About

Our recent move to WordPress may have broken out of date links. All sensible material has been moved, however. The out of date Darfur stuff and broken links have been re-moved (!). By the way, have a look on Newsvine, where many of the articles here are crossposted and there are a bunch of seeds from world news sources and blogs seeded as well.

Manifesto:

1. The basis of a worthwhile existence, of a life with integrity, comes from living in harmony with the world. This requires:

   1. honesty, and the courage to accept such pain as life holds

   2. treating other beings with kindness

   3. living as an organic part of the environment (in the sense of being a part of a single organism)

2. It is by living in this way that illusions prejudices and fears are gradually broken down and dispersed. Clinging to such unwise patterns of fear anger and desire constitutes the driving energy which causes harm to oneself and others. Blinding oneself to this process and the suffering it causes is a coping mechanism which allows the preservation of the identity, personality, and patterns of behaviour which act in this way: the self. This necessarily blinds the person to direct experience of reality, substituting instead a shadow world of language, beliefs, ideas.

3. This shadow world is formed of constructs (memes) which the being puts energy into reinforcing and propagating. Seen from the viewpoint of reality, actions which make sense in terms of the shadow world look like madness. War, starvation in the face of plenty, destruction of habitat, waste of resources, sitting in front of a glowing box or a desk of papers whilst gorging oneself to an early death. All in the grip of demons which whisper promises of protection from pain and fear while they suck the life of their victims like a plague of vampires.

4. It is doubly hard to release oneself from these memes, because not only does the individual create an illusory reality from them, but the society’s consensus reality is constructed from the memes and meme complexes accepted by its members. Each person finds accommodation with their own existence, and makes their way towards their own happiness and truths. It is a kindness to allow each other being as much freedom to pursue this as does not impinge on the ability of others also to do so.

It is my purpose here to point out the insanity of much of what is going on today, and encourage people to seek a meaningful harmonious and organic existence based on a sustainable lifestyle of honesty courage and kindness. I believe this is best done by means of non-violent activism and an open hearted approach to our fellow human beings; leading to free, open, ecologically aware society.

Articles explaining this viewpoint in greater depth:

At the moment all the links are to my newsvine column…. with a bit of luck that may change as the material migrates here.

1. Labels names and flags
2. The “morality of groups” theory:
   1. The psychology of tribes
   2. Meme systems and category mistakes
   3. A utopian suggestion: citizen arbitration
3. Rootlessness
4. Hope, poverty, and fuck you

I welcome comments and suggestions about these ideas – they’re always very much a work in progress. Namaste, my friend.

Wall image uses a photo by Michelle © 2006