Lucid Waking

first published on 15th March 2017 I see things as imbued with meaning, like fragments written in a foreign language. Sometimes I can decipher them; sometimes even put them in English. For instance, from my bedroom window I can see the Victorian factory opposite. I wake as the early sun catches its gable ends. As…

The Testament of Light (1)

PREFACE In this anthology, though for the sake of convenience it bears another title, the thread of an earlier argument is resumed: the three sentences of Chekhov which closed the first volume provide the prelude to the second. The Pattern of Courtesy differs from The Testament of Light not in spirit or general aim, but somewhat in…

The Pattern of Courtesy

Gerald Bullett was born in London  . . . and educated at Jesus College, Cambridge. During the Second World War he worked for the BBC in London, and after the war was a radio broadcaster. Bullett also contributed to the Times Literary Supplement. Politically, Bullett described himself as a "liberal socialist" and claimed to detest…

Running a Half Marathon?

I just sent my son this  book for his 58th birthday. from the Oldie Magazine "The propensity for humans to intentionally put themselves through pain never ceases to amaze. Whilst the pursuit of euphoria through physical exertion is a noble one, the fact the attitude persists in a society which encourages, nay endorses, convenience and…

Manuela—Not looking for Love Anymore

This is the final photo in my series. As I've said this project is about looking for connection, not romance. Women are taught to talk with each other about romance the same way men are taught not to talk about their feelings. There are whole industries hinging on women's obsession with romance. The amount of…

Goddess

I know I said I just wanted to be accepted, but I've been thinking about it, and I want to be accepted for my whole self AND treated like a goddess - which I think this photo neatly captures. I'm done with the: 'I'm so low maintenance and I don't need you to put any…

Manuela on the Chase

This one is about when someone tries really hard to make you fall for them and then loses interest when you let your guard down. I've been on both sides of this and it's not fun or nice.

Manuela on Romance

Manuela on Being Accepted

A good few years ago I was angstily listening to The Stone Roses' 'I wanna be adored' and I realised I wanted to be absolutely worshipped. I told my boyfriend at the time who said something nice about how he did already. But I was pretty insecure, and I wanted him to give me so…

Manuela’s Hoop Earrings

This whole series came from this poster which was a play on the white van man posters you find taped to street lamps with the rip-off phone numbers. I was thinking about the idea of someone having a physical 'type' that they exclusively go for and how bizarre that is. I think people who have…

Manuela Not Forgetting to Play

I think the saddest thing about growing up is the self-consciousness which stops us from expressing ourselves like kids do. The other day I was jogging and so badly wanted to spin and leap and stretch my arms out. Sometimes I'll run down the hill and pretend to look a little worried as if I'm…

Manuela on Being Alive

I've rewritten this so many times and it always feels like I've said the wrong thing. Being alive is hard, so being excited about it isn't an option for a lot of people. Objectively I know that, but when I was planning this photo, I was thinking back to how difficult it is when people…

Manuela puts herself out there

I actually don't want to escape; but I feel like I should want to. When I was a little I remember being really scared about starting new classes or clubs - anything new. I couldn't read yet and I was embarrassed of people finding out so I told my mum that I would go to…

Manuela’s Dreams of Looking for a Man

The well-read amongst you will know this is a reference to the cornerstone of romance novels: Pride and Prejudice. Though, perhaps you're like me and have only watched the film and BBC series with Colin Firth, co-starring his incredibly beautiful smile (worth a google). If you're ever feeling heartbroken or feel like your happiness is…

Smartphones for the Very Unsmart

Full page ad from the Oldie: If I wasn't a lazy octogenarian I'd sue the advertising dept of the Oldie guilty of whatever law it is that guards the innocent from con tricks. On the positive side, their innocence might be transformed by experience, which is no bad thing.

From a Comfy Sofa

I've become 95% bedridden! There's a number of reasons and some remainng issues, which keep the NHS doctors very concerned as to my full condition. The basic one is this. All my life I've had a slight spinal curvature, not like that of Richard III's hunchback as portrayed in Shakespeare; but in the lower spine.…

Pain part 5

Pain part 4

Pain part 3

 

Pain part 2

Pain part 1

Driving again

I stopped driving three years ago, started to feel frightened of hitting other vehicles, or worse. Even in daylight. Carefully made my last journey up the hill to WeBuyAnyCar, was amazed to get back nearly half of what I paid for it new ten years earlier. (v. low mileage full, maintenance history—plus inflation?) But I'm…

Secrets of Happy Family Life

2189. Husband and Wife.—Being hints to each other for the good of both, as actually delivered at our own table :— 2190. Hints for Wives.—If your husband occasionally looks a little troubled when he comes home, do not say to him, with an alarmed countenance, " What ails you, my dear ? " Don't bother…

Christmas with Bach

May there be joy around the world at Christmastime. And so on forever, one day at a time. If life lets us and we let it reach our hearts. Merry Christmas!

Helpful advice to men—from the 16th Century

from On the power of the imagination, an essay by Michel Montaigne, translated by J M Cohen: "I have personal knowledge of the case of a man for whom I can answer as for myself, and who could not fall under the least suspicion impotence or being under a spell. He had heard a comrade…

A Brief History of Politics?

inspired by a new blog:  A Platform for Politics and Culture Speech evolved from homo erectus's point and grunt for catching game in a team. It's presented as a series of steps explained in a talk by Wittgenstein, transcribed in The Brown Book, appended here. Thus creatures and things could be given names. Then speech…

Etty Hillesum’s Diary – 2

8.00 p.m. 8 uur, 's avonds. We are always in search of the redeeming formula, the crystallizing thought. As I was cycling about in the cold, I suddenly thought: perhaps I am making everything much too complicated because I don't want to face the sober facts. Een mens zoekt altijd naar de verlossende formule, naar…

Theories of Everything

First there was nothing. Then there was something: the Creation, as engineered by the Big Bang and ongoing evolution to this day.Whatever you call it, it's never stopped. Creation continues, evolution is not complete. Here we are: creativeness builds on the legacy of yesterday to bring something new today, unaffected by the future. Such is…

Shapes

As I lay awake this morning before getting up, a great procession of thoughts came to visit me. Thoughts? I'm not sure what a thought is. They were dwelling-places of the imagination, like images from a waking dream. I guess they were prompted by my last post, which suggested I’d work on my life-story; and…

Under the surface

From In Defence of Sensuality, by John Cowper Powys, 1930: . . . To return to the lonely ichthyosaurus-ego. This ichthyosaurus-ego exists in every man, woman, and child. It is the feeling of the soul in relation to its body and in relation to what surrounds its body. It is profoundly susceptible to moods of…

Watching the English

Like Paul on the road to Damascus, I know exactly when my eyes were opened. It was Monday April 3rd, on a trip to town for two significant appointments. One was to see my specialist nurse, to arrange details for my stay at Stoke Mandeville Hospital. It didn't happen then. The other was to collect…

The Towers of Cybele

Here's another essay written for Jacqueline Peltier's Lettre Powysienne, a little magazine in two languages for a list of subscribers. On her website you can only find her French translation, but I've fortunately kept the English original, written in 2005. When I mentioned "Amazon" in my first paragraph, she asked me to explain what it…

Peg, a minor character

In the last couple of days I've been horrified to discover myself becoming a hapless patient, lacking the means or strength to act in the world and thus demonstrate personhood, that prerequisite for the continued will to live. It was like being a ghost. It did not even occur to me to pray or give…

Around the neighbourhood

I thought I might have nothing to say today, but I managed to get out and take some photos of neighbouring streets in this part of the valley. The people in the Council Offices call it the “Heritage Factory District”. I call it home. It pleases them to put protection orders on derelict buildings simply…

The Nature of the I

The “I” is easily defined. It is what I mean when I say “I”. There is no confusion about it, no argument as to whether this “I” is real. René Descartes nailed it: cogito, ergo sum. Such simplicity has been wrecked by the introduction of “ego”, a weasel word so tricky as to defy all…

On being an animal

What I really wanted to say in my last was: “I am an animal”. The intended piece got hijacked by its own introduction, if you can believe that. “I am an animal” sounds like an oxymoron, requires an explanation before you can make sense of it. “I am . . .” implies awareness. “Animal” implies…

On fresh air alone

If you want to go somewhere and enjoy an undisturbed smoke I suggest the Nineteen-Fifties. If you were actually around at the time, it’s no problem—wings of memory will take you and your membership remains free for life. Otherwise you need to be escorted as a guest. I’ll do my best to take you to…

On Human Behaviour

Jean-Paul Sartre, about 1950                                       Click for source Among the comments on my last, Ellie referred to some words by Jean-Paul Sartre. I have expanded her quotation a little, for its context: “We are left alone, without excuse. That is what I mean when I say man is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not…

The Creative Mind

Wastwater, Lake District, England Click to listen on BBC iPlayer The other morning I turned on Radio 4 whilst washing the breakfast dishes and it sounded interesting, a kind of reminiscence. I’d missed the beginning and took a little while to catch on. I liked the sound of the lady though, full of fun, approachable…

Why we do what we do

I was quite startled by a programme on the radio, especially the following transcribed excerpt. It’s a tiny fraction of a heavy book—literally*. I picked it up in the bookshop: not bedtime reading without strong arms.† Yet in a few words it covers pleasure, happiness, the meaning of life—and how to make the most of…

Hasty Sketch Map

hasty sketch-map Dear S I am starting to form the impression that the “preoccupied and dreamy boy” contains the real you, and that what you write operates as a kind of mask through which to address the world. This “real you” has not yet evolved the capacity to interact with everything that the present moment…

The Book of Disquiet

Art consists in making others feel what we feel, in freeing them from themselves by offering them our own personality. From The Book of Disquiet, by Fernando Pessoa, translated from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith; numbered section 260 Art frees us, illusorily, from the squalor of being. from section 270 There are certain books which…

One moment

One thing that language can do, and I think it only possible in written language, is to unwrap the content of a moment of consciousness, to examine and share it. Perhaps such moments are rare, and the stuff of poetry. Such a one occurred today as I crossed a car park to enter the supermarket.…

Sisyphus and the Rolling Stone (2)

Le Mythe de Sisyphe: essai sur l’absurde Albert Camus © 1942 Éditions Gallimard Translation © 2010 Ian Vincent Mulder Continued from extract (1): So what is this mysterious feeling which deprives us of vital sleep? A world explicable with reasons, even if they are bad reasons, remains a familiar world. But take away the illusions,…

Sisyphus and the Rolling Stone (1)

Le Mythe de Sisyphe: essai sur l’absurde Albert Camus © 1942 Éditions Gallimard Translation © 2010 Ian Vincent Mulder I've decided to publish extracts of my new translation, which remains unfinished, on this blog, starting below: This book is about a certain sensitivity, which I call “the absurd”. You will find traces of it scattered…

Creation myth

In the beginning was the void. How big was it? How long did it last? It’s impossible to say because time and space had not yet been created. Let’s imagine it as an empty matchbox. The Prime Mover, impatient for things to start, opened the box and the void escaped like a genie from a…

Body consciousness

My body is an instrument, both scientific and musical. I use it to discover the world through the senses. Meanwhile, it vibrates with its own frequencies, for no other purpose but joy and sensuous pleasure. “Body consciousness” needs what Wikipedia calls “disambiguation”. In the media, which is to say in the lowest common denominator of…

Laughing water

I drafted this article five years ago and two years later promised a post on the topic: “I will some time tell here the story of my visit to the Mustardseed community in Jamaica, where I encountered a shining human being. Aged 21, she had been severely brain-damaged from birth and in consequence was no…

Running with Bulls

In hindsight, my last post sounds a little Quixotic: retired man goes on mysterious Quest, tries to attach importance to his ramblings---the ones on foot and the verbal ones, both. That’s a fair enough summary, especially the reference to “hindsight”---a theme I’ll develop further. On the walk I partly described in my last, I encountered…

Free as a bird

Preface Ghetufool has given me permission to publish his short story here. His pen-name indicates modesty but not in the way you may think: “ghetu phool” is the Bengali for calotropis gigantea, a wayside wildflower. We have collaborated for a year or so (he writes, I edit). You may have seen a brief quote from…

Norfolk House 4: Vignettes

In “Nest of Dreams” I referred to awakening sexuality. A boy, especially if he has come into contact with no girls, doesn’t necessarily associate his burgeoning virility with those giggling, teasing creatures. It doesn’t surprise me that some take the other direction and stay that way. In my case, wet dreams had always been accompanied…

Clothesline

I might have  conveyed the impression in my last that the world has to be put right in order to provide the conditions in which we can live happily. I really think the opposite: that the world has never been better, and never worse, than it is now. We can do our little best to…

Elemental (2)

’Twas a dark and stormy night. We went as planned to The Royal Standard of England, a 900-year-old pub in Buckinghamshire. Above the festooned hops the visitor may descry a skeleton drinker sitting in the rafters, wearing a Roman soldier’s helmet and holding a pewter tankard in his left hand. The pub was hard to…

Rats and Us

This  was written while I was working at Fujitsu in Bracknell. It was my custom to walk for an hour each lunchtime, and let thoughts flit through my brain, often composing a blog post in my head, or dictating it into my voice recorder. I've been in a dark mood lately. We notice especially that…

The “Nothing Girl”

No blog-writer has to apologize for liberal use of the words “I” and “me”. It’s expected. But when you read mine, one-off or regular, you’ll be implicitly aware that my “I” is a lens for looking at the big mysteries of life. It is through the personal that I reach out to the universal. I’ve…

The Deck of Cards

It was the glorious summer of 1960. I had just left school and the world was mine. I went to a seaside resort, Shanklin on the Isle of Wight. I knew nothing about women, girls I should say: I disregarded any over the age of 21. I got a job washing dishes at a hotel,…

Good and bad

Jim wrote a comment on my last piece, Human Animal. My response grew into this post. Thanks, Jim, for spotting what was missing! My piece for what it’s worth was partly a spontaneous outpouring though I admit a temptation to think of it as philosophy. I am glad you mention good and bad, Jim. These…

Duckling traffic

I went to Mama Iris’ for a breadfruit and a pound of yam. I’d taken the camera to snap a vent on the roof of the Baptist Church, next to the Mosque. A man was standing in the crossroads, in the traffic’s way, so I went to see why. Ducks were taking to water and…

Nature holds everything

Simon Templar (“The Saint”) is the twentieth century Robin Hood. I have not encountered him on the screen and only read a few stories of his exploits, though I did recently thrill to the swashbuckling of Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood directed by Michael Curtiz in 1938. And now I’ve encountered a co-author of The Saint.…

In the days of low sun

My town is centred on a narrow river valley running east and west and surrounded by hills whose ridges and valleys radiate like spokes of a wheel. This morning I drove down Hamilton Road, which offers the broadest vista of the town as you descend the hill. It was soon after dawn with a hard…

Christmas Past

Yes, time can be a spiral, as Cream pointed out in her comment on my last. But it can seem like a circle of recurrence too, as the season evokes emotions long past. I’ve been wanting to write of life’s pathos for weeks now, but today it caught up with me, with an inescapable twisting…

Like wildfire

I woke in the night and fell victim to a train of thought, so insistent in its claim to significance that the only way to shut it off was turn on a bedside light and scribble some words in my notebook, raw and unpolished. It did the trick, I returned to slumber and then in…

Fragile

The eastern sky glowed golden yesterday morning, over the chimney pots and the tower of All Saints’ Parish Church. I saw the outline of a hundred wheeling birds, swallows I think, gathering for their departure to North Africa. Later as I went walking, some half-denuded shrubs were full of birds chirping and hopping excitedly from…

Maslow’s pyramid

The last few posts have been linked, in a kind of serial discussion. I try to keep individual posts to a tolerable length---about 500 words. This allows breaks for input of comments, which greatly influence the direction we take. It’s an interactive process, “as in life”, like a plant growing in its environment. It’s an…

Baggage

If a sage today were to give one piece of advice, what would it be? What could best guide the lone seeker towards spiritual fulfilment whilst improving communal behaviour in our shared home, Earth? It’s easy to assume that the semi-mythical words of Buddha or Jesus are just as potent today as when first spoken…

All we ever need to know

Reposted August 7th 2022, with the following addition: "Learning is not just about acquiring knowledge. More important than reading, writing and arithmetic is learning what (u)not(/u) to do." Written way back when everything seemed so simple and fresh, and messages came unbidden out of  a clear sky: "All we ever need to know is what…

“Things I just know”

Jim says “Some things I just ‘know’ and believe in as fact without any proof.” He touches on a topic I wanted to speak about because it is vital to the understanding of all human culture: How we know what we know. I’ve written elsewhere that Western civilisation is a prism: it splits the whole.…

What is soul?

I have not been finding it easy to write about soul. I’m not interested in traditions, scriptures or beliefs. If I cannot know what soul is from direct experience, then why should I care about it? I liked what Jim wrote in his comment to Sunday’s blog: [Soul] is Pure desire for life. Even in…

What’s wrong with the world?

Today I am following on from my previous post and the comments made by Darius and Rama. They felt that it did not really matter what someone believes. Perhaps they take the view that there is some inner Truth ready to be found which will put an end to all divisive dogmas. Perhaps. But we…