We lack empathy. Long ago when I was a student the traditional question was to ask what the implications of the statement ‘I have a pain in your leg’ meant. Apart from the obvious implications for identity there is also for me, the residual understanding of empathy and why we lack so much of it….
Camp Fire
In the history of what we lose as we develop societies, and in addition to those people who have already said the ‘family’ meal and interactions of playing parlor games have become a thing of the past for nearly everyone in the developed world, I would add story telling. When those first lamps were lit…
The High Places
Religiosity is on the increase in every part of the world apart from Western Europe. Many years ago I thought of making a series about ‘The High Places’ and why so many religions across the world went ‘up’ mountains to worship their gods. If this had been the only thing religious people did it would…
The Old, Old Song
by Charles Kingsley When all the world is young, lad, And all the trees are green; And every goose a swan, lad, And every lass a queen,— Then hey for boot and horse, lad, And round the world away; Young blood must have its course, lad, And every dog his day. When all the world…
Flowers That Matter
The first crocus is out (purple in my garden) and the snowdrops have lasted a long time this year probably because just as they wanted to come out it got a bit colder again. Still they have made a pleasant show next to my mother’s sick bed. The daffodils are growing tall and the bushes…
The Plague Of Guns
I always thought it a sad fact when reading history of the times people have faced what to them were insurmountable odds, or lost a worthy fight against disease or an army, whilst all the time their salvation existed. They just didn’t know about it. For example the much lionised Roman Army that never gave…
The Exalted Gate
At the very centre of the powerful Ottoman (Turkish) Empire, was the seat of Government and entrance to the vast, rambling palace in Istanbul, populated by high officials. Most significant in this series of buildings was a gate that didn’t even belong to the palace but was built across the street: the Bâb-ï-’Ali, or the…
Morning Walks
Getting up as 6 am when it is still a little dusky in Cornwall and going with the dogs around the fields in the quiet before anyone but the farmers are awake. Walking around a seeing more and more as the light strengthens, picking up the odd large piece of timber fallen from a dying…
Can We Control Ourselves?
An oubliette was a highly inaccessible small hiding place rather akin to our innermost thoughts. What really drives people to do anything they do? When women say they want children are they following their rational, thought-out side or their hormones working on their rational thought-out side? When men get het-up about other men and want…
Human Rights
We give them to ourselves. We decide what we consider helps us get along with each other, and then we make it a right. This also keeps us all aiming for similar things and working in a more or less culturally linear fashion. Then, when someone upsets us, we can loudly proclaim that we have…