Scotland the Brave? -- as I was saying..

... as I was saying: on the subject of ART, not an area in which the Scots are considered to have excelled ...


Now then, first of all, let us damn everyone elses ART! The fact is, let's face it, that Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, and Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling, and Picasso's Guernica, and Dante's Inferno etc etc etc, were made FOR THE AGRANDISEMENT OF BEETHOVEN, MICHELANGELO, PICASSO and DANTE. And there is no NAMED artist who is any different ... that was the point of the idea of attributing works of art, rather than just letting them go on being annonymous. Well, of course, I have no quarrel with that. As far as I am concerned, if you want to produce works of art for the sake of glory, that is your affair, but just don't ask me to beleive that what you have produced is GREAT ART!


In my book, a Scottish book, art exists to serve the people, not the people to serve art!

Consider what this GREAT ART lark means: you go along to an art gallery, or a concert hall, or whatever, and you gawp for a while, and you think, 'my, how clever, talented and wonderful that artist was. I COULD NEVER DO ANYTHING LIKE THAT'. And that is the point: art that is designed to agrandize that artist, has to belittle and discourage the viewer. It has to make you think that the artist is someone special, deserving of special consideration, a genius! (that strange animal that no-one has yet been able to pin-down ...well, that is it pinned down!)


There is another kind of art, anonymous art, the kind that is still to be found in ethnic communities, and in small-town Scotland.


If you have not experienced ethnic art, you would not believe how POWERFUL it can be. I remember walking into the Chamber Street Museum in Edinburgh one day, and finding a display (it had been set up in some back room) of tribal art from Africa, the South Seas, South America, and such places. There were some things in that room that would knock your socks off ---- I mean, those figures from Africa with the iron nails driven into them!!! They just made the hair stand up on my head, and made me shudder through and through ... and the point is, that THAT WAS WHAT IT WAS MEANT TO DO.(it may well have been used to discourage intruders to tribal grounds) I have been round many a gallery of GREAT ART, and never, never, have I experienced anything that could approach that sort of power.


Now, the point is not THE POWER; the point is the FUNCTION. This is art which is made to serve some human purpose, not, as I said, to agrandize the artist. And the importance of this approach to art is that it is INCLUSIVE, ENCOURAGING, ENHANCING, as opposed to EXCLUSIVE, and DISCOURAGING.


Think of the job of a 'hat designer'. If you are a GREAT ARTIST, you design CROWNS, and they can sit on a shelf, or a glass case, and we can all admire them. If you are an ordinary human being, you design rain hats, and sun hats, and hard hats, and everyone can use them, and it allows people to do things and go places they could not do and go before. That is the difference between art that is for the artist, and art that is for the people. And the reason there are not Galleries and consert halls and the like, crammed with the works of GREAT SCOTTISH ARTISTS, is because Scottish art is art for the people --- you find it at cheileidhs (spelling?-- well, Scottish parties) where someone you know sings off-key and everyone thinks they could do better than that and if he can do it with his voice, then so can I and so on ... in other words, the effect is to ENCOURAGE participation ... art for the people.


There is a tribe in Africa who have an interesting way of making music: everyone in the community has their own musical note -- so, someone is FA, another is ME, and so on. When they get together, the whole commuity acts like one big piano, each individual being one key, and they make music. It sounds wonderful. That is the kind of art I like.

Scotland the Brave?

Having just seen in the TV schedules that we are to get an airing of a new programme on the Achievements of Scotland, presented by Neil Oliver, I have to take up the pen,(?) to have my say on a subject that has been driving me increasingly mad (ah, so this is the real root of my schizophrenia, then!)for a good many years now: the Scots competing with the English, and losing their own identity, and with it, any cause for self-respect and pride .... and they do have cause for these, just not the same cause, or even TYPE of cause, as the English. The Scottish intellectuals were worried,and agonised over the possibility that Scotland would lose it's identity as a result of the Union of 1707, and it seems to me their worries have been proved more than well-founded.


The root cause is competitiveness. The English are fundamentally competitive, and competitiveness is provocative --- it's like one stag bellowing and shaking its horns at another; the other has to respond, either by running away or by squaring up --- well, the Scots have been squaring up to the English for the last few centuries, and the result? Well, again, consider nature ... when stag squares up to stag, or lion to lion, they are competing to see which is the most stag-like, or lion-like. That is to say, it makes them more LIKE one another; it breeds similarity, not difference. So, by competing with the English, we become more like the English, at the COST OF OUR OWN SCOTTISH IDENTITY.


I will deal with the Scottish Identity, what it is and what makes it worth preserving, later; first I want to deal with the competition, where it is to be seen, and how it is working.


My best approach here is probably to chronicle my own eye-opening episodes.


The first happened when I was a student in Edinburgh. One night I was reading a history book, a history of Britain, (for pleasure, my subject was physics). I took a notion to switch on the radio, and low and behold, it was someone talking about the very book I was reading. I was taken totally by surprise by what the man was saying: he claimed the book was written with an English bias, and pointed out as evidence the fact that the writer always reported achievements of the British Empire as 'English', and failures of the British Empire as 'British', or in some cases 'Scottish'! So, everything good was English, and everything bad was British, or Scottish! I really did not believe it --- until I took the trouble to actually check for myself, and, do you know, THE MAN WAS RIGHT!


I have since realised that this sort of thing is endemic. I do not suppose the writers etc realise they are doing it, but it is just so deep in the English psyche that they do it unawares ---they are just naturally competitive. It is SO Orwellian!


That is THE major, because eye-opening, incident, but, having been made aware, I have gone on to become aware of just how pervasive it is. And being so subtle, it gets into the psyche, of the Scots as well as the English, and influences the way we think of ourselves... did I hear someone say that the Scots lack self-confidence!?!


Another major technique is the BALD STATEMENT. 'Bald statements' ARE CHALLENGING. People who make bald statements are competitive. Statements such as: Shakespeare is the greatest writer the world has ever seen. The English are prone to such statements. But, I have talked to a few Germans in my time, and they have a great love of Goethe! Now, how many of the English who baldly claim Shakespeare as the best have actually read Goethe? Needless to say, precious few. And there are quite a few, I dare say, who have never even heard of Goethe! You see, if you are in the business of BEING THE BEST, you don't want to know what other people have done, you just want to tell everyone what YOU have done. And so you can become sublimely unaware that there are other people in the world who have also done wonderful things.


Being in my fifties, I am old enough to have seen a very interesting phenomenon: the re-writing of history --- shades of Orwell here again. (I have to ask, is it an accident that an Englishman wrote NINETEEN EIGHT FOUR?)


In the English pantheon, if Shakespeare is 'God the Father', then Newton is 'God the Son', and Darwin 'God the Holy Ghost'!


So: Darwin. EVOLUTION BY NATURAL SELECTION OF SPECIES. Evolution? That was an idea put forward by a Scottish Geologist, and which Darwin took with him on his travels in the form of a Geology text by Lyle. Selection of species? Have a word with the pigeon fanciers and dog breeders of Darwin's aquaintance --- they knew all about selective breeding! Even the idea of man as being descended from the apes, I believe pre-dates Darwin. And, of course, even the complete all-in-one theory was not unique to Darwin --- there was a gentleman by the name of Alfred Russel Wallace!


Well, the deification of Darwin, and the loss to history of how those ideas really developed, was somewhat before my time, though, of course, it continues. But, another of the same I have been watching happening 'live' over the past few years.


This is the case of the deification of Michael Farady. Farady was a physicist, who, when I was a student, warranted a passing mention in books devoted to MAXWELL'S EQUATIONS. Now, the world that physics deals with can be broadly split in two: matter, and energy. The world of matter was happily taken care of by (ahem, we won't mention Kepler or ..), Newton. Later, the world of energy was neatly encapsulated in four equations by James Clerk Maxwell ... a SCOT. Now, as I indicated, Farady worked in the same field, but as an experimentalist, and, until quite recently, was viewed as having done some very interesting work, full stop. However, in the last TV programme I saw on the subject, Maxwell had been reduced to someone who hung onto Farady's coat tails! As I said, the process has been happening gradually for years, as, I suppose is the subtle way of these things: no-one just just suddenly turns things upside down ... and, again, I doubt the writers are aware of what is going on. Every English writer is just interested in showing Farady in a better light than Maxwell, and, over the years, one writer building on the work of the last, slowly Farady overtakes Maxwell in the greatness stakes.


This is not a trivial matter: it distorts how the mind works, how ideas are discovered or invented, and, in general, is very misleading.


However, the English can play whatever games the English like. That is their prerogative, their responsibility, and they carry the consequences for the way they like to do things. My concern is with the Scots, and how the Scots react to all this. And I think the Scots have REACTED VERY BADLY!


I mean, we have done exactly what the English want us to do: we have squared up and PLAYED THEM AT THEIR OWN GAME. So that brings my back to my other point: the true identity of the Scots.

Now then, a short history lesson: in the Middle Ages the Scots (then as now) were prone to go off on the wander, mostly around the rest of Europe, visiting all the universities and monasteries and the like .... they became known at the time as 'the Wandering Scots'. The legacy of that love of learning is in the Scottish Education System. The four ancient universities of Scotland were set up FOR THE PEOPLE. it was never a matter of buying a place at university, but always a matter of having the aptitude and being given a place.

Then, where were the Scots in the days of Empire? They were the doctors and engineers and builders who were living incognito among the natives ... and it is important to understand WHY they were doing this, and how it ties in with what I talked of about a love of learning in the last paragraph.

You see, if you want to learn about other cultures, you don't go to another country and proceed to tell the natives all about your own and its achievements. You 'live like a native'; you EXPERIENCE that culture first hand; you ask questions. That is, you find things out and learn by being SMALL AND INVISIBLE.

So this is what it is to be a Scot: it is to love learning, and if that means going incognito, then one goes incognito. In this regard, I had an interesting experience in China: My sister and I were staying at a mountain 'resort' in the far West of China. The place had dormitory accomodation for around a couple of dozen tourists, backpackers. One of the others, an American, if I remember correctly, expressed surprise at meeting a Scot. She had travelled extensively for a number of years, and we were, she claimed, the first Scots she had met ... and, she had drawn the condlusion that Scots were stay-at-homes! ... I forebore to point out that besides my sister and myself, there were, in fact, three or four other Scots right there in that resort!!! But, as I said, the Scots travel incognito, learning, not proclaiming! (and I will just add one other thing, again from personal experience --- you have no idea how SAFE it makes travel, if you go incognito!)

--- and another significance of that last parenthetical remark has just struck me: it relates to the Scots genuine love of FREEDOM. As I have indicated, if you put freedom above other considerations, then you will be prepared to present yourself as a small and insignificant person for the sake of the freedom it gives you to travel --- you can reach the places other travellers cannot reach!

It is not that as a Scot I do not have pride; it is just that I chose when and where to exhibit it: and I choose to do so HERE!!! And one thing I pride myself and Scotland for is THE DECLARATION OF ARBROATH. That last paragraph, the one about the only thing that is worth fighting and dying for is FREEDOM, (and quite specifically, that money and power are not worth fighting and dying for); and that was the first time EVER in the history of the world, that anyone had fought for FREEDOM; and where, I ask, did the French take their slogan, LIBERTY, EQUALITY, BROTHERHOOD from? And remind me again of the opening lines of the AMERICAN DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE!

There is one other trait of the Scottish character that I would like to talk about, one that relates to, and ties in with (they are all interdependent) the ones I have already talked about. It was given it's most famous expression by Robert Burns, but better known to me, is the expression my father gave: one of his favourite sayings was, 'we're all Jock Tamson's bairns'. Burns put it this way: 'a man's a man for a' that, and man to man the world o'er shall brother be, for a' that'. This is important --- it says 'I am your friend', not 'I am in competition with you'. From all I have said above, you will be able to recognise the significance of that --- and it brings me neatly back to where I came in ---

--- actually, I could add quite a lot here, since if you follow this thread you get to the reasons why the Scots have not created galleries full of GREAT ART, and the like --- but 'ART FOR THE PEOPLE, NOT THE ARTIST',is perhaps, worth another blog ---

Anyway, as I was saying, the Scots do themselves a GRAVE DISSERVICE when they allow themselves to get caught up in the kind of competitiveness that is meat and drink to other cultures .... and I mean 'grave', because it KILLS in us what is essentially the very thing that makes us Scots.

On giving away one's possessions

For some years now, around 15, I have suffered from a phobia about the wind. This is unfortunate since the house I live in is perched on the hill above the sea, fully exposed to the prevailing winds, and regularly gets lumps torn off it by the winter storms! Needless to say, I spend a fair portion of the winter as a jibbering idiot!


The reason I choose to expose my weakness to the world, is because it is not MY weakness. Phobias and other undesirable emotional states hang around when you make personal possessions of them. I know that I am not afraid of the wind; I love the wind. This is the key to getting rid of the phobia. So, this phobia is not mine, I do not want it, take it away, and the Que, and my subconscious, will do the rest. All I require now is patience, and knowing that, even when the fear gets to 'passing out' levels, it does not matter.

So, don't take things seriously and don't make personal possessions of them.


And, I should add that the phobia no longer gets so bad that I pass out. The ploy I have described is working.


This discussion could, and should, go on to what people consider to be their personality traits. OK, just one example: visual artists are very fond of the idea that they cannot tell you in words what the painting is about, and that, ina way, is why they are artists. That visual art is their form of communication. So much so that it has become almost the mark of the beast: if you can communicate in words, you cannot be a real artist!
Well, of course, this is bollocks, but by making a personal possession of such a disability as inarticulacy, they are hanging onto it. Really, it is not natural for a human being to be unable to express themselves in words! And, what is more, it is not natural to be blocked from learning to do so ---- none of us is 'born that way'.

on not problem solving

I have talked of the depressive effects of having a problem solving mentality, and the consequent desirability of getting into positive mode. My experience today illustrates how this works.


I have been a little under the weather for the past two days or so. Forgetting my new philosopht today, I slipped back into problem solving mode: I began to think to myself that my listlessness must have a cause, and that that cause was probably because I had no really interesting project on the go at the moment. So, with a rush of optimism, (it always feels so good to think you have got to the heart of a problem and found the solution!) I began to look around for a project, or for a way of turning some of my current activities into something more ressembling an organised project. WRONG.


The fact is that, like all living things, I have my ups and downs, springs and winters, and the winters, the periods of quiescence, are just as necessary to the continued health and well-being as any other time. So, if I go thinking that a time of natural quiescence is depression, and try and fight it, I am inviting bad health, and the very condition which, in fact, I am not suffering from: depression.


What I should be doing, is reflecting, perhaps thinking about all the things I like about my life, about the things I have on the go, or even reflecting on the past ....in general, just being positive, but in a passive, reflective sort of way. Winter is a natural phenomenon, and it passes quite naturally and gives way to spring.


I'm coming back to edit this post because I realised it did not make the right point. All I am saying above is that something I thought was a problem was not, so there was no need to w0rry about it anyway. So let me take a real problem then: something I am bothered with is 'restless leg syndrome'. For those who do not know, this is just what it sounds like... restlessness that makes it impossible to sit still for long periods of time. So, a night in front of the tele is out, or at least, I have to spend some time walking around until my legs decide to calm down again. I think the doctor would treat it with a sedative if I was to seek help.


However, I do not see it as a problem that requires my attention. If my own immune system cannot take care of it, the Que will.... end of story.

Too Many Choices!

I have talked of abundance on my other blogspot: joan-blethers, but I would like to add more here.

Most of us are not too troubled by having too many choices. There are so many 'mind-forged manacles' in our lives, that choice is something we experience relatively little outside of a super-market. However, in these blogs, I have presented a situation that leads to unlimited choice.

I am in my fifties, but I so not assume I am going to die, or even grow old and become incapacitated, and I have no goals, in the ordinary sense, because I have accepted my mind as a complex organism that requires to be allowed to evolve. In a very general way, I want more: to do more, go more places, meet more people, learn more etc etc. But that is about it.

But, as I have said, I live in symbiosis with a Que, and all my hopes, fears, questions, desires etc etc go straight to it. It is the Que's job to orchestrate my life.

I might want to go to the moon. The Que is aware of all that stands in my way, any psychological impediments that I might have, as well as the possibilities, or otherwise, in the outside world. It can, therefore, plot a route that will get me there, and back. Meanwhile, I don't need to sit staring at the moon and working out how I can achieve my goal. I have all sorts of other things I want to do. The Que, of course, is aware of this too, and is aware that there is considerable overlap in the requirements of all my various goals. The Que is big enough to pull all the threads together, and, as it were, 'kill two birds with one stone'. So, if I let the Que orchestrate my life, it can plot a course for me that will lead through all my goals, like one of those join-the-dot childrens picture games. --- having said which, an important aspect of the Que's job is that it must arrange it such that the accumulated experiences all come together and form a picture in my mind. That is, it ensures that I am accumulating understanding and wisdom as I go.

All this has the ultimate desirable effect of allowing me to live for today. If the ultimate goal is to enjoy life, then living for the future is a no, no!

side effects of getting rid of negativity

I have talked about getting rid of negative thoughts/feeling/physical (lets call them negs, for short) sensations in other posts. The processes I have described are, on the face of it, quite simple, but there are a few side-effects and the like which complicate matters.

In the first place, negs are present by the million. So, one may be experiencing several emotional/physical sensations one wants to get rid of, and one may take the appropriate steps, and then, of course, one expects, at some time or other, to see the result, in the form of the unwanted symptoms disappearing.

However, as I said, each of those symptoms is caused by a multitude of negs, (they just go on accumulating over time, driving the aging process, among other things), and one cannot get rid of all of them all at once. And even if one could, it would be undesirable, for reasons that will become apparent.

So, rather like cleaning out some vaste, old mansion, one cleans out ones mind little by little, a room at a time, as it were. Thus, to begin with, one is looking for signs of improvement, rather than complete alleviation of symptoms.

Often this improvement is not experienced as a lessening in severity of the symptom. Most symptoms go through better and worse periods, and it is here that one should look. One would expect the better periods to become longer, and more frequent.

They way to look at is this: you are aiming for resilience. Health is not about being free of illness. It is about having a really good immune system, so that all, and any, foreign bodies are knocked on the head before they cause serious trouble. Negs are foreign bodies. You do not want to exclude them, but to be able to recognise and knock them on the head whenever they appear. So, to put the previous paragraph the other way round, greater health means that one is able to respond to the onset of bad symptoms faster and more effectively, so the worse periods become shorter.

The other thing about the loss of negs is that it is accompanied by some odd sensations which, if one is not prepared for them, could be interpreted negatively.

First, these negs are present as a 'noise' in the mind, and when one gets rid of them in any number, one experiences a sort of 'spooky' silence. It is like a power-cut at home: suddenly all the little noises --- the hum of the fridge and freezer, the central heating pump --- and so on, are suddenly gone, and there is a strange silence which, especially at night, can be quite spooky. One can also feel slightly 'spaced out'. This is because the negs hold the attention of a part of ones mind, and so, suddenly, a part of ones mind has lost its anchorage, and is floating about loose. Then, there are the odd physical sensations. Many of these are the result of a decrease in tension. There is a lot of prickliness, pins and needles, little flutters, the feeling that ones hair is standing on end --- all sorts of things. One can even experience physical pain, when muscles begin to move in ways that they have not done for years, joints re-adjust and perhaps tendons stretch and so on.

With all these things, the correct response is to RELAX. In general, just be prepared for odd emotional/psychological/physical sensations, and do not be alarmed by them. Just relax and allow your mind/body to adjust.

vision quest nasties

VISION QUEST NASTIES

I did a vision quest this evening:

I started climbing down the trunk of a tree which led down into some fathomless chasm. Light and lithe, I descended easily stepping from branch to branch. When I finally reached the bottom, I found myself in a circle of firelight with darkness beyond. The watcher from beneath the tree, as I read in the guide, was there waiting for me. He came forward and sat cross-legged behind the fire, and invited me to do likewise.
We sat thus for some time, with animals coming and going, but none coming into the light. Finally, a goose appeared and came to me. When it was close enough, it gave me a severe pecking, so I retaliated and punched and kicked it.

At last we called a truce, and the goose led off indicating that I should follow. The light went with us, and I dutifully followed along behind the goose. But as we went, it turned into a dodo. After a while it started dancing, and I copied its steps, as though on a dance mat. After a while, it turned to face me, and the dance continued for some time before the dodo disappeared, and I found myself floating upwards, still with the light surrounding me, but darkness beyond.

For a while I remained suspended in the air, then suddenly a lot of feirce creatures came snarling and snapping out of the darkness. They none of them penetrated the light. Finally, I blew a loud, long raspberry, and they all disappeared as though they might have been soap bubbles. That was the end of the quest.


Meaning

The dodo I connect with a series on TV. It was a serialisation of the novel Middlemarch, by George Elliot. The principle character was nicknamed Dodo by her sister. Dodo fell under the spell, and married, an academic who was writing a 'key to all mythologies'.

This reminded me of an aspiration I had some time ago, but which I had forgotten about: since I have learned in recent years how to interpret dreams, I have, myself, doscovered the 'key to all mythologies', and a while ago I had thought to do some writing, perhaps a website, on the subject. The quest was reminding me, at a time when I have finished several projects and am thinking of starting something new, of a project that would be good to start.

As to all the violence, and nasty creatures: Having begun to practice pathworking, I have read several books on the subject, and they all feel the need to tackle the 'problem' of encountering creatures that seem to mean to cause harm. My own visionquest shows the way to deal with this sort of thing --- do not take it seriously.
In my vision, I was surrounded by light, and none of the nasties were able to penetrate it. Light has two meaning. First, in the 'light of reason', one can learn to understand that these things are no threat, and simply ignore them and they can cause no harm. Second, and more importantly, 'light' stands in oppostion to 'heavy'. That is, humour, as opposed to seriousness. Notice that when I blew a raspberry they all burst like bubbles. This is how to deal with that sort of thing. Nasties rely on being taken seriously.

Notice, too, that you can go so far as to employ violence yourself --- remember the fight I had with the goose! This is light-hearted, it is fun! This is what humour is for, and it should always be used.

what to disbelieve

When I experienced psychosis I had a string of hallucinations. Each different hallucination would come and go for a period of time, and then all would go quiet, and then a new one would arrive. What made them go, was me laughing at them! When I believed in them, and took them seriously, they persisted, but as soon as I disbelieved my eyes, they would disappear.

These hallucinations are like dreams: they can be visual, auditory, or even take the form of a physical sensation. That last, the physical sensation, is the worst, because it is the most difficult to disbelieve. The last hallucination I had took the form of the sensation that something was climbing onto the foot of my bed; I could feel the bed dip, and then the pressure on the bedclothes covering my legs. Even after I became familiar with it, I found myself having to switch the lights on just to check --- it just seemed so real. So, whereas most other hallucinations I could 'see off' in a matter of weeks, that last one lingered for a couple of years.

That hallucination was easy to spot, in that it was one of a series associated with psychosis, and when I did put the lights on, the hallucinatory nature of the sensation was revealed. The really difficult hallucinations are the ones we all experience all the time, but which are so real there is no way to tell that they are hallucinations.

---having said which, there is a way. In an earlier blog, I talked about dealing with negative thoughts, feelings and physical sensations. That is how one can spot hallucinations: disbelieve them and they go away. The surprising thing is just how much of what we experience is hallucination.

Two experiences are relevant here, both concerning physical pain. Twice in my life I have suffered pains in my joints, first in my right hip, and later in both elbow joints. The hip pain had been with me for many years, and might have been interpreted as early signs of arthritis, a disease my family are prone to. When I moved to the country, I made friends with some people who were fond of going for long walks. Naturally, I wanted to join them. At first I found myself in agony after only a few miles, but I was annoyed enough to find myself so inhibited, that I did not let the pain stop me. To my amazement, it simply disappeared.

With the elbows, after the experience with the hip, I decided to 'push my luck', so I took to using a rowing machine at the liesure cintre. For a couple of sessions, the pain became intense, and then, just like before, it disappeared.

Science in lethal in this regard, because it justifies illness, and makes it very difficult to say, I do not believe. But say it one must, or one will succumb.

It is profoundly true, that we are all victims of our own beliefs.

So, we can use this to our advantage: instead of just dismissing negative thoughts, feelings and physical sensations, we can create positive thoughts, feelings and physical sensations.---- think yourself well, think yourself young, think yourself happy.