May 2020 – EbbSpark

Connecting truthfully with life

Isn’t life a case of needing to know who we are and where we stand? Not just in the sense of our own personality or background, important as those are, but also the larger sense of our place within the ongoing flow of humans calling this their home. Maybe our heritage, our responsibility, is as much “human” as it is systemic or personal? “To live” being to stand within it all.

Understanding this world we’re stepping into – what we’ve been aiming for; how well it’s going; which parts our lives play in the success of any particular aspect of it – seems important if we’re to have any ability to correct things as they drift off track (Notes One). This sense of needing to line ourselves, our thoughts, up truthfully with “reality” in order to fill our roles wisely and responsibly.

And it’s interesting, in that light, to think how much of all we’re told sits within theories other people have about life: political, economic, social, spiritual, psychological beliefs others hold now or held in the past. In a way, aren’t almost all the thoughts we have about reality simply theories we’ve accepted and built our lives around? The best, most convincing or pragmatic solutions we’ve been offered so far.

If we had the “perfect” theory – one that encompassed absolutely everything and guided it all towards total harmony, eradicating every problem on the way – life would, presumably, line up with our thinking and all our actions fit perfectly within it. Its compelling logic having been something our minds could not deny, we might’ve happily taken our place within such a beautiful theoretical system.

As it is, it often seems we’re living jumbled up alongside all kinds of ideas about life – all the many and various interpretations people have made, conclusions they’ve reached, and plans they’ve set in motion. Each action, each word constantly spilling over into this shared space we all people by our presence. Each person, conceivably, having quite different ideas in mind about what’s going on and what it all means.

Surely though, somewhere, truth comes into it? This idea that there’s truth behind our intentions, our understanding, our capacity, that we could, somehow, manage to communicate between us. Creating common knowledge, if you will, over what we meant – however imperfectly we might have executed our vision. This “truth” that’s somehow split among each one of us; until we succeed in bringing it to life. (Notes Two)

Learning what everything means – behaviours, systems, expressions, artefacts – seems the essential task of education (Notes Three). This sense in which we’re forever trying to pass on an understanding of what matters, so people know enough to take their place in this world. As if, by learning the “code” for reading reality and speaking into it, we’ll eventually appreciate what it all means and act well on that knowledge.

With the world now being so blended and fast-moving, though, how can we ever be completely sure of whatever “truth” we have in mind?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Navigation, steering & direction
Note 1: Understanding what we’re all part of
Note 1: One thing leads to another
Note 1: The power of understanding
Note 2: Joining the dots
Note 2: Modern challenges to relationship
Note 2: How much do intentions matter?
Note 2: Diplomacy and knowing where we stand
Note 2: Is honesty actually the best policy?
Note 3: Where education stands within society
Note 3: Passing on what’s important
Note 3: Common knowledge

Ways to share this:

The incredible responsibility of freedom

Imagining freedom as this network of fine lines between us – all the choices we’re free to enjoy within society’s invisible contract, up to the point where those actions might infringe upon others – how much faith is being placed in our willingness and ability to use it wisely?

And how often, instead, are we conceiving of it more in terms of “I’m free to do as I please”, “you can’t stop me” or “what are they going to do about it?” This strange way we have of stretching limits, testing boundaries, and seeing if anyone cares enough to stop us. As an attitude, it seems present from childhood and perhaps it never leaves us – maybe it’s natural we test invisible walls to check if they’re real? (Notes One)

Isn’t freedom essentially this invisible construct of thought we’re attempting to bring into reality? This grand project of declaring people free then sketching out the conditions needed for that to work – figuring out all the lines where one person meets another and their freedoms risk being mutually incompatible (Notes Two). This pre-emptive defence of each person’s freedom through laying out everyone’s responsibilities.

And it’s amazing to think just how much the world’s changed since that project began: how far we’ve shifted from the fairly simple, reality-based communities of last century to the fast-paced, virtual reality of today (Notes Three). So much has been deconstructed, threaded back together and placed in our hands by way of technology – almost every area of life having been reworked by that way of thinking.

Aren’t our freedoms now feeding into countless inscrutable systems? Everything we do rippling out as an example or impact on others. Especially given the contagious nature of social behaviour and the “trends” of thought or action it quickly sets in motion. Sometimes it seems completely conceivable that freedom – at the extreme, careless greed and self-insistence – might be a force capable of destabilising the whole world.

If we’re free to do as we please with the options placed freely before us, what will we make of that opportunity? How much of the world’s resources will be pulled into meeting our seemingly insatiable desire for “more”? How many troublesome forces will we let run amok through communities, landscapes or lives? (Notes Four)

Maybe there’s no end to it, if no one stops us? “The law” might sketch in the boundaries where we’re at risk of doing harm to ourselves, others or society itself, but if freedom’s largely being seen as “doing whatever we like, as long as it’s profitable” then perhaps that overrules any concern we might have for the environment, social cohesion or human suffering.

But if, as citizens as much as consumers, everything we choose to do “matters” – our social, personal, political, economic, environmental, cultural choices deeply impacting the world we all share – then maybe freedom “must” come hand-in-hand with a weighty responsibility of understanding, compassion and self-discipline (Notes Five). Otherwise, aren’t we at risk of having it taken away for our own safety?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Invisible ties
Note 1: What keeps us in check
Note 1: Picking up after one another
Note 2: Authenticity & writing our own story
Note 2: Mutual awareness and accommodation?
Note 2: Having confidence in complex systems
Note 2: Trust within modern society
Note 3: Pace of change & getting nowhere fast
Note 3: How quickly things can change
Note 3: Social starting points for modern ways
Note 4: Freedom, responsibility & choice
Note 4: The insatiable desire for more
Note 4: At what cost, for humans & for nature
Note 5: What we create by our presence
Note 5: Freedom, what to lean on & who to believe
Note 5: Being trusted to use our discernment…
Note 5: Too much responsibility?

Ideas around preparing people for the responsibility of freedom – and, the things that might cause us to lose it – were one aspect of “Brave New World Revisited” back in 2017.

Ways to share this:

Knowing the value of what you have

How much do we value what we have in life? Sometimes it seems a lot more time is spent drawing up lists of wishes or things we’d like to change than is spent appreciating all we actually have. It’s probably where gratitude practices have slipped in – techniques people are using to pull focus out of the past or the future and place it more firmly into the present moment. Because, isn’t it important that we do?

If we’re not valuing things rightly, how will we know to preserve them? Understanding the importance, significance or worth of something seems an essential step toward insuring we protect and carry forward everything that truly matters (Notes One). If we’re forgetting – or, never being told – what matters and why, don’t we risk leaving behind things we and others may wish we hadn’t?

At various times here I’ve mused over all the past places in our hands: the heritage of history with all its artefacts and forms of wisdom; the systems we’re living within; the responsibility of maintaining and, hopefully, enriching it all (Notes Two). This sense in which the passing of time forever hands the treasures of the past and possibility of refining them into the care of subsequent generations.

It seems such an important task to convey the meaning of all that’s gone before; the vision people had in mind; the work still in hand. This momentous passing down of “all it is to be human” alongside an appreciative grasp of all the everyday activities and attitudes that help keep everything running smoothly (Notes Three). Don’t we need both the bigger picture and the practical details in order to carry on that work?

When it comes to Western society, then, how much do we value what it offers? What was this strange intellectual activity that set about arguing for and enshrining in law the principles of universal human freedom? This attempt to delineate every aspect of our lives then create a framework of mutually beneficial boundaries within which individuals can live as they please. (Notes Four)

Perhaps it’s simply this notion of us all being free to pursue our interests, chart our course, and clamber to the top of whatever mountains we’ve been inspired to climb. This sense of everyone making their own way – making the most of what nature gave them – in the economic and cultural environment of any given society. Of taking the ideal of freedom and working it into the fabric of society.

It seems such an admirable step within the history of humanity – to have applied our minds to working out the conditions for us all to exercise our freedom without stepping on one another’s toes. The very idea of creating a system able to contain and carry all people forward toward a better, more harmonious, less problematic future seems a beautiful thing for the past to have thrown its energy behind.

As those on the receiving end, isn’t this a weighty treasure to have placed in our hands?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Seeing, knowing and loving
Note 1: Value and meaning in our lives
Note 1: Appreciating other ways of being
Note 2: Cutting corners
Note 2: Trust in technology?
Note 2: How ideas find their place in the world
Note 2: Life’s never been simpler…
Note 2: On whose terms?
Note 3: Passing on what’s important
Note 3: Understanding what we’re all part of
Note 3: If society’s straining apart, what do we do?
Note 3: Society as an imposition?
Note 4: Mutual awareness and accommodation?
Note 4: “Quest for a Moral Compass”
Note 4: Plato & “The Republic”

Ways to share this:

Where’s the reset button & can we press it?

If the world were a system we could somehow reset, which point would we choose to return to? Beyond that, could we actually be confident we’d do much better at things than we have done? While it might be tempting to imagine things having taken a different course – this collective process of “what if” – it’s perhaps hard to see exactly where, why or how things drifted off in all these questionable directions.

Then there’s the fact that with any “what if” – be it individual or collective – we clearly risk losing the good with the bad: those being the paths that brought us to exactly this moment with these thoughts, experiences, connections and relationships, would we ever truly choose to “delete” those gains in the hope of some hypothetical, idealised alternative? Maybe there’s a truth to our paths; a wisdom gained through walking them.

The “what if” seems a natural process of thought, though: this re-running to pinpoint exactly where something went wrong and how we might’ve acted differently for another outcome. The mind as a sort of memory-detective seeking insight through analysing, deconstructing and re-imagining things. At its most extreme, perhaps we’d end up trapped in our own past, paralysed by our mistakes.

Of course, there may be value to be gained in understanding and learning from events – seeing our agency in them and how our mistaken beliefs or interpretations might’ve influenced things in ways we now know to avoid. The past, in many ways, being the teacher of all we didn’t yet know or fully appreciate the significance of (Notes One).

There seems a certain tangled wisdom to the fact that, looking back, we’re always judging with the eyes experience has honed for us: having been through things, we now know to see them differently. As if life itself is revealing our shortcomings to us by highlighting all those things we didn’t quite understand as we should.

If the systems of the West are struggling, then, is it because we didn’t quite understand how to create a society that actually “worked”? This sense in which the past’s finest, most influential thinkers put together this “thing” we now live within: this interlocking, mutually reinforcing set of ideas, assumptions, principles, theories and practices that, over time, have evolved and developed into all we now find around us (Notes Two).

Imagining that, in all likelihood, one or many of those ideas could’ve been flawed, mightn’t we now find ourselves within rather a large, complex “machine” weighed down by the cumbersome inertia of tradition but carried along by its own momentum? How are we to manoeuvre within such a system to correct any mistakes and redress all the many problems they’ve caused? (Notes Three)

Maybe this is “always” the case with any kind of history? That, having learnt from the paths it placed us on, we can see the need for change. Being sure we know enough to avoid creating further problems ourselves, though, seems an equally important thing to be grappling with.

Notes and References:

Note 1: The philosopher stance
Note 1: Problems & the thought that created them
Note 1: On whose terms?
Note 1: Imperfection as perfection?
Note 2: One thing leads to another
Note 2: Humans, tangled in these systems
Note 2: Shaping the buildings that shape us
Note 2: “Quest for a Moral Compass”
Note 2: The self within society
Note 3: Pace of change & getting nowhere fast
Note 3: Knowledge, capacity & understanding
Note 3: Having confidence in complex systems
Note 3: What if solutions aren’t solutions?
Note 3: “The Obstacle is the Way”

Imagining where we are headed and how we might get there was also the focus of Navigation, steering & direction.

Ways to share this:

Inspiring people and ideas

While there’s clearly a lot in life that can drag us down – this much awareness of our own countries’ struggles, alongside all the collective and individual difficulties the world’s weighed down with, can easily lead to a sort of paralysing despair – there are perhaps an equal number of things to encourage and uplift us. Maybe that’s too optimistic, but seeking out the inspiring things in life seems important.

Sometimes I wonder if there’s not a point, somewhere between despair and hope, where there’s a chance of engaging to make the difference between the two. This sense in which we might hold in each hand all the struggles and all the dreams then make a move that shifts that balance more towards resolution, awareness and transformation. This very human gesture of setting our intentions high. (Notes One)

Perhaps that’s one definition of inspiration? People choosing to embrace ways of life, of thinking, that might lead us all in good directions. It’s interesting to think that each one of us could be such a source of inspiration: that our everyday choices, attitudes and responses might serve as an example to all those around us in both the real and virtual world.

And I’d imagine we’d all be inspired by different things; given we each have our own priorities, concerns and areas of growth. Everyone focussing in different directions, wouldn’t we naturally find different people’s insights inspiring? Especially if we consider every aspect of life as being part of a spectrum from complete ignorance through to effortless mastery.

At any point along those many journeys, the thoughts or actions of different people may resonate most with our own particular situation and style of approach. As if we’re all exchanging perspectives as we walk our paths, grapple with challenges, and strive toward realising specific goals or concepts. Each person, perhaps, always being able to offer “something” that will help someone else. (Notes Two)

Which is my circuitous way of saying that perhaps few people are universally inspiring – those lone souls who are able to speak wisely to everyone, wherever they may be on their path. Maybe, in a strange way, we “need” to all be talking at once in the hope that, somewhere, our words may be able to help someone? Of course, we often do so in an online world filled with those aiming for the exact opposite.

How we’re supposed to navigate this new, connected, hyper-aware world is strange to contemplate: if we’re not to let all these influences simply wash over us, blending the good with the bad, how are we to set limits or chart a realistic, compassionate, constructive course? While no one answer may suit everyone, there must be some sort of balance to be struck. (Notes Three)

Identifying people and ways of thinking that resonate with your values, challenges and hopes may fit in there somewhere – those whose words or perspectives lift your heart with gratitude that people exist who are striving for better paths through life’s struggles.

Notes and References:

Instagram links for Nirrimi Firebrace (https://www.instagram.com/nirr.imi/); Jedidiah Jenkins (https://www.instagram.com/jedidiahjenkins/); Sophia Bush (https://www.instagram.com/sophiabush/); Rich Roll (https://www.instagram.com/richroll/).

Note 1: What we create by our presence
Note 1: Will things change if we don’t make them?
Note 1: “Minding the Earth, Mending the World”
Note 1: The human spirit
Note 2: Personal archaeology
Note 2: Complication of being human
Note 2: Finding flaws
Note 2: Can others join you?
Note 3: The thought surrounding us
Note 3: Sensitivity & the place for feeling
Note 3: Pace of change & getting nowhere fast
Note 3: Reading between the lines

In terms of Instagram, examples of such voices may be Nirrimi Firebrace, Jedidiah Jenkins, Sophia Bush, Rich Roll or many, many others.

Ways to share this:

Value and meaning in our lives

Isn’t the question of what it means to be human one of the first and perhaps biggest we ever ask? In a way, isn’t the whole of life – from youth to old age – our attempt at finding or creating answers to it? This world of theories, priorities, beliefs, practices, attitudes and actions that together make up our response as to what life is and how we should live it.

As if we are, in a way, the answer to our own question: “this” is how we’re living; the faces we’re offering one another; the things we believe matter most or think we can get away with. Society perhaps being the embodiment of our collective, inherited “answer” for how to live. Aren’t we forever being taught, explicitly and implicitly, how we should be valuing all we find around us?

Attempting to untangle the relationship between individuals and society is fascinating (Notes One). Presumably, society “must” be built around the personal and collective needs of individuals? All the things we require, plus all those activities that promise to make our lives better: progress, development, improvement. Everyone playing their part, it seems possible both sets of needs can be met.

Yet, for some reason, it often seems the world – society – doesn’t really value us that highly; that we’re forever trying to earn back or demonstrate our own worth. A topsy-turvy social reality where we’re expected to fight for our worth within these value systems of culture, wealth and security – our status, acceptance and peace constantly being reset in a never-ending climb against novelty, marketing and time.

Is human worth to be the foundation or the product of society? Do we have it as a given, or is this something we’re working our way up to each day? Shouldn’t the answers to such questions be baked into the very heart of society? Woven deeply within all we’re thinking, doing and passing on throughout each moment. Is our foundational assumption that life matters, or can that be questioned? (Notes Two)

Doesn’t the value of human existence need to be the solid, unquestionable bedrock of any healthy society? That life and all that happens to each one of us is meaningful. It seems strange to feel the need to argue that the value of our lives isn’t defined by the social, cultural or economic ideals currently surrounding us – what are those things if not society’s reflection of our worth? (Notes Three)

Taking it back to the individual, isn’t every instance of human life – beyond any flaws, wounds or mistakes – infinitely valuable, precious and filled with unique potential? Each member of humanity, while essentially the same, bearing within them the lived experience of their own path through the undeniably flawed world we created for ourselves (Notes Four).

Maybe it’s not possible to challenge or change this Western value system with its commercial estimations of our worth; leaving us all with the strange task of constantly having to insist on a recognition that could’ve been ours all along.

Notes and References:

Note 1: The self within society
Note 1: Authenticity & writing our own story
Note 1: Mutual awareness and accommodation?
Note 1: Values, and what’s in evidence
Note 2: Do we know what stands before us?
Note 2: Absolute or relative value
Note 2: Losing the sense of meaning
Note 3: The thought surrounding us
Note 3: Where do we get our ideas from?
Note 3: The value we’re giving to things
Note 3: Culture as information
Note 3: Society that doesn’t deal with the soul
Note 4: Personal archaeology
Note 4: Places of belonging & acceptance
Note 4: Understanding what we’re all part of

For thoughts around where we stand in the flow of time and our role in the process of change, there’s Will things change if we don’t make them?

Ways to share this:

Attention as a resource

Is anything more valuable than attention? While it’s a strange thing to see as a commodity, it’s increasingly seeming one of the most sought-after ones within modern life. Given how we talk of “paying” attention, though, maybe some have always been aware of the value of an attentive mind and the power it has over our individual and collective lives.

Isn’t it going to be true, on some level, that what we give our attention to grows? The fuel of our focus on any given thing serving to increase its importance in our lives – effectively giving it more power, more weight. Especially in this world of trends, views, likes and followers: the tangible size of an audience and saliency of a topic having become that much more clearly visible and contagious online.

Almost like there’s this battle for our minds happening on the global scale as everyone’s fighting to capture our interest; win our trust; direct our behaviour. And, perhaps it’s the fact that people – particularly in the West – are largely free to think and do as they please that has “created” this marketplace for ideas and patterns of influence? (Notes One)

Thinking about it, if our moments of freedom are “the things we believe and act upon” then power for directing things presumably rests in gaining our cooperative interest. The field of human psychology – social instincts, persuasive communication – having then become one of the most lucrative subjects to leverage and utilise for whatever ends we might have in mind.

It’s incredible to think how much is now vying for our attention each day; let alone the amount of strategic intelligence applied to finetuning those messages. If we’re being constantly assailed with thoughts about reality – be they optimistic, one-sided, empowering or filled with despair – how much does that impact the conversations we’re having, ideas we’re entertaining and attitudes with which we’re approaching life?

If all we take in is what’s eventually finding its way back out into reality through us, how are we to use the force of our attention? Do we just open the doors and let everything flow in; allowing all these images and emotions to fill the recesses of our minds? Whichever sources we’ve chosen becoming the channels through which we’re establishing our beliefs, assumptions and conclusions. (Notes Two)

There seems such intense interest, now, in gaining loyal followings then using those platforms to affect change. This sense in which so many actors – individuals or organisations – are gathering together those open to being guided by their influence, suggestions and ideas. Whether that’s used for commercial or social, constructive or destructive ends – the agenda behind it – perhaps making all the difference.

It’s strange to think that, the world over, people are trying to gain our ear and shape our thinking. Also, that people are cultivating audiences then giving others access to them – letting them borrow your voice. At every stage of spreading information or understanding, isn’t there immense responsibility to how we’re wielding the power we all have?

Notes and References:

Guardian article “Technology is driving us to distraction” by James Williams, 27 May 2018: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/27/world-distraction-demands-new-focus

Note 1: Freedom, responsibility & choice
Note 1: Being trusted to use our discernment…
Note 1: Points of sale as powerful moments
Note 1: Reading between the lines
Note 1: Too much responsibility?
Note 2: Where do we get our ideas from?
Note 2: Information might be there, but can we find it?
Note 2: Is this the ultimate test?
Note 2: All that we add to neutrality
Note 2: Which voice can we trust?

The value, power and significance our attention has, personally and at the level of society, was also the focus of the Guardian article “Technology is driving us to distraction” back in 2018.

Ways to share this:

Where education stands within society

When it comes to learning about “life” – where we stand, all we’ve been through, how society works, which qualities we’ll need throughout our years – it’s interesting to consider where our ideas come from (Notes One). As, while there may be limitless ways of approaching life and choosing to live it, won’t the decision over “which” paths to take and things to hold in mind essentially “become” what society then “is”?

Isn’t education, in a way, leading young people onto the paths we want them to walk? Telling them tales that hopefully make sense of the world around them and help them identify, uphold and pass on all the things that matter within that landscape. Bringing together a comprehensive, balanced, compassionate understanding of “life” as it currently stands along the path humanity’s been walking.

Distilling all the knowledge, understanding, insight and vision of human heritage down into accessible, digestible, compatible nuggets of wisdom that might grow up alongside the next generation of adults seems a beautiful task. This hope of, somehow, conveying where we’ve come from and what we’re aiming for – each of us always a step, a link in many long chains – so that everything’s responsibly taken in hand.

Yet, between all the voices and agendas, how much agreement do we have over any of these things? Aren’t everyone’s priorities, concerns and interests increasingly incompatible? Sometimes it seems “education” is simply the meeting point of countless causes: economic, governmental, cultural, social, personal, global, spiritual, environmental. This vortex of passionate, heartfelt concern within which children live.

Because, of course, we know youth is “the moment” where the future’s set in motion and foundations are laid that can take lifetimes to unravel, rework and set straight (Notes Two). So much happens there to shape each individual’s self-esteem, social confidence and general engagement with charting their “best path” through life.

Given the power formative experiences have in shaping our lives, it’s perhaps hardly surprising everyone has something to say: don’t we all want to fix problems, smooth out differences, create systems that work for everybody? Bringing all that together in workable ways doesn’t seem straightforward, though (Notes Three).

If the task of education is to stand between the interests of state, business, family, culture and the individual and mediate some kind of respectful agreement between all parties, how’s that to work? Attempting to “redress” social or cultural backgrounds seems to step between children and their families; an interesting place for anyone to try to stand.

As times get more fraught, the question of how it’s all going to play out seems important. If children are to exist at this strange vortex of cultural, economic, technological, political and familial forces, how are they to broker some kind of understanding over which voices to trust or paths to follow? (Notes Four)

We might all have something to say about life’s priorities, but the idea of who we choose to become and how well it’s coming together into a healthy, harmonious society doesn’t seem easily resolved.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Where do we get our ideas from?
Note 1: Knowledge, capacity & understanding
Note 1: Ideas around education & responsibility
Note 1: Common knowledge
Note 2: Personal archaeology
Note 2: Living as an open wound
Note 2: Problems & the thought that created them
Note 2: Modern challenges to relationship
Note 2: The self within society
Note 3: Mutual awareness and accommodation?
Note 3: Understanding what we’re all part of
Note 3: The thought surrounding us
Note 4: Which voice can we trust?
Note 4: Passing on what’s important
Note 4: The stories that we hear
Note 4: Pace of change & getting nowhere fast
Note 4: Reading between the lines

Looking to the timeless nature of such concerns around the ideas we have in mind was one focus within Plato & “The Republic”.

Ways to share this:

Appreciating other ways of being

Thinking about life, isn’t it simply the interplay of various different ways of being? A whole world filled by forms expressing their “life” in all these beautiful, unique, purposeful ways. Everything, generally, working together for mutual advantage while producing all of the varied landscapes and ecosystems that are supporting and enriching life on this planet.

It seems incredible to imagine all the life forms, all the activities and interactions coming together and layering up to create this world we see before us – all of the years that have gone into bringing us to this point. The very fact we have such diversity, such beauty, such resources to draw upon in our lives now being the result of countless periods of persistent growth, development and cooperation on the part of nature.

Even before looking at how the generations preceding us enriched our lives by their efforts, there’s this sense in which the very ground beneath our feet and air filling our lungs are the product of far-reaching cosmic realities and minuscule chemical processes. The whole planet, in a way, working in astonishing harmony to provide an environment in which humanity can exist.

Not to say, necessarily, that nature exists “in order” to give us life, but that it almost undeniably “does” – the results of nature’s activity being the climate surrounding us, wildlife we hear, plants we tend, creatures we observe, and food we consume. Doesn’t almost everything that comes to us arise out of nature before becoming part of our lives?

It might be our inclination to brush such wonder aside and move on to higher things, but is it wise to underestimate the value of nature? Are we right to see it mainly in terms of its capacity to sustain or withstand our activities? Viewing this planet as a series of assets we have a right to plunder, exhaust, scar and drive to the brink of instability seems a strange way to be treating our home.

Why is it that writing about nature often drifts to the negative? As a topic, it clearly touches onto the wonder, hope and beauty nature offers as much as it does the unfathomable risks of disregarding its deeper significance for our lives (Notes One). As if thoughts around nature are a double-edged sword of incredible richness and incredible danger.

Without the admiration, though, how are we to be inspired to protect it? Don’t we need to appreciate things if we’re to involve ourselves in maintaining a garden or defending a landscape? If we don’t “see” the unique wisdom of each separate being – following its trail to gain broader insight into the intricate fabric of the lives making up our own – it seems unlikely we’ll care enough to limit our own pursuits (Notes Two).

For some reason, humans wield such incredible power on this planet: the power to sustain, preserve, enrich and work alongside nature or do the opposite. Isn’t it important we appreciate the gift of life and choose to play our parts wisely?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Beauty and wonder in nature
Note 1: Aesthetic value of nature
Note 1: Living the dream
Note 1: Gardening as therapy, the light and the dark
Note 1: Nature & the fulfilment of potential
Note 2: Things with life have to be maintained
Note 2: Having a sense for being alive
Note 2: Intrinsic value of nature
Note 2: Detaching from the world around us
Note 2: Seeing, knowing and loving

Ways to share this:

Observing life & stepping outside of reality

When we view life from behind a lens, aren’t we not then “in” reality? We’ve taken this step back to see what stands before us with different eyes – eyes of posterity, performance, evaluation. All the times we’re choosing to stand apart from the moment, observing it differently to capture things a certain way, it’s almost like we’re no longer “there”.

Sometimes it also seems that pictures loom larger than memories: the lived experience of events rivalled by images that drown out the complex awareness of many perspectives with the compelling evidence of one. The slow, faded recollection of a moment replaced by a series of snapshots that might eventually crowd out the other, less photogenic aspects of our lives. As if photos are clearer and more reliable.

Humans, now, being the first to live with this constant presence of photography, I’ve heard it said it’s changing how we act, perceive and present ourselves. It’s incredible to think that little more than a lifetime ago people rarely saw images of themselves; whereas, now, the incidental events of each day can so easily be posed, captured and shared.

It must make a significant difference to how we are? Perhaps shifting our focus from the inside – our presence, contribution and understanding in each moment – to a preoccupation with how we look from the outside. As if we risk becoming actors, creating the illusion of something our lives might no longer contain. Empty shells, conveying the image we want others to see.

There can be such disparity between how things look and how they are on the inside (Notes One). Something can seem impressive, but contain nothing within. Completely unremarkable things can hold great inner value. Maybe it’s a mistake to get blinded by appearances? Especially given how easy it now is to create images that bear staggeringly little relationship to reality.

But perhaps it’s also too easy to imply that we’re becoming superficial, self-obsessed or distracted. As with many aspects of modern life and the technology woven through it, we probably just have the opportunities people before us were wanting: capacity, convenience, simplicity, control (Notes Two). Maybe people have always sought to capture their memories, share their experiences, and give others a window into their lives.

Essentially, then, photography seems like a form of communication: people sharing their perspectives to let others see the meaning things hold when, for a moment, we view life with their eyes (Notes Three). This beautiful act of self-revelation as we offer up our insights to one another, filling in the gaps of mutual understanding to grasp a little more of the reality we’re all part of.

As with writing, perhaps we’re just wanting to reach out, open the door on what matters to us, and create common ground by offering our take on things. How closely our words or images track alongside the truth of reality – and, how well such processes integrate into the lives we’re leading – seem just some of the challenges modern life’s presenting us with.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Absolute or relative value
Note 1: Oh, to be young again?
Note 1: Masks we all wear
Note 2: All in such a rush
Note 2: Modern challenges to relationship
Note 2: Pace of change & getting nowhere fast
Note 3: What does art have to say about life?
Note 3: Going towards the unknown
Note 3: Living as a form of art

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