Space and Time

What I don’t plan to do here is to venture into quantum physics or related sciences. I know that there have been many books and papers published on the subjects contained within these contentious areas, as well as many well-known responses which deal with them in similarly esoteric vein. I have a schoolboy’s working knowledge of astronomy and that’s about it. So I hope you’ll forgive me if I start by saying that this little chapter places most people, I believe, right where we start, with little or no knowledge and a massive group of questions to which we could not begin to understand the answers, even if we had them.
When I go out into the garden on a clear summer night and look up at the heavens (or what I can see of them) I reflect that I am a tiny speck in the universe – so tiny that my comparative size is not a matter for calculation but rather that an attempt at calculation diminishes me still further. The solar system, if my memory serves me right, is a part of the Milky Way galaxy, parts of which I can see when I raise my eyes to the heavens, and that is itself part of something still larger called the “Local Super Galaxy”, which is part…  …and so on and so forth. The sheer immensity of the universe may well be visualized by the select few, but not me. It’s just very, very big.
But, infinite? Of course this leads directly to thoughts about temporal infinity. When did it all begin? What happened before that? And before that? And when will it end? How can it “end”?
So when we then get into the discussion of “just how big, how far and how long and where and when does it end?”, I’m frankly stumped. I can’t get my head around the idea of something that goes on and on in space forever, because that defies everything familiar to me. Everything I know about is finite, with a beginning and an end, a lifespan of sorts. Even rocks and the earth’s strata are subject to change and an ageing process, so how can anyone begin to know about such things? We can guess, or we can use such science as we have to make estimates, but KNOW? My feeling is that, clever as we are, a pretension of knowledge of this subject is more than a little presumptuous.
To my mind, mankind’s sphere of knowledge has changed through the centuries, and not necessarily always for the better. I have an instinct telling me that the magicians, wizard and sorcerers of olden days did have something to offer, but changing technology saw many of their skills falling into disrepute, leaving some of their genuine arts and methods to decay in the mists of time, lost forever until and unless they are rediscovered.
My brief period on earth has encompassed great change. I can recall the horses (which were for thousands of years the only form of powered transportation) which tradesmen used to deliver milk, bread and groceries to my parent’s home giving way to the internal combustion engine, and yet I am also computer literate. This tells me I am from an unique generation: my father would not have known a computer from a Cornish pastie and my oldest son only sees horses today being ridden for sport or entertainment. Millennia of horse transport; most likely to come – millennia of computerised or similar technology; mutually exclusive periods spanned by a single generation.
So you can understand my skepticism when I refer to “knowledge”. What we know today will be transformed  by what we know tomorrow. All the speculation concerning black holes and parallel universes is to me just so much incomprehensible “stuff” because, whilst its intellectual implications are evident, it provides nothing for me in the way of answers to my questions. I have managed to get deeper into my own mind with what little I now know about relaxation and meditation, and what I found there is honestly just as baffling… 
Now I want to explore this still further, find a meditation group locally, try to learn reiki – in every way attempt to dig into what I have for so long taken for granted – my own mind! This probably sounds trite and naïve, but as a 63-year-old who has always relied on creative thinking in his career, always been able to scrape the consciousness for ideas that have seemed to come so easily, this is a real breakthrough for me. It’s as if I have discovered a new invention and I’m really hacked off that it’s taken so long to make this encounter.
What’s the big deal here? Well, I thought I knew myself. I have fairly long-standing, if pragmatic, ideas about who I am and how I use my brain. The vast plethora of cultural and religious thought across the globe has been somewhat sidelined, largely because I have not taken the time to explore, and yet all it took was a 5-day break at Penny Brohn Cancer Care in Bristol to swivel my head in the right direction so that I experienced first hand many of the extraordinary and defining ways by which one’s appreciation of self can be so transformed. 
How, for instance, can relaxation and healing create a brilliant palette of shape, form and colour within the mind’s eye? Why is it so different depending on the healer working with you?
How can a brief spot of visualization induce visions of places and objects so clear that you could reach out and touch them, even things you have never seen before? How does the “still place” you discover in meditation peel off layer after layer of self so that the person you find at the end is someone you know intimately yet hardly scratch the surface of – yourself(!) ?
I have all my working life been a “visualizer”. My job is to see images in my mind and then translate them into, maybe, corporate branding, so my skills in this direction are normally quite well developed. But this is different. My recent forays into my own consciousness have surprised and interested me and I realise I have really been missing something.
All this connects with the concept of infinity insofar as the tiny aperture now open to me is letting in more light, more vision. I can no more understand or conceive of infinity than before, but it’s profoundly easier to see myself related to the universe. This sounds daffy, but picture this: I am confronted by an equilateral triangle, horizontal line at the top, point at the base. The triangle represents the entire universe, and the point at the base represents myself as the tiniest speck possible. Compared to the universe, I am absolutely nothing, a grain of sand in the desert, a drop of water in the ocean. Then I look again. Suddenly I am represented by the long line at the top, and everything in the universe exists only where it relates to me! Everything outside of my sphere of vision only exists in my memory. I am the most important being in my world.

A bit of a paradox, what! My entire existence, no matter how brief and transient, is all at once totally insignificant and yet utterly all-embracing!  A human being’s perception of self is unique to the individual, wrought in genetics, fashioned by conditioning and experience and honed to a fine degree by the environmental factors we encounter in our lives.

We mostly take it all for granted, this birthright, with an apparent acceptance far, far too ready than perhaps should be demanded. We live (most of us believe) inside our brains, controlling our bodies as best we can, gratifying our various whims at an utterly superficial level. So we want sex, love, power, fame, wealth, acceptance, happiness, health, influence and all those things we have been taught to desire, as well as (in some cases) respect, knowledge, understanding, truth and revelation, as we get to be more developed along the line.

Organised religion teaches us (and it is a matter of chance which hymn book we start to read from) the basic tenets of right and wrong, each version bringing with it the baggage, trappings and often contradictions that enable us to feel a “belonging”, itself giving us a noble comfort factor as well as a stance in life that may create bigotry and even enmity with other groups. Some of us, as we get older, either stray from these folds of conditioning or else seek deliberately to oppose them because we feel entrapped within a stark framework of beliefs and dogma with which we can no longer associate ourselves.

I feel convinced – call it intuition or some deep-rooted instinctive knowledge – that we are all, at some level or other, much more aware of “self” than would at first be indicated by the superficial standards by which we conduct our lives. When we look out at our world from our deepest state of being, we are all aware of our relationships with everything else in that world. We relate to our families and loved ones in a way directly connected to our experience, hopes and expectations. We respond to our friends, workmates and casual acquaintances in a similar fashion, using our understanding of social intercourse as a yardstick, and we react to complete strangers using the same language, tempered by the influences of media, religion and peer groups, limited (if we are law-abiding) by the legal system adopted by our country of residence.

We are not all automatons. We have the amazing gift of free will, which we can exercise for all our actions, and yet, for most of us, we do need a code of behaviour. What I’m searching for is the essential source that determines how and why I choose to follow one particular road and not another; where I draw the line at my preconditioning and decide to branch out into new directions; what makes me want to know the answers, and what will help me to recognise truth when confonted by it. I know I am not equipped to understand the concepts of spacial and temporal infinity. I would, however, like to know where I truly stand in the scheme of things.

 

( to be continued)

Introduction – Part 3

I am very happily married and live in Buckinghamshire with my beautiful wife Tracy. I have three children from a previous marriage and two with Tracy, and all the children genuinely see each other as true siblings, not half-anythings. They all keep in touch with us and each other and live either in Reading (oldest son Adam, 38 years old) or Bristol (daughters Rachel, 34, Zoe, 29, Charlie, 22, and son Toby, 21). Grandchildren Lula (11), Silvo (7) and Alma (10 months) all belong to Rachel. Zoe is currently enjoying a spell in Edmonton, Canada.

This intimate family information serves to provide a living scenario to my situation as I write – that I was diagnosed about 3 weeks ago with a stomach tumour plus secondaries in liver and bone, which means that “palliative treatment” is the order of the day.

I am surprised by my own reaction to this news – one of calm and acceptance, although that doesn’t mean I don’t aim to fight on as long as possible to prove I can beat this, as well as the Hodgkin’s Disease (diagnosed in 1982) the two heart attacks (2001 and 2004) and emphysema (diagnosed 2006). You will hopefully have cottoned on to the fact that I don’t give in easily and will go down fighting if necessary and then if possible.

During the writing of this missive thus far I have got deeper into blogging, have joined one or two cancer sites and debating areas, have researched a little into the mighty plethora of cancer treatment options  and scams, have looked with interest and dismay at the battle between “alternative” and accepted therapies in the U.S.A., and have linked up with some practitioners, writers and fellow-sufferers in an attempt to disseminate the mass of information presented so glibly to cancer victims in particular, as well as the public in general.

I am learning a great deal and hope that these pages will contribute a little to the ongoing debates about this monstrous disease, as well as providing a little diversion and catharsis for the sick, the elderly (who may be living in fear of the very situation in which I find myself), the young (who should be able to avoid all this nonsense) and indeed anyone who happens to find themselves with the opportunity and desire to read it.

Introduction – Part 2

From my primary school in Mill Hill, I managed to secure a scholarship to Haberdashers’ Askes, a most marvellous traditional establishment in Cricklewood, where I enjoyed all the privileges of a public school education, except that my father’s reduced circumstances prevented me from having the clothes, books and other trappings of a privileged existence. I played rugby and cricket, attempted to swim in our chlorine-reeking indoor pool, saved pennies for the Tuck Shop and learned the “hard way” from magnificent and charismatic teachers who were in those days permitted to achieve discipline by hurling blackboard erasers dangerously and with formidable force and accuracy across the classroom. These missiles, combined with wrist-slapping and the occasional caning, ensured that we respected our elders, our teachers, our parents and the law. We were also imbued with a sense of “decency” – a word the meaning of which seems to have disappeared from our lives today.

My father needed my contribution to the family, so at the age of sixteen I left my beloved school and got a job with a London advertising agency, Arks Publicity in John Street WC1, who paid me the princely sum of £4 a week while training and also gave me day release to pursue my studies at St Martin’s School of Art. Of this I was allowed to keep ten shillings for myself – the rest appropriated by my father.

My career has since been reasonably straightforward, learning graphics at a time when every piece of type was calculated by the typographer before the typesetter would provide printed sheets of paper to be stuck in place with Cow Gum. Copied by camera, the work would be converted to blocks or plates before reproduction as advertisements or printed literature. In those days, and until the computer took the throne in all matters graphic, there were individuals whose jobs consisted of creating hand lettering, preparing text for type, cutting and pasting (literally) artwork onto artboard for the copy camera, retouching photos using an airbrush, and preparing visuals with deft strokes of the Magic Marker. These at a glance would need to provide the client with an amazingly accurate preview of the final job, as computer printouts simply didn’t exist then.

I worked in advertising agencies and studios, cutting my teeth on corporate development work and publicity projects for very large clients, including Coca-Cola, Colgate-Palmolive, EMI, General Motors, Hertz, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Johnson & Johnson, Kodak, The London Pavilion, London Transport, Ponds, United Biscuits and many others over a number of years.

Whilst writing this blog I am currently engaged in a number of branding and interior design commissions, as well as marketing consultancy. I  had become a Member of the (later to be Chartered) Institute of Marketing in 1976, as I felt that too many designers were creating images that looked pretty but simply didn’t work, as they were based on unsound marketing concepts.

Introduction – Part 1

I have never blogged before and I’m really interested in the process. To begin with, I am curious about the way the number of “hits“ may grow, and I’m intrigued by the esoteric aspects of blogging, the way the tag cloud forms and grows, the necessary disciplines involved in maintaining the impetus and the level of steady interest shown by my friends, many of whom I would previously have imagined would not know a blog from a tomato sandwich.

Perhaps a little more about me and my situation would help the reader to get a “feel“ for the content, as any narrative will always benefit from flesh on the bones – at least enough to picture the life and times of the writer, his background, influences and the environmental conditions in which the work was created. I am not a professional wordsmith. The visually creative skills have been my main means of earning a crust, and even now I ask myself how I can be so presumptuous as to pose as a writer. But in the end I make no apology. I’m simply telling you a story about my life and ultimate demise, peppered with analogy and spiced with experience. If it is of interest I’m delighted, and should it help you to reach more valued judgements or conclusions which assist you to more ably determine the length and breadth of your own views – then I am indeed frankly ecstatic.

I was (only just) a “war baby“, being born in February 1945, a few months before the armistice. My mother had carried me in her womb through the dark days of soot-blackened bombsites to the dreaded sound of doodlebugs, and I’m sure the wail of air-raid sirens is something I heard clearly and memorably whilst still waiting to emerge into the pale half-light of almost peace.

She was the daughter of second-generation Latvian immigrants, who had married in Grimsby and later moved to North London. A talented artist, erudite and articulate, my mum was exactly five feet tall and round and extremely cuddly, the archetypical warm and loving mother who had few bad words to say about anyone. She was a kind and incredibly sweet mother, with whom I would often spend long evenings in front of a coal fire in our tiny living room, discussing what had been topical on our brown bakelite “wireless“, or simply exploring ideas on the secrets of the universe.

My father was a private, intense individual, an eccentric violin player of no mean accomplishment (he reached his zenith as Leader of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Thomas Beecham)whose brilliant career, commenced in glory as a lead violin at the age of 14, was later to be demolished almost overnight by the onset of tuberculosis, resulting in a huge portion of his lung being excised, along with several ribs, thus rendering impossible his daily exercise – the vigorous raising and lowering of an arm on the end of a violin bow for several hours at a time.

He never recovered totally from the withdrawal of opportunity from his extraordinary talent and became monumentally embittered, a man savaged by circumstance and ravaged by his reaction to it.

I was the oldest child, big brother to two sisters, the youngest of whom recently succumbed, also to cancer, at the tender age of 50. Susie was perhaps the most persistent person in all things that interested her that I have ever known and, as an aside, it beats me that she never managed to communicate with me from “beyond“. Seriously, if anyone on earth was determined enough to want to make contact, it would have been Susie. But enough of that – more later…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Death is an interesting subject. For me, a bit too soon…

I’m a young 63-year-old corporate designer, very recently diagnosed with stomach cancer + secondaries. It’s not curable, and I’m just coming to terms with the fact. Some protective device has kicked in which seems to keep me a little detached, and one of the things I want to do is to write a book – and I’ve started. The book is entitled “Closing Remarks” and it will be accompanied by a short anthology of poetry, some of it linked to the book, but not all.

The book itself will discuss all the aspects of my situation, relating them to my beliefs (many of which will evolve during the writing!), my experiences and indeed those of others, including any who care to respond to this blog.

The blog is all about coming to an end, but also about “being” and “having been”. I’m not a psychic and have no claims to special powers, no patience with mysticism, and no real interest in cults, specific religions or supernatural phenomena. Or snake oil. However, I am open-minded, and, as a seeker after truth, welcome helpful comments that may extend my horizons or assist in the formulation of whatever will emerge.

I have never blogged before and I’m really interested in the process. Excerpts from my book, as they form part of this blog, are of course my copyright, to be published only with prior permission; in the same way I will treat any input from others as their copyright unless they say specifically that it may be included, with a “credit” to them. 

Next is the prologue to the book – hope it gets someone going…

 

 

Prologue

 

 

I have never considered myself to be an expert on the subject of dying. Like most people, the very thought, shrouded as it is in taboo and armoured within the paraphernalia of self-deceit, has been a million miles away from most of my waking moments, and consciously so.  After all, who in their right mind wishes to dwell on the consideration of life after we’ve gone? If we’re not here to enjoy it, it’s almost an insult, quite unbearable to think of all those folk having fun when we cannot.

And so, now confronted by certain death (actually we all are, always, but we  ignore the fact until we’re forced to admit we’re not immortal) and probably with a reasonably short fuse to accompany the short straw, I find myself in danger of being obsessed by the rotten subject, or at the very least rather absorbed by its implications.

Fact is, over the years it does occasionally come up – at funerals and wakes, dinner parties, theological debates, and so on.

Paradoxically, our daily news and entertainment are suffused by death in all its forms, with the emphasis on violence. Most newscasts carry stories of murder and tragedy.  Children’s computer games are geared toward “hack’n’slash” skills.  Sports are littered with expressions like “sudden death”; books about serial killers, zombies and ghouls abound in our libraries, and even the most innocent cartoon movies get laughs from actions which, in real life, would be painful, deadly and unbelievably tragic.

Of course, this in itself is one of the keys. Death is softened or disguised on the television news. We in the United Kingdom just don’t see the shards of flesh, gaping wounds or dismembered bodies which mark the aftermath of a bomb or a plane crash. These things are hinted at, but somehow it just won’t do to show the detail, the minutiae of mortality. Bloodstains are sinister, but acceptable. Bandaged wounds are permissible. Death? The reality of it? Whoa, wait a minute! Just who do you think you’re kidding…?

And so it goes on. Imaginary dying fills our novels, movies, songs and games. Heroic deaths reinforce our literature. But the real thing? If you’ve ever been in a hospital ward where someone has lost their life, you’ll know that a curtain will hide the departed one’s form until, usually in the dead of night (useful expression here), some faceless people will quietly divest the room of the offending object, together with its memories, so that none have their sensibilities challenged.

When I was young I always wondered why cowboys in Roy Rogers movies, on being shot by a .45 calibre revolver, would clap a hand to their chests (no sign of blood) and appear to swoon, which meant that they were dead. A bullet of that size and power does in fact hit its human target like a spear with terrible force, driving back its victim as if hit by a car. It often travels around the body causing massive tissue damage before exiting, driving bone and muscle out of an enormous exit wound. But this we don’t see, because death would be too real, too close, too horrible.

Then again, the individual on the receiving end of that terrifying missile is actually no more and no less dead than the elderly lady who “passes away” peacefully in her sleep. For both parties, they are “out of it”, feeling no pain, thinking no thoughts (or are they?), having no worries.

It seems to be that in most forms of civilised society, to a greater or lesser degree, we need to be somehow insulated from what is obviously the most natural thing in the world – certainly as natural as birth, and absolutely inevitable for all living things.

We are routinely shielded from the detail of death, why? Is it because the knowledge would madden us? Is it because we could not tolerate life after seeing such things? The ambulance driver sees these terrible sights most days, and has to deal with them. His insulation is usually a rather ghoulish sense of humour, because only laughter prevents him from becoming totally desensitized, callous and inhuman.

One of the stranger aspects of this unrealistic stance is that, sooner or later, we will all confront the reality of death. Since this is so, why on earth do we carefully arrange its manifestation precisely so that we are totally unprepared?

On an earlier page I admitted that I have recently joined the ranks of the “walking dead”, that is to say those eerie people who have a signed warrant for their “execution” but don’t know quite when the sentence will be carried out. Many might surmise that a good question for the physician is “How long have I got?” In my case, I’d rather not be bound by someone’s (albeit educated) guess. I’d prefer to fight the event on my terms and figure I’ll last a bit longer that way.

In the act of preparing myself – and I make no bones about the fact that I see all of us carrying a hidden mindset which will emerge to protect us when the time comes – I have attempted to rationalise my approach to my own demise. The following pages contain a collection of thoughts which may seem at times disjointed, unscientific or maybe downright irrelevant, but they are my thoughts, laced with the intensity of realism, the (perhaps sardonic) humour of the condemned man and a genuine desire to illuminate what is perhaps one of the least approachable subjects known to us.

Read this offering with a sense of fun. Experiment with your own views and debate the issue with friends at dinner parties. If you’re young the subject will be more or less a diversion. However, if you’re “getting on a bit”, developing your own version of events may prove to offer catharsis, illumination and a degree of self-realisation to assist you on your final journey in this life, whenever it should begin…