Less

“Endeavor to be inclined always:

Not to the easiest, but to the most difficult;
Not to the most delightful, but to the most distasteful;
Not to the most gratifying, but to the less pleasant;
Not to what means rest for you, but to hard work;
Not to the consoling, but to the unconsoling;
Not to the most, but to the least;
Not to the highest and most precious, but to the lowest and most despised;
Not to wanting something, but to wanting nothing;

Do not go about looking for the best of temporal things, but for the worst, and, for Christ, desire to enter into complete nakedness, emptiness, and poverty in everything in the world.”
― John of the Cross

 

Another day in the legal trenches, but at least I managed to get out first thing. 

Pay attention

I walk every day.

And I've been at it my whole life.

At some stage, ye old body will give up the ghost, and I'll have to contend with a more sedantry life; but I hope it doesn't come too soon.

Of course, some people like to be more active and do lots of "exercise". For me, I find walking more than enough and, in any event, it enables me to slow down my (sometimes) active mind and pay attention. I do, though, like to listen to an audiobook and I've got one on the go that I'm relistening to at the moment by John Butler.

I don't see many other walkers around the village -- save a few dog walkers and old folk; I think that's a sign of the times and it's been like this for quite some time. Perhaps in the end, I'll be remembered more for my walking exploits and my photographs than I will for anything else.

Blessings.

Monday

I've lost count of the number of times I've had to get ready for work, put my game face on and pretend that I was doing something worthwhile. Today, is no different. I want it to end; I've wanted it to end for a very long time, and, yet, here I am still at the coalface. You could say I'm lucky; I don't feel that way. If anything, I think this is my fate: to be strapped to an interminable wheel until the end of my days. Like so many times before, though, I will get through the day; I will survive, ready to face into the headwinds of another working week. PS. I leave one of my part-time jobs on 19 February 2026 and, as things stand, I've nothing lined up to replace it. That feels right and necessary, despite knowing that money will be "tight". I also feel a relaxation, knowing I'll have some time to travel and do some of the things I've been putting off all these years. 

It's been a while

 

I don't know why I ignore Blogger. It was the first blogging platform I ever used, and I really should pay it more attention. Perhaps 2026 will be the year.

Anyhow, I'm still here. I'm still doing my lawyer thing -- only just -- and I'm still at odds with the world that I find myself having to navigate.

Onwards.

I'm still here

I've used the rubric a few times before but let's just say that I'm still kicking and screaming my way through life with one insoluble question:

How the hell did it get like this?

Kindness et al.

Now, more than ever, we need to find a way through this collapsing world.

Yes, there are lots of strategies, templates and exhortation we could employ but, truthfully, we know in our hearts that if only there was a little less hate and a lot more kindness the world would be a much better place - in so many ways.

Then again, the trope has been done to death and look where it's got us. Not very far.

Perhaps it is that we've an aversion to opening ourselves up in case we're taken advantage of or worse still. 

Perhaps it is that we don't feel it. It's more act than truth.

Perhaps there's no quid pro quo. (Does there or should there be?)

Truth is, I've no more an idea than you why the world is too often riven with a lust for hate when it should be in swoon to kindness. That doesn't (of course) stop me wondering.

And wonder I will alongside all those other issues that continue to haunt me.

Blessings,

Julian 

Where next?

At the moment, I'm deep into capitalism, having finished David Whyte's thought-provoking book, Ecocide: Kill The Company Before It Kills Us.

If I'm honest, I'm not sure what I'm going to discover that I don't already know. That said, I'm not suggesting I know very much about (inter alia) Natural Capital, Green Swans or neoliberalism, but you don't need to be Einstein to work out that capitalism has been one of, if not the main enabler for the Anthropocene. Oh, that, and our insatiable, wanton desire for more stuff. 

Yes, that's right. Absent us, there wouldn't exist the corporate vehicle, less still greedy capitalists (I say that, of course, only mildly tongue-in-cheek.)

As I've said so many times: we need the world; the world doesn't need us.

And where does all this fit with the latest UK-wide CV19 restrictions and the catastrophic situation we find ourselves living in and through? Again, I'm not sure. Perhaps it is that we were never meant to live so close to nature, or perhaps we're not as 'smart' as we thought we were, or perhaps this is simply a course correction to wake us up to the fact that a virus - yes, a virus - can wreak havoc on an unimaginable scale.

It's all so depressing, right?

I suppose.

And the obvious thing to do would be to postulate a series of nourishing answers. But I'm leary these days about being seduced down that path. Instead, I'm more disposed and inclined to ask a better question or at least to wonder. I know, all that navel-gazing is all well and good but it ain't going to fix the mess we're in. True. So very true. But then again, let's say we manoeuvre our way through this latest existential crises, what then? Something resembling what we had before? Possibly, but I'd like to think we'd take more than a little stock of what's really important but more particularly if we can continue living without consequence. Or to exist as if we can sort out whatever shit comes our way. 

I don't know. I really don't know but for me it's more a question of continuing to sit with and contemplate how in my little corner of the world, together with my family, we might imagine a more beautiful world and what we might do to change our purview to something more resonant with our cultural past. If that sounds a bit otherworldly then fine, but right now that's where my focus increasingly returns - the past. Or better still our indigenous ancestors. I don't mean to cross the aeons but the last few generations because if nothing else they knew how to live within their means (perhaps they were forced to), to care for their locus (they didn't seem intent on fowling their own nest/s) and to love the little they had. It wasn't all a bed of roses but it feels to me all these years on much more normal than infinite or at least unprecedented growth, or whatever it is that's fuelled our destruction of mother earth.

Anyhow, have a wonderful Sunday.

Take care,

Julian

Limits of all kind

“The more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt. The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers most.” ― Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain

Good morning from a quiet and very dark Devon.

The coffee is poured, there's quiet, almost sleep-inducing music on in the background, and I'm here again at my computer musing on life.

I've written before about limits, having been inspired by Stephen Jenkinson's work. Yes, the same person who has written so eloquently about death, elderhood and especially limits.

You know the kind:

• life
• death
• the earth
• relationships
• our abilities

in fact so much of what we take for granted or expect. 

But we don't covet limits. Quite the contrary. Instead ― and yes it's a generalisation too bloody far (as ever, Summerhayes) ― we're obsessed with the trope that says you can and MUST be all you can be. 

To me at least, it's all so sad. 

Of course, you might, and I'd expect you to profoundly disagree: what's wrong with living up to your potential? 

Indeed, what's wrong with what? 

Look around you. The answer's everywhere. Sh*t, I could even make the point, as insensitive as it is, that wanting it now, and wanting it all has brought us to this place. We sure as hell never wanted to limit the amount of air travel we indulged in nor the fact we wanted to expand the reach of our geographic territory. I mean, it's not that long ago, one or at two generations perhaps, that no one moved from their home town or not very far away. 

But of course, I'm being very opinionated and you'll rightly accuse me of my own brand of hollow, and slightly terse exhortation. In fact, you might even say (and I wouldn't blame you), it's none of my damn business how you order your life.  Then again, in case I need to restate it, I'm not really a solution type of guy. A better question! Now you're talking. In fact, if only we'd ask ourselves something more than "What's next?".

Don't forget (as if you've a choice) we're human. 

Or as Alan Watts said:

"The prevalent sensation of oneself as a separate ego enclosed in a bag of skin is a hallucination which accords neither with Western science nor with the experimental philosophy-religions of the East".

I wonder if we really see that apropos what we're not able to do? Instead, we seem to believe that we can do practically anything. But we can't. And we shouldn't believe that we're (almost) homo deus in stature. 

For me, one way I find of bringing myself out of the trance of being all I can be is to spend time in nature. It reminds me how small and insignificant I am. Also, that I too am dying and trying to be the same person I was 10, 20 or 30 years ago is more than a little delusional. When I'm really connected, it feels that there is no me strutting around with such self (small 's') importance: I am nature. 

In the end though, as I've said so many times, how you live your life is how you live your life. But all I can tell you is that as I age, I feel more at home in my skin by dint of not having the desire to constantly better myself or be something that I can't be by dint of my mental or physical persuasion. Does that mean I've given up? No, not at all. But it does mean that just occasionally I'm fully alive to the person I am ― all body, mind and spirit.

Anyhow, have a wonderful day.

Blessings,
Julian 

All systems go

Over the weekend, I spent time reading Ecocide: Kill The Corporation Before It Kills Us by David Whyte. 

I'll be honest, it made me feel sick to my stomach given: a) our unholy fascination with the corporate vehicle; and b) the damage it's wrought and continues to do so, unabated. 

Think about it. We talk about climate change, environmental degradation and sustainability but, save for regulation that might kill off the capitalist ideal - it's never going to happen on my watch - it's the company that's responsible for all the egregious harm to mother earth and her people. 

I've not yet finished the book but I do know from a video that I watched to launch the book that towards the end there is a manifesto of sorts, and I'll be interested to see what David Whyte says about systemic change or rather what comes next if we don't want to see the very ground of our divination wiped away in the next 100 years (it could be less; and if you want to know more, I highly recommend you read David Wallace-Wells' book, The Uninhabitable Earth).

I suppose the thing that troubles me most, though, particularly in the midst of a pandemic, is that despite the hollow exhortation about how companies and their systems could be made better, when you think about it, how likely is it, apart say from the behemoth oil companies who are well and truly in the dock, that any company is going to be brought to heel by anything more than, say, shareholders looking for something a little greener or perhaps direct action? In short, qua the need to grow, companies will continue to harm the planet, whilst the majority of us work inside and for them. 

I appreciate that this isn't a simple message to unpack or decipher but without trying to big up the book, I think there's a very clear message that needs airing; namely, if we don't invite those members, directors and leaders to reexamine what a more beautiful world looks like - and hopefully not some technical utopia shorn of nature or anything natural - then we really are screwed. 

Like so many of the issues that I seem to alight on in an attempt to make sense of my life and my life's work - or what remains of it - I've much to consider, not least how I can continue to be part of a corporate system that has no soul, less still a heart. 

Blessings,

Julian 

PS. This is a short introduction to the book that you may like to watch.