Author: admin

Ideas of justice & vengeance

When it comes to life, things clearly aren’t ‘fair’. It’s something children feel very strongly, until they acclimatise to the adult society they’re finding themselves within. Yet it’s something adults also rail against in light of social, criminal and economic realities or the various perils of mortal existence. There are so many ways life seems unfair, so many times we cry out for some form of justice.

I’m not sure what that is, our innate sense of wanting fair treatment. Maybe it’s simply that we ‘know’ we’re all humans, all alike, and treating anyone differently creates this cognitive discomfort at the ways of the world? But, in reality, our actions generally impact others: we put our own interests first in ways that might impede others’ chances.

This world isn’t fair and can’t offer true justice. Things cannot be undone; we can’t iron out consequences of choices that were made. We might look back and see what we wish had happened, we might be haunted by paths that cannot now be walked, we might hope to redress things, but all that’s after the fact.

In our minds we might see all that’s been lost and who’s to blame – that’s a version of reality which can be conjured up in the world of thought, with hindsight, but we cannot get that back. It’s perhaps one of the hardest things in life: to see the past most clearly, yet be powerless to change it.

The point of power always being in the present, justice is essentially this looking back and deciding what can be done to somehow ‘set things right’. Whether that’s some form of financial compensation, of punitively limiting a perpetrator’s future, or attempting to eradicate wrongdoers from society to protect others. We stand in the present and we try to alter the future to make up for the past.

So much of life seems to be this attempt to redress the balance, to create equality and freedom for all people. Which is such a beautiful thing, such a valuable social function. But it’s not easy to get right.

Life’s so imperfect: people are imperfect, often wounded works in progress; society likewise is an imperfect realisation of high ideals (see Notes One). We might try to guide people, limit opportunities for wounds to be inflicted, implement regulation to establish the conditions for humanity to safely flourish, but our ideas often seem similarly imperfect.

Battling against human nature could perhaps be given as a definition of society? Trying to find systems to contain our darkness while guiding us toward the light. It’s a fascinating topic, as explored in this Guardian article about the “desire for vengeance”: ideas of retribution, harking back to Greece in 500BC, apparently standing firmly at the roots of social, cultural, and personal development.

Our search for justice might be almost timeless, but it’s still interesting to consider its modern forms, its place within social realities, and how law or media might voice, frame and process our very human sentiments.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Living as an open wound
Note 1: Dealing with imperfection
Note 1: What if it all means something?
Note 1: What holds it all together
Note 1: Does anything exist in isolation?

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Leaders & sheep led by a lion

The nature of leadership can be fascinating to consider: what does it mean to entrust ourselves to another, to defer our decisions to their judgement or guidance? And what might they make of us, if they turn our own nature to their way of being?

Reflecting on the sentiment expressed by Alexander the Great, that “I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion”, it dawned on me there’s far more to leadership than meets the eye. That, beyond superficial appearances, the guiding principle might be what ultimately matters most.

Essentially, we’re talking about the qualities of followers and of their leaders: that first army, while unlikely, would presumably be a fairly peaceful affair; the latter, though, may be both easy to assemble and inclined toward aggression. But perhaps we’re also touching on the nature of fear and combat? The sense of knowing our own aims and capacities, and deciding when it’s wise or necessary to engage.

As an idea, it raises a lot of questions around the qualities represented by animals, the constraint of commitment or discipline, and the purpose of conflict (see Notes One). Also, around knowing what we’re doing in life and what we’re faced with: being able to read things rightly. In battle, as with anything, we might look to how things appear on the surface or to what lies beneath.

And, while direct conflict isn’t seeming so far from the surface at times these days, for me this speaks more to the question of which side we’re on in more everyday matters. Because it often seems we’re taking sides through our choices, or, being asked to: in almost every area of life our words and actions are placing us on one side or another politically, commercially, socially, and so on (Notes Two).

With this polarisation of society, it’s surely more important than ever to know ourselves, where we stand, and the nature of those around us. Are we a willing army, or is our subservience hard-won? Do we know our own principles, strengths and weaknesses? Could our subconscious patterns or wounds be used against us? Are we rational and confident in our decisions, or might we be easily swept along with others?

Then, in terms of leaders, are we really aware who exactly is seeking to direct and shape our behaviour? Do we know their nature and the aims they might have? Are we following those who avoid unnecessary conflict, rather than seeking out or inciting it? If we’re deferring our judgement or lending weight to someone else’s cause, it certainly seems wise to understand those realities rather than passively becoming part of them.

As individuals, maybe it comes down to knowing yourself and not being drawn into the wrong battles? Also, to knowing what we’re facing; as one of those scenarios is instinctively far more fear-inducing than the other. Managing fear perhaps depends on insight and thorough understanding?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Does truth speak for itself?
Note 1: The idea of self reliance
Note 1: Animals in human society
Note 2: Obligations and contributions
Note 2: Freedom, what to lean on & who to believe
Note 2: Codes of behaviour

On a slightly related note, Spiritually committed literature explored other imagery around finding and following our own paths.

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Things change, over time

Over time, I’d imagine any pattern of behaviour begins to create a groove – an atmosphere; a sense of intention or complacency; a static friction, perhaps, of accumulated focus. As we live our lives, those things we do becoming these established channels of thought, repetition and consequence through the choices we’re making and our commitment to them.

Like those places of ritual or worship, where people over the centuries have walked certain paths and filled certain places with thoughts of devotion; running their minds along these established tracks of contemplation. Places that can come to have a special feeling about them, perhaps the result of the sustained manner in which they’ve been occupied.

You can even see where people’s feet or knees have literally worn away stone through the insistence of their presence. As with the proverbs about dust turning into mountains or drops forming oceans, there’s this sense in which small accumulating gestures can develop great strength over the years; working away at things we might’ve thought were immovable or impossible to achieve.

But then, sometimes, such places get repurposed for drinking or housing and there’s almost this jarring sense of dissonance at a building built and occupied with the mindset of collective reflection suddenly having a very different purpose in mind. Centuries of one kind of devotion being replaced with quite different vibes and patterns of activity or intent.

Which is meant as an observation more than a complaint – a sign of the times, perhaps. Because, of course, things change. Ways of being that’ve sustained countries, cultures, civilisations, or communities for years can presumably fade out rather quickly if the coming generations don’t see their value or decide to maintain them in some new form. Anything that’s worth isn’t recognised clearly risks being left by the wayside.

As times change, our ways of being arguably need to change with them: repeating worn out actions that bear little relation to the world around you doesn’t really stand to reason. Sometimes, insisting on doing things as you always have can be a mistake. Understanding what’s valuable within what we inherit from the past seems a fascinating challenge (see Notes One).

Because, if appreciating something comes from understanding it, do we run the risk of discarding incredibly worthwhile things simply by not taking the time to come to know them? It seems an important question; especially given the overwhelming distractions of our times. What if we’re missing out on things, breaking up essential structures or patterns of relationship because we don’t see their value? What if we’re mistaken?

I’m purely thinking hypothetically here – theoretically, conceptually, rather than specifically – but what if the thoughts we think, the ways we’re acting, how we relate to one another, all the patterns we’re building up with our lives really matter?

Sometimes I’m really not sure where my writing’s headed, wandering off along these pathways I can barely see through the undergrowth. At times that might take me somewhere imminently worthwhile, even if I’m still unsure where.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Seeing, knowing and loving
Note 1: Letting go of “who you are”
Note 1: All that’s going on around us
Note 1: Cost and convenience
Note 1: History’s role in modern culture
Note 1: How things change

Other ideas around the topic of change were the focus of Can we reinvigorate how we’re living?

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Mathematics of life

Many aspects of modern living seem merely transactional: we trade money, or something akin to it, for these experiences and products that make up our lives. Of course, we can always craft arguments whereby everything comes down to money; but is this really the only way?

On so many levels, we’re reduced to numbers; economic calculations standing in the place of human estimations as we judge someone’s worth and the weight of their opinion based on financial rather than intrinsic concerns. It’s as if there’s this dual voice within our language about the value of life.

And while that’s not new, it’s certainly becoming quite predominant within the conversation of how we’re living (see Notes One). Money seems to be stepping into the structures of society and human activity, making many relationships simply economic: everything has a price, can be traded and made to stand against anything else. Money as this equaliser in a way; making things quantifiable and relatable.

We might add up our cost – all we’ve spent or invested in education, image, lifestyle, and countless other categories – and label ourselves with those figures. Every life could conceivably be presented as this balance sheet of incomings, outgoings, and conclusions around the financial outcome of their existence.

Many parties seem to be performing such evaluations and treating people accordingly. Social media reach and other projections having made our “power” much more tangible, there’s presumably an actual sum making someone’s voice worth listening to? Technology’s effectively made our lives quantifiable through data, making it possible to reduce our presence on earth to finite calculations.

That now often being the measure of us – economic power and online presence – it’s seemingly becoming how we judge and approach one another. I’m wondering if this thinking’s not changing our relationships and ways of being in the world? As social and intelligent creatures, we’re inevitably reading our environment and responding to it; our attitudes, behaviour, and values adapting to modern realities.

Much of government policy seems purely financial: calculations around the costliness of our lives; attempts to incentivise or discourage courses of action; little tweaks to make society more viable as an economic enterprise. And don’t get me wrong, I understand that’s one very important way of analysing life and planning it wisely; but it’s not the only way.

Life being equated with money just troubles me, as it seems any other voice struggles to be heard in the face of it (Notes Two). So often, people seem to pursue something they truly believe in – careers, business endeavours, interests – only to have the life sucked out of it by mathematical calculations that are swamping every other way of approaching things.

As humans, we stand in relation to one another. Some might’ve inherited greater power or opportunity by the nature of our social systems, but, essentially, we’re all the same. Money equalises in the sense of meaning anything can be exchanged within our marketplaces, but it has limits and surely can’t account for our worth as people?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Language and values
Note 1: Obligations and contributions
Note 1: Economy & Humanity
Note 1: Morality and modern thought
Note 2: I am not just a sum
Note 2: Intrinsic worth over social identity
Note 2: How it is / Selling out
Note 2: Worthless, or priceless?

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All that’s going on around us

How much has changed in the last hundred years? It’s an impossible question to answer, but an interesting one to contemplate. Because it’s as if we’ve taken this thing called life, this sense we’d reached of how society can be organised, and dialled it up in so many complicated and interconnected ways.

Technology completely reshaped the world: business, communication, the administration of society, knowledge, education, culture, pretty much everything’s now running through these channels and sparking off all it finds there (see Notes One). The structures of society, of thought, and the relationships we have with the world all now mediated through that web.

What does that mean? That our personal and social lives within the human and natural environment are now lived through or with the help of technological advancements? That’s essentially how the West, particularly, is experiencing life and what it means to be human. We live through screens, with much of how we act assisted by them.

It’s fascinating, because humans have likely never lived this way: one step back from reality. We’re simultaneously less engaged with “reality” as it stands before us, yet so much more aware of everything that’s going on globally. We’re all taking part in systems and interactions that span the world at astonishing speeds; but that can often feel surreally detached from our lives.

Effectively, we took “society”, all its structures and constructs, and plugged it into this whole new way of operating: old forms rapidly escalating to this completely different scale and pace. And it’s easy to say that’s just how life is, that we have little choice but to go with the flow and accept this as the new normal. But it’s not “normal”.

I mean, it only started happening to any noticeable extent in the last twenty years; with the pace of that change and its ability to shift our realities increasing rapidly in the last decade or so. It might’ve been on the cards for a while before that, but in practical terms we completely transformed our world in an incredibly brief timeframe.

That’s clearly not any kind of revelation. But how exactly we might comprehend what’s happened and happening seems such an important challenge. With everything so fundamentally reconfigured through the mindset and ramifications of technology, the idea of a human life and what that might mean is being altered almost beyond recognition.

Being human, presumably, used to mean understanding our world, its social realities, the opportunities we have, standards and relationships we might uphold, and expectations we could have. Things might’ve been much more limited, but they likely made quite a lot of “sense”. Now, much of that’s gone out the window; life changing almost before we’ve noticed.

In such a short span of time, we’ve completely changed what it means to be human, how we connect with life, the relationships we have, and what it all means. It might be incredibly liberating, but it’s also a lot to get our heads around and navigate wisely.

Notes and References:

Note 1: The web and the wider world
Note 1: Privacy and our online existence
Note 1: Technology & the lack of constraint
Note 1: Tools
Note 1: Cutting corners

For more context around this, there’s Concerns over how we’re living and Testing times.

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Does anything exist in isolation?

There are conceivably these webs of causality that trail around the globe, linking abstract or disparate realities through time and space into these intricate relationships of meaning and consequence. It seems true of history, geology, human civilisation in all its forms. This sense in which all things are related, building upon one another and what’s gone before into this complex picture of what life is.

Like the butterfly’s wing, in that small and seemingly insignificant actions can develop into something far more note-worthy. Yet the nature of our thinking seems to be that we take things in isolation, wanting to forget that’s never really the case (see Notes One). As soon as we’re taking anything out of the realm of theory it’s having to make its way through convoluted realities we may or may not see coming.

And I’m aware writing this that it’s a thought we’re often encouraged not to think. Arguably, it might make us feel depressed and powerless at the nature of existence: the complexity of these collective interwoven systems we can barely hope to understand, let alone influence. But if it’s true that everything’s connected and all our actions ‘come home’ somewhere, might it be a mistake not to think about it?

These days, those complex interconnections are in many ways becoming more apparent: technology, in attempting to remaster them, is effectively also bringing them to light alongside the realities they’re creating for the natural, political, and interpersonal world (Notes Two). It might not be at all easy to wrap our head around these systems we’re all part of, but it doesn’t seem something that’s wise to ignore.

It’s undeniably challenging to approach that modern reality of an interconnected world with no-where to hide. The past or present, all their good intentions and questionable courses of action, are laid bare for scrutiny from all angles. The world can be a relentless critic, especially given there’s no shared moral code at that level: we often act within our community, but might be judged by quite other standards.

Which I imagine is why modern life can seem this incredible tremor underneath everything everyone held to be true? It’s this re-evaluation of how we’re living. We’ve been acting in ways that impact others emotionally, socially, economically; with consequences often conveniently invisible or justifiable through the single lens of personal or national perspectives. The internet questions that security by asking how we relate to the whole.

How we might build the kind of understanding that can navigate such a world is an intriguing thought (Notes Three). Each society or culture has its narratives, its beliefs about what matters and what’s acceptable within the scope of its reality. Attitudes that might be firmly or loosely held, malleable or vehemently insisted upon. The complexity of a person or society aren’t easy to unravel.

Dealing with that complexity – embracing it, even – and working through all it takes to understand, appreciate, accommodate, and cooperate with one another can seem, at times, overwhelming or compelling.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Strange arrogance of thought
Note 1: David Bohm, thoughts on life
Note 2: Cutting corners
Note 2: The web and the wider world
Note 3: Ideas around education & responsibility
Note 3: What’s a reasonable response?
Note 3: The philosopher stance

Thoughts around the standards we live by were explored in both Codes of behaviour and What is acceptable?

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Cutting corners

Talking about technology is one of those almost funny modern conversations where the topic somehow seems a little tired, worn out or stale despite the fact it’s quite clearly at the cutting edge of human civilisation. It’s as if we have nothing to say, no answers, no real agreement over what’s going on, how to manage it, or where it’s leading. Yet, we also have very much to say as it’s affecting our lives so deeply.

Maybe it’s that we’re getting exhausted by grappling with this ever-changing force that’s reshaping so much? Maybe it’s that we’re feeling powerless; resigning ourselves to the fact that ‘this is how life is’ and we must adapt to its demands and the world it’s creating for us. Maybe it’s that, so much happening simultaneously, it’s practically impossible to pin down and work through it all to reach common ground (see Notes One).

Or maybe I’m misreading it? To me, these conversations spin and churn with often intense energy, concern and emotion, yet never quite connect that purposefully with reality. As if we’re expending a lot of energy trying to keep up with something we don’t quite understand. We see and feel the impacts, and our brains naturally want to see what’s going on so we can respond well to what life’s throwing at us; but it seems it’s almost too much, too diverse and widespread in its manifestations to elicit simple, universal answers.

Because, in many ways, modern technology’s simply changing everything. It’s taking how society was and developing new solutions or systems to manage, improve, streamline, reorganise, speed up, coordinate all these patterns of activity that make up our lives. Which is essentially taking complex realities and reducing them into something simpler, more integrated or accessible.

In a certain light, it’s cutting corners: taking processes that were once known, embodied, and understood and placing them behind closed doors for our convenience or enjoyment. Any tool likely exists to make things easier that way, to cut corners and save us time and energy for other things.

What I find interesting with that, though, is the question of whether we still know what was on all those corners. And, whether that’s important or not. We’re being ‘saved’ from having to do or understand all these things, and that gives us this whole new raft of opportunities for how we might live and relate to the world around us. But, do we actually know what we’re doing? Is there value to knowing what we’re doing? (Notes Two)

It’s like those who’ve lived through the shifts within banking: from very manual back-office cash handling through gradual mechanisation, as once intensely personal and considered relationships drifted through this process of digitalisation into quite different, impersonal estimations of our worth or capacity.

Those who fully understand what’s going on can act very confidently within it; but to those who interact mainly with deceptively simple interfaces the risks and realities of what lies behind them can be hard to comprehend.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Technology & the lack of constraint
Note 1: Desensitised to all we’re told?
Note 1: Cost and convenience
Note 2: Where would we stand if this were lost?
Note 2: Is anything obvious to someone who doesn’t know?
Note 2: Market forces or social necessities

In a strange way, this relates to What if it all means something? which also touched onto ideas of understanding, intention and consequences.

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Tools

The sense in which ‘being human’ is linked to the development and use of tools seems one of these age-old markers of our development: that humanity began looking at the environment, their relationship with it, and how best to work with that effectively and productively.

It’s this idea of human mastery, agency, and ingenuity in the face of physical existence: that, as thinking beings, we looked around us and began seeking ways to better achieve our aims or streamline the practicalities of life. Whether that’s an axe, an arrow, a plough or some form of computing, the principle’s essentially that of understanding context, intention and outcome in order to improve upon our methods.

But, with technology, those questions of agency and intention seem altered in the present day. I’m not sure that in the past anyone was concerned about the psychological risk of axe design, or woke up late at night to compulsively check their tool shed. Which is this sense of how tools have a design, they have workings and demand a certain way of thinking in how we approach them if they’re to be used wisely (see Notes One).

It just seems almost deceptively simple to view modern technology as a natural, unquestionable extension of humanity’s working relationship with tools. As if nothing’s fundamentally different here. Because the foundations of tech are a very specific way of thinking, and embracing that means working along those lines and effectively being shaped and defined by those channels of reasoning.

These are some of the most powerful tools ever wielded by humans. We can directly abuse people on the other side of the world as they sit in the relative safety of their own home. We can collectively respond to advertising and form these instantaneous waves of profit surging toward the company or individual of our choosing. We can spark volatile emotional outrage or despair through media reporting.

The responsibility of that, in terms of personal as much as natural consequences, is almost unfathomable. We’re rapidly shifting the structures, patterns and forms of societies; dismantling long-established traditions and infrastructures and sweeping in with our versions of those functions based on someone’s finest, commercial understanding of how things need to work.

And really there’s not much choice but to go with the flow. Change happens, and you either jump on board or risk getting left behind. Much as individuals, social realities, governments, essential services, and commercial entities are all grappling with the right form for modern life to take and how best to rise to the challenges and opportunities of technology, there’s really no going back.

Obviously though, we’re experimenting with the very fabric of society and human existence. This is a tool with highly effective applications throughout every avenue of life; its impacts ripple through our shared realities in ways we might not yet fully realise. Whether that’s exciting or daunting might depend on our capacity for navigating uncertainty and risk. Also, on our understanding of human and social realities themselves.

Notes and References:

Note 1: “Response Ability” by Frank Fisher
Note 1: The web and the wider world
Note 1: Where would we stand if this were lost?
Note 1: Pre-tech in film
Note 1: The potential of technology

Some of the ideas here were also picked up in a slightly different way back in Intrinsic values on the paths for change?.

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Can we solve our own problems?

Something I find interesting to consider is the extent to which modern society attempts to create our problems as much as solve them. This way in which economic realities are characterised mainly in terms of supply and demand, so it’s logical we might generate needs in order to justify the existence of products. This circular reasoning where we’re pumping lots of energy into deflating the human psyche as a source of fuel.

Of course, humans have genuine needs. As individuals or societies, we have these requirements for shelter, food, clothing, security, and the infrastructure essential for living as a human community. Those overlays of organisation, social etiquette, and the cohesive qualities of a cultural life offering us bonds of meaning and belonging (see Notes One). There’s this sense in which humans have problems: logistical challenges we need to overcome.

And I’m not entirely sure where in the arc of modern civilisation we abandoned the fulfilment of merely essential needs and began wandering off into other territories in search of profit, but it seems to have happened somewhere along the line. Rather than simply pursuing progress, innovation, knowledge, and the dissemination of those fundamental requirements we’ve clearly taken some quite different paths.

Maybe the justification is that we followed an economic model capable of generating both the funds and the competition needed to drive innovation. Money essentially becoming this driving force to motivate people toward developing the ingenuity and expertise to keep pushing humanity forward. This highly effective carrot and stick approach of personal reward through social status and greater economic freedom.

Human motivation’s an interesting question. Do we participate in society because of its threats and incentives, or because we believe in it and hope to contribute toward the collective human community? It’s a slightly different, though not unrelated, question that must conceivably wend its way out through education into the underpinnings of social structures themselves (Notes Two).

Returning closer to the point though, why is it we now have a system that seemingly relies on highlighting more problems? Is that progress, or is it an active chipping away at natural human insecurities to create markets ripe for exploitation? What is all this built upon? Surely its built upon some fanciful combination of human nature and nature itself: psychological patterning alongside finite natural resources (Notes Three).

But then, industry presumably cannot ever truly solve the problems it claims to be there to address if, in doing so, it’s putting itself out of business. Almost by design commercial activity has to create an insatiable desire for more, as a secure customer base must be the ideal. Secure in the sense of being insecure; unstable; incomplete; chasing these illusory answers to every problem.

This sense of designing a system that feeds off human nature seems such a contortion of the ideal of meeting our needs. As individuals seeking belonging, meaning, purpose in life, it seems we’re directed toward this self-perpetuating activity we can never escape. Is that really the only way forward?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Human nature and community life
Note 1: Economy & Humanity
Note 1: Culture selling us meaning
Note 2: Obligations and contributions
Note 2: Respect, rebellion & renovation
Note 2: Fear or coercion as motivators
Note 3: Is sustainable design an impossibility?
Note 3: Life and money, seamlessly interwoven
Note 3: The motivation of money
Note 3: At what cost, for humans & for nature

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Busking as a gift

In life, moments can stop you in your tracks. Perhaps moments of shock, of complete confusion as to what people were thinking or the ‘wisdom’ informing certain actions or patterns of behaviour. Perhaps moments of beauty, of recognition that there’s wonderful potential dwelling within us as humans nestled into society.

In all life’s richness, there must be many moments that can offer up either reaction: nature’s generally pretty good at it; human nature also; and then there’s culture (see Notes One).

Sometimes I wonder what culture is (Notes Two). Although, of course, it can be defined with activities neatly categorised under its subheadings: ideas, customs, attitudes, beliefs; language and social behaviour; arts and intellectual achievements. Doing so, you’d likely get a pretty thorough ‘picture’ of culture as the thoughts we weave around life, the social and artistic activities we’re engaged in.

It’s just this absolutely massive picture. These days, there’s not only the ever-evolving richness of our own modern culture, growing seamlessly, as it does, from our understanding of the past; there’s also this ever-present awareness of the diversity of other cultures, and all the ways that’s feeding into this constant flow of human innovation and creativity.

It’s also now so individualistic: each wanting to define ourselves, to be a cultural phenomenon in our own right as this personality, brand or character in our life’s drama. From this limitless global palette, we can each craft a personal response through where we stand on any given issue. Surely a picture of both richness and division? Everything, and our thing.

Trying to distil complexities into more simple solutions is interesting. Because, watching someone play saxophone to a crowded shopping street, it’s clear that music in particular has this power to unite beyond our inevitable divisions (Note Three).

Everyone has their preferences, their memories, their cultural and generational experiences of genres or artists. A skilled musician can, apparently, blend references from the past and present, from different cultures, times and places, into a joyful and coherent flow with a quality all of its own. Things can be blended into beautiful celebrations of the present moment.

Anecdotally, live music has that capacity for engulfing everyone in this cloud of experience: uniting people through their own unique yet shared moment of emotion, memory, anticipation. The air can tingle with this mix of intention, recognition, appreciation that’s invisible to the naked eye.

And, of course, the musician plays because they want to. Likely because they love music, its performance, the atmosphere it can create. But I’d imagine if they thought only of themselves they’d be less successful? These things need an audience, and if you alienate rather than include you’re probably not going to create that social space people want to be part of.

Which is coming down to this question of what we’re creating through culture, through our social behaviour and those attitudes embodied within it all: how we blend things, the reality that’s becoming, and how well individual inclinations might meet within common spaces.

Notes and References:

Note 1: The human spirit
Note 1: Nature speaks in many ways, do we listen?
Note 2: Masks we all wear
Note 2: Cultural shifts & taking a backseat
Note 2: Truth, illusion & cultural life
Note 3: Music and its power to inspire

Casting an eye to how we come to understand those things which are new to us was the focus of Seeing, knowing and loving.

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