Visiting The World

‘I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.’¹

Visiting There

Facebook has many quizzes asking us to name (or count) the number of places we have visited: cities, countries, scenic wonders…

But, how many times have we stood in awe at the beauty and wonder right in front of us? How often do we wake with the dawn? Do we listen to the calls and responses of birds? How often have we watched a young child (or pup, or kitten, or cub) take their first tentative, stuttering steps? How many times have we gazed into the eyes of those we love and care for? How many times have we cried; tears of joy, tears of grief, tears of laughter, tears of love?

How many times, too, have we visited our inner selves? Have we visited enough times to know our soul? Have we visited enough times to understand our true place in the world?

The idea, and reality, of tourism, is a fairly recent one in human history. During the Age of Empires (Greek, Egyptian, Roman) some people travelled purely to satisfy their curiosity. Even then though, most travel was by traders or raiders (or variations thereof.) During the Middle Ages, tourism dropped away significantly. It was not until the Renaissance that tourism re-emerged.

That era also introduced colono-tourism to the global arena. We know well the devastating effects this had on indigenous cultures world-wide. From the rape and pillage of Africa and the carving up of that continent for European purposes, to the genocide that swept through the Americas, and the over-running of Pacific societies, including Australia and New Zealand.

Colono-tourism then, and the tourism of today, wreaks havoc on the peoples who have called various places their home. In the process, cultures have been decimated and languages destroyed.

This destruction has not been limited to people, culture, and language. The many other-than-human species upon this planet have faced loss of habitat (homelessness), depopulation, and for many – extinction.

Today, the notion of eco-tourism has been touted as a means by which we might visit the world in a sustainable manner. However, this may not be the case. A very recent (April 2022) paper recognises that the international travel component of eco-tourism to and from the destination has a greater environmental footprint than that of the footprint during the entire length of stay at the destination.² In other words, eco-tourism is not sustainable.

And all for what?

So that we (the rich, the privileged) can visit. “See the world,” we hear. “Travel broadens the mind” we are told.

Whilst that may be true for a minority of travellers, for the vast majority it is simply an opportunity to take a few “selfies,” and tick the box that says, “Been there, Done that.”

For others, travelling the world is even more damaging. It is an opportunity to export their ideologies of consumerism, exploitation, and superiority. Sadly, this is a truer picture of the modern traveller than is the idealistic one of the “broaden-the-mind” category.

(I must admit that I have been guilty of much of this myself.)

The line from Mary Oliver’s poem at the beginning of this blog reminds us that we don’t need to travel in order to visit the world. We can visit the place on Earth where we are born, live, and die, without really knowing that place, or knowing who we are, and what gifts we may bring to the world.

Abiding Here

Let us not be simply visitors or tourists. Let us be active, creative, and engaged participants. Let us have:

·       The desire to discover our true being,

·       The humility to know that we are but one part of an highly inter-connected world,

·       The curiosity needed to be open to the stories and mysteries of all of life (including other-than-human beings,)

·       The courage to walk into the depths of despair, sadness, and loss the world offers us,

·       The discernment to notice the effects of our actions (whether harmful or beneficial) and be able to modify those actions if need be,

·       The tenacity to keep learning about our unique soul, and our thoughts, feelings, and multi-faceted being,

·       The serenity to stop and listen to and observe, the beauty, the wonder, and the joy, of the fullness of life,

·       The audacity to confront our prejudices, bigotry, and insensitivity to the lived reality of others,

·       The grace to accept the vagaries and vicissitudes life throws us,

·       The willingness to laugh, to cry, to sing, to shout with abandon,

·       The sagacity to know the limits of our knowledge,

·       The temerity to look ourselves in the eye and ask, “Who are you really?”

·       The bravery to let go of our need for comfort and control,

·       The wisdom to let go and accept the impermanence of all things.

Maybe then we might be able to say to ourselves, “I did more than simply visit this world.”

Notes:

1. This is the final line of the poem When Death Comes by the American poet Mary Oliver (September 10, 1935 – January 17, 2019) who was inspired by nature for many of her poems.

2. Maria Serena Mancini et al., Ecological Footprint and Tourism: Development of sustainability monitoring of ecotourism packages in Mediterranean Protected Areas, in “Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism,” 23 April 2022.

What Seeds Are We Sowing?

There is an Indian proverb that states:

“Blessed is the person who plants trees under whose shade they shall never sit.”

It is a proverb that is highly relevant as we face environmental/social collapse.

The signs of collapse have been with us for some years, and grow more apparent each year. The Earth’s tipping points are imminent, and some of them possibly already tipped.

We are in a predicament. We no longer have problems to solve. Predicaments inherently do not have solutions. Predicaments must be navigated. There are no solutions to the wicked problems that have merged to become this predicament.

It is as though we are at the entrance to a deep, dark, forbidding, cave that we must enter. This cave passes through a mountain and there is an entrance on the other side. We have no idea what we will find in that cave. We have no idea what monsters or gremlins we will face. We have no idea what lies on the other side. We do not even know if there is to be another side for us.

There is no forestalling this journey. We must, and will, face the darkness. We will enter a time of collapse, of uncertainty, of chaos.

Will homo sapiens emerge from the other side of the mountain alive?

No-one knows.

We cannot determine what lies on the other side. No amount of visioning, nor of hoping for, will be of any use.

Certainly, no-one alive today is likely to emerge from beneath the mountain on the other side.

So, rather than fantasize, imagine, or visualise what the future will look like, we might ask ourselves a simple question.

What seeds are we planting today, knowing that we will never sit in the shade of the trees, nor eat of their fruit? What will we plant today that may bear fruit for whoever, or whatever, may emerge from the other side of this mountainous predicament?

Will the seeds we sow be healthy ones? Will they be of benefit in the future world? Will they provide shade in the future?

Over the past two (or more) years we have witnessed a lot of unhealthy seeds being sown. We have seen seeds of: polarisation, hatred, vitriol, dis-information, lies, deceit, distrust, violence, and irresponsibility all being planted.

If humans are to emerge from this collapse, then these are not the seeds of a healthy society on the other side.

Before it is too late, we must begin sowing seeds of: harmony, cooperation, love, beauty, trust, respect, care, and responsibility.

We must primarily sow seeds of sacredness; seeds that recognise our place within nature, rather than a place outside of nature.

If there is any answer to the question, “What do I/we do?” then this is it.

Sow healthy seeds.

Self-Awareness & Eco-Awareness

How self-aware are we? What does it mean to be self-aware?

Self-awareness seems to be one of the qualities those seeking a greater understanding of themselves wish to attain. (I must admit that last sentence could be read as a tautology.)

When speaking of self-awareness many guides and teachers point to two aspects of self-awareness: an inner self-awareness, and an external self-awareness.

An inner self-awareness is characterised by seeking to become aware of, and respondent to, our personal values, passions, thoughts, feelings, and reactions. Our inner self-awareness also leads us to ask ourselves where these values, thoughts, feelings etc come from. How did we attain them? Or, how did they arise in us?

An inner self-awareness allows us, additionally, to interrogate, or critically assess, our values, thoughts, passions etc. This awareness may lead us to changing, updating, and in some cases, completely overthrowing the values we once had.

External self-awareness seeks to discover how others see us, and what affect we have on others, because of our values, beliefs, passions etc. External self-awareness asks questions such as: how does this behaviour of mine affect those around me? do my beliefs help or hinder me in my relationship with others?

Of course, it is not easy to separate inner from external self-awareness. The two are entwined and sustain (or subvert) the other. An awareness of my affect on others helps me to better examine my inner self-awareness. A greater degree of inner self-awareness helps me to better appreciate how my behaviours and values may affect others.

Integral Self-Awareness (aka Eco-awareness)

There is, however, a third kind of self-awareness. We might call it integral self-awareness. Integral literally means not touched. It means wholeness, an undivided (un-touched) unity. It is the sort of self-awareness that asks questions such as: where (and what) is my place in this wholeness? how do I fit into the grand jigsaw of life, of which I am but one piece?

Integral self-awareness suggests a much larger conception of self than is commonly considered. It is the sort of self that Thich Nhat Hanh associates with inter-being. Hanh (a Vietnamese Buddhist monk) coined the term inter-being and explained it as “the many in the one, and the one in the many.” In terms of the self, he further clarified the term as, “I am, therefore you are. You are, therefore I am.”

Such self-awareness is a far more expansive understanding of self than that recognised in the inner and external aspects of self-awareness.

Indeed, it goes further. Integral self-awareness includes other-than-human species, flora and fauna. John Seed (the Australian Deep Ecologist and rainforest activist) puts it this way:

“I am that part of the rainforest recently emerged into thinking.”¹

Integral self-awareness then, will lead us to ask questions such as: how does this behaviour of mine contribute to a healthy or unhealthy environment? how will what I do today impact the environment and those to come seven generations from today?

Integral self-awareness challenges us to step out of our anthropocentric and ego-centric view of ourselves and the world, and into a holistic eco-awareness.

Integral self-awareness asks a lot of us. Integral self-awareness is not easy, and many times we will make mistakes, take the wrong path, and get it wrong.

When we do so, we can use those mistakes and wrong paths to enhance all three aspects of self-awareness.

Note:

1. John Seed, Beyond Anthropocentricism, in Seed, Macy, Fleming, Naess, Thinking Like A Mountain: Towards a Council of All Beings, New Society Publishers, Philadelphia, PA and Santa Cruz, CA, 1988.

Feeble Lies

George Herbert Meder 
(killed in action, Northern
France, 10 August 1917)

Today is ANZAC Day. The day commemorates the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps members who served in wars, conflicts, and peacekeeping missions. April 25^th is chosen because this was the date (in 1915) on which ANZAC forces landed on the beaches of Gallipoli in an attempt to open up access to the Black Sea. It was their first significant campaign of WW1.

Below I am posting a poem I wrote a few years ago, entitled For The Forlorn. Before doing so there are a few comments necessary. Some may read this as not showing respect or honour towards those who served. One of the most common phrases heard on ANZAC Day is, “We will remember them.” My great-uncle (George Herbert Meder) was killed by a sniper in Northern France – one of 62 members of the NZ Tunnelling Company to lose their lives in WW1. He was 29 years old, slightly older than the average age at which a soldier was killed in WW1 – 27 years. The most common age for a WW1 soldier to be killed was just 19 years. Nineteen years! – their lives were only just beginning. I am remembering my great-uncle and all those other young men and women who were killed – senselessly.

I am not the only one to speak of senselessness. Many of those who took part did so also. In fact, the very last veteran of WW1 to die (in 2009) said of the war that it was “nothing better than legalized mass murder.”¹ You can’t get more senseless than that.

Remembering is like a coin that when it is taken out of a purse or wallet only one side is looked at – the side that reads “We will remember them.”

We need to turn the coin over and read what is on the obverse. We will Learn from this.

But, we have so little looked at, let alone read that side.

The title of this blogpiece (Feeble Lies) is a reference to the second line of the poem For The Forlorn. The word feeble means to be lacking in physical, moral, and/or intellectual strength or vigour. I use it to mean that the lies we are told about war are feeble – they lack moral and intellectual vigour. If we are to learn anything from WW1 (remember, it was supposed to be the war to end all wars) then let us learn the lies to begin with.

What are some of these lies? We are fortunate to have the words of some of the participants in WW1, who wrote poems, letters, and even novels about their experiences and their thoughts. I’ll pick out just a few.

Lie #1. Wilfred Owen served in WW1 and was killed in action just one week before the signing of the Armistice to end the conflict. He wrote many poems. His gripping poem Anthem for Doomed Youth asks, in its first line, “What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?” Doomed youth – cattle! That is how he, and others, came to think of themselves.

Lie #2. Owen’s friend, Siegfried Sassoon, met Owen at Craiglockhart Hospital, Scotland, where they both spent time recovering from shell-shock. Sassoon was awarded the Military Cross in 1916 (and later tossed the ribbon into the River Mersey). In 1917 he sent a letter to his Commanding Officer (which was subsequently read in Parliament) in which Sassoon claimed that the war was being “deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it.”

Lie #3. The Welsh Christian pacifist Hedd Wyn did not enlist, but was conscripted to fight in WW1 and was killed at the beginning of the Third Battle of Ypres in 1917. One of his most famous poems is simply titled Rhyfel (War). The third stanza of that poem cries out: “Drowned by the anguish of the young/ Whose blood is mingled with the rain.” It is the young that are sent to war. It is the young who die.

The words don’t all come from just the Allied side either. The Germans too, had eloquent poets and novelists who voiced some of the feeble lies.

Lie #4. Perhaps best known is Erich Maria Remarque, who wrote All Quiet on the Western Front.² That novel includes many poignant quotes, one of which is:

“Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils just like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony – Forgive me comrade; how could you be my enemy?”

How indeed? The positing of the other as enemy is a lie.

Lie #5. Gerrit Engelke, like Wilfred Owen, was killed just days before the signing of the Armistice. Awarded the Iron Cross for bravery, one of his poems is dedicated To the Soldiers of the Great War.  He asks:

“Do you love a woman? So do I.

And have you a mother? A mother bore me.

What about your child? I too love children.

And the houses reek of cursing, praying, weeping.”

It is a lie to label the other side as evil, and “our” side as good.

So, yes, I am remembering. I wish to also remember the 286 young men imprisoned in New Zealand during WW1 because they objected to military service. I remember also that 28 New Zealand servicemen were sentenced to death for desertion (often suffering from shell-shock) during WW1. Five of them were shot, the others imprisoned or sent back to the front lines. In 2000 those five were offered a posthumous pardon by an Act of Parliament.

I also want us to learn.

Now, finally, for the poem – For The Forlorn

They went with songs to the battle, always the young

Straight from school, led to death by feeble lie

They were scared and frightened, names accounted

They fell with their faces condemned from high

 

They mingle now in mud and blood soaked trenches

They sit alongside fields in No Mans Lands

Many with uncle or cousin over there, locked in fear

Both sides ordered by older and unwise hands

 

They are never the young, those that plot grow old

Aged men decree and the young they do condemn

At the dropping of the bomb and whistling of the shell

We ought forgive them

Best we desist.

Notes:

1. Harry Patch, the last veteran of WW1 to die, in 2009, died at the age of 111 years, 1 month, 1 week, and 1 day.

2. Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet On The Western Front, originally published 9 December 1928. It sold 2.5 million copies, in 22 languages, in just the first 18 months after publication.

The Problem With Problems

There’s a problem with problems. The more we try to solve them or fix them, the more problems we create.

We seem to be fixated on fixing things. We have become so fixated with doing so, that sometimes we fix what “ain’t broke.”

I’ll use an example to illustrate this problem.

In 1973 Martin Cooper, who was working for Motorola, built the first cell phone. Ten years later the cell phone went commercial.

What problem was Cooper trying to fix? In an interview years later, he answered that by suggesting that the “old phones with wires” trapped people: “That’s not good,” he claimed. “We thought the time was ready for personal communication, because people are just naturally mobile,” he said.

Since then, cell phone ownership and usage has sky rocketed. This year it is expected that the number of people owning a mobile phone will reach 7.26 billion. In terms of the actual numbers of cell phones this only tells part of the story. Cell phones are replaced, on average, every three years. On billion new phones are shipped every year.

This “solution” however has spawned a number of problems. Here is a brief outline of some of those problems:

Cell phone addiction. This addiction even has a name – nomophobia (no mobile phone phobia), a word that did not exist prior to 2008. Nomophobia is the fear of being without one’s mobile phone. When we realise that mobile phone users receive more than four times as many messages and notifications today than a decade ago, and that three times as many texts are sent, it is easy to suggest that an addiction is in place.

Mobile phone addiction is implicated in: sleep deprivation and insomnia (because of the amount of night-time use, especially by teenagers,) lower concentration ability, creativity blockages, increased ADD, anxiety, reduced cognition, stress, loneliness, insecurity, impaired relationships, poor grades, and psychological disorders. There is also research showing a loss of brain grey matter, similar to substance use and addiction.

Reduced social interaction. Get on a commuter bus or train almost anywhere in the world and count the number of person-to-person social interactions there are. Most commuters will be glued to their mobile phone.

Depression and suicide. Both depression and suicide have been correlated with cell phone addiction.

Cyberbullying. Greater levels of cell phone use amongst teenagers correlate with a higher likelihood of being victims of, or perpetrators of, cyberbullying.

E-waste. In 2021 an estimated 57.4 million tonnes of e-waste was generated globally, with mobile phones making up a significant proportion of this. In the U.S. alone more than 150 million cell phones are discarded and end up in landfill. With the average cell phone being replaced every three years, this problem will only get worse.

Electricity Usage. The IT and communications sector currently consumes approximately 2% of the world’s total energy. Although each individual cell phone uses little electricity, when cell phone towers, networks that connect them, and data processing centres etc are factored in, the carbon footprint of cell phones is not insignificant.

Environmental consequences. A Smartphone is made of about 40% metal (mainly copper, gold, platinum, silver, and tungsten,) 40% plastic, and 20% ceramics and trace elements. Around 80% of the carbon footprint of a cell phone is generated in the mining and manufacturing stages. Plus, gold mining in the Amazon, for instance, is responsible for deforestation and the extraction process generates mercury and cyanide waste contaminating water and drinking sources. Coltan (columbite-tantalites, and important in the production of capacitors in cell phones) is mined in the Congo where it is traded by armed groups to finance civil war.

Dumbing down. I witness this often. A group of people talking, and a question is raised. Immediately someone will turn to their cell phone for the answer. Often it is the first link that is read out. We are being dumbed down by technology. Apparently, even the presence of your cell phone nearby can reduce your cognitive capacity.¹ Furthermore, as Prof Mark Williams (a neuroscientist at Macquarie University) notes, “Information learnt on a digital device does not get retained very well and is not transferred to the real world.”

Problem Solving

So, what have all these problems left us with?

Parents, counsellors, and teachers all trying to solve the problem of teenage nomophobia, depression and thoughts of suicide.

Parents, teachers, and police trying to solve the problem of cyberbullying.

Counsellors, psychologists, and sociologists trying to solve the problem of social isolation.

Cities and municipalities trying to solve the problem of e-waste.

Environmentalists and governments trying to solve the problem of environmental destruction and increased electricity usage.

Everyone trying to solve the problem of carbon footprint.

Teachers and other educationalists trying to solve the problem of a population becoming cognitively deficient.

Just One Example

This is but one example of the problem with problems. Trying to fix them only leads to more, often worse, problems. Many times too, the original “problem” was not a problem at all. The “problem” is often nothing more than what Vanessa Machado de Oliveira cites as two of the six Cs of “ego-logical desires” of modernity – comfort and convenience.² Surely, that is the case with cell phones. They were invented for our comfort and convenience, not because of any real problem.

Yet, this has happened time and time again. We “fix” something simply because it satisfies our ego’s desire for one or more of the six ego-logical desires.

We continue to do so. We want to fix problems. Yet, today, we are in a predicament. We cannot “fix” things.

Possibly the best we can do is to stop our fixation with fixing. Most likely we need to seriously consider our egotistical desire for the six Cs.

That is the problem we need to fix. Our own egos.

Notes:

1. Ward, Duke, Greezy, Bos, Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, Vol 2, No. 2, April 2017, pp 140-154

2. The other Cs are: consumption, certainty, control, and coherence. See Vanessa Machado de Oliveira, Hospicing Modernity, North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, California, 2021.

How Many Times Have You Been Reincarnated?

How many times have you been reincarnated?

Only once some would say: we are born, we die – that’s it.

Others suggest that we experience past lives and so we have been reincarnated a number of times.

Still others propose that we live in a never-ending cycle of birth-rebirth-birth-rebirth…

All these answers have one thing in common. They assume a life that can be thought of, and conceived as – me, I, myself. A single human being; entire, complete, and - apart from the aging process - unchanging.

Yet, when we consider the make-up of our body, we are not unchanging, nor are we complete.

Our body is comprised of somewhere between 50 – 75 trillion cells.

These cells do not have a lifetime consistent with the lifetime of the being we think of as me. Skin cells, for example, are replaced every two to three weeks. Red blood cells last about four months. The cells lining our stomach are lucky to reach two days. They all get replaced however.

Not so brain cells. They do last our lifetime. At least those that last that long do so. Brain cells do die, but are not replaced.

All these cells are made of proteins, and those proteins in turn are the product of atoms.

We all know, roughly, what atoms are. The building blocks of everything is one way to conceive of them. The Periodic Table lists 118 elements, of which atoms are the basic ingredient.

Back to the Question

Back to our question: how many times have you been reincarnated?

If we consider all the elements and atoms that make up our body, then we could easily claim to have been reincarnated many many times over.

Just four elements - Oxygen, Carbon, Hydrogen, and Nitrogen – constitute around 96% of our body weight. The atoms of these elements have been around for billions of years.

The atoms of oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen that make up our present-day body have been part of the Earth’s ecosystem for millennia. Perhaps millions of years ago, the atoms on the tip of your tongue may have been in a plant that was then eaten by a passing Stegosaurus. Maybe millions of years before that, the atoms lining your stomach lined the bottom of an ancient seabed.

Consider your breath. Perhaps some of the nitrogen or oxygen that you breath in right now once passed through the nostrils of Cleopatra or Genghis Khan.

We are being recycled, rejuvenated, revivified, and reincarnated continuously. We are part of an eternal cycle that includes animal, vegetable, and mineral.

We are part of everything. Everything is part of us. I am one with all. All is one with me.

It is a humbling thought, isn’t it?

Getting Comfortable With Discomfort

The pandemic did it, didn’t it? Left us in a state of discomfort. Whether we agreed with the restrictions or did not, many of us felt a degree of discomfort.

We are going to feel discomfort moreso.

We may as well get comfortable with the feeling of discomfort.

The consequences of our (largely westernised) profligate lifestyles over the past few millennia (intensified since the Industrial Revolution) have started to become manifest.

We may not all be aware of the consequences, but they are present. More and more, these uncomfortable realisations are reaching a wider consciousness.

It’s like a ripple. An uncomfortable feeling may start out at some point in our cultural pond; but, because we are not near the source, we do not feel it. However, ripples have a habit of spreading, and eventually we will notice the ripples of discomfort no matter where we are in the pond.

Noticing the ripple, and feeling its effect upon us, is just the first step. Buddhism calls this the First Noble Truth.

The First Noble Truth (of four) is often translated as suffering in the English language. The Pali word dukkha has a larger meaning and includes such notions as uncomfortableness, unsatisfactoriness, unease, stress, or – discomfort.

If we are going to navigate through the social/environmental collapse that is upon is, then noticing the discomfort is the first thing we must get comfortable with.

It is worth looking more closely at the First Noble Truth. You could be forgiven to think that the word noble here refers to the truth. However, that too, is a poor understanding of the original Pali phrase.

In Pali the word ariya, translated as noble, refers not to the truths themselves, but to the knower of the truths. Noble has an etymological root in the word gno – meaning to know.

Thus, the original meaning of the First Noble Truth could be said to be: a person who understands, and has stepped into knowledge of, the truth of discomfort.

When we step into that knowledge, we begin to become comfortable in our discomfort. It is a start – there are three more Noble Truths to navigate.

So, let us not look out on the world with worry, despair, anxiety, depression, or anger. Let us face our discomfort. Let us explore it. What does it mean to be uncomfortable? What does discomfort truly feel like.

Only then will our discomfort become a noble truth.