they are more human in the way that men open their arms "wider" to encompass more of humanity.

Subliminal free will

Now I don't want any raised eyebrows on reading this blog or any smarmy comments but last night I had a dream ! Not the Martin Luther sort of dream but one which may be prophetic in another way. Usually I don't dream, or at least I seldom remember them, perhaps I'm brain dead (there will be lots of you who go along with that) or maybe it's because I sleep deeply, it's only in light sleep, the sleep you have as you emerge from the deep one that dreams are remembered. I'm not a club person, my dancing was always of the ballroom type where you held the girl and twirled around the floor as a couple. Today's dancing in the club, from what I've seen on the telly, is of a vast swath of people not apparently connected other than through the beat, I won't describe it as music.
I think up to now I'm on safe ground since most of my readers are of a certain age to remember the age of proper dancing.  Here's were it gets scary. In my dream I was dancing let's rephrase that, I was twisting (the dance) with a man ! Now my own prejudice will begin to show its self in that I have little truck with the concept that Gay and Lesbian activity is normal, I don't think it is. I accept that a sizeable section of society are Gay ans Lesbian but sheer numbers don't make it normal. Anyway be that as it may, here I was in my dream twisting with a man and although even in my dream I was uncomfortable dancing with him ( I seemed to carry my prejudice into the dream) he also had a resemblance to someone. It was only when I woke up did I realise it was someone from one of the Australian soaps, Neighbours. 
These Soap Operas have themes and one being played out at the moment is a Gay relationship between a young Greek guy and a new entrant into the series, a chap who apart from being Gay also seems to have Post Traumatic Syndrome and a lot of uncontrollable anger from his stint in the army (another theme). Anyway it was him in my dream and I got to thinking about the effect of subliminal conditioning.
Was the fact that he popped into my dream a result of subliminal conditioning, an attempt to convert us over to shredding our prejudice and become one of the, "everything is permissible" so long as it's INCLUSIVE. 
Of course it's the perfectly correct position to hold, if it roots out stigma, but prejudice and stigma are not the same thing. My prejudice is the result of my upbringing but also,in large part is based on what I think is the natural order of things in "nature" which requires, as a founding element, "procreation" to be the basis for sexual instinct. The derailing of the sex drive to simply provide entertainment has been one of the strongest cultural dilemmas over mankind's term on earth and his philosophical justification for anything he does is seen as a manifestation of "free will"  
 "The powers that be" are intent on reforming us in all kinds of ways and television is probably the most powerful.
Of course as a friend of mine recently commented "just don't watch it" !!!!

I forgot

Having just returned from my doctors to make a new appointment, have another go at syringing my ears, my attention was caught by a pamphlet "Worried about your memory".
Who isn't at my age. Going upstairs to fetch the keys, one often is delayed whilst one gatherers the mind, "what did I come up here for"? There are many occasions when the memory plays tricks or one is stumped for a word which a year ago would have been there but now you have to search for it.
My Mum and Dad never had this problem, at least as far as I know because they died within the 'three score and ten' that is supposed to be allotted to us. Living longer presents a number of potential problems not least is the brains deterioration and one of the most ghastly aspects of getting old, dementia.
As I have often claimed we are what our brain makes of us. We represent to others what our brain provides as a mechanism for generating our outward and ostensibly inward health and recognisability. What we say and remember to say is part of the recognition that others have of us as the person they know. Jumble it all up and we become a parody of who we were and whilst the flesh carries on for a while it to slowly degenerates as the brain forgets its part.
And so the curtain is lowered as the actor fluffs his lines and ignores his cue. The rest of the cast go home confused and sad. The play which was all about them and us is short of a character and the script must be rewritten.
I noticed in the pamphlet that part of the service the Alzheimer's Society is a foreign language version of the booklet they offer. Arabic,Bengali,Chinese,Gajarati, Punjabi,Somali,Tamil, Urdu. There was also two European languages, French and Polish but given we have a free flow of immigrants from the EU, I wonder why only two languages are offered.
It is though an indication of the multi national content of our society and one wonders where all this is leading us in terms of being able to identify ourselves say 50  years down the line.
Perhaps one advantage of dementia is that as the past and the future dissolve we will not have to wrestle with determining who we are or who we should show allegiance to. 

When we were baby's

Part of our understanding of ourselves is tied up in the environment we find ourself in. If the environment is vibrant and exciting, because we identify with that vibrancy, we import it in our sense of who we think we are. If on the other hand we are gloomy, because the weather is gloomy then we adopt a negative feel as to who we think we are and the familiar term depression is described.
Usually our lives are a mixture of events and people. Each event each person acts like osmosis, we absorb the external stimuli and transfer it into our own character. If there is little going on then one is left relying on ones own stock of stimuli to develop any sense of positivity, since it is being positive or optimistic that carries the day.
As a human being we are brought into this world by parents who make it their duty to spend time and effort making you feel secure and happy, so this sense of unity with ones parents is one of the main driving forces in our development as a human being. Eventually we swap our parents for another person sometimes a group of

people but it's this 'collective collaboration' in the tasks which surround us that, in some ways, is a crutch to get us through the difficult times. 
Some people are gregarious and have lots of friends, people who become an important sounding board in the everyday trial and tribulation. Many people are far less gregarious and have little to fall back on, other than themselves and of course people in this category our susceptible to depression.
The issue of having an inner resource to evaluate everything in terms of ones own self and the image we carry of ourself in relation to the world around is vital. We are each of us individuals who, for good or bad have become dependant on seeing ourselves through the eyes of others, waiting the comment or the question, to trigger our sense of being meaningful. If our world becomes silent we loose the sense of life being meaningful but of course this is plain silly. We are who we are irrespective of whether we are cast away on a desert island or part of a busy street scene. The persona we carry in our brains is the amalgam of millions of personal experiences, each experience is unique to us and from this unique base we must learn to fall in love with ourselves again, as we were when we were babies.
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American football / British style

Oh woe is me. Wembley Stadium is full to the rafters with spectators watching American Football. Why ?
If ever there was a game designed for commercial TV its this one with its time outs and its player huddles, its stand off fixed play and its continuous recycling of players. Its no problem for the field commentators to interview who ever they can pick up around the pitch since there is nothing happening on the field and even if the game is in play its so static that there seems no urgency to rejoin the game.
The pundits in the studio swap

 their Geordie accents for high pitched American ones, revved up to a thousand words a minute speaking oceans of goobly gook, not about the game its self but about issues surrounding the game of American Football and the teams and players who play for 'other teams'. They have a script and the game on the pitch is incidental. Its not surprising since watching plaster dry would require a great deal of filler (ha ha) and filler they have in spadefuls. The TV adverts are a relief and knowing how I hate the ads you have to know how I feel about these beefy men bashing into each other whilst the chap with the ball decides who to throw it to.
Perhaps the sight of partially clad (on a cold afternoon) glamorous  girls leaping around waving tassels and shaking their derriers, is what the audience came for but to my mind its all hype, nothing more, nothing less and one has to, once again question the gullibility of the British to buy into the American publicity machine.

Information / misinformation

My alarm goes off at 4.00 am every morning. 

Don't get me wrong I don't leap out of bed and start doing press ups rather my radio which has been the cause of my awakening is tuned to a program called Up All Night. It's a program which discusses world issues, not the sanitised version of broadcasting which has become the norm across all domestic channels but a series of insights or discussions with people around the world who know a thing or two about their country and the problems their countries have. 

The conversations seem far less adversarial, far more measured where time is put aside to discuss at some length and there is far less the push of an agenda. I became aware of the program when I went through the period of having to get up at 2.30 every morning to start a job at 3.00 am finish at 7.00 and then drive down to London to begin the day job. The radio kept me sane and this program and the program hosts especially a chap called Rod Stewart became soal mates. The signature tune and the sound of their voices brings back deep seated memories of a discouraging  time when we first arrived here.

The issue that is troubling the UK  at the moment is the extra 2 billion pound payment the EU is demanding and David Cameron's outburst "we are not going to pay". I wonder how many of us when ruffled by a letter from Inland Revenue have said the same thing. Of course we pay because we have have to pay its part of the contract we enter into when we decide to live here. It's also part of the almost universal ruling that the richest in society ie the ones who earn the most in any one year should contribute the most. 

If set in these clear terms then usually everyone accepts it but in the disinformation that is the stock in trade of the mainstream media, run up the jingoistic flag and cry foul. The problem with that is the masses believe what ever they are fed and cry foul also. 

Listening to a dispassionate explanation on Up All Night on has a balanced view put forward which explains the commitments we entered into and weighs the 2 billion against, for instance the rebate we receive (3 billion) and measure the money demanded against out trade with the EU and the economic benefit we gain from being a member.

Serious issues are decided when misinformation is paraded as fact and the power of the Fourth Estate in this matter is crucial.

The brain is a funny thing.

The brain is a funny thing. It is who we are, our memories,  our instincts, the drives and the protective warning mechanisms. Its also, through its design a complicated method of defining how we think and behave, how we define right and wrong.
The left side is the reasoning side, the logic side, the analytical side. The right hand side of the brain is the part where we have our artistic sensitive side where our feelings develop sometimes in conflict with the rational of our left. All this in one head, no wonder we are so confused, so at odds with our selves sometimes in conflict, one minute happy one minute sad. The character of a person is dependent on the mix, which side is dominant which is submissive perhaps always in conflict a bit of both, swinging this way and that depending on the chemistry.
Its a bit undermining to learn that we are so dependent on chemicals which effect our moods and thoughts generally. We see ourselves as rational individuals always able to reason and decide our course of action and yet we are nothing much more than a string of letters recognisable as a class by the academic. If our free will is nothing more than an electrical impulse which triggers the chemical compound mix in certain sections of the brain then the human codification that has developed since Plato, of right and wrong, good and bad, moral or immoral lies outside the brains chemistry and is more social than human. As individuals we can be at odds with society due to no fault of our own other than the chemistry in our brains and the ties that bind us to the society are tenuous to say the least ?    

Avoid the cul de sac

Travelling by train is an experience like no other in that as you travel through familiar countryside or the built up suburbs one feels in some way disconnected from the real life scenes that are before your eyes.
As the pageant rolls by one wonders at the multitudinous lives that are being played out beyond the carriage window. There's the restaurant that we had dinner the other night it looks so remote as we pull away on our journey to Paddington. Swish and we are passing out into the countryside,through the mist of a Welsh morning. Far away I can see the sea breaking onto a sandy beach and a lone intrepid surfer sitting his board waiting. 
The days of steam are well past, the powerful diesel locomotive easily pulling its load smoothly and coming up to speed as we travel on to our distant destination. 220 miles or there about, three hours and all for £28. It costs me about £40 in the car but then there's often two people and a boot full of luggage. 
Like a time capsule each hamlet comes into view and is gone, people involved in their own lives a train passes without a thought, two worlds on different trajectories. Life is like that. The people I left behind are busy with their own thing, as am I, it's only in the mind that we construct connectivity. If we have a conversation we try to second guess what the other person is thinking and so it is throughout life, we are individuals cast adrift on a sea of chance. We have to be in tune with ourselves, to experience true lasting happiness if we leave it to others we can find ourselves in a cul de sac with our character in tatters.

Independance.

Those of you who remember Europe in the 40s and 50s, before the Common Market came into being, remember a world of austerity of rationing of limited aspirations. It was also a time when people knew their foundations and the tribe they belong to.
The boarder post was a place of uncertainty where ones own conviction, as to who you were and your civic rights were laid bare by a man in a foreign uniform who had the power to allow or not allow further progress. The sense of exposure which lay between the two boarder positions, your own behind you, the new in front, a feeling that society stopped and the norms of community were held in abeyance as you walked across the no-mans-land.
Nowhere was this more so than at the divide between East and West Germany. I wasn't there but the palpable tension has often been portrayed on film of people making the crossing from an authoritarian world of hardship, to the up-market extravaganza that was on show on the Kurfuerstendamm.
Travel was an exciting experience as you moved from one country to another, not only the language difficulties but the culture expressed its self in numerous ways. These people on the pavement and in the cars swishing by were German,French, Italian, Greek from Holland or Spain and we celebrated our difference.
Today we are Europeans polyglot of the above, a bureaucratic concept dreamt up in the mind of a group of political administrators who had the vision of a Federal Europe tied together like the USA with a central administration.
The choice today as you approach a boarder crossing is simple you don't even know your crossing from one to another. Everything is bland, from the shape of a banana to the currency note you tender when buying one. The shops are the same. selling largely the same type of produce with the same bureaucratic markings. Kelvin Klein in one country is the marker in another and as you shop or wander around in this contrived environment you could be forgiven for wondering why you left home in the first place.
Oh the good old days when a Guilder signified you were away, when the French Frank, the Peseta or a Deutsch Mark told you that the whole process of doing virtually everything was different in the country you were in. because history had evolved a national signature which was independent.
Today we are so "interdependent" we might as well all be one and the same thing !!!

The recruiting sergeant.

Where did ISIS come from.
A fighting force in Syria, a successful invader of Iraq, an army that can obtain sophisticated arms and the know-how of how to use them. They put the well armed American trained Iraq army to flight and were at the gates of Baghdad before the American bombers gave the Kurds a chance to turn the tide.
Nation states are in dread of them. The world politique is warning of the dangers of ISIS fighters merging into civil society creating chaos and mayhem throughout the democratic world.
Where did they come from, Ali Baba's Cave, Genies out of a bottle, where were they lurking 15,10,5 years ago.  Under which stone were they hiding ?
Their recruiting comes from a dis-effected section of the Muslim diaspora stretched across the world. Partially integrated into various societies they retain their cohesion through their religion. Its a cohesion that is extremely powerful, in essence more powerful than anything else and potentially a threat to the host nation if the underlying dissatisfaction becomes "a cause". 
The fear of every 'nation state' is a group whose  cohesion is not under the states control. Religion is more powerful than the 'secular state' in that it achieves adherence through the mystique of a promise of a life in paradise after death.
The power of religion has been diminished in societies where science has bred agnosticism through the scientific interpretation of known facts.
Religion sadly doesn't let facts getting in the way if they disagree with the bible, (which ever bible is used) and so the religious person is compensated, which ever way the truth pans out. He/she has nothing to loose.
Tie this strong compulsion to practice the formality of the religious belief in an adherent, with repeated confirmation of the faith through daily prayer and its codification, using pageant and symbolism and its a short journey dependency. Once dependant the movers and shakers in any group have something pliable to work with and the aims of these influential  people can take many forms.
From a prophecy of hate to the prophecy of love, the congregation is a captive audience and we see the recruiting of missionaries and suicide bombers in the same light.      

The power of judgement

Listening to the summing up in the Pistorious trial, prior to the to the sentence one is struck by the fact that this is but one view of one individual.  Not only is it a single observation but one assumes, fed by a deep fund of experience, not only the legal experience but the life experience which makes us all what we are. What are the life experiences of Judge Thokozile Masipa  which intersperse with the hard facts of the case.
She took time to recall legal presidents dealing with other cases, laying emphasise on the reformative aspect of the sentence. She is going into great detail to explain the reasoning of a reformative sentence. Having given Pistorious the hope that she is going to be lenient she then went on to to demolish the argument that his case had any similarity and said that the number of shots and the lack of any ability to get away ruled out consideration for leniency.
What must Pistorious be thinking as this slow drip drip  monologue is read out, her definitive insistence  of reading out the spelling and the clause sub clause in detail. With bated breath he awaits her decision. 
Five years in jail (10 months 1/6 in actuality) with a three year suspended sentence for a firearm contravention.
It seems to me that taking the life away of a young women and having only 10 months freedom taken away, is a travesty.
After the sentence was read out the Prosecution Lawyer jumped to his feet to raise some obscure point and once more one is struck by the lack of gravitas in this, one of the senior courts in South Africa, dare I say it seemed amateurish.             The issue of how society views this trial, of how people feel about someone emptying their  gun through a flimsy door, killing someone and yet virtually getting away with it has still to come out. The view of the advocates who were interviewed after the trial seemed to me to be based on protecting the legality of the judgement and of the "process", rather than that of the common man and his common sense attitude to the issue of right and wrong and the appropriate sentence.  The acceptance of the Senior Prison Officers claim that the prisons are properly administered and that Pistorious had nothing to fear in prison, was swallowed hook line and sinker by the Judge, much to the amazement of society who have read many accounts of the bestiality that goes on in the prisons.
I understand that the South African Parliament had been up in arms over the Prison Officers comments and one wonders which world the Judge lives in to accept the bland picture he painted of prison incarceration.
So its over the theatre, the tension and pathos.
He is in the bus thinking of two lives destroyed whilst awaiting his prison garments. I would think he has some apprehension of the struggle ahead as the prison authorities try to live up to their bosses expectation whilst he, in the real world has to exist amongst prisoners who have had no such promise and will feel mightily aggrieved.         

A visit to the doctor

Old John is such a difficult old bugger. That very morning he had been rummaging around in his shed when the sound of the phone drew him back into the house. It was his son ringing from overseas. He never ceased to marvel at modern day communications,in bits of a second his voice had flown around the world, from the sunshine to a wet and windy day in Blighty.

Hello son what's up. He hadn't thrown off the apprehension felt when he was younger that an overseas call signalled bad news. 

Hi Dad no nothings wrong just rang to hear how you are and if you had been to see the doctor yet. He remembered their last conversation when he had let slip that he hadn't been feeling well and was going for a check up. 

Doctors, don't get me started, they seem more interested these days, in the Practice as a business with all kinds of labour saving gimmicks to keep the patient at bay. 

I had no sooner stood facing the receptionist (a species of person specially bred to obstruct ordinary people) when she insisted I go outside again and submit myself to an electronic handshake (I ask you) to announce my arrival. "But I'm here on time for my appointment". 

"Sorry Sir but it's procedure". 

Out I went and tapped the screen, entering my gender, date of birth to be welcomed electronically. 

Back in front of M/s frosty face  I pulled an exasperated stare and announced "I'm here again"!! "Please take a seat at the automatic blood pressure machine and follow the instructions on the screen". Beginning to wonder if I hadn't landed myself on the set of Star Wars 5 I followed instructions. The thing grabbed my arm and began to squeeze.Was it working ok, it kept on squeezing. What if the bloody thing had malfunctioned today of all days and my arm flattened by forces unspecified by the Japanese manufacturer. The story in the local news.  "Mans arm squashed", stop," fire-service cut the machine off him as he whimpered that he had only come to have his ears syringed" !!!!

A safe harbour

Mother has been busy. She attacked the kitchen with a force that won many a battle and she was certainly determined to win this one.
There were mice, well at least the droppings and the sarcasm towards 'one house proud chap' was unprecedented.
Now my opinion of field mice, for that's what I think paid me visit, is quite a fond one, whiskers, bright twinkling eyes and shifty turn of speed when Felix is about.
The characterisation of animals with human character is the business of Disney, it has softened our natural propensity to

demonise everything not human and as long ago as Mickey Mouse we were on his or Minny's side, what ever the situation.
Marie manages to create the image of dirt and deprivation by calling my mouse a rat but no matter. I welcome a visitor or two even if the conversation is limited.
Of course there is the issue of "what would the Buddha say" if I were to chase them away, particularly as we move into the cold dark days of Winter !!
Any port in a storm and my mouse has found his safe harbour.

The allotment

Pushing aside the weeds one could just make out the path as it went down towards the shed. The raised beds and the shade house were over run by nature, as it recaptured the years of hard labour that had been expended to create this small patch of garden, a reminder that what ever our efforts we are in the hands of a much bigger force.
Weeds need no mulch, no pruning, no watering they grow to another tune, another rhythm which is beyond the ken of man. Nature has through natural selection toughened all its species and the thistle, the dandelion, the nettle are perfect examples of how the hybrid flower or the vegetable can't compete and are soon overtaken the moment the human hand is removed from the hoe.
Its non the less sad to see the chaos which is revealed to the person who has spent so many hours tirelessly and creatively making a viable food producing garden. So much effort so much pride so much love, now in ruins.
The other factor is the human factor. The people in adjacent allotments who have become friends who speak  the specialised language of the allotment keeper, a brand of people with their feet firmly on the ground (probably in a pair of wellies) who's vision of life is more fundamental  and not in the least consumerist in the way we understand the term. The conversation between the gardeners are as much a part of the  experience and its not an exaggeration to say that the "time of day" can be expressed in hours rather than minutes taken over the week.
And so the allotment gate is closed for someone, for someone else to open and take the fight to 'mother nature'. Their energy and spirit will be tested but the pleasure they obtain in doing something so elemental is enough and remains a testimony to mankind's strength and the ability to survive what ever is thrown against it.         

A ship to starboard

The sun hanging low in the sky caused the light to slant across the surface of the water as the boat bobbed around at anchor near the lee shore. The breeze wafted across the river, the temperature dropped and the people sitting in the bow felt the chill. There was also a chill of anticipation since it was within an hour for the tide to turn and a journey to begin, with all the imponderables that sailing down the Thames in the failing light of evening would bring. 
Time to go. The the sheets loosened, the sail was raised as the boat headed over the anchor to ease the lift.  Pulling the chain up we were soon to free to move into the main channel and take notice of our surrounding.
The lights on the far shore began to twinkle as the last vestiges of light disappeared and our attention turned to the business of navigating a passage at night. A ship to starboard was swinging into view, better take a bearing to see how she was sailing in comparison to our own course since, on the water there were no means of identifying where we were in relation to other boats or their course.  Passages down the Thames have been made since before Roman times, history was all around, every creek, every mud flat every obstacle or wreck were waiting to test our navigation and everything lay in the tar black water with only a set of lights from the various navigation buoys to help us. Looking for the first buoy one struggled to remember, was it two flashes or three and where would we expect it to be, there it is 1,2,3. What's the next one on the chart and how far. Mark off the distance, estimate the flow of the tide and add it to the speed of the boat which should get us to the next change of course.
And so it went on throughout the night until the dawn began to break and the estuary opened out into the sea. The thrill of open sea as we left behind the claustrophobic danger of being in a boat close to shore. The swell began to make the boat pitch and roll as we set a new unencumbered course to our first foreign port as we looked at each other with new respect.
A lumpy grey sea stretched all around reaching to the horizon, an environment like no other, an environment filled with portent which questioned all the surety we had become accustomed to on land. The sickly swell slopped against the side of the boat to a rhythm who's motive force had begun thousands of miles away with a storm in the tropics. It was this living nature of the element which made us realise how exposed we were to events across the globe and, as we peered over the side into the water we thought of the depth and the enormity below us, an environment totally hostile to our survival if the boat floundered for any reason. On we ploughed across the waves with the wind in our sails. There was plenty to do as we trimmed the sheets and tightened the canvas to present the best shape to the wind. A sailing boat is about efficiency of keeping an eye on the fickle nature of the sea and wind and using mans ingenuity to get the best out of any situation.
On we sailed throughout the day and it was only as the light began to fade did we see the distant glow on the horizon,our first indication of land. Making landfall at night has its dangers, should we stand off until dawn and risk the potential of poor weather that was forecast or should we press on and hope our navigation had positioned us to enter the harbour in safety. The lights at the entrance beckoned and after checking the local maritime information as to any particularities we turned towards the safe haven of land and the welcoming sight of buildings and lights from the cars as they drove home along the coast road unconcerned about the little dot of light shining from our mast head out in the inky blackness of the water. Keeping an eye out for ships leaving port we entered a bewildering array of navigation lights, trying to remember the road rules we edged our way past the long finger of the sea break and on towards a place to tie up along side the yacht pontoon and a hearty meal to reward us for our endeavour. We would never forget this our first crossing it would steel us for future voyages but the memory of this our first would hold a special place in our lives and would be the subject of many conversations as we grow old.                             

A drive around the M25

Scratching around in the darkened room he reached out to the table. at his bedside, the book he had been reading before dropping off to sleep, the clock, oh where was the pen.
It was often so these days when he emerged from a deep sleep that the thoughts are rich and so specially relevant we have to to get them down. They seemed the crucible of something important something in the cold light of day he could expand upon.
Life had narrowed down these last few months as he sought his own company more and more. His occasional trips to see friends were generally speaking enjoyable but he often came away thankful that he could close the door and not have to engage in small talk and pleasantries any longer. In a few hours the sound of car doors slamming shut would herald the flow of humanity going to work and he could snuggle down to continue reading his book.
 This morning though he had awakened to the riotous sound of his mobile phone ringing.
Who on earth could ring at this time in the morning. He wasn't put out or grumpy since he prided himself on coming out of a deep sleep all guns blazing as it were, to connect. Too little connection these days so any conversation was acceptable even if it was five thirty!!
 "Hello who's that". "It's me". Vaguely he remembered the voice but no name appeared in his brain so he repeated. "Who". "Me, don't you remember". This was becoming a little irritating, especially at 5.30 in the morning but good manors withheld an obvious remark and so he had another stab. "I'm sorry but who are you". "Its Trevor I'm at Heathrow the flights just got in and yours was the only number in my book".
Trevor who was Trevor. The grey cells were madly opening every file in his brain to link the name to a face but without luck. "Aunt Edith's grandson,from Australia, Brisbane I was a 'little un' when you were there in the 80s". 
Slowly the mist started to clear and Edith came into view striding about on her property on the outskirts of Brisbane. A lovely sunny sort of person, always busy, Edith had taken him under her wing for a fortnight and fostered him with true Aussie hospitality. "Trevor of course I remember you", he lied with conviction since he knew he was in a spot quickly assembling a plan to pick him up, but when ?  Full of jet lag Trevor  hadn't considered what time it was but here with the words on his lips  before he could marshal the thoughts. "I'll get the car out and be with you in about an hour".
As he sped around the M25 he questioned his sanity, what on earth was he doing. He hardly knew this chap but somewhere deep within he realised that what mattered was repaying Aunt Edith for her hospitality all those years ago.

A night in the bush.

The car drew to a halt. It was pitch black outside the environment of the vehicle, its radio heater and lights, it's sandwiches and a flask of tea were on the back seat. We were carrying our hermetically sealed world from Matatiele to Johannesburg with little thought to the surrounding environment, the villages and the people who lived metres away from the strip of Tarmac.
The headlights had, for over an hour been piercing the dark as we drove, threading our way between the koppies. Occasionally the beam would pick out the eyes of some small animal caught in the light, frozen with fear as this monster rushed at them out of the night. Pulling a trailer we felt the sway of the car as it rounded each bend is weight throwing the rear of the car out of its normal path as we ploughed on and on with only our destination in mind.
Suddenly the swaying became more acute something was wrong, we had had a puncture. Slowing to a stop I got out of the car with its jangle of modernity blasting in my ears, the radio playing the interior lights casting a glow all around I saw that the trailer tyre had punctured. A bit of a blow since we hadn't a spare. Marie you take the car on to the the next town see if you can get it repaired whilst I wait here with the trailer.
As the car roared off I was left in the silence of a different world, a world to which we were ignorant, modern convenience having blinded us within our self centred universe.
Slowly as my senses adapted, and my eyes accustomed themselves to the night I began to take stock of where I was. The road at this point had cut through a hill and I could see its dark sides rise to my left. To the right the ground seemed to fall away gradually.  I could make out no special features other than some rounded shapes which I couldn't quite discern .   What did feature was that beautiful African Bush tranquillity,few sounds and a lovely aromatic smell of a still warm earth.
As the time drifted by my acuteness to sound sharpened and my eyes began to accommodate the gloom. It was so peaceful so un-hampered with the bustle of our modern environment that I was spellbound awaiting the dawn. As the first light leaked into the sky the earth and my surroundings began to take shape.
We had stopped alongside an African village set back not more than a hundred yards from the road and as I stood there I could have been from another planet. Their world was swinging into timeless action a slow purposeful piece of human theatre being enacted as it had been every morning for years,for generations. Women emerged from the huts, (for that's what these strange shapes were seen in the dark as only shadows) lighting the fire, gathering the water, making the first meal of the day.
Africa waking up from its slumber, its concern, of staying alive, immemorial and so much in rhythm with a giant of a continent, it's rudimentary life and death struggle well away from the tinkering of the White man and his economic drive to change everything.
They saw me there but I was no threat and they had more important tasks on hand.
Eventually my car returned the tyre fixed and the journey resumed but I will never forget that early morning encounter with another way of life, it's form and purpose-fullness, the peace and the quiet, the sense that you were part of the world, part of the environment and not just a bit player in the chaos we call life.

The art of conversation

Having a conversation can be one of the most rewarding aspects of being alive. I remember years ago discussing at a social gathering the importance and the evolution of language with a chap who turned out to be a professor in linguistics. I was captivated by the breadth of his knowledge and the intensity and love he had for his subject. Conversations like that are few and far between.
It was always my hope that I would be in the company of people who had a desire to unearth knowledge and who would excite me in their quest if only as a good listener. Of course as I write the term good listener I know that it is one of my failings not to question not to contend a point so that I could test the hypothesis. Having had a poor academic background, placed in the cul-de-sac of secondary education called a Secondary Modern School where one was parked for a few years to accommodate any the legal requirement until it was time to enter the factory and the world of jobs. I had this notion that University was a medium through which one passed and, like magnetism, one picked up a whole fund of knowledge that lay outside the specific subject you were taking. The Oxbridge debating societies comes to mind but it was this mixing of clever people who I thought, because of their cleverness would seek out each other in mutual interest through the art of conversation.
It seems I was wrong and only the "wonks" did that sort of thing.   Interestingly they seem to have included those with a political bent. I suppose speaking being one of their main, perhaps only asset.
The value of communication lies in what is said and how it is said. The use of words and coming to terms with their proper meaning is crucial but there lies the seed of many a problem.
People through custom and environment use the same word differently and because language and the meaning we derive from it is so deeply rooted in our belief system we find it hard not to feel aggrieved if someone misuses a word and therefore the concepts under lying them and we enter into conflict.
This is even more so when the language is describing a belief system, since the words take on a meaning that is endowed with the faith they have, in what ever they believe. To question the meaning or the use of a word or a description is to undermine the surety in their belief.
And so, as with so many things one must tread carefully, but not too carefully that you back off asking the question, not too carefully that you don't  query the premise. This free for all discussion is how we learn, for in every disagreement there is lodged in us a part of the argument that eventually makes sense. Shalom.
           

Canute and matters pertaining

I am obviously guilty. I must be guilty because I hold views that differed from the panel gathered to discuss the issue of immigration.
The term guilty is a strong condemnation, it usually means punishment since society demands the importance of reminding the public what it expects. Remember I am only guilty of believing something which is out of kilter with the story the Establishment wishes us to believe and, on the basis of what I hear or see amongst ordinary people who make up at least 60 percent of the population, I am tempted to be contrary
Politicians and  members of the media are very constrained in what they can say since, on the one hand, their "constituents" come from all shades of the environment  some having very powerful opinion mending machines to hammer home their own point of view. The media likewise are always in the throes of finding the middle ground, of being non controversial to the point that the BBC has become an embarrassment as they seek to apologise for any story which strays off the Establishment line.
Immigration brought millions of people to these shores. Each immigrant represents a family,each immigrant brings a culture and a set of beliefs that are sometimes at odds with the people who were here before the massive influx from 1947 onwards.
Of course the clever word-smiths who write and discuss these matters usually demote the common-or- garden Englishmen to someone indefinable, someone without a past or a sense of permanence someone who is simply a polyglot of wandering people from every corner of the world. The concept that we have some linage is rebuked as ridiculous and therefore even the most recent immigrant merely joins a long line and has as much a right to be here as anyone.
The changes he or she brings are Darwinian in their ability to adjust us irrespective of whether we wish to be part of this evolution or not.
I suppose Canute comes to mind as we attempt to hold back the forces behind change.
Of course some insects have remained unchanged from when the fishes first moved onto land. Their internal design was such that evolution left them alone.
Perhaps this is what we want. A stop to the hybridisation of our identity, perhaps  a moment to consider that he are happy to be who we are without merging us with everyone else on the planet.

A natural reticence

Disease has a way of inculcating its self through the customs and weaknesses of the victim.
Ebola exploits the interconnected warmth of the people of West and Central Africa. The traditional embrace and handshake of a greeting. The custom surrounding the preparation of a family member for burial. The crowded proximity of people clustered together in unsanitary shacks. Similarly Aids traded on the sexual demand most people display but, in some segments of society the urge seems greater and no education or warning could prevent its spread.
People from hot countries are perhaps more susceptible for a number of reasons.
Educational advice is a low priority if the stomach is empty and when the only only game in town is the oldest !!!
Heat, coupled with a flamboyant life style due to largely living outside the dwelling and being thrust into the local mix of humanity instead of the isolationist frigidity of colder climates, plays an important part. In the West, particularly the northern latitude we are much more governed by societal norms. We worry about what our neighbours do and think.
In a place like the UK for instance the handshake, the kiss on the cheek even a gruff acknowledgement that you are there and alive, can be easily dispensed with. Closing the drawbridge at home is more the norm here than in other countries and being withdrawn is part of our natural characteristic.
Here at least the virus will find it hard to batter down our natural reticence !!! 

Advertising, is it bad for you.

Why are we so stupid. The "influencers" are always at it, feeding the public with misinformation about one thing or another.
The NHS, prior to the start of dismantling and privatising the institution has been under a barrage of criticism, feeding the public with a story after story to soften them up for the cuts and closures.
The BBC is another target for the "privatises" as they damn and scandalise one of the worlds finest institutions in their quest to feed the BBC to the advertisers, cutting off one of the last vestiges of uncluttered media broadcasting.
The pleasure of watching hours of unhindered viewing is under threat by the makers of mind-stupefying, repetitive adverts specially designed to clog our brains with tripe specifically manufactured to encourage us to spend what little we have.
As you flick from one channel to the next they are all at it. Pumping hour upon hour with questionable dialogue, claiming the impossible and only escaping criminal prosecution for 'misrepresentation' by using the Goldman Sacks rebuttal, "the trade was between consenting adults". It's mind numbing have to sit through five minutes of repeated sales talk to watch fifteen minutes of the program ensuring they have you captured.
Only the Public Broadcaster gives us what we switched on for. Unless of course you are befuddled and stimulated by seeing adverts showing partially clad young women cavorting across the 40inch wide screen in High Definition.

Hang on, have I been missing something ???
 

The megaphone feminist.

What is it about crusading women that sets my teeth on edge. 
Is it that the weight of historical events has placed them in a subordinate position for so long that they feel the need to be so shrill in their many criticisms. They are confirmed in their anger and frustration without considering the opposition has anything to say.
The older I get the more I begin to listen to various propositions in the fullness of the many opinions and shades of experience that can be brought to bear on any subject. Gone is my absolute surety that I am right, something that being young and at least holding opinions brought to the surface.
Today we have to accept that whilst we know more, we understand less.  The shear volume of exposure to what is going on in all the many layers of human conduct, information that would have remained uncovered, has only caused more confusion.
Judgement used to be based on our own personal experience but now we have to deal with behaviour that is foreign to us which, for what ever reason, has been promulgated by sections of society who have the power to do these things, as the norm.
From hanging to abortion from all kinds of sexual preference to different cultural practices which are an anathema to people living on these islands.
We have to cope with an ongoing, changing script for what is acceptable and what is not, but whilst we conform we can't shrug off our old perceptions, now described as prejudice and why should we.
As I listen to the intolerance of the feminists on the program particularly in their criticism of the Pope who in their book should rewrite two thousand years of of Catholic teaching almost immediately but who, as the men on the panel suggested, needed to take the church with him and was moving this vast organisation with millions of followers in a way never seen before. 
Its this shrill intolerance that gets up my nose, this need to shout down the opposition at every opportunity. Its why we dislike the political circus for contesting everything the opposition wishes to do, why we switch off their deliberation as a statement, fuelled by an objective that has little to do with the advancement of the cause of humanity at large but is smothered in self interest.            

The Kurds

The Kurds are an unlucky people, they bore the brunt of of Saddam Hussain's brutality in Iraq and have been a thorn in the side of the Turkish Government as the Kurds struggles for their own homeland on land part of which is claimed by Turkey. As ISIS stream up to the gates of the predominantly Kurdish city of Kobani only the Kurds can save it and the Turks won't let them in.
The tragedy of politics is that everything, even humanity to ones fellow man is clouded by the self-interest of the international agenda. The President of Turkey is determined to sit tight within sight of the besieged city as the Jihad monsters put the population to death.
How can The World Politic behave in this way but of course all nations throughout history have erred on the side of self interest and the sight of some collateral damage, as the Great Benefactor (the USA), has coined the phrase, is part of the price we have to pay.
Today our local constabulary have come down hard on some Kurdish protesters protesting outside the Houses of Parliament, they were particularly heavy handed and one has to wonder if Mr Cameron hasn't had a word with Mr Erdogen, (the Turkish PM), about a deal, after the blood has been washed away.   

The Princess Di Effect

Emotion is a deep well. It rises from inside and has as its foundation, who we are, and who we are is a complex gestation slowly kindled by our personal experiences.
Watching replays of the funeral of Princess Diana one is struck by the pathos in the crowds outside the Abbey and the spontaneous applause after the speech of Lord Spencer within the Abbey.
The scene as usual, in these choreographed events,  a gathering of the great and the good inside the Cathedral. Arrayed in terms of rank and importance, sprinkled by the "outlanders", specially invited as a sop to the people (at the insistence of the Spencer family), friends from the music industry and the charities in which Diana was involved.
Protocol is always the cement that binds an event like this together but protocol was stretched to the maximum with the sight of Elton John seated at a piano singing a modified single of his about the emotionally taught Princess.
Then came the bombshell of her brothers eulogy. His words ringing clear, he criticised the press for hounding her, and, more importantly, his criticism of the Royal Family and the Establishment.
They sat and twisted in their pew until the moment, when he finished and the sound of the 'People' applauding outside the Abbey was heard by the congregation. A ringing appreciation for what he had said brought applause from those seated on the grass outside and slowly the congregation were hesitantly drawn into it and clapping within the Abbey started to accompany the folk outside.
Can you imagine having been given a slating by Spencer, (one of them or so they thought) - to then acknowledge the truth, with their own applause.
Why people were so effected by her death has been the subject of many books. The nation needed an icon but why a princess from the upper classes, why someone who was flawed by courting the publicity machine. Very beautiful and in some way very fragile, she represented the time old curtsey, women at risk have to be rescued(the gallant knight on horseback) or at least given a sympathetic hearing.  But the emotion of the crowd was something else it was contagious. It caught people in their sitting rooms who themselves began to cry for someone, something which was missing in their lives.
It was a collective grief which bound us together, the catalyst was Diana but the real grief was for ourselves in this union with our fellow man and women who for once were united without rancour.
It was a moment of humility, in and amongst humanity that touched everyone.                    

Squaring the circle

What is the difference between living and dying. On the one hand you breath, on the other you don't. There must be more to it than that?

Whilst you draw breath you use your mind to imagine yourself doing things. The things you do should be memorable, that is you should remember them as part of your character, a part of your history, part of who you are.
But what if "who you are" becomes to seem inconsequential, what if, as you simplify your existence as you grow old, the substance of what you do diminishes to a trickle even to the act of breathing, have we not therefore squared the circle ?
The older I get the less I do and the less I can be bothered to do.
It's not that I am lazy, I still work bordering 74 and I still find great contentment in reading and writing. I still get a buzz from thinking, from reflecting on the commonplace and visualising the elements that make up the world about me.
But the "grand event", the holiday to far off places, the immersion in new cultures visiting those grand monuments, marvelling at the architecture, wide eyed at the Lions kill, all of this I have had my fill through the medium of the telly.

What more can I comprehend of the incomprehensibly fascinating animal kingdom than the BBC's wildlife series or the stroll through the ancient city's of Cambodia or the majesty of St Peter's in Rome, what would two weary feet add to my knowledge. 

And so I draw myself in, not encouraged by others who rightly busy themselves with plans for a trip here and a visit there. I am more interested in the mundane,the minutia of my own life with it's never ending revelations which are important to me. 

Party Conference Season

We have just finished the Parliamentary Party Conference Season where each party sets out its political platform which is even more important this time around since we are soon approaching the next General Election.
One of the changes that has occurred over the last decade or two is the power of the personality to capture the voter through the television debate. There has always been a significant personality at the head of government. Disraeli, Lloyd George, Churchill, Harold Wilson, Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair,
but there have also been periods when rather grey technocratic people have risen to be PM and we seem to be in just such a period now.
The arrival of the TV debate has popularised the image rather than the content of the manifesto and as the public seems to be heading for shorter and shorter attention spans, the thought of studying a political concept and weighing it against other concepts from other political persuasions seems past its sell by date.
The coalition between the Liberal Party and the Conservatives has meant that politics has changed, we now have to evaluate the limit a party can bring on another to understand the impact and therefore the implicit value of that party.
The other fundamental thing which colour our view is the Political Journalist, the Pundit who gets hours of viewing time on the TV screen and whose job it is is to make the politician uncomfortable.
The black art of sarcasm is honed by these people who lampoon each party politician irrespective of the weight and the importance of the subject matter. Its a 'game' to impress the viewer who enjoys the gladiatorial conflict for the conflict its self and misses the importance of the actual subject matter which we should be interested in, since its actually the subject matter which effects us.
The Liberal Democrats have taken a savage beating by the media. They are lampooned and criticised daily by most of the press and TV media, no wonder that people who take their written/spoken fodder feed as gospel and have turned in droves away from Nick Clegg and his party.
The fact that no junior party in a coalition can contribute very much in the way of political reform without getting the say so from the larger party seems to me the weakness in coalition government since the party is scarred by events of which they have little in common. Through strength of argument some of the more extreme issues that the Conservatives would foist upon us have been watered down through the political term but we see now, after the Conservative Conference just how right wing and irrepressibly protective of the wealthy the Chancellor and his mob at the Treasury are. The only inroads into Britain's deficit will be through a greater purging of the Welfare State and the poor who draw on it to extract a living wage.
Commerce having found a way to drill down on their costs by not increasing the take home pay for their employees for up to four years in a row (in total contrast to the directors remuneration which has seen a 25 to 30% increase over the same period) the self same employee now has to turn for "state help" to survive. No wonder our Welfare bill is rising, the tax payer is contributing to the bottom line of many business enterprises who pay less than a living wage. When the subject of controlling the deficit with increased taxes particularly on the rich who have seen their incomes rise so substantially their is a total denial.
For most of us it would seem fair and sensible but then politics was never the art of sense or sensibility.             

http://twocents2012.blogspot.com.au/          

Termination of a dream.

Often it is only in moments of great loss do we truly consider our own lives and the fickle nature of this life we lead.
The Buddhists call it "impermanence", and warn against the natural conclusion that our lives somehow have a sense of permanence into which we project our very existence, setting the rules by which we live and the dreams which fulfil us.
Death, especially the death of a young person seems so meaningless, the meaning being in the loss of potential of the person who has died as well as our own lost opportunity to engage in it.
Life at least in the West has a path and a time scale. There is no reason to doubt our implicit belief in the continuation, each day following the last, each triumph and disaster enacted within the prism of a life cycle which is taken for granted. There is little else to expect, but that we grow old, hopefully without pain, without becoming an invalid perhaps with some success, perhaps with a little love but that our time is a given we assume to be fact.
Why do the young die. I am not talking about accidental death but death from seemingly natural causes. In the very question lies the answer of course. we question an early death because we do not question life its self. We are engrossed in the daily "activity" of living, each event proceeding the last like a chain that is joined together. Stretching behind and in front, or at least we presume so and of course we have a right to do so except that there is no surety and, in retrospect we should re-examine our presumption, minute by minute.
Of course life would be unbearable if we thought along these lines but in their philosophical way Buddhists  abstract ourselves as individuals and establish themselves as part of the human condition, they accentuate the importance of disengaging from our tendency to project into the future, of losing  ourselves in believing that each day is owned by us,  that each month, each year is 'in the bank' for us to spend at our leisure and pleasure. Their investigation reveals a hidden self, hidden under the fold of desire and acquisition of envy much of it based on the assumption that there is time and there are things which we don't have but which having would make us happier.
Death explodes all this with its finality, with its blunt termination of the dream.           

http://twocents2012.blogspot.com.au/          

After dinner

Having finished dinner the conversation settled on the values we attach to the way we live and the suggestion that we place an unnecessary burden on ourselves in the choices we make as to the standard and the social conformity we aspire to.
On the one hand is our slavish concern with work and the benefits we obtain in earning a decent living.
Of having what most people would equate to modern conveniences, of having the spare cash to meet the needs of our family, be it education or a trip to where ever.
The other side of the table, as it were was a stout proclamation of the need to reassemble our perspective on what we should  value and consider that the capitalistic ethos of working hard to be able to consume more and more goodies has made us a slave to consumerism, distorting family life and values and ruining the social fabric so necessary for a balanced life.
Underlying this was an argument that as human beings we have an implicit  right of passage within the economic structure of a country to be able to demand things as 'the norm' within the civilised structure which should filter down from a balanced and successful economy.
The argument that we don't have a balanced and successful economy and therefore must stop believing in the fundamental rights to rather get on our bike (in

NormanTebbits memorable phrase) to look for better prospects (a Dickensian phrase) should lead people to take action and not be caught when inevitable change comes.
The "alternative way of life", is more radical and needs a more radical evaluation of what we call normal standards of living. If we can cut into our concept of what our basic needs are and identify greater cohesion between people because one is not running the rat race, (largely determined by others), one has a greater sense of 'self achievement' in this mode of self determination.
Of course it comes at a cost, not only the lack of amenities but also a measure of alienation with society at large but of course if society at large is seen to be in hock to the crazies then there's no harm done.   The argument became heated, one side was accused of not listening but its often my experience that the accuser,  is often the frustrated one, since they themselves are evoking a theme into which they have invested too much emotional baggage !!       

http://twocents2012.blogspot.com.au/          

Choosing our evils

The hypocrisy we have to accept on behalf of our leaders makes our own sense of what is right and wrong difficult to come to terms with.
Many of the countries we seek alliance with are clearly very dodgy in terms of the rights they offer their own citizens. The Middle Eastern block who we are currently aligning ourselves with in the fight against ISIS treat their own citizens with as little respect as the Jihads treat their hostages. Wholesale executions, stoning and other forms of mutilation are the norm in some of these bedfellow countries but expedience limits the reports in our own media, other than in exceptional cases, we are fed the output of many Hooray Henry's    .
This is not to say that action should not be taken against the extremist Jihad  groups but we should always be open to question the motives of our leaders. It is rare that there isn't another agenda, which once the immediate objective is completed the actual needs of the people are left to wither.
History is full of events that resemble the atrocities of the Islamic Caliphate which the West seems hell bent to punish but who in their judgement do not seem to feel to have the same opprobrium.
The horrific murder of their western captives quite rightly raises the ire of government heads across the nations but where was their condemnation of General Sisi when he condemned over 500 Muslims to be executed (yes 500). Where has been the condemnation of the 7 year sentences handed out to 3 journalists for doing their job of reporting the upheaval in Egypt.
Of course its not in the interest of the West to censure Sisi since they need him in their fight against the unrest in the Middle East and so the deception goes on and on and on !!!            

http://twocents2012.blogspot.com.au/

What is dialogue

What is dialogue.
Its not a speech its not an argument its not a rant, it is based on listening !! If we listen, we hear another opinion, another viewpoint, another persons experience can become ours in the sense that in part we start along the path to understanding.
Of course our own opinions cloud the opinion being proffered but if we can peer through the mist of our prejudice and clear the way to listening with the same intensity we put into projecting our own opinion we might make some headway
Music has an enduring influence, cutting through the 'individuals' perspective, uniting people in the beauty,  the soothing or the exciting effect that musical harmony has on our emotional inner self. 
Dance, couples the human ego with the liberation that music brings.  The Zorba stamp, the Somali shuffle,  Hip Hop, even the Waltz have the magic of a special kind, a language which humans merge into 'without prejudice'.
The rhythm of dance music is infectious it draws people in to exhibit a part of themselves which is often locked up in apprehension, a fear of making a fool of themselves.  With others its a liberating event, expressing themselves without commitment, making a splash without getting wet.
Locked away in our cerebrum are a whole range of opportunities/persona needing the space to explore being someone who is not represented by the person others see. How cloned we are by our upbringing and the life we have lived. A life of conformity, a life of satisfying others, in many ways a trade off to bridge a gap which will always remain.