Open Letter / Self-Righteous, Heartfelt Gibberish

To Respected God-Knows-Who;
Most of whom do not know anything about the creature I am crafting myself into.
Dear Madams, Sirs, Fuckwits and Friends, Greetings.

To you who do not stop to think,
Or stop to wonder, once you do,
At all the beauty, joy and truth that could be, but isn’t:
I pity you.

For those of you who would rather rail about poverty and ‘ignorance’, drought and flood
But do not feel it in your blood
To those who speak of how senseless the world has become
But would, if offered the chance to change it, turn and run.
Or simply look away and lie:
"I can’t do anything about it"
Stay at home, please,
Curl up and die.

When my time comes,
And I’m sure it will,
I do not want to lie there and think
That your lack of curiosity, imagination, pain and hope
Stopped me from taking a long, deep drink
Out of every pool of broken dreams
That I can could press to my lips
And heal with a kiss.

When my time comes, I want to be disappointed.
For it will mean that I have hoped till the last.
Exhausted,
For it will mean that I have bled.
Content.
For it will mean that I have mingled with every kind of wind and rain, every storm, every rainbow.

_________________________________
I don’t want to hear anymore that I take the world too seriously. I don’t want to hear anymore that I have ceased to find joy in tiny places, in old and familiar things. It is precisely the opposite. My joys are starting to come from a different place. My sadnesses from a different place. And you can stand in front of my view for as long as you want, but until you see it from my eyes, you will never see why when I listen to some of the things you say, and twist with pain inside.

Eureka!

I have it! I have it!
No, not the dratted social capital questionnaire that I have been trying for weeks now to get around to writing. No, it is not the goal that I have trapped underneath triumphant fingers, flying over my keyboard.
It is the reason why I may be incapable of getting an intuitive grasp of social capital research.
The reason is this:
I am not a socialised person. Not one for mutually benefical collective action. Given the choice, I will spend hours alone, with my head pressed to a problem, trying to figure it out. If someone needs help, I will provide it. I would rather die than ask for real help when I really need it ('Please can I vent over email today' does not count.)
My general stock of trust, solidarity, cooperative behaviour and social networks is suspended listlessly just below the 'average' watermark.
To sum up:
I might never do the kind of incisive PhD that requires the subject matter to have gotten under my skin and into my cells.

So then?
So what?

One Step Closer - U2

I'm 'round the corner from anything that's real
I'm across the road from hope
I'm under a bridge in a rip tide
That's taken everything I call my own

(whisper, whisper, in a way only Bono can know)
One step closer to knowing
One step closer to knowing
One step closer to knowing
Knowing, knowing

I'm on an island at a busy intersection
I can't go forward, I can't turn back
Can't see the future
It's getting away from me
I just watch the tail lights glowing

One step closer to knowing
One step closer to knowing
One step closer to knowing
Knowing, knowing

I'm hanging out to dry
With my old clothes
Finger still red with the prick of an old rose
Well the heart that hurts
Is a heart that beats
Can you hear the drummer slowing?

One step closer to knowing
One step closer to knowing
One step closer to knowing
To knowing, to knowing, to knowing

Schumacher College London Seminar

These are the notes I took at the a Seminar on Sustainability organised by Schumacher College, Devon, in London.
Personal impressions to follow in subsequent post. For now, here's the notes.

On the meaning of the term 'sustainable development':

* Yes, it has been hijacked by thousands of different, sometimes even contradictory uses. No, we do not need to abandon it altogether. To do so would be to be held hostage to these contradictory meanings which have gradually become hostage to it.

* We view 'sustainability' as living without hindering Earth's ongoing evolutionary processes. This means reducing our tread on the land to the barest minimum. Generally, living within our means. Gaining the same amount of - or more - fullfillment from each other, our communities, our surroundings, as we currently seem to gain from objects, cash transactions and material flows. This does not mean that we completely de-materialize our lifestyles. This would be the opposite extreme and not desirable or effective in the long term. It means that we begin to develop our crippled, latent sense of place, love of place, a recognition of the Earth's sentience and soulfullness. It means that we should switch from our current trajectory of economic growth - one based on scarcity, exponentially increasing demand, and individualism, to one based on cooperation, a sense of community, creativity, and abundance.

* The most urgent task in this endeavor is recovering lives of meaning. This is largely the task of a vastly reformed education system.

* How do you reconcile the personal with the political?

There is no distinction!

The way we come to this conclusion is by observing the process our students at Schumacher College go through.

First, they uncover their personal sense of connection with the Earth. Their personal sense of it, their embeddeness within it. In a tangible, physical way. Then, inevitably, they examine how their current lives 'fit' within this alternative perspective. This does not imply an automatic 'shift' to that perspective - but inevitably, the feeling of connection, embeddeness, and love of place tends to create a strong bond to this 'other way of seeing' oneself - as part of something greater, vaster, intelligent and loving. The process of examining how one lives one's life is often painful, long drawn out and uncomfortable. Everyday actions that one normally takes for granted begin to appear misguided. If the person then takes the decision to create alternatives to these unsustainable actions - to change their behaviour, to not blindly be part of something because 'everybody else does it too', this is the beginning of political action. His sense of right and wrong begins to become conscious. His actions begin to be motivated by a sense of love, rather than unexamined habit. And once on this path, the individual becomes an unstoppable force.

On development - Vandana Shiva and Gustavo Esteva:

* Three false assumptions regarding 'development' dominate current thinking:

1. Financial transactions indicate economic development. Low financial transactions - or an absence of financial transactions - denotes an undeveloped or underdeveloped society.

2. The 'developing countries' are intrinsically backward. They therefore need external help - and a 'push from the outside' if they are to overcome their present state.

3. The powerful have a right to design the lives of the weak.

* Living within local means is an effective antidote to globalisation. While not everything can be sourced locally, it is enough to stipulate that whatever can be sourced locally is given preference to that which comes from far away. Localization is also an antidote to localism. Today, we observe that the more globalized your economy, the more parochial your consciousness becomes. We want to localize the flows of environmental goods and services - and globalize consciousness and solidarity.

On agriculture and GM crops - Vandana Shiva and Gustavo Esteva:

* Remember that GM does not create traits. It simply relocates them.

* Flood, drought and salt resistant varieties already exist - their use has been pushed to the margins, their availability has been commercialized. To the detriment of both societies which were once empowered holders of local knowledge, adept at selective breeding and active monitering, as well as the environment. Typically, when one of the two loses out, so does the other. What is socially unjust is inevitably environmentally unjust, somewhere or the other.

* Seeds need to be brought back into the commons.

On environmental education - David Orr and Karen Blincoe:

What does environmental education need to impart?

- Above all, a love for the planet. This is a basic starting point, from which all other education must flow.

- Second, we need to give students the practical skills to deal with the upcomming period of transition.

- Third, we need to devise a list of what analytical skills they might need.

Above all, though, they will need a sense of hope. Optimism is essentially a prediction. There is no reason to look at the current data and be optimistic. There is, however, every reason to be hopeful. But hope in this case is a verb with it's sleeves rolled up. In the end, it is hopeful people who will save the world. It is not optimists, and it is certainly not pessimists who will do this.

We fail our students by not showing them their individual potential as human beings. If education can show people their own uniqueness and then highlight where they fit into the larger scheme of things, it can produce purposeful, directed and positive human beings. Show them that they are already complete! Lacking in nothing! Full of creative, unique potential. And then teach them how to recognize, develop, and love themselves for it. Teach them how to go out and be forces in the world. Passive education - listening, note-taking, reading and writing exams deadens their sense of active potential, delays it, numbs it.

What advice do you have for students within the current system?

- Use the system. Don't let the system use you. Don't become a product.

- Find out what you need to know - and then go after it and learn it.

- Don't become a technician, learning processes. Learn something deeper!

- Have fun! Do other things. Be brave. Start something of your own.

For every act of specilization, we need an act of synthesis. Rigour in lateral, connective, 'pattern' thinking is a key skill to develop.

_______________________________________
For A.

I saw some beautiful images today...

Earth at work, Earth at play,
and thought at the end of it all
(just before: God I'd better get back to work!)
that we are all dying slowly, We are all dying fast.
What does anything matter after all?

my articles are in front of me because somewhere, a tree has died.
a tree lives somewhere because i have not yet pressed print.

either as a tree or as a page, the thing screams 'Life!!'
but as a tree, it screams it so much louder.
and yet, we know only our own language, and so we must cut down the tree and translate it's message into grossly simplied code that in the end, points us in exactly the same direction: towards the forest.

How do I know?

How do I know this PhD, this office, this subject, constitutes the right path for me? Because they do not feel alien or look new. I recognize them as I would old friends. Or new ones who feel like old ones.
How do I know this man is right for me? Because I remembered his face the first time I saw it.

I Write of That Journey

I've been struggling for a while to articulate what this blog is really about. Sure, it's about my PhD and my thoughts on environmentalism. The title is inspired by a quote by Gregory Bateson: "What is the pattern that connects the crab to the lobster and the orchid to the primrose? And all four of them to you? And you to me?"

But obviously, if you were to ask me so what does that mean for your blog, my answer would be two-fold:

The short one: I want to write about connections. Process. Cause and effect. Momentum. Direction.

The long one: At the heart of all of these things there is a throbbing pulsing intangible something. If I were a mystic, I would call it Love. Not the tattered word that supersaturates our relationships, our recreation, our lust or our quest with sickly sweetness. Something more. Something deeper. I find that other people have described this much better than I will ever be able to. I make it sound like fluff. Like a pretty concept. Their words reveal it as a crystal-hard, glowing here-now-and-always Thing. Perhaps because they have experienced it. And I, despite always looking for it, have always been a creature of movement, too restless and impatient to grasp it. Mirabai (The picture above depicts her singing a devotional hymn to her beloved Lord Krishna) writes of it as a journey - that was the first appeal. But if you read closer, it hasn't got anything to do with moving, and everything to do with (cliché as it sounds) knowing that you are already there. Less of becoming, more of being.

Here, in her words, is the pattern that connects:

I Write of That Journey

Mirabai

I remember how my mother would hold me.

I would look up at her sometimes and see her weep.
I understand now what was happening.
Love so strong a force
it broke the
cage,

and she disappeared from everything
for a blessed
moment.

All actions have evolved
From the taste of flight;
the hope of freedom
moves our cells
and limbs.

Unable to live on the earth, Mira ventured out alone in the sky –
I write of that journey
of becoming as
free as
God.

Don’t forget love;
it will bring all the madness you need
to unfurl yourself across
the universe.

What freedom! What light, what colour, what joy, what music, what transcendence, have we seen - any of us - compared to this!?

Read it. Read it again. Read it with your eyes closed, if you want to see it. Know it.

Transported, Transcendent, Truth

Rather a mouthful, that title... Maybe too much of a burden of words for the singularly evanescent feeling I'm trying to describe.

I had a thought about 'work'. Sitting near my window with the breeze blowing onto me and my music turned up as loud as it will go (loud enough to wake the whole world), I suddenly had a memory: In was in Goa for New Year's Eve a couple of years ago. My friends and I planned to go to what I very economically told my parents was a 'party'. Bless them, they didn't press the issue, but 'party' was about 1000 times too tame a word. Well, they needn't have worried. My asceticism - and what I learnt there - would do them proud if I told them about it. This is what it was like:
Hundreds of people, a large number of them stoned out of their minds, or drunk. All my friends were with me. The press of people everywhere. Pulsating, wordless music so loud you could feel your insides shaking. Dark starlit sky above, deep deep sea below. Only Goa can be like it was that night. And yet, in the middle of that press of people who one could argue were as debauched as it is possible to be: drunk, stoned, sexed up, on the prowl, a small ray of innocence and beauty - I found out what it is to really dance. Not a single cigarette touched my lips, or a drop of alcohol, or drugs of any kind. My only beverage was mineral water. People tried to dance with me - they soon gave up, I wouldn't open my eyes to acknowledge their presence. Someone came up behind me and put his arms around my waist. He soon gave up too. You can't dance with a girl who is simply not there, 'at' the party. And yet, I heard every single sound around me, underneath the music. People's feet. The sound of my friends voices. For one incredible second, even the sound of a cigarette flickering to life and the click of the lighter that ignited it. My friends bought me a bottle of water and I drank some of it mid-dance. I didn't stop once. I danced. Flew on the wings of that music, tirelessly, without a single thought, all night. Sometimes as fast as my body would move, sometimes standing perfectly still with my eyes shut, but still somehow caught up in movement. At one point I felt like bursting into tears, but didn't. I never once wanted to stop from either tiredness or boredom.

Complete. Total. Absolute. Unthinking. Release.

The purity of those 10 hours has stayed with me since - I only have to remember it to feel it's grace. I want the long hours I want to spend on this PhD to feel like that.

Embracing Silence

Orientation week for research postgraduates should have had a compulsory module entitled Embracing Silence.
Eager-beaver PhD hopefuls should have been tested on their ability to sit long hours without saying a word, tested on their ability to remain sane under pressure without the comfortable social pillow of rants with classmates about upcoming deadlines. After all, there are no classmates in a research programme. Especially if you do not work in a lab, are not affiliated to an existing programme of research and are basically the only one who seems to know what on earth you are researching (and even this is not always so clear). Those lucky enough to have started during the autumn term have it easier: offices are warm, no one wants to be outside. There are no barbecue smells wafting in from the lakeside. There are no sounds of: giggling, birdsong, wind in the trees, impromptu football, ice cream fights, bumblebees, music, bicycles whizzing along sun warmed stone, friends gossiping. Life.
For those of us (read: me) who started during the spring term, the office is a space of silence, the outside is a cosmos of sounds reflecting a fast awakening summer. For those of us (read: me) who started during the spring term, there is the twin hurdle of overcoming the seemingly instinctive magnetism towards sunshine and the apparently insurmountable urge to share it with friends. Looking at the sunshine dappling everything with green and gold outside does not compensate. Having friends at a distance (read, over the Internet, away back home) does not compensate.
Embracing silence.
Yes. If I ever get this dratted PhD, and am ever talking to 'new' students, this is what I will tell them is the hardest thing to do.
For now, its a couple of hours of reading and writing before I succumb to the sunshine.

Where I am now

The pattern that connects? That's a laugh. That was such a mouthful to think out, it kept me away from writing for half a year. Slowly, though, it is beginning to come back. As I take my first baby steps along the long path to my PhD.
I plan to use this space to talk about the patterns I find as I go on this journey.

For a background:
I'm here at the University of Essex's Department of Biological Sciences, in the Centre for Environment and Society. My supervisors are Prof. Jules Pretty and Dr. David Smith.
After my Masters here, I decided to stay on and continue with the same research as I began for my dissertation: researching people's participation in sustainable development (an even bigger mouthful than 'The Pattern That Connects'. I am a glutton for difficulty, it seems.)

Anyway here I am, and here are my stories. Some of them small pictures, some of them questions and some, just vague feelings that PhDs seem to bring.
Here are my patterns.
Here I am.