Dostoyevsky agrees!

My favourite character in Dostoyevsky's classic novel Crime and Punishment is the passionately intelligent, unrestrained bear of a man, Razumikhin. Of all the characters in this incredible novel, he is the one with the least artifice, who speaks the most intelligently and vividly, from the heart. It is also no coincidence that Dostoyevsky almost certainly derived Razumikhin's name from the Russian word 'razum', meaning 'reason'.

In this wonderful passage, a drunk (on vodka, on life, on Avdotya Raskolnikov's beauty) Razumikhin, escorting Raskolnikov's sister and mother back to their lodgings, rails against the vile use of cliche, and how its use pervades all our lives, obscuring truth:

'What do you suppose?' Razumikhin shouted, raising his voice even louder. 'Do you suppose I'm going on like this because they talk nonsense? Rubbish! I like it when they talk nonsense! Talking nonsense is the sole privilege mankind possesses over other organisms. It's by talking nonsense that one gets to the truth! I talk nonsense, therefore I'm human. Not one single truth has ever been arrived at without people first having talked a dozen reams of nonsense, even ten dozen reams of it, and that's an honourable thing in its own way; well, but we can't even talk nonsense with our own brains! Talk nonsense to me, by all means, but do it with your own brain, and I shall kiss you for it.
To talk nonsense in one's own way is almost better than to talk a truth that's someone else's; in the first instance, you behave like a human being, while in the second, you are merely being a parrot!
The truth won't go away, but life can be knocked on the head and done in. I can think of some examples... we're all of us, every one of us without exception, when it comes to the fields of learning, development, thought, invention, ideals, ambition, liberalism, reason, experience, and every, every, every other field you can think of, in the very lowest preparatory form of school! We've got accustomed to making do with other people's intelligence - we're soaked in it! It's true, isn't it? Isn't what I'm saying true?' cried Razumikhin, trembling all over and squeezing the hands of both ladies. 'Isn't it?'

The sea is not blue

The sea is not blue.

Some time ago I sat on an old stone jetty a few metres above the sparkling Mediterranean Sea. The sea is blue, said my mind. I looked at the sea. And then I realised, with a eureka-like shock, that the sea is not blue. That in fact the very idea that 'the sea is blue' was preventing me from experiencing the sea as it actually was, in that moment; a heaving mass of incredible matter that was absorbing and reflecting and refracting the sunlight in amazing ways..
And beyond that, I saw that there is no colour.

Colour is an idea.

I realised that we have built our entire idea of what reality is by using a battery of concept thinking, based on a set of linguistic cliches. We think in cliches. We experience life through these cliches. We talk in cliches.

These cliches are preventing us from actually experiencing life as it is.

If you live your life through cliches, your life will in fact be a cliche. You will have lived and died with almost no direct experience of the world you are living in. And what is profound, shocking and fundamental, is that reality, beneath, beyond, before the cliche, is more amazing, more vibrant, richer and deeper, than anything you can possibly imagine from a cliche-based perspective.

I believe it is our duty, as thinking beings, to wake up to this reality, and go beyond the cliche. Think about it. No, go on, don't just dismiss this idea, think about it. Think about how you define your life by stories, by sets of cliches; and I don't just mean now and again, I mean all the time.

Think about it.

The future is not formed

A couple of weeks ago I had a revelation: the future is not formed. I realised, with a deep shock, that up to this point, I had believed that the future was already formed; predestined, if you like.

I realised that I was carrying around the idea that my 'destiny' was determined, that my life was on rails, and that certain outcomes were inevitable. I had no idea I was a fatalist, but that's what I was.

The palpable sense of relief and levity that this realisation brought me was huge. The future is not formed. The future is not formed. The future is NOT inevitable! Outcomes are not certain.

My fatalism, I realised, ran deep in me; it was a result, I believe, of a childhood where it seemed the worst that could happen would always happen, and that nothing good would last, and that suffering was my inevitable (and deserved) lot. In a sense, I must have come to believe that I was being punished.

Unpacking this unconscious set of hard-wired beliefs led me to realise that my whole unconscious oeuvre mimicked a religious ideology. Indeed, I can see clearly how an unawareness of such unconscious beliefs could lead anyone to believe, unquestioningly, religious ideology. If ever there was a case for 'knowing thyself' this is it.

Without exploration of our inner drives and motivations, we are like victims in a sea of drama.. believing we are unable to change that which is most profound in us, we feel helpless against what appears to be an inevitable fate.

To discover that 'fate' is NOT inevitable, is profound. Amazingly profound. It is liberating. I accept that of course, deep-set tendencies in us lead us to see things in a certain way, and to perceive events in a certain way, and thus to react to those events in a certain way, leading us to feel that things are inevitable. But this is how one acts when one is unconscious. To wake up to the 'truth' of an unformed future is possibly akin to enlightenment. I don't know if it's enlightenment, because I don't know how many more layers of unconsciousness I have yet to reveal to myself.

If you believe life is inevitable, and that what will happen to you is predestined, then think again. Examine what inner beliefs have led you to this grim conclusion, and then allow yourself the glorious liberation of knowing this is not so.

Your life can change in many ways, at any time. Of course the generalities of your life will form an apparently semi-rigid context for your experience, at least for the time being. But the more you embrace the realisation that the future is unformed, and the deeper you delve into your unconscious to liberate your darkest and most secretive thoughts, the freer you will become. And as you free yourself, you realise your potential to change and for life to change may be almost boundless, defined only, perhaps, be the 'laws' of nature, of physics. But then again, we know that even these are mutable.

Watching Christopher Nolan's film 'Inception' last week, I accepted the allegory, the metaphor, whether intentioned or not, that 'life is but a dream'. As long as we remain unconscious of what drives us, life will indeed remain but a dream.

Throughout our history, we have used various naturally occurring substances to help us achieve this kind of liberation. We must embrace these opportunities without fear, but with a humble acceptance that these 'guides' are to be respected as teachers, and not to be abused 'recreationally'.. (although I've got admit, recreational use can be a lot of fun..).

The history of human enlightenment is long and fascinating, and there have always been forces, that through fear, have attempted to squash and contain and suppress human liberation. You have to go past the fear, to embrace freedom. It's the only way.

Many years ago, during an intense trip, I came up with the mantra: you've got to go through hell to get to heaven. Suffering seems something we all have to experience, and most of us spend our lives avoiding it like the plague. Yet as many spiritual thinkers have realised, suffering and pain may be the key to spiritual enlightenment; for without them, where is the spur to explore, to discover, to rise above our conditioning and break free of our shackles?

Freedom from fear, from fear of life and living; I cannot think of anything more liberating than this. Dare you take the first step?

Climate change action? It's a waste of time..

Let's face it kids - it's too late. All this gnashing and wailing is just creating even more hot air.

Fact is, in the short term, we're fuct. But don't let that get you down. I think there's still plenty of fun to be had on this planet, especially if you're of the hedonistic bent. Spiritual hedonism, that's what I'm advocating. It's radical. Basically I'm saying: just really start to enjoy life. That's right, enjoy every single fcuking minute of it; love it, lap it up, LIVE it!. Trust me, it will work. Its reverse polarity will create a vortex, a bit like when Superman flew round and round the world really fast so it went backwards, so he could save Lois Lane.

All you bleaters, you're being conned, sucked into a vacuum of negativity. Don't you get it you suckers? The more you bleat, the more there is to bleat about! Enjoy life. Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy. Dance round the maypole, swing from the chandeliers, embrace random animals, leap for joy!

Hooray, hoorah and huzzah!

Okay, now onto other matters: washing powder wears your clothes out. Use liquid, every time. Trust me on this.

And finally, I've been thinking, deaths. On the news, every day, it's deaths, deaths, deaths. This person died, that person died. Especially amazing, special people: ooh, this amazing special person died, that amazing special person died... on and on and on... well how come they never talk about all the amazing special people who've just been BORN? Huh? Work THAT one out suckers.

Laters potaters.

What's wrong with Now?

Nothing, in my humble opinion - it is the pinnacle, apex and acme of our being. Yet these bloody religions will persist in purveying their archaic nonsense, and gawd I am tired of meeting yet another otherwise intelligent person who belieeeeves.. let alone the lobotomised morons who parrot their patriarchal pomp like robots. JC, Moho, Buddhawiser - they're long gone folks. Yes, hello, wake up! Stop hiding from reality in your shrink-wrapped mysticism. Embrace the NOW. FFS.

Next -->

Marina Hyde..

Hasn't that last post driven you mad yet? How did you stand it my munchkins? Its lumpen logic labouring through cyberspace like an wounded walrus..

But never mind, this page is now a shrine to Marina Hyde, the goddess of the intellectual barb, her withering dissections of the entity that is Trudie Styler alone stand her high on my pantheon of latter-day saints; but this girl's not just smart, she gets sport too..


...............................................seriously, what's not to like?

....................................... I'm in Love.


Marina writes, almost ubiquitously, in The Guardian, now home to a host of female columnists who seem bent on leading us towards a new, edgily comfy irony as they purvey their world views all over this once serious institution - but Marina out-does the frumpy Lucy Mangan, eclipses Zoe Williams and out-acids Shazia Mirza - she is the queen.

Next ->

Buttercup in the park - a treatise on our modern predilection for superstition and alternative beliefs over rationalism.

As I walked through Queens Park on a warm late spring afternoon recently, I passed a family - a mum and dad and their two girls. The elder girl, aged about seven, was holding a buttercup under her younger sister's chin. She had the air of someone conducting an important scientific experiment.

'Yes', she announced seriously, after a few moments of careful scrutiny, 'you like butter.'

The parents watched, amused. The pronouncement made, the family continued on their way. But it caused me to stop and think. Why is it that we are still drawn, almost inexorably, to the rites of old wives, to the rituals of superstition, instead of the calm clarity of rationalism, that was gifted to us during Europe's 'Age of Enlightenment' in the eighteenth century? Why do we still prefer the drama of the obscure to the common sense of reason? (Yeah, okay, forget the idea that it might simply be 'fun' for a moment, and bear with me, because there is something incredibly revealing in this).

Do you have an emotional reaction to this? Does the idea of reason irritate like a prickly burr? Why is that? How have reason and logic come to be seen as cold and heartless, compared to the apparent warmth of faith, superstition and religion?

I thought about this again while I was watching the latest Star Trek movie. Spok, as always, represents logic and reason - cold, and almost emotionless, his saving grace are his half-human genes. Kirk, on the other hand, impetuous, hot-headed and brave, is the warm-blooded hero we are drawn to. In Star Trek, emotion is seen as greater than reason. Love triumphs over logic. Reason and logic are essential and highly valued of course, but in the end, it is only the complex cocktail of intelligence and feeling, that constitutes a fully realised human being.

Yet reason is a great gift, especially because at its root, I propose that reason incorporates feeling. And by feeling, I don't mean dramatic emotion, I mean actual feeling.

How does something actually feel to you? Are you afraid to experience this? Why??

I believe the reason why is exactly the same as to why we prefer superstition and drama to reason and logic. And it is this:

For millennia, most early human societies (you'll have to take this as read because I'm not going to cite all my sources in this essay), were based on social values that included the freedom to feel and experience all human emotions, without fear, including of course, our sexual feelings and desires; the idea that these feelings were in some way wrong did not exist. Because, of course, they are not 'wrong'. They are simply natural feelings. Thus making any personal decision was far easier for people, because they were not afraid to express and feel their feelings.
(Try it next time you feel all tied up in knots trying to decide whether to do this or that, especially in relation to someone else; if you allow yourself to feel how you really feel about it, the decision is easy).

What happened? Organised religion happened. The reason why organised religion happened is admirably covered in a book that I urge you to read - 'Guns, Germs and Steel' by Jared Diamond. To précis Diamond, early societies that had access to an excess of resources - food and suitable animals (for transport, work and food), quickly developed social hierarchies, with a 'king' type character at the top. To maintain the king position of power, the (fiendishly clever) idea of the 'divine right' to rule was invented, supported by a bureaucratic class of priests, who interpreted and officiated over this divine right; in other words, they told people how to act and what to do, according to the words of 'God'.

Once you have a ruling elite in place, it's downhill all the way. Decisions are no longer tribally democratic, they are always determined by the best interests of the ruling elite. As your society grows, the need to control people becomes ever more important. And what better way to control people, than through fear?

If you make people fear the very essence of their being, if you tell them that their natural feelings are bad, and that they are, at their very core, 'wrong' ('sinners' in religious parlance), you have created a mentally enslaved population who you can manipulate at will.

As human cultures evolved, the interpretation of divine will become ever more sophisticated, and the systematic destruction of pre organised-religious societies took place. We were of course still happily rolling out this perverted ethos throughout the Victorian era and beyond, where missionaries set out to 'save' the ignorant savages across the globe.

Indeed, we can still see this power-play at work today, where the most powerful countries feel free to invade other sovereign nations, because they have a divine right to do so. Because they are 'superior'. We know of course, that their true motivations are more basic; ensuring access to wealth and resources for their resource-hungry nations.

The British Empire was predicated upon such a divine right; 'we' were just and noble, bringing democracy and justice and Christianity to the heathen. The fact that this was a license to plunder the resources and enslave the people of Africa, India, Asia and the Americas (other empires of course joined in) was somehow overlooked in our great crusade. The new American Empire happily followed this well-trodden path.

I have digressed slightly, but if you're still with me, I hope you'll see that because our natural ways and feelings, our easy relationship with ourselves and nature, were systematically suppressed to further the interests of a ruling elite, we lost the ability to trust our feelings. Instead, we had to base decisions on ever more complex systems of morals, theories, dictates and laws that were interpreted by self-appointed priests and enshrined in great tomes such as the bible and the koran.

This is not to say that there isn't much of huge value in these treatises (as well as a lot of archaic nonsense), but because at their root they are based on fear and control, they are, in my humble opinion, forever tarnished by this pernicious association. Oppression of feelings creates the uniquely human experience of perversion, sin and guilt. Before organised religions and social control came into being, perversion, as we know it, did not exist. There was no reason for it to exist.

Fast forward several centuries, and we reach the Age of Enlightenment in Europe, where science and philosophy unite to create rationalism; a way of looking at and experiencing the universe that is not based on superstition, or religious belief, but on reason.

But for most societies, trying to roll-out scientific rationalism, over the top of superstitious belief (religion), has only created more confusion, and more inner turmoil, because now a conflict has arisen between what was supposed to be (divinely) right and what reason tells us to be right. For ordinary people, losing the security of an all-knowing, all-powerful religion (After all, 'God' is supposed to be omnipotent), is a very scary thing. Which is probably why many of the citizens of modern societies are the most mentally disturbed in history.

The advances in science of the last three hundred years allowed for the technological advances of the industrial revolution and beyond, which, while benefiting us in so many ways, have also enslaved us even further (the surveillance society in Britain, for example, where almost your every move is tracked, recorded and potentially judged, as are your personal communications), and also possibly terminally harmed us (the destruction of the environment being one obvious example). Science and technology have been a double-edged sword, both a boon to humanity and a poisoned chalice.

Therefore, perhaps unsurprisingly, when we have through science and technology, an unprecedented opportunity to embrace 'reality' - as opposed to a dramatic and fear-based superstitious view of the world - we are drawn, inexorably, to the sense of an alternative reality, through which we think we can experience our true nature, and we reject science and technology, logic and reason, as cold, heartless and dangerous.

(Alternative medicine, and associated values and ideas, are often profoundly valuable of course, but it is the resort to them without any form of reason or understanding, but simply because they are alternative, that I am discussing here).

Our intrinsic fear of our true natures, which has been deliberately created by controlling elites, leads us to fear the very thing that can save us - direct, honest, rational experience.

What I am arguing is that, at its very root, direct experience is divine. There is nothing more real or perfect than this - the experience of our own nature. You don't need God, or a bible, to experience this. Indeed, you are free to experience this at will. Yet I wager you do not experience this at will, but rather, your more common daily experience is one of fear and confusion, mixed (if you're lucky), with moments of joy and clarity, but often only through resort to drink or drugs.
(If you disagree with this, and if you feel joy as your primary state, then I truly congratulate you on achieving liberation).

We need to see that rationalism and reason, rather than being some kind of enemy, are indeed our greatest friends. If we can unhook ourselves from the unhealthy addiction to drama and superstitious belief that perpetuates mental strife and discord in ourselves and in society, then we can liberate ourselves from a mental slavery that has blighted us for millennia.

We live on the cusp; as once mighty nations teeter on the brink of economic collapse, which way will the dice fall? We will revert to fear-based superstition and control and all that entails (fascism, for example), or will we embrace our deepest natures, which are the very things we intrinsically feel and know we lost, so long ago, and liberate ourselves from this long nightmare?

Over to you..

Peace out dudes.