One of the stranger aspects of art, apart from the ‘flowerings’ that happen unexpectedly every few hundred years when a plethora of artists all come along at the same time, is the way in which generations follow that imitate but never achieve equality of excellence. And not just in Art there comes a time (usually…
Month: September 2011
The Great Dilemma
As thinking beings we have always discussed amongst ourselves how we should interact with each other and the world around us. There is an old saying that my freedom ends where another person’s begins and most of our discussion surrounding ethics are all to do with how we should comport ourselves. It is an ideal…
Growing Greatness
There are thousands of books written about men and women who have been considered to be great – and reams more about why people consider them great. There are those who historians say were in the right place for the times in which they lived and leadership came to them almost by chance but they…
Focus
I know that in the past it is easy to see human life as a scrabble for food, water and shelter because it is hard for us to have any idea how past generations actually lived although ancient cave paintings should give us an idea that not everything was continuous struggle. As groups of people…
September 11th
Today all over the Western world and in the rest of the world sympathetic to some western values, people have remembered one of the most shocking, thought provoking and history-making mass murders in the history of terrorism. The attack on New York’s twin towers was no just unbelievable for its audacity but also because it…
Traditions
Today on my lane they were hedge cutting. Before the second world war and before the advent of tarmac country lanes everywhere, they used to apportion one mile of roadway to a man and it was his job to keep it trimmed back. Usually local farmers or farm workers did this as part of their…
Judo For Smart People
I took judo lessons when I was fourteen partly because it was the 19070s and everyone wanted to learn kung-fu and partly because it was fun bounding on the rubber mat that covered a third of the gym. Having been taught the most important part of all, how to roll after a throw, it seemed…
A Certain Kind Of Animal
There was a youtube video on a few years ago about two men who adopted a baby lion and had to let it go back to the wild after a year or so. The experts said the lion would never recognise them and might be dangerous to them but they still went to the nature…
The Limited Limitless
From what we know Ozymandias was a king of kings. After him men like Alexander, the generals of Rome, Genghis Khan were all men on the road to conquering the known world. In the great age of exploration when trade routes were being established countries were expanding into the unknown, to bring new wealth and…
It’s Easy If You’re Not Doing It
I was watching some street dancers doing their somersaults, splits and acrobatics and it occurred to me that when we watch athletes or even just dancers we are not watching excellence but participating in an imaginary world where we can in some symbiotic form, dance and run as they do. It goes further than this…