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The Shiatsu experience

Adam Hellinger performing Shiatsu

Shiatsu comes from an esoteric tradition which promotes itself as a tool for healing through the manipulation of energy. Due to its abstract nature it can be a notoriously difficult practice to find words for, so enjoying a challenge, I thought I'd see if I could find some.

I was recommended Shiatsu through another alternative practice: Qi gong. I was initially drawn to Qi gong when I was told that it was excellent for not only self defence, but for health. The concepts in Qi gong form some of the fundamental pillars of Chinese philosophy. The aim of the practice is to harness the energy one takes from food, air or movement into potential and prosperity in the mind, spirit and body. To the average Joe it may seem difficult to conceive how this works. Yet the simple answer about any esoteric practice, is that they are impossible to explain intellectually without experience.

The western scientific method works on rigid intellectual principles with clear guidelines for the measurement of health benefits. It is focused on a “One size fits all” approach to medicine and only accepts results that can be predicted consistently. As many Eastern medicinal treatments are designed to be flexible to each individual western practitioners have traditionally viewed these approaches with suspicion. After practising Qi Gong I felt benefits to my energy levels and state of mind. Something I had never gained from western medicine. The benefit from the limited experience of a few weeks sessions were evident in anything from my posture, confidence, sleep and positivity. Using my body in a way that benefited my health was a thrill, to know that I was in effect healing myself rather than being treated. I received Shiatsu hoping to recapture the same experience.

My Qi Gong teacher Adam also practised Shiatsu and offered me the opportunity. Before the first session Adam and I discussed what I hoped to achieve from the experience. I wished for greater health with my digestion. I then declared that I wanted to lose my anxieties and inhibitions and get more in touch with who I wanted to be. Nothing like a modest ambition.

Shiatsu works through subtle massages and manipulation on the body, that like Qi Gong focuses on the release of Qi (energy). My Qi gong classes emphasised that relaxation is key to energy flow, enabling human beings to reach their physical, mental and spiritual potential. Letting go in your body is conducive to Shiatsu, as our bodies are maps for emotional trauma. Therefore the holistic description of released energy can be interpreted as the letting go of emotional dams. As we have become more aware of how stress is destructive to both the mind and body, practices like Shiatsu which promise to focus on the wholeness of an individual, rather than exclusively on the body, have become increasingly popular.

Adam practising Qi Gong

Shiatsu is received lying on a futon on the floor. It is performed with sensitivity, and I found my practitioner to be respectful with my personal space. I closed my eyes through the treatment which carried me to a dream-world free of anxieties that reminded me of meditation.

Like meditation Shiatsu gave me that sensation of disappearing into some sense of “the whole”. I felt unity and connection between all the parts of my body and I'd found tensions where I'd never even considered. Furthermore my mind wasn't clogged with worries about my digestion. Adam asked “How does your body feel?” I felt alive! Colours seemed richer and sounds seemed sharper. I had both a feeling of connection with everything around me whilst also feeling powerful and capable of anything internally. Events and objects in the external world now seemed less like an environment in which I needed to survive, and more like close relations under one umbrella. When I'm in this state it reminds me of how we try to manipulate our brain chemistry through different drugs to gain a brighter lens and a fuller perspective. Well you can reach that feeling naturally through really liberating your health, if only more people could experience the good news!

After the first session I was aware that my stomach had been the focal point of much of my attention again. Yet this time whenever I felt any degree of passion, be that lust, anger, pain or pure joy I felt it as a rising heat from my stomach. I was now fully aware that this was the origin of my intense emotions. Some would baulk at my descriptions as over sensitive, perhaps even deliberately imaginative, but such a practice increases your awareness and sensitivity. A useful analogy is that if you lived inside a cardboard box you would struggle to describe the world outside it. This was what I experienced, a sensation of the bigger picture, which I gained through the feeling of reconnection in my own body.

Shaolin Monk performing Qi Gong

Before the second session we talked over how I'd responded since the last. I told him that the release of this energy and passion felt difficult because it forced me to confront contained emotion. I told Adam that my intention was to cast off any shackles that I was increasingly aware I was holding in certain parts of my body. At the end of the second session I found myself becoming emotional. Quite randomly, when it had not been in my thoughts for a long long time, I was reminded of an intense emotional connection I'd felt with an old partner. I didn't so much hold any mourning or grief for something lost, but was struck more by a sense of shock at how I'd been transported back to the exact emotion that I'd felt in a particular moment of time. It stuck me at how a profound emotional deja vu had been directly linked to the tensions I was holding physically.

I wrote this article with a naked vulnerability that I carried through from my experiences of Shiatsu. I like many before me, struggle to define and measure the way “energy” feels manipulated and liberated through the process. But I hope I have given you an insight into the emotional richness that I felt through the experience, as it was the emotional essence of opening up and letting go, that is, as I understand it, fundamental to the physical healing benefits of a Shiatsu massage. Therefore separating the feeling of connection that I had between mind, body and soul from my emotional perspective would be to miss the point. In the future I hope we all continue to embrace new experience, rather than judging, predicting and theorising it, as this is the only we can truly understand anything. I invite you to gain a better understanding of your inner potential, as I truly believe that it is through being sensitive to the world within, that we will best find the solutions to the problems of the world outside.

Beauty Meets The Beast

After sitting at my computer looking like the Bette Davis character “Baby Jane” a friend asked on facebook if I'd like to come to a fashion show. I took a look in the mirror and saw that I looked like a Gothic nightmare. Before I could answer she told me that I'd need to leave in fifteen minutes. As I washed the cobwebs from my face and threw on a blazer I told her I looked more Frankenstein than glamorous. She laughed, telling me that the summer/spring show of designer Kristian Aadvenik was all about combining Gothic and Glamour to create a fantasy world of fairy tale and nightmare.

Fall 2008 Black Feather Gown

Kristian Aadvenik is a London-based Norwegian fashion designer with an impressive repertoire. He moved to London to pursue a MA at the Royal college of art where he received numerous awards. From here on where Aadvenik went critical acclaim followed. In 2007 he was selected as one of five designers for the “protege project” leading him to work directly under Donatella Versace. After a personal showcase for his fall/winter collection in 2008 at Milan Fashion week he was named as one of falls greatest talents on style.com.

We arrived in the foyer for a champagne reception at the Athaneum in Piccadilly Circus. I later found out the classical setting of this club had held host to fifty two Nobel prize winners in the history of its membership. The air of regality set the tone for an energetic and expectant atmosphere, as we gazed between radical modern hairdos and portraits of great historical members that had resided in this prestigious building.

The show began in the drawing room, where the chatter of fashionistas echoed off the shelves of ancient books. Then as a black metal guitar riff blasted from the speakers our mouths fell silent and our eyes became active. Aadevnik's modus operandi is to strive for a dreamy sophistication of glamour and gothic decadence, which was then duly delivered.

Extravagant feathers and ethereal dresses were all the rage. Bold, beautiful and headstrong the models walked with confident bravado. Like peacocks, the plush feathers that adorned the front of many outfits screamed unbridled sexuality. Yet unusually for a summer/spring collection darkness regularly infused the collection. Regardless of the season, it is the primal animalistic side of man that inspires Aadnevik's art. Our carnivorous past came strongly to mind in one number, where a bouquet of grey feathers trailed behind a silver belted and largely feathered dress.

Spring 2008 Grey Dress

Other numbers created the impression of a fairytale heroine. A variety of light white, grey and black cottons created a seamless combination of complementary layers. Many dresses were adorned by material hanging off the torso, arms and back as if to create the impression of ghostly, transcendent beauty. Perhaps most prominent in the collection was a unique tie-dyed pattern dreamed up by the designer. Various shades of dark grey and black were set against one-piece light grey summer wear. The pattern was reminiscent of an inkblot used to test people's psychological profiles. Again the indication was that Aadnevik's aesthetic interests channelled his passion for tapping into the primal or subconscious.

Kristian by no means created “dark fashion” but he is bringing it to a high class medium. As I walked out and past the TV interviews I thought about how high fashion has always been a medium for glamour, but not necessarily for darkness. As all things dark, morally, financially and politically continue to dominant the media and our mindsets expect the dark side to become more prevalent in fashion, and for Aadnevik's designs to be the star in that night sky.

I left the event on a hot summer night, which much like the show itself, had a combination of warmth and darkness. When I got home I looked again in the mirror. I still looked like a Gothic nightmare, but this time feeling like a dark prince rather than an outsider, I could see the beauty in the beast.

Consumer Politics And The Death Of Idealism

We live in the age of consumer politics, where business and politics hold an inseparable power over our lives. In this time, have we come to a point where we have become tired of  both left and right politics? Through our realisation that neither wing has been able to implement change? Has power become stagnant and run out of ideas?

Recently I watched a series of documentaries by Adam Curtis called “All watched over by machines of love and grace” In it he describes how human beings have lost their profound ideological visions and now treat society as a process of maintenance. He believes this has been implemented by the computer age as those with power see people as statistics within a mechanical system. He believes that politics no longer holds profound, idealistic visions of the future but is instead pre-occupied with making the slightest changes to the present. In UK politics people have been saying for years how the Labour and Conservative parties have moved increasingly towards the centre; so Curtis's theory that we no longer idealise, but maintain, could probably be said for the government of my country at the very least.

I'm quite often called an idealist in political discussions. I would answer that Liberals (like I) believed in progressive ideals that broke against the past, and that conversely, Conservatives believed that we should return to societies' former glories. Now I'm finding it harder to define the difference. Modern Democracy is supposed to give a voice to the masses by offering voters a choice between two opposing ideas, yet when those ideas look so similar, what choice or power do any of us really have? Tony Blair's Labour Government moved to the right economically, by granting more power to the free enterprise of business, whilst offering a barely more libertarian alternative to the Conservative party. People traditionally think of politics as left and right, but most people attach their own prejudices to what those terms mean*. The fact that no one agrees on what it means to be left or right wing not only creates confusion, but it also reveals how easily it is to get the two confused. In reality each political wing must compromise beneath the umbrella of the financial markets. The role of politicians is just to manage within the framework of that economic system. With economics as the invisible hand and politics as the visible face these two form the basis of power in our world.

*(Take a brief look at the political compass if you want to understand how I'm describing left and right wing here)

I would argue that politics is now so interwoven with business that it has copied its tactics and now only appeals to the lowest common denominator of public interests. The introduction of the “petty politics” that focuses on the small scale desires of mass groups first bore fruit in John F. Kennedy’s presidency. History seems to have remembered Kennedy as an idealistic martyr who championed liberal ideals. But this idea of Kennedy doesn't do justice to the whole picture, and ignores the fact that Kennedy has been so fondly represented by the media because he was the first great PR politician. In the 1960 election with Richard Nixon, Kennedy gained strength because of how he came across in their first TV debate, even though Nixon had come off greater in the now fading medium of radio. From this point onwards Kennedy's attractiveness became a key factor in the run up to the election. Conversely Nixon was caught wiping sweat from his head, was fatigued from a knee infection and had suffered from drastic weight loss. Furthermore the grey backdrop blended in with his suit and quite literally made him fade into the background. Most notably for the first time, the public's aesthetic and superficial interests had a dramatic effect on the direction of power in American politics.

The adherence of those in power to the petty interest of the public is now a common and powerful tool for re-election. Bill Clinton's opinion polls plummeted in 1994 after the midterm election, causing him to dramatically change his PR campaign. On the advice of his political advisor Dick Morris, Clinton performed a series of televisual stunts in which he participated in the hobbies of the most common groups of Americans . Clinton's popularity changed drastically and he remains the President with the highest end-of-office approval rating since World War II. Tony Blair based many of his policies on a similar statistical reading of public desires borrowed from the market research techniques of business. The trend of target setting in the public sector was implemented because of the computational theory that human beings could have a purpose without ideology when they could reach mathematical goals. The mathematical and psychological tools of businesses have seeped into governmental policy as companies become more influential. It's fair to say that there are certain benefits from a corporate approach to the masses, as business exists to adapt to the demand of the consumer. But should we listen to our basic and primal consumer desires for comfort, luxury and a desire to feel self important when we govern ourselves? Regardless, it is through measuring and then listening to those desires that western politicians maintain their power. As a result a politician can now be elected in much the same way as someone chooses a product, and the results are similarly superficial to our happiness.

Rather than having politicians that argue for radical reforms and change and that hold a desire to target the roots of national or global problems, we are told quite without question that “One of the many insights that Cameron's team have borrowed from Tony Blair is that modern electoral politics is as much, if not more, about personality and tone as it is about the filigree detail of policy promises” In the age of consumer politics we now happily elect a leader that has declared that he's “not a deeply ideological person” and who states that he's “not ideologically attached to one single method” Yet it is in the best interests for both politics and business to have national debate over matters like fox hunting or free school meals, as even though they're worth discussing, they're not fundamentally going to change anything. Those that have the most power on our planet are politicians and businesses. It suits these interests to not question how the world is run too intensively as to do so would be to sabotage their own self interest, and acknowledge the possibility of losing that power.

Yet like water, when power is still it becomes stagnant. It is the global recognition of the lethargy of those in power in the face of profound problems that I believe the seed has been planted for the worldwide youth revolutions. So as the world sinks into a supposed time of crisis environmentally, economically and socially it might be best to ask not what left or right wing solutions can offer us now, but rather what we can do to analyse our relationship with power and to hold both it and ourselves accountable. Perhaps also, what we call Democracy is in reality - Consumer Politics. Yet as the cracks form worldwide in the old hierarchies of power in governments across the world, whole populations may panic about viable alternatives.

Our understanding of power has been the greatest cause of conflict throughout our history. So it is vital that we analyse it, so the powerful does not continue to misrepresent the powerless, and continue to experience retaliation in a cycle of suffering and conflict.  As it stands many of us understand power to be  possession and/or control over others, but surely absolute power requires or needs nothing? I feel we should first cast away this myth, as no matter what way you put it, limiting the quality of life of another will invariably come back to limit you. It is from a desire to have a great more than others that power becomes stagnant. Power then only serves its own interests rather than that of the whole, thus resisting movement and change, and in doing so setting into motion its inevitable opposition and demise. This is the stubborn process of every great empire, yet are we not witnessing the same again today?

Think of the earth like a cell. Our beautiful planet swims in an ocean of other cells all making up the endless expanse of the universe. Like a cell, the Earth has its own internal ecosystem and chemistry. Yet this organism has reached a crossroads in its existence. Lying latent is the potential to go forth and multiply and begin to understand the adventure outside of its own existence . But currently “cell Earth” is infected with a terminal cancer and is literally destroying itself. The world's religions are fighting over the grand questions on our existence, yet the irony is those questions could be addressed by our shared exploration of inner and outer space. Currently we are too busy destroying the cell to get onto the exciting business of looking beyond it! Now some may label my call for unification as idealist, but to me the alternative is just plain illogical. Currently we are a primitive culture because we behave as if we are separate tribes or "countries". Yet if any organism, be it a cell, an animal or the earth decided to think that way it would destroy itself. We need an evolution rather than a revolution, the only alternative is self induced extinction.

True power comes through our ability to liberate others, as it is through this that we liberate ourselves and become truly powerful. Those in power today guard it jealously and have resisted profound political or economical changes and thus the guarantee of dignity, opportunity and survival for all. So as the foundations of power crack ask yourself this question; will I continue tomaintain this world and its relationship with power or do I want to live for something ideal?

The age of Consumer Politics was the age of separation, where games of power over each other limited us from realising the bigger and more rewarding game out there . Let's rediscover our highest aspirations for ourselves and we will achieve more than we could ever imagine in this time of maintenance, in the age of unified ideals. Humanity has never acted as one organism, imagine what we could achieve if it did!

A letter for equality

We are all influenced by the distortions of the media. Recently I found myself affected by the reportage of the London riots. I've observed how so many have risen up in anger, some when influenced by the media, against the “underclass” that they feel is responsible for the damage. I have also witnessed recently how both media and politics have been colluding in serious corruption. The media is how we all keep informed of world events. Yet it now acts as the mouthpiece of politicians, and is biased by the ownership of the big businesses that own the world's media giants. It is important to remember that because of these biases in the media that the demonisation of the working class has always been inherent in U.K society and therefore our institutions. The government itself has waged financial and rhetorical war on the poorest parts of our society. Yet it this belief that the underclass is separate from us, our values and our way of life that has bred the calls for tougher punishment. We must view our society as one organism. If one area is sick we do not punish it, but heal it. The day we acknowledge that these behaviours are a a product of the society we have all created and take responsibility for the whole, will be the day that this “broken society” will be fixed.

The recent riots in London have got everyone talking. When the looting was at its peak I was sat on my computer with one eye on the BBC Riot update page and with one eye on the street below. I saw blazing fires and gangs of hooded youths on the screen, but just pigeons on my road. I wasn't in any danger, but when I witnessed the images on the screen it made me to start to panic. Not for long, but I really was in animal mode, considering the fight or flight implications of the progressing disorder in London, and the drastic actions I'd have to take if things got worse. I think it's fair to say that response was an overreaction. But the effect resonated with me. All the news we react to in the world is taken similarly out of context. Information is distorted by the interests of those with the power or influence. When the media flashes intense words and images at us we often forget what is reasonable in favour of a fearful reaction. So in reality what most people will remember about the riots, even millions of those who lived in the cities where they happened, is what the media told them about it.

Most people will have read the headline “CAMERON WAGES WAR ON GANGS” in the London Evening Standard on the 15^th August and that may be the most a proportion of people find out about him. This is because there are some people that don't engage with our media at all. The youtube clip of two girls in Tottenham drunk after a night out looting understandably shocked a lot of people, because they seemed to justify their actions as broadly attacking “the rich people” and Cameron himself. Amongst the chorus of cries from angered British voices there have been scathing attacks on the “mindlessness” of the “underclass” of society. Fundamentally we are sheep people - sheeple, and that is why companies and governments can so predictably measure our behaviour with market research, because they are the ones dictating it, no matter how subtlety. Which is why I'm bemused by the pure hatred and blame that has been labelled on this “class” of people, if that class exists at all. So if this group of people is the “mindless” it's what has bred that culture that we need to look at. We are all responsible for this society, the foundations of which we all willingly support and sustain through our subservience to it. So we must take responsibility for the conditions that have been created for all.

The information we're exposed to and the environment we're brought up in largely defines us. So when David Cameron uproars that the rioters were a segment of society that had lost it's “moral neutrality” and that he would subsequently concoct a “concerted, all-out war” on gangs and gang culture” declaring it to be part of a “criminal disease”. These are the sound bites that these people are then going to hear about their community. But they're not quite “mindless” as some have accused them of being because those that live in those poorest communities have adopted the mind of their environment.

I've witnessed first hand how violence breeds violence and compassion breeds compassion at either spectrum of this “broken society” Before I took my A-levels at an affluent middle class school I went to an inner-city comprehensive called Highbury Grove. As a white British boy I was in the minority in an environment filled with impoverished Londoners, who were largely made up of Black, Asian, Kurdish or Turkish refugees. Over half of the children at that school were diagnosed with learning disabilities. Many had witnessed devastating traumas in war or at home. I knew a lot of people with single mothers, and there were many cases where people had parents or carers addicted to heavy drugs, alcohol or involved in gangs. Many took drugs as it was the only path they'd been introduced to and dealing them became a way of preserving dignity and pride. It gave them their only known way out of the impoverished and violent environment they grew up in. For many years I didn't learn a single thing in many of my subjects because the anger and violence spiralled out of control. My art class was an understood battleground for the days fights, and we knew that the teacher would be too drunk to intervene with any enthusiasm. I, like many people at that school felt that society had left us behind. The adult world had left us down and provided us with no opportunities, so how could the adult world expect us to give back?

The reason many of these people appear “morally neutral” is because that is the world they've grown up in all their lives. When they see a society that teaches that wealth and Consumerism is the ultimate aspiration for a human being, they see themselves as the lowest in that hierarchy and see that they're worth nothing. The benefits culture is not one of entitlement but it is one of embattlement. Many of those in the “underclass” are people that are literally struggling for their survival and fight to meet their most basic needs. Yet the economic systems played by politicians encourages us to be financial climbers. The advertising and media industries then tells us it is our right to own certain products. So when there has been recent corruption between the media and the Government in the phone hacking scandals, Politicians have stolen our money for second homes and the Prime Minister responds to anger in poor areas by stating that “I want us to look at toughening up the conditions for those who are out of work and receiving benefits” is anyone really surprised that these people are broadly attacking the elites who actually have the money?

Is it “mindless” to acknowledge that society values only those with money and then largely puts the squeeze on those that have none? Was it mindless for the thousands of people who have seen their youth centres lost? Their benefits cut? Their policing sliced? Their areas uncared for and ravaged with generations of never ending trauma and alienation from society? These people do not live in dignity yet we are angry when they show no respect to the parts of the society where people have that basic dignity. In 2008/09 30 percent of children in the UK grew up in Poverty and people wonder why young poor children sometimes act anti-socially? It's because their collective society has acted anti socially towards them.

Huge groups of people at my secondary school saw themselves as soldiers, people that had to fight all their lives to survive and prosper. Surely if we remove the need for these groups to fight in order to receive their dignity we will discourage the destruction that so many have condemned? I witnessed so many people pre-occupied with this day to day struggle. The fact that over 50% of people from that school had learning disabilities was a problem just heavily exacerbated by poverty. The problem is our society is most fascinated by the winners, the celebrities, the rich and the powerful. As long as we have this culture of separation, we will always have those that are left behind. Yet as long as that happens the losers will be angry, neglected and ignorant to a way of life outside of survival.

We can all be ignorant, we may all be angry, but can we all really be that surprised?

The fine line between realities: Introducing the Synergy age

I recently read an article which stated that by 2015 50% of businesses will have introduced gamification as a tool to increase productivity in the workplace. Gamification describes the process of creating games out of menial administrative tasks. By creating an animated world with characters and a storyline simple spreadsheet activities become “games” by which you can measure your progress, save and re-explore. This is an interesting development, but above the potential of a more enjoyable workplace this movement towards gamification reveals a broader trend about our rapidly changing relationship with technology.

The media-tech term for this phenomenon is synergy. Take a look around you, we are living in the synergy age. Synergy denotes the integration of various technologies into increasingly simpler formats. We have lived in the age when the services we use are becoming integrated. The capabilities of mobile phones, television, radio, paging/texing and the Internet can all now be found on singular devices. Our technology is moving towards a singularity, a single point where we can consume all of our creations simultaneously and at speed. Our ascension into the synergy age can be charted in the development of the computer games industry, where the distinctions between our shared conscious realities and our virtual ones are similarly striving for this singular point.

The Nintendo Wii marks one such step in this process. Through our actions in the real world we immediately impact upon the results of the game in the virtual space. Graphics themselves continuously strive for realism. Whilst we saw a trend in stylised unreal depictions of reality through the animated technique of cel-shading for a time, major game developers appear to be striving toward sating a market that wants gritty realism. Some of the most successful and well known games today, from Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto and the FIFA franchise pride themselves on blurring the lines between reality and fiction, that is to say, they aim to create such perfect replications of reality, that we may in turn often reject spending time in our actual reality for the one they've created for us.

But gamers are more savvy than this as they recognise the limitations of the game mechanics. As it stands today computer games have easily chartable boundaries which direct you like a lost child by the hand down the path and through their stories. If the previous decade has taught us anything about the synergy age, it is that those limitations (as in the rest of technological society) are gradually falling away. The seminal game Deus Ex was released in June 2000 and bought the concept of story choice into the mainstream. Unusually most characters can be killed, actions (that if you wish to take) will change the fabric of the story you are creating for yourself. Several important decisions have several possibilities, greatly increasingly the probability that no two replays of the game will be the same. In recent years games like Mass Effect have pioneered this concept of choice, although in a way that is still reductive, directing you towards clear moral binary options of good and evil (or as the game terms it Paragon and Renegade).

So what will the future of gaming hold? What we do know is that gamification in its myriad forms will not go away. According to an article in the Telegraph computer gaming overtook the film industry in 2009. For 12 months up to September 2009 £1.73 billion was spent on computer games in the UK alone, compared to £1 billion spent on box office films in the same period. Games are beginning to dominate our lives and in turn influencing our perceptions of reality. Games are continuously striving towards reality, and reality is increasingly striving towards games. I predict that within our lifetimes we may very well witness the point where these areas meet. Biology and technology will be further integrated which will in turn raise important questions about what it means to be human as well as opening up deeper questions of how we come to understand notions of reality.

For me the warnings about such a future are clear in the present. There are countless stories in China of teenagers dying after up to 50 hours of playing World of Warcraft because they've neglected to eat or sleep. It is important that we do not let game realities become a replacement, but instead that we utilise them as tools we can detach ourselves from in order to make greater sense of our reality. I am however similarly excited about the potential of our virtual world to create a greater physical one. As the boundaries in computer games fall (and the ability of machines becomes greater) we shall be able to create safe havens for unlimited choice. I envisage a future where characters will be customisable to the minutest detail, where we can create entire worlds that match the imagination of our dreams, where we test consequences, where we are no longer limited to the games that are prescribed to us, but where we are instead sold the tools to become masters of our universes. I, like many, feel that their perfect game has yet to be made. Perhaps in the future I will be able to play the civilisation based strategy game with RPG and FPS capabilities that I have been dreaming of. Until then watch this space. Only then we may have forgotten whether that space is virtual or real.

Be your own God

The denial of rational logic drives me mad. The fact that there are people out there who will deny plain observable truths is just baffling. I believe we can attribute this to the fact that those that reject facts are those that just reject thinking. You don’t have to be a scholar to think, a lot of the time you just need common sense. Some things are just givens. When I look at American politicians mindlessly shouting “freedom” to the masses and religious fundamentalists rejecting evolution it makes one wonder whether than an actual rejection of the thing that differentiates human being’s from animals (a higher degree of thinking) could reverse that process and create devolution. I recently read an article in the new scientist which said that because of human accelerated change there are species that are evolving at rates of thousands of years in the period of you or I’s lifetime, as well as those that are devolving at the same rate. It’s incredible to think that through the machines and mechanisms that we’ve created since we first learned to use tools that we now realm the earth like unmerciful Gods against everything that has sustained us on this planet. If anything is proven by these facts it is that our capacity to radically change everything is unprecedented. We have literally transformed the things that once caused us to cower and wonder. We can now identify our dramatic impacts on the weather, obliterate animals that threaten our survival, and amazingly create elaborate social, scientific and cultural systems that fill the vacuum created by our needs and desires. All of the conditions of everything we have ever created – the city of New York, the concept of Communism, the parched lands of ancient over farming in Africa... have been the result of a large network of people creating that as the world’s reality.


With that astonishing creative power in mind, knowing that we can act literally like that of a God when we form together for collective change, it makes me mournful that there are billions upon billions of human beings that are willing to completely reject their god-like power by shirking themselves of responsibility. I feel like we as a species are either too terrified or too in the dark to realise and utilise the pure power and potential we have at our fingertips. So when Harold Camping and his network of followers used millions of dollars to educate people about the rapture and had to change their entire way of life to accommodate it, I thought about the millions of people who would have been affected by this. After some research I found a statistic that indicated that 11% of the world’s people are Evangelical Christians. That’s 648 million people! Evangelical Christians reject Evolution. Something that has been so heavily measured, argued and proven with overwhelming evidence, all on the basis that it contradicts an old mythical story. Fundamentalist Christians (such as Evangelicals) believe in Creationism and claim the world is 6000 years old. This denies the existence of the Archaic period of Ancient Greece, a period of human history we can so undeniably prove actually happened that it would be about as pointless trying to argue that Dinosaurs lived at the same time as feckin' humans. That is until you realise that yes, in fact in Kentucky they have actually built a museum showing Dinosaurs and humans chilling out side by side quite happily. As if many of these particularly brutal predatory creatures were actually closer to Barney the big bloody purple dinosaur.

I think the fact that there are billions of people on this earth who see living as just a testing ground for the main event – heaven, is one of the biggest barriers to genuine progress for the human race. It becomes increasingly more worrying when you realise that some of the most powerful people in the world hold that viewpoint. If your fundamental beliefs are that we are perpetually on the edge of an apocalypse that is going to wipe out all life on earth then it would be understandable if you didn’t think too much about your long term decisions. Have a look at both Bush Presidents for a shining example of how such beliefs influence both environmental and foreign policy. Now I should probably say that although I do get frustrated with what I think are misguided points of view by the fundamentally religious I can empathise why they’ve gotten to that point. Whether you’ve thought about it or not humans have always aspired to know. It’s what makes us so remarkable! Without that desire I wouldn’t be able to use this laptop, get everything I need from the supermarket or use a toilet. All of these things exist because of our need to ask questions and understand how things work and why. But this quality is not just important for comfort and necessity. It is one of the most wonderful attributes we have because it helps us on a journey towards the ultimate destination that links me, you and everyone in this world together – truth.

Which is why it is so important that the means we use to arrive at the answer to the question “what is the truth” is one that we can trust. The endless conflicts that cause so much pain and suffering in this world don’t happen (as some people believe) “because it is just in human nature” We are not all inherently prepositioned to cause harm to others, if we were then society would be in a complete state of Mad Max style anarchy. We form together and get on and in doing so become so much greater than the sum of our parts and achieve so much more together than we could ever hope to achieve on our own. All the conflicts in the world today exist as a result of people disagreeing over truths. Bin Laden’s followers attacked the United States because they believe that God’s ordained truth of how we should live on this earth contradicts the aggressive individualism of America. Whilst the Nazis believed that the truth of why the human race is being held back was because of the Jewish. So if we’ve learned anything it’s that people will be quite happy to cherry-pick their truth even if there is no real evidence to back it up. With so many different truths on this earth it can be hard to know which one to choose; most people have that decision made for them by the environment they’re bought up in. It can be difficult to understand what it’s like to not be a Nazi if all your friends and family are Nazis themselves. To give a more universal example: it can be difficult to imagine a blue sky outside a box if you’ve only ever lived within the confines of it.

Evidence is the best method we have for determining if you are “right” about anything on this earth. If Sally nicks my pencil and I want to prove it, I need only show the CCTV footage that recorded it. If the Bible indicated that pencils were impossible to steal and Sally read that book as being literally true then we would probably end up in conflict. This is exactly how the kind of mind bending logic of religious fundamentalists works. As a neutral outsider, who was on their own pursuit of “truth”, which account of our truth would you accept if you had to make the decision? The moment we start choosing what is truth through what we can prove and measure over some words in a religious text (that has often been heavily edited anyway!), the moment we can start envisaging the real progress towards the big questions that we’re all fighting over anyway: Why are we here? What is the correct way to live our lives? What do we think is important? But perhaps most importantly let’s stop giving away all the credit of the way the world is to a bleedin’ book. The way the world is today is not as a result of “God’s will”; it’s as a result of all the decisions we have made as human beings. But don’t take the words of this article as scripture on this, as this truth as much as anything is something we can measure... 

Rant on American Republicanism

Why do people get involved with or have any interest in politics? Because they're interested in the society at large and how that beast might transform, thus making our lives better or worse. I think we can establish that changing the lives of everyone in an ENTIRE SOCIETY is pretty important. Even if you think the man on the telly in the suit and tie is boring, you really do care what he has to say even if you think you don't. Besides Political inaction is ethically troublesome. Ever hear the story of the man who watched all his neighbours being taken away whilst he watched idly as he and his friends did nothing? They were gradually taken away with no one to give them a voice, until finally he too was taken away and there was no one to speak for him. There is NO WAY that you can not be involved in largescale political actions, your abstaining from them has it owns influence, your inaction gives somebody else power. But of course that's what it comes down to. Most of us are keen to give away power to anyone who is willing to take it. As a species we seem largely adverse to responsibility. The worst attrocities in our collective history have come about as a result of our implicit accepting of what the powers tell us. It is this that led to the wide scale acceptance of dictators such as Hitler and Stalin. Why question Adolf's logic that all the nations problems will be solved by the genocide of an entire species? Because to do so would involve difficult questions, expose lies and force you to confront facts. And in order to ask difficult questions we'd have to think, and we wouldn't dare go to that trouble would we! 

It is this complete and brazen refusal to accept the facts that so disturbs me in America today. Almost half of the country supports a political party that is repeatedly exposed as lying and manipulative to its own people. In the last few days Barack Obama has released his official birth certificate to prove that he was born within in the United States. Apparently 47% of Republicans attest to believing he wasn't! Donald Trump (who seems to be heading towards an attempt at presidential candidacy) has done a lot to rile up this movement. This is a man who says America should stop "the baby stuff" and take the oil in Libya. A man who is admitted to not wanting to touch the poor or middle class for fear of germs and thinks that he can order the chinese to stop manipulating currency! Donald Trump appears to be some kind of fake tanned satanic disney figure. People like he and Sarah Palin make an unholy Mickey and Minnie Mouse combo marching us gallantly towards our apocalytic death. Or at least in my nightmares anyway... They seem so predictable and stupid that they were made for the 2D screen, so utterly flat is their intelligence and character depth. 

May I remind you that mosts republicans don't believe in evolution, a simple and overwhelmingly supported fact that only has a very old book that they point to as disproving it. In Texas there is a museum that features dinosaurs and humans interacting at the same time, such blatant refusal to accept the easily provable is genuinely terrifying. The greatest problem however is that Republicans seem to fall into that category of people who don't seem to have interest in politics, which is a bit of a problem when you're dealing with... politics. Trump has admitted just like Palin that he "he doesn't know anything about politics" which is worrying when I saw that a CNN poll put Trump and Palin as the second and third most popular selections amongst republicans, hmmmmmm. It's a bit like Arsene Wenger becoming a football manager but admitting he doesn't real know how the game is played. Or a Doctor telling you he doesn't know too much about medicines - i.e fucking retarded. 

Trump describes China as an "enemy" who "cheats" and "wants to take us over" Everything he supports is done in the same aggressive manner as if repeatedly headbutting through all your obstacles is going to save your country, when in reality you just end up with a sore head. This anti-intellectualism has been taking place in America for far too long. What happens when you have an uneducated, unthinking populace is that you then get people voting for someone that best represents those constituents. It's ludicrous to think that one of the reasons Obama is so abhorbed by many of the republican base is because he went to Harvard. But I'm surprised that the media hasn't alluded to the fact that Obama has so virilently been outcast by many Americans because of racism. Gun sales shot up exponentially around the south when Barack Obama came into power, whilst fundamentalist christians (thus republicans) have called his arrival as the return of the antichrist before the coming apocalypse because as the bible says he would be a "charismatic leader" This is so much a facepalm moment that I feel like my hand will push through my face and into my skull. Lets be reminded that this is the same south that is still so predominately white and  hungover from losing their right to keep slaves. It's fine if these are people that don't want to get involved in politics, but for the sake of your country and the whole world don't go into taking responsibility without knowing what you're doing. Or we'll get more people running for office that will shout slogans like Palin recently did with "We'll put a boot in your ass its the American way!" Don't forget my darling Sarah that if you keep booting your way through the asses of your enemy, you'll not only have a sore foot but you'll be covered in shit. 

Embrace the Infinite Possibilities

If I could want any one thing from a human being it would be the ability to look up and beyond your limitations: be they physical, mental or spiritual. Throughout our recorded history we have been repeatedly breaking from the shackles that have limited our true potentiality. From the moment we are born we are relentlessly striving for the future. We are bought up to endlessly anticipate what is to come. A lot of us aren't really prepared for today but live in a society that is endlessly talking of the future, of what you “could” achieve or what the politicians will eventually provide. But have we become a culture of apathy that doesn't take responsibility for the world that we live in? Living in the UK I'm personally very familiar with cynicism and moaning. Although sometimes charming and funny with it I think the British are keen to blame and complain. I myself have been caught by this rare ailment and often find myself dismissing things before I've ever weighed up their actual possibility.

This is the world we all live in – the world of possibility. Everything is possible but in order to make it real-isable we need to put ourselves into action. The vast majority of the time the only thing holding us back from putting things into action is our ability to make excuses. Think of your highest version of yourself – that person that you dream of being, who is admired, loved, respected or just content. What is really holding you back from being that person? You want to find a soulmate. Well how do you expect to improve your chances by never socialising with new groups of people? You want to live in a sunny clime? What's stopping you? Certainly not money. Often people invent obstacles because of various reasons. People don't want to interact with certain people because of their class, race, interests, political or moral views; people don't want to go to certain parts of the world because they're worried about losing comfort, connections and familiarity. 

The fact is the more obstacles you put up for yourself the less of the true world you are seeing. If you only stick with experiences that are comfortable then you will create a self-reinforcing bubble that will just support all of the views you have about the world. You are in effect living in a world of illusion. You are never exposed to the alternative point of view outside your bubble which may be the place you live or the people you socialise with. You having not let yourself experience other ways of living in this world closes you within your own box. You then limit what is possible whilst always complaining about the box, scratching at it and moaning at people outside of it.

Embrace the infinite possibilities. The more you engage with just how huge the box really is, the more liberated you are – and the more you cast off your own shackles to your true potential. For those with spiritual interests, a shared message of all worldwide religions is that we are created as literal children of God. We all have the Godlike potential to transform this world and beyond any measure we could imagine. We, the children of millions of years of humanity's journey are the living evidence of this. We have shattered and re-shattered our view of the world, the body, the mind and of existence time and time again through our discoveries and ideas. Even particular individuals have changed the fates of millions on this earth.

This blog envisages a libertarian future where human beings free themselves from the shackles that inhabit our true potential in embracing our loving, expansive and curious natures. I encourage you to look over the precipice and to dream big. I want you to embrace the highest vision of yourself and become it. Then maybe one day as a species we can break out of the biggest shackles of all. The shackles that hold back entire societies from each other and help create hatreds that have been distorted because of our illusionary perspectives of one another. We are scared because those shackles make us feel safe and feel comfortable. They give us a sense of meaning and belonging in the world that can explain things to us, unlike the questions that face us when we embrace that those explanations are limited.

The questions that face us when we look outside the box are profound and can be intimidating. when we are all on one plane and willing to address those big questions together is the day that we will finally get around to solving them. Until then: unleash your own potential, release yourself to possibilities and don't be afraid to look at the other side