Atheist Impression of Life

Open Arms

Independence

An Essay for Ashleigh Bairstow

Freedom is the most worthy goal of all, even more than happiness, even more than the happiness of others. Without freedom, we are incapable of making decisions; all of your actions are to some extent decided by others. Before freedom, we do not see the world fully. Instead, we see it as Plato suggested, only the shadows from the firelight on the cave wall and not the objects that create them. Until we are free, we have no way of knowing if what we do is right, because we are not making our own decisions and judgements. Freedom must come before happiness because until we are free we cannot know what happiness really is. Happiness without freedom is based on ignorance. It is the happiness of cattle and it is a false happiness. This may all sound selfish, but the freedom of others is of course equally important, since we have no way of knowing that we are more important than anyone else in the world. However, being free in the mind is more than half of what freedom is, and so we all have to take the final steps ourselves. It is much easier to free oneself than others, and so probably a better use of our time.

Having said how great I think freedom is, I haven’t mentioned what I think it actually is. Freedom is control. That sounds weird; but I don’t mean control over others, I mean self-control. Only when we are in complete control of our lives, physical and mental, will we be free. What Gautama Buddha called ‘Enlightenment’ is pretty much the same thing as what I’m calling freedom. The difference is, Buddhist freedom is a mystical, religious thing. I speak generally, because Buddhism is a broad religion with a lot of variation, but in of its most varieties it is still a religion, with a belief in the supernatural (whether or not this was what Gautama originally intended I don’t know). Buddhist freedom is not only freedom from craving (by which he meant all mean all of the things which stop us from controlling ourselves), but also freedom from the physical world and admission to a higher spiritual plane. I’m not a religious man, so that’s not really my kettle of fish, though its about as reasonable as religion comes. I don’t think there’s any kind of meaning to life, I just think that it’s probably better than death and so I’m willing to make a go of it. Returning to the topic, I don’t believe it’s possible to be free of the physical universe: we will always be controlled by the laws of nature. Therefore, ultimate freedom is impossible. As far as I can see, the only kind of freedom we can have over the laws of nature is the freedom of acceptance. This is the kind of freedom I think Nietzsche was talking about, and what Orwell meant my Big Brother’s slogan ‘Freedom Is Slavery’. The idea is that freedom is impossible and so can at best be illusionary (he was referring more to human society more than the laws of physics). Therefore, the best we can do is control ourselves to the extent that what we wish coincides with what actually happens to us. There is no conflict, and in this way we are free by our acceptance. I would suggest that Orwell did not actually believe this, seeing as this is a slogan of ‘the Party’ which stood for everything he hated, but Nietzsche’s idea is of course much more complicated than my little summary gives credit for. I don’t believe this in terms of human society, so I think it would be a bit hypocritical to try and apply this kind of freedom-by-acceptance only to the laws of physics to get round the inevitable limits they place on freedom. Still, it’s an interesting angle, and perhaps a route to freedom you may find convincing, although I’d rather just accept that our freedom is always going to be limited.

I still haven’t used the word independence. Being independent is being able to determine your own fate and that’s pretty much what I would call freedom as well. Anything that stops us from acting rationally and doing what we know to be right harms our independence. The greatest threat to independence is prejudice. Any kind of received wisdom which we do not question means we are no longer in control of our own opinions.. Independence of thought is the most precious of all independence and once we stop questioning and analysing the world it is lost.

The most basic definition of the word is not to be dependant. People can depend on all kinds of things like alcohol, drugs, sex or food. Just like the laws of physics, we can’t completely escape our dependence; we’ll always depend on the air we breathe. But we can still reduce it, by combating our addictions, whatever they may be. Simply in accepting gifts from other people, we make ourselves dependent on them; we do not get used to dealing with our own problems and a part of our life falls out of our control. We may feel we owe some kind of obligation to our benefactors but feel unable to repay it properly because we do not know how much it is worth. Charity reduces our independence. Ayn Rand took this so far as to mean that we should never help other people without payment, and that government attempts to support people will only make them worse off. I am not as sure as her, but I would say that we should not necessarily always take what is given to us, and when we give to others we should give freely and not burden the recipient with guilt.

Our most serious dependence is usually not drugs or possessions, however, but other people. Power is one manifestation; people try to compensate for their own lack of control over their lives by trying to control the lives of others. In reality those in power are the most restricted of all because they feel the continual pressure of expectations and responsibilities. The desire for status is similar to power. It is a desire to fit in to an acknowledged hierarchy with security and stability. Security and stability which mean, ultimately, restrictions and captivity. It is a coward’s option; security rather than freedom, the same thing that makes us desire peace rather than justice. George Bernard Shaw: ‘Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.’

Even the most sacred subject of our culture ties us in knots of dependence. The desire for love, connected closely with the desire for status, probably does more to reduce our independence than anything else. Here I am battling against all of human evolution which has trained us to desire popularity above all else as a route to further reproduction.. The desire for approval and popularity force us to give up our individuality and live up to the expectations of others, renouncing our independence. Even the more sacred sorts of love, between friends, lovers and families are full of dependence. We become depend on other people, begin to need their approval, need them to understand us. In the process both sides begin to lose their independence, lose the ability to recognise why they loved each other in the first place. I have a great need for other people to understand me, and I strongly suspect the same thing is true of other people. But this is an ultimately doomed endeavour. In the end our minds are separate and can only exist that way. We can never truly understand what another person is thinking; never really get in their shoes and in their skin. I’m not saying we shouldn’t try, only that it’s foolish to expect it. Not being able to fully understand us, other people can only let us down if we do. They may not mean too; but they cannot truly understand our intentions and so cannot fulfil them. We ourselves alone have that power.

Anything that stops us from being able to control ourselves reduces our independence and freedom. Does this really mean that all emotion has to be resisted? Anger certainly makes us lose control, and so does sadness, fear and disgust. Even love and happiness make us act in ways which are beyond our control. In one of his last essays, George Orwell said that he did not like Gandhi because his saintliness made him seem no longer human. Perhaps you think sainthood and perfect independence is something we should all aim for. Perhaps you’d rather remain a flawed human than pay that price. I leave it to you.

Summer Rain

people running round, people running out of time

feels such a struggle, struggle just to rhyme

but its easy to be happy, when the rain’s on your back

the winds prepare to pound, just before the clouds attack

you don’t mind the water when you’re drenched to the skin

its too late to worry once the thunder begins

but I see these intimations

do not move you like me

on thoughts of summer raindrops

our minds will not agree

your icy skin will never burn

your feet will never know

the touch of paths untrodden

the feel the naked snow.

this is also a song about raindrops falling on the shore

a dry land called America that called out for more

we are boats against the current, struggling always to return

beating ceaseless for past loves for which we yearn

I don’t blame you that your faith was so small

‘s easy to survive, just a little lonely, that’s all

the rain abandons us when the wind will blow

the storm has passed over, and I must go.

Anniversary

How do you feel when no eyes are watching?
For my part, I feel dark and icy seas encroaching.
If you said the same, I’d be incredulous
And if you didn’t, I’d think you callous.

There was a time (when the trees looked young and the air was sweet)
You imagined I was next to you when you lay down to sleep
You said it made you feel safe and whole
To summon my ghost, your dreams to patrol.

But don’t worry, baby, I still summon your ghost
Each night as I lay down I am her host
But she isn’t there to salve, balm or drive away my pain
She’s there so I can weep when I see your eyes again.

Before the blossom bloomed, before the snows,
Before autumn leaves and summer rainbows,
A year today I took a sad song and made it better
I found her, I went out to get her.

Happy Anniversary – If we had one;
But now it seems all our hopes have become undone.
Here’s to the nights of our lives that were brightest
Congratulations on creating these days darkest.

30 Break-Up Songs

This is only the beginning of list which could easily run on for pages without hitting a bad song. I guess since most songs are about love, and the best songs are usually sad songs, this makes sense. This doesn't claim to be a definitive list, its just my personal selection, ranked by relevance more than quality and not including songs that I don't identify with.

1. Jacques Brel/Frank Sinatra – Ne Me Quitte Pas/If You Go Away A French song, the best English version of which was done by Sinatra
2. The Streets – Dry Your Eyes Perhaps not obvious, but the song is just perfectly spot on to the experience
3. The Beatles – Yesterday
4. Coldplay – The Scientist
5. Bob Dylan – Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
6. U2 – One
7. Elvis Presley – Heartbreak Hotel
8. Jeff Buckley – Hallelujah
9. The Everly Brothers – Bye Bye Love
10. Bob Dylan – If You See Her, Say Hello
11. Simon and Garfunkel – We’ve Got A Groovey Thing Goin’
12. U2 – Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses
13. Paul Simon – Graceland
14. Jeff Buckley – Lover, You Should’ve Come Over
15. Led Zeppelin – D’Yer Mak’er
16. Bruce Springsteen – Bobby Jean Not actually a song about a break-up, more a farewell to a friend. But some of the lyrics just resonate so well and are sung with such emotion it works anyway
17. Blur – Sweet Song
18. Jeff Buckley – Last Goodbye
19. The Rolling Stones – I Got The Blues
20. The Police – Every Breath You Take
21. The Animals – Baby Please Don’t Go
22. Death Cab For Cutie – A Lack Of Colour
23. Blur – Battery In Your Leg For the chorus: ‘you can be with me, if you want to be, you can be happy’.
24. Radiohead – Thinking About You
25. The Rolling Stones – Love In Vain
26. Moby – At Least We Tried
27. Dire Straits – Romeo And Juliet
28. Diana Ross and The Supremes – Where Did Our Love Go
29. The Searchers – Needles And Pins
30. Green Day – Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)

Ech

Having deleted the myspace i briefly created, someone else has now taken the address 'myspace.com/notyetlost'. And, it comes before this site on google! Irony. Damn emo kids.

Soon We Will Be Happy

Soon we will be happy

Perhaps next year or next month

I’d rather not put too definite a date on it

Maybe when spring is over and summer comes

When we can sit outside in the evenings

When the blossom turns to leaves

When we can afford a place of our own

When our landlord fixes the boiler

When our government changes

When I start working again

When the bank gets back to us

When your eyes heal

When the doctor says I am ready

When the neighbours stop talking

When I forget your infidelity

When your children forgive you

When the ocean swallows the cities

When I stop writing poetry.

Maybe tomorrow in fact

But probably a while longer.

The Scientist, The Artist, Science and Art

When Pythagoras is forgotten, Homer will be remembered. This is no disrespect to Pythagoras or praise for Homer, but simply a reflection of their natures as scientist and artist. The scientist does not create, he discovers. Once Pythagoras has proved that the square of the hypotenuse equals the addition of the other sides squared, this knowledge becomes the property of everyone who can understand it. It does belong to Pythagoras, but to the nature of the universe itself. Pythagoras was merely the man who first understood this aspect of the universe.

Homer, meanwhile, has created something completely new. The Iliad was not a part of the universe for him to discover, but a new universe for him to create. Homer’s personality is stamped into it, and it belongs to him alone. Even if we forget who wrote The Iliad (and some may say this is already true), it does not matter. It is still the unique product of its author. Though readers may see new things in it, no-one may ever understand the art on the same level the artist does at the moment of creation. It is his alone. The ultimate proof is that if Pythagoras did not discover his theorem, someone else would, or at the very least could. No-one else could write The Iliad.

However, while The Artist is Eternal and The Scientist is Temporary, Art itself is Temporary while Science is Eternal. By science here, I mean not only maths and physics, but also biology, geography, economics and history, really any area in which the scientist discovers aspects of the universe in the attempt to find the complete truth. Science is the revealed nature of the universe. Even when we forget it, it still exists, waiting to be rediscovered. Scientists can do nothing to change science; it is eternal and indestructible.

Art, meanwhile, is fragile and temporary. It requires the artist to create it, and can easily be destroyed, like Mozart’s lost Concertos. Unlike Pythagoras’s theorem, these can never be rediscovered. Each work of art is unique, so much so it can be hard to define what art is at all. In some ways philosophers, engineers and generals are artists, at least when they work on unique and personal subjects rather than discovering efficient methods that future generations can use. Historical figures such as Robespierre could be either artist or scientist, depending on whether they are unique aberrations or the embodiments of their age. Art is anything fragile, unique and irreplaceable. When the human race and even the universe end, all art will die. But science will remain.

something i thought of while getting dressed this morning.
note: The Scientist and The Artist are 'he' only because the examples i used were male

Defiance

possibilities of salvation

illusionary, all illusionary

An Autumn Land

This is an autumn land.

These people, they sit best in autumn

This grass feels greenest when it is muddy

The trees feel greatest when they shed themselves

The fields are ripest as they die.

This is the Autumn Isle.

Dressed in her carpet of leaves, she looks most like herself

With her crown of rain on darkened rivers

Rippled puddles reflected in the sallow streetlights

Stooped figures passing under cloudy sunsets with lowered eyes

Climbing damp trees and picking our way through muddy fields

This is my country as I remember her best.

Still, I wonder,

Did Caesar land on the shores of a Winter Isle?

Did Chaucer tread the grass of a land in spring?

Did summer shine on Shakespeare’s stage?

In short, have this people

Bastard children of Celtic-Roman-Christian-Angle-Saxon-Norman-Other parents

After such time of triumph and tribulation

Come to their autumnal years of existence?

Or, have these woods and fields always felt most comfortable

With measured death

And falling leaves.

Perhaps these stones are simply autumn stones

And this land knows its home lies between the last harvest and first frost.

I do not speak of the decline of Empire, eclipse of science, dearth of culture

Nor in fact any metaphor for slow death, anything other than what it claims to be:

An Autumn Island

Filled with autumn souls.

Another Year, Another Camera, Another Man

summer 2006
unfortuantly i wont be able to carry on that yearly portrait tradition, as my grandmother, whose building this is, died this autumn

Self Portrait, August 2005

my 100th post

'A Place For Friends'

Soon after reading Jenni’s recent rant, I found my girlfriend had acquired a myspace. Having been rather mean to her about it, I’ve decided instead to vent my angst somewhere no-one will mind. Somewhere, in fact, no-one will read it. Yes, that’s right: here.

Myspaces are really just extended versions of the lonely hearts columns in the papers. Want a new friend? Simply browse through your ‘friend’s ‘friends’ and choose whoever has the best film taste, the most fashionable music collection, the coolest friends, the photo most lovingly teased into perfect spontaneity. No longer for you, myspace user, the trouble of meeting new people, exploring their personality, introducing them to new ideas, tastes…. No, enough of all that foolishness! Now, thanks to News Corporation, you can carefully select only those people whose opinions won’t conflict with yours, and avoid all that hassle of debate and new experience. How nice.

I realise I am being unfair. Of course myspace is about more than just self advertisement. No, it’s far, far worse. Myspace is of course the home of ‘emo’ and as everyone knows, the true emo is the wanabe emo (paradoxical thought that may seem). ‘I wish my grass was emo so it would cut itself’ is pretty damn funny. But there is a serious point that myspace is full of people who glorify their depression, self-loathing and self-harm. And that can’t be good. There’s really quite enough misery in the real world without having to create more for the sake of fashion and egotism. And, don’t forget, you, self-harming emo kiddies, are hugely privileged. Not only for living in the only time in history the whole world could be free of poverty, but in living on one of the wealthiest countries in that world. And yet, these whiny white middleclass kids still feel the world wants to know about their fictional problems.

What it’s all about then, is egos. Inflating your problems crying out for the world to listen… it’s not hard to analyse. It’s as if the new way to hide your insecurity to pretend you’re secure enough to bare your insecurities to the world. Any myspace isn’t just a way to ‘keep in touch’. If you want to say something, use messenger. Send an email. Maybe, even, shockingly, actually speak to them in person. Apparently some people still do such things. The only reason to use the comments is to show off your friendship to the world, how close, how, incredibly, Important you are to that person.

Ironically enough, one of the things I find most annoying about myspace is that I, as a arrogant non-user, aren’t allowed to view my girlfriends pictures, or post comments on my friends about how much they suck for getting myspaces. The obvious thing is to get one yourself so you can…. And then it begins. I’ll finish by mentioning, as you probably already know, that the whole thing is owned my News Corporation: Richard Murdoch. As if you needed more proof of the evil.

Incidentally, I am entirely conscious of the irony of putting this on a myspace.

But that’s ok.

Because irony

Is Delicious.

Richard in Portugal

Master of my Order

I am the master of my order

And proud and honourable it is

I am the great and sole recorder

My recollections shall not be hid

I am the regent of these wide lands

They are loaned from a far-away king

I am the leader of this my band

Though not sweetly yet truly we sing

I am the keeper of a portal

A passage far to a boundless place

I am a lone and wand’ring mortal

And you shall see my face

actually one of the oldest poems i've written, found the other day when looking through old notebooks and touched up a bit. so still no new poetry.