I'm Right - And You're Wrong!

12:14 PM

During my walk with Kate the Dog this morning, I heard a couple having a heated argument. They were in the RSPB bird hide beside the path that leads around the lagoon, but they were loud enough and angry enough for me to catch some of their words as I plodded by. The woman kept saying to the man: 'You're wrong. You're wrong - and you know you're wrong. Why can you never admit that?'

It set me thinking about the times I've known I was wrong about something, but I've refused to acknowledge the fact. Of course, these situations usually crop up within emotionally-charged relationships, and the ones I can most clearly call to mind all come from my closest relationship - the one I have with my wife.

When you're in the middle of an emotion-based argument and your brain tells you: shit, she has a pretty good point there... - what is it that clenches its little fists, puffs up its chest, and goes into attack mode? What is it that refuses to back down, refuses to say: Yes, you're right. I'm sorry... ?

Why do we find it so hard to do that?

It seems to me we all have a self-created (well, partly self-created, partly created by the World and everything we've experienced in it) little boy or little girl sitting in the centre of our brain - and also in our guts - that will do almost anything to avoid admitting fault. To avoid being wrong. To avoid having to change.

One of the reasons I'm writing this blog is because I actually want to change: I know that an awful lot of change is required. And tapping out these words helps me find pathways into the messed-up complexity of my own Little Boy.

I shall track down all the places where he's got it wrong, and I shall show him what he needs to be shown.

I have a feeling he might put up a bit of a fight - but I'm bigger than him.

So he'd better start assembling his defences.

01:56 PM

I'm delighted to say my Thought Monkey Pic seems to be doing its job. Whenever that constant stream of internal chatter starts up - whether it's a remembered conversation, a snippet of a TV jingle, or worries about the lump I've found in my left testicle (nothing huge, but I've made an appointment with the doc) - I just mentally call up my Thought Monkey Pic and say Hush, Monkey a few times. Crazy, but it works.

Early Start

05:21 AM

Up early this morning because I have to get some press releases written and emailed before the fine people from Powergen cut our electricity supply. Essential work, they tell me. I think they just like playing Tarzan on the telegraph poles.

Strange that we still call them telegraph poles. I've never sent anyone a telegraph - not once in my entire life. And I don't intend to start now.

We'll have to rename them Internet Poles.

12:10 PM

We have power again, and the postman brought me a very welcome cheque. Reasons to be cheerful, one and two.

12:31 PM

Reason to be cheerful number three.

Birth Under The Microscope

01:54 PM

Two years ago I got hold of a decent stereoscopic microscope. Ex lab stock that cost a couple of hundred pounds. No good for looking at blood cells or wriggling sperm, but fantastic for examining mini beasts, insect eyes, the details of tiny flowers etc.

Rose and I walked Kate the Dog together this morning, and Rose found a thin stem of plant that had some purple stuff on it. Looked like a kind of mould. Brought it home for a (much) closer look.

Glad we did, because under the microscope the fabulous reality was revealed. What looked like purple mould was in fact hundreds of tiny eggs, and the microscopic caterpillars coiled inside them were busy hatching.

Fantastic.

I've just witnessed an explosion of caterpillar birth, including the pauses as they rested for a while from the effort of chewing through the egg.

Life, eh? Good, innit?

God, I love YouTube!

Living in the Present with Dennis Potter

12:01 AM

About six months ago, I began to meditate on a (fairly) regular basis. Nothing too heavy. Just a couple of 20 minute sessions per day. After a while, I noticed some changes in myself. A marked reduction in my pulse-rate, a quietness, a welcome sense of calm.

I like calm.

I briefly considered the idea of going on a Zen retreat. Lots to learn, I thought. Might be good to spend some time with people on the same path, see how they approached the learning. So in preparation I joined a Buddhist website.

I found a bunch of people busy ripping lumps out of each other because some believed in reincarnation, some did not; some ate meat, some did not; some wore their underpants backwards, some did not...

I thought I'd do my own thing for a while.

So that's what I did. I read a book or two, did a bit of thinking, meditated. In particular, I tried to stop regretting the past and worrying about the future.

I tried to live in the present moment.

It's not easy, but I seem to be getting better at it.

Here's Dennis Potter's final interview, recorded in 1994 just a few weeks before he died. Through the wonders of the Internet I found the bit that, even then, made a huge impression on me.

Dennis Potter's Final Interview

The only thing you know for sure is the present tense...

The nowness of everything is absolutely wondrous...

If you see the present tense - boy do you see it...

It's sad that even someone as exceptional as Dennis Potter had to wait until weeks before his death before he had that insight. As far as I can tell, most people never see it.

I'm an atheist. I don't believe in any kind of traditional God, or in the reality of supernatural events.

But I do believe that living in the present moment is a key. A key that unlocks doors that most people never even know are there. Doors that lead to places where there is less suffering, less discontent and bottles of Guinness hanging from the trees.

Monkey Mind

01:55 PM

Mind monkey or Monkey mind, from Chinese xinyuan and Sino-Japanese shin'en 心猿 [lit. "heart-/mind-monkey"], is a Buddhist term meaning "unsettled; restless; capricious; whimsical; fanciful; inconstant; confused; indecisive; uncontrollable".

(Thanks, Wikipedia.)

Been looking for an image to illustrate the monkey mind I wrote about earlier. Or rather an image I can call up when I want to calm my own monkey mind. Think I've found it!

05:18 PM

Done lots of garden stuff this afternoon, and used the time to think about thoughts. About thought itself.

The fact that we can think is utterly amazing. Our thoughts allow us to solve problems, create art, build computers, manipulate the world around us. Thinking is generally thought to be a Good Thing.

And yes, generally speaking thinking is a Good Thing.

But there's another side to the coin of thought. A darker side.

Thinking has run out of control. Most people are unable to turn off that constant stream of thought - unable to Not Think. And there are dangers in that situation. Here there be dragons.

Lawns & Lurchers

02:28 PM

Just mowed the lawn. Well, one of the bloody lawns!

I know it's good for me. I know I should just settle into it, get into the rhythm, enjoy the process of making a small corner of the universe slightly more tidy. One finger raised in the face of entropy. But something deep inside me wants to jump up and down and scream its little head off:'You're wasting your time, Ravenscroft! Grass grows! Next week, you'll have to do it all over again - so just smash the Flymo and go to the pub instead!'

06:12 PM

How to hide behind a dog. Pic of me and Kate, taken during yesterday's walk around Snipe Dales.

Zen and the Art of Drinking Coffee

09:00 AM

Just spent five minutes drinking coffee. Did my very best during that five minutes to do nothing but drink coffee, and experience all the coffee-related input delivered by my senses: the complex aroma of the stuff, the warmth and the taste in my mouth, what it feels like as the coffee goes down the tubes, the heat of the cup, the sound of one lip slurping... all that Zen business.

It's not easy. In fact, it's really hard to shut down what the Buddhists call 'the monkey mind' - to stop that constant internal chatter.

Time for another cup so I can get some more practice.

11:03 AM

All that coffee got me thinking about Zen (which I guess is almost a contradiction in terms). A friend of mine sent me a link recently to a talk by Eckhart Tolle that I found interesting. If you have an hour and a half to spare (yes. it is that long) and you fancy watching and listening, the talk is here.

Try to ignore the slightly cheesy opening scene and Tolle's annoying (at first) ultra-slow delivery. If you stick with it, you might find it both informative and relaxing - which is a pretty rare combination.

Thanks for the link, Robyn.

07:20 PM

Pleasant day today. Rose and I went to Snipe Dales for a walk in the woods. Took Kate the Dog. At one point, the Red Arrows flew overhead, no doubt on their way to a display somewhere. Sun shone. Birds sang. The few people we met looked happy in the sunshine. Rose took pics.

Life can be pretty good sometimes.