A quiet watercourse

Another move

2007-05-31T11:26:00.000+01:00

It's been a while since I posted on here, though I see it still gets a few hits.

My last post was to let you know that I'd moved to Wordpress.com. Well, I decided to have a go at running things by myself, and seeing how I got on.

You can now find me at http://quietwatercourse.co.uk.

Watercourse: Reloaded

2006-12-21T16:03:00.000Z

I've decided to take the plunge and make a change. No, no, not a sex change, this isn't a Culture novel!

I've moved my blog to Wordpress. I think it offers me more flexibility than Blogger.com, Blogger has served me well, but it's time for a change.

You can find me here.

Making it real

2006-12-20T17:15:00.000Z

I was thinking the other day about our habit of making things real that don't exist. I think the technical name is Reification.

Amazing thing when you think about it, let me try to do something here, I'm going to try to argue that Britain does not in fact exist. Though this could go for any nation.

What is Britain? A patch of land, air and water? Some buildings and cities? I don't think so. After all what is it about those things that makes them British? Put some under a microscope, analyse it, and you won't find any molecules of Britishness there at all.

In my view, Britain is a set of ideas and concepts, yes there are passports, driving licenses, all sorts of things, but subject them to the analysis above, you'll not find any Britishness. Without the idea, the concept of Britishness, they're just so much paper and ink. Our minds are responsible for making it real.

We do this with our problems as well, I've caught myself doing it a lot recently, treating problems as a physical thing. I went to a Buddhist meditation session at a local Buddhist centre last weekend, the focus there was on just how much of what you think is important isn't, it's all in your mind and it's just temporary.

I was amazed at how freer I felt when that finally sank in.

Going through changes.

2006-12-11T16:26:00.000Z

Well, it's been a while since I posted. A lot has happened, those of you who've cast an eye over my updated profile will have guessed that my long term relationship is over and I'm trying to find my way on my own again. It's a difficult time and I'm just taking things one day at a time.

Its been a huge change in my life and the ramifications of this are still being played out. I can't help but feel that these things happen for a reason, and I'm focussing on what I've learned from the last three and a half years and just getting into being back in the Black Country.

I've been looking at things and I've realised that as things gradually settle, I have a chance to completely revisit my core beliefs/interests and explore new avenues of interest. The whole thing is tinged by sadness that I have nobody to share it with.

Single willed

2006-11-24T15:59:00.000Z

I've been reflecting that a divided will halves your power. I've been trying it at work, if I do somethign else while waiting for calls, then I find that I can easily be off balance when they arrive. Whereas if I try not to surf or do anything not strictly work related, I find that I react much better. Even if it is work related, I find that it's better to set time aside to concentrate on it fully.

This is another reason I dislike multitasking, I always thin of it as the ability to do two things half as well.

Star Wars Character Quiz

2006-11-09T14:29:00.000Z

What the hell, it's Friday....

Your results:
You are Qui-Gon Jinn

Qui-Gon Jinn		67%
Chewbacca		64%
Obi-Wan Kenobi		63%
R2-D2		60%
Yoda		60%
Lando Calrissian		55%
Luke Skywalker		54%
An Ewok		54%
C-3PO		52%
Boba Fett		52%

Overall, you're a pretty well balanced person.
But maybe you focus a little too
much on the here and now.
Think about the future before its too late.

(This list displays the top 10 results out of a possible 21 characters)

Click here to take the Star Wars Personality Test

Experts

2006-11-09T12:40:00.000Z

I've been coming to the conclusion just recently that there's really no such thing as an expert.

Think about it, the only thing that is constant is change, so that must mean that whatever knowledge anyone has is always going out of date. In Taijiquan, all the people I've seen are constantly learning and developing their skills, surely the definition of expert is someone who knows everything about their field? In my chosen field of IT, change is quite rapid and constant, it can be a constant game of catch up.

I've said before that in my opinion, if you can get a very solid mastery of the basics in any field you're sorted, and you can easily build on that in the moment. One of the things I've learned from Tai Chi practice is that it's pointless to try and remember lists of moves.

Get the basics right, build on them, react from them. I don't think you can go too far wrong.

Faith and society

2006-11-07T21:21:00.000Z

The question that seems to be bubbling under the surface of things right now is the role of faith in society.

Now, in general they mean religious faith, but it's a question that can be aimed at spirituality as well. The separation of Church and State is a must for modern Britain, we're a multifaith society and one faith mustn't have the ear of the government to the exclusion of all others. Also, decisions made by the Government should not be influenced by religious doctrine.

The role of Atheism is an interesting one, as some of the Atheists I see these days resemble evangelical fundamentalists, I see also an element of kicking apart a dolls house there. Fair enough, if they try to get creationism into schools and pass religious doctrine off as scientific fact, but the counter attack can go too far.

Trying to eliminate Religion from society, is certain to fail, the Chinese tried state enforced atheism and it really didn't work. Spirituality is a different beast, for me it's about working with reality, and trying to understand that all our different views are just roads up the same mountain, thinking less about the rules and more about the people.

We also need to remember, science can be a source of spirituality as well, it certainly has been for me

Knowing it all.

2006-11-03T13:16:00.000Z

I was thinking about knowing the other day.

Here in the west it's sometimes practically a crime not to know it all, in my job I'm expected to be a fount of all knowledge, though truthfully a lot of it comes from a database. I was looking at science, but also at the antagonism between science and religion after reading Richard Dawkins recent article in the times.

I have to say I find the Taoist method more comforting, simply truthfully admitting that we don't know and might never know can be a very liberating experience. Of course, the Taoist view as I see it is that the important question is, do we really need to know, from a practical viewpoint does it really add anything to be like a bull at a gate after knowledge for the sake of knowing it all?

I give much Kudos to the Buddha for simply remaining silent on many issues, he knew better than to appear all knowing. Too many religions are in the business of trying to provide all the answers, which is dishonest in my view.

It's OK not to know.

Multifaith Schools

2006-10-27T12:48:00.000+01:00

I see that a source close to the Education Secretary has said that schools will be asked to ensure that they teach about different faiths in class and that faith schools will be expected to take pupils who are not of their faith or are secular.

Further to this, teachers will be encouraged to break down barriers between faiths and schools should try to help improve interfaith relations in the community.

According to the Times, this move was quickly opposed by Catholic, Jewish and Muslim groups and the government backed down. Now, that really is pandering to special interests, after all, regular schools take faith pupils, why not the other way round? Unless, you're frightened of something? Letting the wolf into the door, maybe.....

The Times newspaper suggested that these groups saw this as the beginning of secularisation, well, the horse is long gone from that stable. Britian has a large secular segment to it's population, and the long term trend is for it to increase. In my view, the best course of action by far, is for everyone across creeds and faiths to engage openly and equally. I can't see how we'll solve our current cultural challenges by building walls when we should be building bridges..

Update: Looks like it's turning into a bit of a row, BBC News Coverage here.

Sprituality and Secular Society

2006-10-27T12:27:00.000+01:00

I've trying to put something into words for a little while about the place of spirituality in a Secular society. I have felt for a while that we need to develop spiritually more than religiously, and that simple spirituality can offer us better guidance than formal straight jacketed religions. I remembered this quote from the Dalai Lama, which to be honest, pretty much says everything I wanted to say:

"…I believe there is an important distinction to be made between religion and spirituality. Religion I take to be concerned with faith in the claims to salvation of one faith tradition or another, an aspect of which is acceptance of some form of metaphysical or supernatural reality, including perhaps an idea of heaven or nirvana. Connected with this are religious teachings or dogma, rituals, prayer and so on. Spirituality I take to be concerned with those qualities of the human spirit - such as love and compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, a sense of responsibility, a sense of harmony - which bring happiness to both self and others. While ritual and prayer, along with the questions of nirvana and salvation, are directly connected with religious faith, these inner qualities need not be, however. There is thus no reason why the individual should not develop them, even to a high degree, without recourse to any religious or metaphysical belief system. This is why I sometimes say that religion is something we can perhaps do without. What we cannot do without are these basic spiritual qualities."

Can slower be faster?

2006-10-26T16:03:00.000+01:00

During my day I handle a lot of problems, the pressure is to get things done as quickly as possible. When things aren't done quite right by the analysts, the calls are passed back to the service desks and we have to revisit our old work.

Taking a slightly slower approach usually means having to redo less work and more time to think means providing higher quality information, which helps things flow better and means individual problems actually get handled faster. Outside of work, I find it a slower approach gives better quality of life as I can take time to appreciate the world a bit better. Of course, some folk thrive on going at breakneck speed, fair play to them. But for a long time my feeling has been that we're turning into a society of rushers, with no time to stop any appreciate what we've got.

The sign on my Fiancee's wall says "Of course I don't look busy, I did it right the first time!", I have to say I prefer "The more haste, the less speed".

Ecological footprint

2006-10-24T15:05:00.000+01:00

I found an interesting site that allows you to measure your ecological footprint against the average one for your country, it also give suggestions on what you can do about it.

Check out ecofoot.org.

Humanity and the Environment

2006-10-24T14:02:00.000+01:00

I was reading about our impact on the environment in todays times, it seems that humanity is exceeding the Earth's ability to support us by 25%!

Each of us in the UK uses 2.2 hectares of resources to live, but the Earth can only renew 1.8 hectares. The article said there's a strong possiblity of a large scale collapse of the eco system by the middle of this century.

Once again the point was made that the UK is quite a bad offender, though there are worse out there. This just makes the point about humanity's need to get into tune with our environment. Benjamin Hoff said in the Te of Piglet that the environment would eventually turn on us, I'm reminded of the Taoist principle that when something reaches an extreme it become it's opposite. Unfortunately, unles we get proactive very quickly, it'll take an extreme event to make us change.

I can't help feeling the the emphasis is on the average Joe/Jane to make the running on this one, in this case, the big corporations and government need to be driven by public demand. What's needed is for the public to lead the way, it really is in our hands.

More on BBC News Online here.

Religions & Freedom of Speech

2006-10-23T21:52:00.000+01:00

Well, there was a program on Channel 4 tonight about Islam and freedom of speech. The question posed is "Do muslims threaten freedom of speech?". The Channel 4 Dispatches forum made interesting reading afterwards.

Now that's a bit of an inaccurate question, as there are most cetainly Muslims who hold moderate views and are not opposed to freedom of speech. With that said, there are no doubt members of every group, be it religious or political who wish that their critics would just shut up.

As I 've said before, I think that religion is too important a matter to go uncriticised. I feel that conventional book based religions are, unfortunately, much too rigid to do much to fix the points raised.

For better, or worse, we live in interesting times.

Saving Energy

2006-10-23T16:19:00.000+01:00

I was looking at both the Times and the BBC today, it seems that the UK is the worst country for energy waste in Europe.

Now I looked through a few of the things they mention, and noted with dismay that our household is guilty of doing one or two of them, mostly leaving chargers plugged in and leaving lights on and devices in standby. I can see I'm going to have to make some effort in this area, it makes me wonder how often do we use energy wasting devices when there could be a manual alternative?

For example, rather than use the PC to keep my notes and personal diary, I use paper and pen. I also find this much more satisfying, which is strange given my technophile status. Where possible, I walk instead of firing up the car, again, it feels better and gets me some exercise.

I think we could do with applying a little Wu Wei to our use of resources, try to do as much with less. When you consider the enviromental impact of a PDA vs a notebook & paper diary, you start to wonder. It's an interesting question, how many of our mod cons & gadgets could we honestly do without before it really affected us?

Personal Development

2006-10-21T17:31:00.000+01:00

I was thinking about personal development today, and it seems to me that there is a tendency to categorise personal development.

We tend to think along the lines of our roles in life, rather than looking at what underlies those roles. You have an appraisal, for example, and things are raised in the context of your job. But, surely the way you do your job is an expression of the person you are?

It seems to me that it would be better to take the approach of trying to develop (note that I don't say improve) the person you are as a whole, in the realisation that the improvements will show through in all aspects of your life, rather than just button hole your personal development into just one area of your life.

Karma and Control

2006-10-14T16:55:00.000+01:00

I've been thinking about control recently. I've been looking at my finances and when you take the time to do that and then sit and think you realise that we actually hand over a great deal of control over ourselves and our futures to other people.

Consider a gym membership, typically a contract. You sign up to a 1 year contract for say, £35 per month, for example. This takes a degree of your freedom and cash for the next year, but what if your circumstances change? You now don't have as much control of your resources as you once did and may even wind up paying for something you don't use (which happened to me).

But what if, as I do, you consider Karma to simply be the long term consequences of your actions, not some mystic balance? Tying yourself into something that has long term consequences like that, is to be avoided. I know that in Taoism, we are encouraged to heed the principle of the Uncarved Block, this advises us to keep our options open and avoid lacking ourselves in a given role or worldview.

Thinking about it now, it seems that the uncarved block is a good way of not only keeping our minds open, but helping to minimise karmic consequences by avoiding us tying our own hands and reducing our options in the future.

Arnold, wisdom from bodybuilding

2006-10-10T15:56:00.000+01:00

I've been reading "Fantastic - The Life of Arnold Schwarzenegger" by Laurence Leamer. I have to say, it is a very good book! Like a lot of worthwhile things in my possession, I picked it up on a whim, and I've been pleasantly surprised by it.

The book makes the point that Arnold's wisdom was learned from bodybuilding, he has said himself "Everything I learned I learned in the weight room." I thought for a minute and then realised that that isn't as odd a statement as you might think at first glance. I'm not a bodybuilder, but I've done enough sessions in weight rooms and talked to enough bodybuilders to have an idea where he's coming from.

With bodybuilding, you have to have a clear idea of where you're going, what you want to achieve. You work very methodically and in small steps, you build big muscles but you do so one rep at a time, paying attention to small details. A lot of it is mental attitude. Arnold's success owes a lot to determination and a positive attitude, I think that's admirable. I look forward to seeing what he acheives in the future.

Exercising in the real world

2006-10-05T16:17:00.000+01:00

I was thinking about gyms the other day. I used to do 6 and a half hours exercise a week, Body Combat, Thai Boxing and weights. Then one day my gym buddy and myself decided to walk to the local pub. It was uphill all the way and it damn near killed us!

It made me question, why? We worked out, did cardio, but we were out of breath, and we weren't particularly rushing. Recently, I started walking for both pleasure and fitness, after a long sedentary period. I feel a lot better than I did, but it bought that incident back to me. It's been quite surprising how a 30-45 minute walk each day makes a difference. It also makes me think about my parents generation, who never really suffered with fitness related health problems, and gyms were unheard of. Is the real root of the problem our growing alienation from the world around us? If we walked more, took more outdoor exerise, would we really need the gym?

I've been very hesitant to go back to the gym as I now feel that the best way to exercise is walking, cycling, etc, things that engage us with the real world, rather than lock us away in an airconditioned gym. Plus, I've learned more about the layout and byways of my local area by walking than I ever would have had I not started going for walks.

Impossible perfection

2006-10-03T15:47:00.000+01:00

A lot of people spend time wishing they were better, perfect in fact. You only need to look at a magazine stand in your local newsagent, have the perfect wedding/relationship/sex life/muscles, whatever.

Perfection is impossible, as the world always changes, if a perfect being existed, then that being would need to spend an enormous amount of time changing to keep up with the world. How long could anyone be expected to keep that rate of change up for without cracking up? Would you ever really be happy, never being allowed to be yourself, always at the mercy of those who are telling you what perfect is?

Should we even worry about "perfection"? In my view no. What's more important is being happy with who you are, personal development should stem from that, in the directions that you feel are important. If you keep trying to do what everyone else dictates is perfect, you start to lose control of your own future, and will always be running to keep up.

Faith schools, again.

2006-09-29T12:03:00.000+01:00

I was browsing the Times newspaper this morning, and I came across a story of a child, who attends a Church of England school in the UK. This boy who was turned away from his school bus, and faced with a 6 mile walk home, because he wasn't a baptised Christian!

This is appalling, the boy is a pupil at the school, that should entitle him to use of the school facilities without discrimination on the grounds of his religion, or lack thereof!

This simply further justifies my convictions that Faith Schools are a bad idea and should be abolished!

Do things happen for a reason?

2006-09-27T17:01:00.000+01:00

I clocked a post over on Mystery Messiah the other day, it's a good read, but I couldn't respond as I'm on Blogger beta and we can't add comments to non-beta blogs yet. Still, that gives me a little fuel for my own meanderings, and I feel I have more space to write here.

Why do things happen, is there a reason, is someone in control? In my view, the answer is not quite what we think. If I answer from a secular viewpoint, the reflex answer is "heck, no!", but as a Taoist my answer is a little more involved.

In my view, everything that happens does so because of the tao of the people involved, the tao of the place/environment it happens in and the tao of the situation, which stems from its history.

An example? Let's consider the RMS Titanic.

The tao of the situation. The ship was further south than was normal, iceberg warnings were ignored and the ship was going too fast and (allegedly) without due care.
The tao of the environment. Though the sea was calm, there were icebergs about, it was not as safe a place as it could have been.
The tao of the ship. The rudder was too small for that size of ship and there were not enough lifeboats aboard. Safety law and procedures at the time were not right for a ship of that size.
The tao of the people. There was a 1 hour(!) delay between the collision and the lowering of lifeboats, iceberg warnings weren't heeded, the first officer inadvertantly mishandled the evasive procedures, some people refused to get into the lifeboats.

Sometimes though, we don't have all the information, things happen because of factors we had no way of knowing about. It's tempting to start thinking of a cruel fate, or a mysterious god, but the truth is there is always the unknown.

All these things (taos with a small t?) have their ultimate source in the Tao, and indeed, are as much a part of it as anything else. The Tao Te Ching says the Tao is unknowable and unnameable, it's not mystic, who can honestly keep track of all the factors I just described above? All of it? Now expand it to cover the state of the whole universe known and unknown, and it certainly can't be done! I think all we can do is realise that it's all ultimately rational, and be humble in the knowledge that we'll never understand all of it. As Lao Tzu says "The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao".

Footnote: I've explained it as well as I can at this time, but I will be refining this further, it will also eventually make an appearance in the Book of Jade Mirrors

The World's Shortest Personality Test

2006-09-27T15:15:00.000+01:00

Your Personality Profile

You are elegant, withdrawn, and brilliant.
Your mind is a weapon, able to solve any puzzle.
You are also great at poking holes in arguments and common beliefs.

For you, comfort and calm are very important.
You tend to thrive on your own and shrug off most affection.
You prefer to protect your emotions and stay strong.

The World's Shortest Personality Test

Freedom of speech, freedom to criticise

2006-09-26T16:16:00.000+01:00

I've been keeping an eye on the public response to the Pope's comments. I find that the BBC website is very good for this as it has a talkback function on the news articles.

I notice a lot of points being made, accusations of hypocrisy pointed at the Islamic establishment, criticism of the Pope and people defending freedom of speech.

Now I consider that all three of the positions above have some merit to them, and with freedom of speech comes the freedom to criticise. I also agree with the principle that while I may not agree with what somebody has to say, I will defend their right to say it.

But I do think, that we have a duty to speak softly where we can. I believe that freedom brings responsibility, whether we like it or not. By all means criticise, but try to do so constructively and diplomatically where possible, if people feel that they are under attack, they'll react negatively and any chance for finding common ground via a meaningful dialogue is lost.