Totem Too

I don't hate people. I just feel better when they're not around. Charles Bukowski



Continuing on from Totem, some more existential re-minders on how to behave as a human being and not as some unthinking zombie who has been beaten over the head too many times by the big stick of corporate civilization.

Let no-one read into these totemic verses an expression of inhuman contempt. Let them instead see beyond their corrupted and commercialized selves and feel that great teacher inside called intuition. In the words of the counter-culturalist Theodor Roszak: We have not entirely forgotten that we have forgotten something...

Armchairs onto the Infinite: The Soul at Work

On the back cover of Franco 'Bifo' Berardi's book The Soul At Work, the blurb reads:

Attention is under siege everywhere. Not silence but uninterrupted noise, not the red desert, but a cognitive space overcharged with nervous incentives to act: this is the alienation of our times.

This is the reason for space.

Space is our right as creatures of the earth, and yet, we live in  such crowded cities... with such horrendous noise and pollutions. Is it any wonder people are mad en masse?

I've said it before, and will keep saying it until my consciousness dissipates, every creature needs a perch, not a podium from which to garner attention, or a pulpit from which to preach, but a perch for listening... deep listening.

When you become attuned enough, you will begin to hear space itself. And then, you will be able to relate more closely to your natural fellow animal than to your unnatural fellow man.

Only then will you hear the earth speak within you.

Insourcing & The Meaning of Life

I always think at this time of year - the hooded half of March - when I see magpies, gulls, pigeons, swans and other animals building their  nests, that if only humans did the same, they might not be so confused and conflicted as to the true meaning of life: 

Living!

Not shopping, not toiling, not holidaying, not being conveyed, not being brainwashed....

But living. Building your own home, foraging for your own food, making your own clothes...

Not outsourcing the essential to others so you can focus your efforts on the non-essential, and the trivial.

Who would have thought that the meaning of life would have been so straightforward?

A magpie (its partner is out and about) building its nest above platform 3 at Dalmuir Station. This sort of 'event', sadly, is regularly missed by people who do not pay attention to their environment. Gazing into your 'mobile devices' will never answer the deeper questions that we have regarding life and living.

Citrus & Sun

At some point in the film Midnight Cowboy, Dustin Hoffman's character Ratso Rizzo tells his new found friend, the eponymous cowboy played by Jon Voigt that all you need for a healthy life is oranges and sunshine, which later precipitates their relocating to the sunshine state of Florida where orange groves grow in abundance.

It has always stuck with me, this idea of oranges and sunshine. In terms of simplicity and in terms of health. To be sure, we all need a little more than mere citrus and sun, but sometimes I wonder if we have been unnecessarily weaned as a species, especially since the advent of capitalism, on over-consuming and cherishing that which we just do not need.

I am also concerned, when I buy my lemons, at how far they have actually travelled to get here, and at how large and  unpalatable that carbon footprint actually is. If you can't grow it, then it seems unfair (or just plain downright silly) to have it flown halfway round the world just for you. This, after all, is my manifesto - DIY - do it yourself : Grow your own food (when you can't forage for it), make your own clothes, build your own nest...

And so, in praise of simplicity, and in praise of the Ratso Rizzos of this world (and the midnight cowboys who eventually dump their stetsons and spurs in the bin for a t-shirt and shorts), a lemon tree at the beginning of what hopefully will turn out to be a long, fruitful, and healthy life...

It took me the best part of 40 years to finally take one of those lemon seeds, remove its slippery armour casing and stick it in a small pot of soil. Now, I am a changed man. Now, I look at all my fruit and veg. (and fellow man) in a different light...

Natal Philopatry among Solitary Mammals

Half an Hour From Heaven: Monday Morning at the Moor's End

In chaos there is opportunity. Paul Klee

The other morning on my way out on the bike I got a puncture within the first ten minutes and missed my train to Barrhead from Pollokshaws West. Instead of panicking which I am apt to do, I composed myself, got my map out, and decided to head over to Muirend a few miles away on the Neilston line. Not only had I never been to Muirend train station but there were several wide avenues along the way through Newlands that I had never cycled (or walked) through either. And these were some avenues! (Notably, the wonderfully car-empty Langside Drive with its sandstone villas). New lands indeed!

In a world where we have become inured to best laid plans and organization, it is sometimes refreshing to be jolted out of your comfort zone. In the east, they say that the obstacle is the path. And to be sure, there is nothing more satisfying than encountering an obstacle and surmounting it, whether that obstacle is simply a puncture or a missed train. Or getting lost.

I also realized in getting the train from Muirend to Neilston (four stops away) that the relatively citified Muirenders are a mere thirty minutes from paradise (15 minutes on the train and another fifteen au velo onto and along the Old Kirkton Road). I wondered, as I travelled the train and gazed out at the spectacular scenery, if they knew that...

Judging from the empty bike-rack, not many cyclists in Muirend. But what a lovely station chalet!

The last section between Patterton and Neilston reveals the full extent of the Glasgow strath to the north. This is the idea: get the train uphill and cycle back down...

Meanwhile, to the south, we have the knobbly outlines of Duncarnock Mount... and many others.

Heaven. (At the junction of the Old Kirkton Road and the Barrhead Road).