Still Point

What's it all about, anyway 13?

2012-01-26T00:53:00.000Z

Memories of the Past

Almost anywhere, at any time of day or night random memories come to us unbidden. Some chance encounter sparks a memory, some unexpected happening another and so on. I have already mentioned many times before in these pages the theory that perhaps we are no more than an intricate bank of memories. Today as I crossed the school yard I bumped into Fr Peter McVerry, SJ, tireless worker on behalf of homeless young people in Dublin, our capital city. He was in to address the the staff and parents of our primary school. I just chanced to be crossing the schoolyard and bumped into him while walking his Jack Russell dog. I greeted him and welcomed him to our school. It was my first meeting with this wonderful man. I talked to him about people I knew from Milltown Institute (A Jesuit run third level college) where I had studied for some three years. We spoke about the director of my thesis and other lecturers whom I was privileged to have back in the early to mid-eighties. We also spoke about dogs and teaching. He quipped that he loved his work, and if anything it kept his provincial from sending him into the classroom to teach science. We spoke as if we had always known one another. Such is always the way with committed workers for justice and equality. You can read all about this wonderful Irish Jesuit here and find links to the two main books he has written: PMV Trust

Unfortunately I was unable to attend his talk as I was on my way to meet my brother to go to the gym. Still this random encounter sparked off many memories of old places and former friends and acquaintances. But time flies - tempus fugit and sic transit gloria mundi etc. Somewhere between all the daily concerns: this misbehaving student, that EBD Asperger's boy, this difficult parent, the Student Council Bookshop, trying to re-acquaint myself with mathematical procedures learnt years ago and all the relevant and irrelevant banter in the Staff Room my memory banks were jogged and memories came streaming from the past. Mere chance collisions of neurons in the brain or something deeper and more mysterious I ask myself. It's a good question to which I do not have the answer, though I firmly believe in the something more. I cannot define or pin down that something more, but it leads me onwards to live life as best as I can and in the most authentic manner that I can attain. Once again, words I had read in Shakespeare's The Tempest which the dramatist puts into the mouth of Prospero come to my mind here, because the Bard of Avon spoke of the human condition before the word existentialist was coined. Moreover, he spoke of the human condition and some of what he wrote could indeed be classed existentialist and angst-ridden. Now for Prospero's wonderful words:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

(The Tempest Act 4, scene 1, 148–158).

These words are worth pondering and reading aloud to let their import seep into our heart. Shakespeare is here reminding us of our mortality and indeed the temporality of all things, including our little world: The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,//The solemn temples, the great globe itself,//Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve. Indeed, then the four words "and our little life" make for a mantra to remind us of our sheer unimportance in the scheme of things. Such angst-ridden thoughts are the heart of the existentialist sensibility.

I want, I want, I want

Yet another Jesuit scholar comes to my mind here, viz., Fr. Michael-Paul Gallagher S.J. whom I had the pleasure to have as a lecturer in both English literature and Theology. It was he who introduced me to the books of the great Americanm novelist Saul Bellow. We read Henderson the Rain King and Herzog with Michael-Paul way back in the late 1970s. I remember the above title from the antihero of that book, Henderson, he who wanted his life to mean something. Hence, throughout the book "I want" appears as a sort of modernist mantra for the deep desire yet emptiness that lie at the heart of so-called modern culture. Here also are two short quotes from that novel to give you a taste of what it is about:

"Now I have already mentioned that there was a disturbance in my heart, a voice that spoke there and said, I want, I want, I want! It happened every afternoon, and when I tried to suppress it got even stronger. It said only one thing, I want, I want! And I would ask, 'What do you want?' But this is all it would ever tell me." Chapter 3, p. 24

“And I prayed and prayed, ‘Oh, you…Something,’ I said, ‘you Something because of whom there is not Nothing. Help me to do Thy will. Take off my stupid sins. Untrammel me. Heavenly Father, open up my dumb heart and for Christ’s sake preserve me from unreal things. Oh, Thou who tookest me from pigs, let me not be killed over lions. And forgive my crimes and nonsense and let me return to Lily and the kids.’” p. 253

The More We're Striving For

When I was defending my Master's Thesis on the method in theology in the works of John Henry Cardinal Newman, I remember one of the panel of examiners asking me (in reply to one of my answers which opined that there was more to life than scientific materialists like Huxley dreamed of) what was the "more" in life. I had replied that that, of course, was the grace of GOD, the very gift of his Son as Redeemer of the World. At the time I staunchly believed that. At this distance in time what I said then is for me now no more than a theological formula. I suppose I have outgrown my need for religion, but that is okay. Others have a need for it, and that is okay, too, in my book. All stances in life are equally valid once they do not hurt another sentient being. That's my basic ethical and moral vision anyway. However, I'm still striving for the more, whatever that may be. I'm open on this question. Like Henderson I want, I want, I want...MEANING!

Tutorial For Three

As I have many times said in these pages, I am a Special Education Teacher. Once a week I take three of our second year high achievers for a class in philosophy. These young boys at at the top of their class and have attended the DCU Centre for Talented Youth: see here. We have discussed much in our forty minutes weekly class from mathematics and science to literature and philosophy. I am teaching them to think, but mostly I listen to their ideas and try to sharpen their questions. Philosophy is more a way of thinking than learning off a raft of ideas, even though we often do so to get a handle on the subject in question. Nevertheless, the real philosopher, mathematician or scientist is the guy or girl with the inquisitive mind and the incisive questions. At the end of yesterday's class I left them with the thought that the most precious thing ever in their lives will be their desire to know, and that with that desire to know will come real power over their own lives, and that if they live their lives in pursuit of authentic truth and knowledge they will have added to the human store of wisdom.

Iam venio ad finem

These were the words of the late Pope John Paul II, when he was a Auxiliary Bishop Of Krakow, Poland at one of the meetings of the Second Vatican Council. He was being hurried along as he was going somewhat over time, and he stated "Iam venio ad finem" : "I am soon coming to an end." It is the same for me here: "Iam venio ad finem" : "I am soon coming to an end." What's it all about, anyway is indeed a good question. The great religions are one way of providing an answer to this question for their followers. However, even within these great religions there are varying strands of belief too, e.g., the many different Christian churches and the various strands of Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam and so on and so forth. Outside that, there are many others with varying convictions and varying answers. Each person to his/her own. "Chacun a son gout," as the French say! Or as my uncle John from San Francisco says (he's 92 this year), "live and let live!"

This will be my last in this serious of autobiographical posts. It is time I turned my attention to another concern.

What's it all about, anyway, 12?

2012-01-22T19:12:00.001Z

Finding a Direction and a Compass - Again

Self, Late 80s, early 90s

I've long given up the idea of the straight line with respect to personal development. Both in my personal and professional life progress is not made in steady increments in a forward direction; even in small increments in a forward direction (only). Personal development seems to happen in a spiral fashion, rather like a spiral staircase either up or down. Working in the Asperger's unit we keep good files on the personal, social, moral, intellectual and emotional development of our charges. The ones on whom we spend most of our time are those with EBD problems, that is, those with Emotional Behavioural Disability. It is a slow process, so slow that sometimes it is hard even to determine if any progress has been made at all. You think you have made a step forward only to find the student has taken two steps back, or so it appears. However, we persevere as a team and progress is made, often in millimeters as one visiting tutor from the SESS told us.

Likewise, in my own personal development with issues which I wish to tackle like my weight control, my Blood Pressure, areas of my mental health, I often find myself undoing the good I may have done previously, or at least, that is the way it appears to me. Oftentimes, I have found my development to be rather circular, rather than in a straight line. Hence, my reference to circular movement, and yet circular movement isn't good enough either for me. That's why I have suggested the metaphor of the spiral staircase because although it seems you are going round in circles you are in fact moving either up or down. This personal metaphor - I haven't seen it written about anywhere, but no doubt it is, because I believe there are precious few new insights under the sun - often consoles me because when I find some seeming regression, I say to myself: "perhaps we have gone deeper or higher, and let's be patient because movement is not quite apparent now, but it may be later." This is how I console myself with regard to my sense of my own personal development as well as my sense of my professional developmen,t and indeed the personal and educational development of my pupils.

Now, my heading refers to finding a sense of direction and a compass - be it personal or professional. I have written before in these pages that my direction was always towards teaching, either at second or third level. The last few pages indicated that I veered some little bit away from that direction and then veered back again to that main direction. It was as if by taking a scenic route or a diversion here or there to assure myself that I was on the right course was at play in my life as I look back like the traveller who has reached the top of the mountain and views his seemingly meandering ascent. In fact my belief in my vocation as a teacher has deepened if anything. While I may teach Mathematics, SPHE or Meditation, Communication and Language Skills, I believe that it is the encounter with the student as other that is the primary focus of my teaching. A good teacher is a teacher who connects with his/her class, establishes a rapport or a relationship of care with them; in other words has a presence in the class. Now this is the context. Indeed, today after some thirty two years in the profession I'd argue that it is the only context in which any teaching worth its salt can take place at all. The task of education is a triple one: We seek to (i) inform (ii) form and (iii) transform our students in order for them to reach their full potential in life.

And Death walks hand-in-hand with Life

Self, sometime in the late 80s

To be a living being is to be a dying being in reality. Plants and animals all die. It's hard to believe that any plant or animal can or even should go on forever. That would defy logic and commonsense. All the little set-backs and failures we experience in life are really little deaths which we have to undergo if we are to make any personal movement towards self-integration or individuation as Carl Gustave Jung put it. Anyway, the next ten years of my life after I had left Religious Life saw the deaths of many uncles and aunts and of my father, Thomas Quinlan, who died a wonderful death at the age of 79. He took a minor stroke after having undergone a routine operation and lasted just about two weeks. My mother, my brothers and I used to go in to feed him during his last days in Beaumont Hospital here in Dublin. Anyway, before he was taken into hospital for his final sojourn there I can remember his being very upset and confused, and his confusion was his fear of dying because he felt he might have sinned too much in life. The poor man had lived a very innocent life in fact. What had bothered him was the negative, judgemental and guilt-ridden Catholicism with which he had grown up. Thankfully this style of Catholicism is long since dead and gone. Anyway, once he was in hospital he settled down and an amazing calmness came upon him. I believe it was the acceptance that it was his time to leave this world. A couple of days before he died he kissed each one of us goodbye and told us he loved us. None of us was there when he finally passed away. A young nurse who was very upset at his passing as it was her first experience of losing a patient, told us that his final words were, "It's a lovely day." He died on the 13th Feb. 1993.
1993 was a turning point for me as I had now lost my father, a huge link with my past. I knew instinctively that middle age was ahead and that I should make the most of my middle years. I was 35 when my father died. As the clay poured down over his coffin, I found myself saying to myself, "I must put that S.T.L. to rest by finishing it. I have mentioned this post-graduate degree before. I had it more than 2/3 finished when I had exited the Augustinian Order and had achieved very high results in the course work, 100% of which I had completed, the only part not finished was the thesis. I remember driving out to meet Dr. John Macken, S.J., wonderful scholar and one time president of Milltown. John agreed to my completing this degree, and he facilitated this personally by supervising my thesis himself. I dedicated the work to my father. The final examination for the S.T.L. which is a pontifical/Roman degree is a two part oral examination where (i) one sits before 3 lecturers, one your thesis supervisor, the other the reader, and the third the extern who question you on the syllabus of courses which you studied for the degree - the taught element of the course, (ii) again one has to defend one's thesis before the same three individuals. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I was duly awarded the degree of STL in October 1994 with first class honours at the age of 36 (See here Theses). To this day I attribute my successful result to my father. My argument here essentially is that something had moved or changed in me allowing my mind or heart to be clearer about what I really wanted in life

Death is a reality we all have to encounter inm our lives. Alas, poor Dr. John Macken, S.J., who was made president of Milltown Institute of Philosophy and Theology shortly after my conferral was to die all too young within a year of his appointment to that role.

What's it all about, anyway, 11?

2012-01-22T01:39:00.000Z

Into the Desert

Self with fellow students in the Augustinian Order, 1985. Not one person shown stayed!

I have already alluded to the fact that the metaphor of journey is a central one in all cultures and literatures. There are many related metaphors, of course, like being stuck, being lost, going astray etc. There is also the existential image of wandering in the desert. This is an obviously Biblical motif, both from the Old and New Testaments when the Israelites wandered for forty years as a nation in the desert which prefigured Christ's forty days in the desert in the New Testament. One could say that the classical version of this desert motif is that of the descent into Hades, the land of shadows. That spiritually and existentially many of us go down into the pit of despair, the Slough of Despond as John Bunyan put it in his classic Pilgrim's Progress is without doubt a central part of the human condition.

When I left Religious Life I spent nearly two months literally in this Slough of Despond, in this personal Hades, in the Desert. This is a far more desperate place to be than the experience of being lost. Indeed, to use a very facile mathematical image, it is like being lost raised to the nth power. That experience is akin to how the Gerard Manley Hopkins felt in the Terrible Sonnets or the despairing psalmist felt at stages in the Book of Psalms or how Josef K felt about his torment in Kafka's novel of despair, called The Trial.

This is the heart of existentialism - the angst of lived existence, and only those who have been there, experienced some despair can talk about it. Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ, to whom I have referred a few lines back knew this black despair as he wrote: "I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.// What hours, O what black hours we have spent//This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!// And more must, in yet longer light's delay." These are the first four lines of the Terrible Sonnet No. 45, and later on in the same angst-ridden poem he gives us this wonderful, if angst-filled line to ponder: "Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours" and opines that all other lost souls, or rather despairing souls "are like this, and their scourge to be// As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse."

Night sweats are indeed often part of the depressive's night as I can attest from my personal experience. Being in the desert is a lonely experience, and one cannot just decide to exit from it at any time one wants. One goes with the experience till it ends, whether that be by medical intervention or quite simply when the period of depression burns itself out, or when any particular sickness runs its course. It is truly the Slough of Despond as one does not know when the dwelling in the desert is going to end. In the midst of the desert there is the sheer blackness of unknowing and this, too, adds greatly to the physical and mental suffering.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

Self, teaching in the Gaeltacht in more recent years

However, thankfully, as most of us who suffer from clinical depression know, bouts of that dreadful mental illness do come to an end. Hence, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Moreover, as many sufferers from depression can attest, sometimes it takes far too long - often years - for some medical practitioners to diagnose it. In my case, I was attending the doctor for some twelve years before it was properly diagnosed. Now the fault does not lie solely with the medical profession, who are picking up more of it, but also with general knowledge among the public at large about the symptoms of depression, especially of the clinical variety. With me, the situation was that I had been enduring sleepless nights for say a week at a time over a period of some twelve years, yet this mini-desert experience would abate and not return for several months. I wrote it down to just insomnia and/or worry. However, as I am recounting this narrative in a fairly sequential or chronological fashion, suffice it to say that after two months of recuperating after exiting Religious Life, I got a job teaching Mathematics and Religion in St David's Secondary School , Artane.

Teaching with Renewed Vigour and Energy

It was as if I had been tested in a furnace; that I had journeyed in the desert; that I had been to Hades and back, and had survived. I had come through, and had emerged wounded and broken maybe, but not crushed or left for dead. I found that I had a new confidence in class. I was now no longer as idealistic as I had been during my first period of teaching. I remained in St David's for two years where I taught Mathematics, Religion, History and English. Once again, the range of subjects in which I was qualified was no little help and my general knowledge was always wide. This time round I made precious few mistakes in disciplining any class. In fact, I was pretty good with all classes and had little or no trouble during my two years in the hallowed halls of St.David's, Artane. I loved my time teaching there, and did a lot of Meditation work, in which I had built up a certain expertise over the years, with the pupils there. Indeed, I worked closely with a former Provincial of the Christian Brothers, a Bro. Timothy Claver Leonard, CFC in leading meditation sessions in line with Eastern and Christian practice. I also qualified, under Tim Leonard's direction, in presenting and assessing the MBTI, an indicator which seeks to determine, or, at least allow the candidates, to determine their character type. This was interesting work from which I learnt a lot about human behaviour.

Also, while in David's I met one of my life-long friends, Tom Gleeson, and I engaged in team-teaching or co-teaching and observation of classes with Tom. We learnt a lot from each other as to what teaching could and should be. Over the two years there, I grew in confidence as a teacher and felt that I had a store of practical wisdom to share with my pupils from all my own experience of living. Bear in mind that I had done several months of pastoral experience while in Religious Life - two months in Meath Street where I co-ordinated a Summer Project and I also did a month of visiting the sick. Later I was to spend a month in Galway where I worked in a drop-in centre called Tagaste House. While there, I worked with reformed alcoholics and drug addicts. All of this practical experience, coupled with my academic studies and my descent into Hades had strengthened me and given me a deep insight into life which I could share with my charges.

What's it all about, anyway, 10?

2012-01-20T19:10:00.001Z

Self-Knowledge and Compassion versus Self-Obsession

There's nothing as bad as a person who is self-obsessed or narcissistic, or even egotistic. These posts are of the self-knowledge variety I hasten to add. My preoccupations throughout this week have been work-related mainly and with preparations for the Vincent de Paul Party for the local old folks. I have also been moved by the tragic loss of life to the sea, internationally and nationally, firstly of the people on a cruise off the coast of Italy due to the silliness of a Captain who should have known better and secondly of the Irish and Egyptian fishermen lost tragically to the vagaries of the sea here at home off the coast of Cork. One could not fail to be moved by the media reports and the on-line testimonies of the survivors and relatives of those lost to the unforgiving sea. Also, I helped some students with big problems during the week which ranged from depression, consequent on the suicide of a close relative, to OCD and on to a session on grief counselling with a group of four young men who had lost their fathers over the last number of years.

All of these things help to keep me real, lest I get lost in any form of self-obsession or even be touched with a little egotism. As well as that, a former Deputy Principal of our school who has cancer and has had his left hip and leg removed from it, arrived into the school with €100 for our Vincent de Paul Party. This man has never succumbed to his disease nor has he given in to riding in a wheelchair. He still goes around on crutches and drives his automatic car. How could one not fail to be touched by such wonderful kindness and such wonderful strength. I've always loved Shakespeare's words which he places in the mouth of Miranda: in The Tempest, Act V, Scene I:

O wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world!
That has such people in it!

I always feel like reciting these words when I am touched by all these wonderful as well as tragic events that occur in the wonderful, if at times cruel and painful, world.

Back to my Personal History

John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890)

Over the course of the 54 years which I have lived on this earth I don't think I have ever planned out my career with any definite specifics. I always knew the direction that I would travel in, never the particular road. Teaching, whether at second or third level always attracted me, never at primary. I have done a little lecturing over the years on a very occasional basis at Third Level mainly in classroom practice and other school-related activities. While working in the library in Orlagh, the Novitiate house of the Augustinian Order here Ireland I discovered the wonderful works of the great John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890). I read his Oxford University Sermons, a must for any theologian or philosopher, and especially for any student of good English. The beauty of Newman's prose is a joy to read and a singular pleasure to read aloud, even to oneself. This is a habit I have long had ever since a child. I used always read passages aloud from my schoolbooks if I liked them! My late father used always laugh sympathetically at this peculiar habit of mine. Another book I particularly relished, even though I admit I struggled through parts of it, was his wonderful Grammar of Assent. I was equally enamoured of the great Cardinal's The Idea of a University which is a must for any would-be educationalist. Consequently, the subject of my S.T.L. thesis would be the philosophical/theological thought of this great Victorian scholar.

Minor Break-Down, Minor Break-Through

Self, around 1985, some six months before I left the Augustinians

It's always the way; when one least expects it the body speaks. While I was studying for my Master's I got sick several times with the flu or, at least with flu-like symptoms. I also spent periods of several weeks sleepless. Then somehow the sleep would return. I went several times to the Doctor and was sent to a neurologist when my G.P. suspected something akin to ME at least or MS at worst. However, our neurologist could find nothing wrong with my nervous system. Concomitant with the rebellion of my body went a spiritual rebellion. My student master noticed that I was considerably out of sorts and recommended that I take a break in a centre city parish where I had been happy previously during some pastoral experience. While there I visited the sick and dying several times in the local flats. Needless to say this was deeply moving work. In the evening time I once again, as is my wont, escaped into the world of reading. This time, as a break from more academic reading I read novel after novel, until one day I picked up the book The Last Battle about the fall of Nazi Germany at the hands of the Allies and the Russians. It was written by Cornelius Ryan, (1920 – 1974) who was an Irish journalist, born in Dublin and who went to Synge Street School, another famous Christian Brother School. He was a war correspondent and author mainly known for his writings on popular military history.

Anyway, this wonderful book, The Last Battle (1966) is about the Battle of Berlin. It contains detailed accounts from all perspectives: civilian, American, British, Russian and German. It deals with the fraught military and political situation in the spring of 1945, when the forces of the Western Allies and the Soviet Union contended for the chance to liberate Berlin and to carve up the remains of Germany. One evening, as I was tiring of reading, I left the book down just to muse on what I had read, and the following thought, which is as clear now in my head as then, occurred to me: "What am I doing here in Religious Life at all?" When I took up the book to continue with the sorry saga of the fall of Berlin, I had already decided that I was leaving that way of life for good; that it was not my spiritual home at all. As I have already written in a previous post, drawing on an image from the famous twentieth century sociologist Peter Berger, that the person is truly integrated who has found himself to be truly at home in his own mind. Unfortunately, I wasn't at home then, at all, in my own mind. I realised on that fateful evening, while reading Cornelius Ryan's wonderful book, that I, too, had fought my last battle in Religious Life. Nothing remained for me, but to go forward into different pastures, continue on my personal journey to God knows where.

From this distance - some 26 or more years later - I realise after much reflection and discernment that during my last year with the Augustinians that I had undergone a minor nervous breakdown, that what I was suffering from was clinical depression, with which I would be diagnosed years later at the significant age of forty. However, minor breakdown that it was, it was, also, a minor break-through into the deep down world of the soul. As I have learned in the years since then, it often takes the body to speak loudly to us in order to hear what the soul is saying at all. And sometimes those who fail to heed the soul are often hit with the most weighty of crosses.

And what's it all about, anyway, 9?

2012-01-19T18:37:00.000Z

Moving On

Life is about moving on, if not physically, at least emotionally and spiritually. Indeed, one of the central metaphors used for life is, of course, that of making a journey which is a central motif in all cultures and religions. Our lives have many beginnings and endings before the final and ultimate one that marks our exit from the world. We all know when we have out-stayed our time in a particular place or job. Now, given that there are no over-riding circumstances like family commitments, unlikely hope of getting a job etc., we can all "call it a day" with any particular job and move on to other gainful employment. In January 1983 that was how I felt. I was not at ease in O'Connell School, mainly because I still felt I was a mere boy and a mere pupil because most of the teachers who had taught me were still there. Admittedly this was my problem, not theirs at all. It was I who still felt "inferior," and no doubt I was lacking in confidence. It was time to move on and I knew it.

The Call of Religious Life

Self bottom right on day of reception into OSA - days of innocence and Hair!

It does not surprise me that I felt drawn to the Religious Life as I was always a spiritual sort of person anyway. As well as that I was highly idealistic and I loved working at shared tasks. All of these things meant that it was the sense of shared ideals in a community setting that attracted me. I had never ever been keen on being a diocesan priest. In fact the things a priest did like saying Mass or administering the sacraments were not necessarily things that attracted me in themselves. What attracted me was the spiritual journey towards God made together in a community setting. If this involved doing all those priestly things, then so be it. Anyway, I did a weekend with the Jesuits and another with the Augustinian Order, and I chose the latter because of its family emphasis. Indeed the Augustinians spoke traditionally of the Familia Augustiniarum, or the Augustinian Family. The Jesuits were more individual in orientation and emphasized study.

During my time in this order, some three years, I spent two in preparation for entry into that lifestyle - a period of time called the novitiate or noviceship. These two years were spent mainly in prayer and reflection and study. We also had to do community based work like cooking breakfast and tea, and only on rare occasions dinner. We also had to look after the guest rooms, wash the dishes, do one's own laundry and so on. As well as that we worked outdoors - collecting apples in the orchard, fixing fences, gathering up the fallen autumnal leaves and more besides. All of this allowed me to read widely in Theology, Spirituality and English. It was also then that I began to write my own poetry in English solely. (I have since given up penning poems in English, preferring to compose solely in Gaelic these days.)

Feeling Needed

Me at Christmas dinner, 1983.

There is something deep within us - a really deep personal need to be needed by others. I was 25 years of age when I left teaching to join this new way of life and I was 28 when I left it. While there I did many rewarding things and I learnt more in those three years about myself than I had done in the seven years previous years I had spent studying at third level. There were eight or so other students in the house, mostly all in their late teens or early twenties. However, one was older than me, a former solicitor who was trying out religious life like myself. This gentleman was a wonderful man called James Scally, who left after three years also, joined The Red Cross for a number of years, did some service with them overseas and eventually became a District Court Judge. Unfortunately Jim died all too young in May 2009 at just 66 years of age. (A tribute can be read here: Argus). I ended up being the main driver for my fellow students going to college and for other sundry trips. I also looked after one old Augustinian who was ill and I was often tasked with taking him to the Doctor's surgery or to the hospital. All in all I enjoyed the camaraderie of my fellow students, the spiritual direction of my Novice Master who was himself a trained psychologist. We would have had to see this person once a month, and it was then, in a sense, that I got used to being, if you like, "in therapy."

After two years in the novitiate I went to the student house which was then in Ballyboden. I decided that given that I had already got a degree in theology that I should go on and inscribe for the degree of S.T.L. (Sacrae Theologiae Licentiatus or Licentiate in Sacred Theology). I met with the wonderful scholar Fr. Martin McNamara, D.S.S., Ph. D. the then Dean of theology. Martin was/is a wonderful scholar, a linguist and exegete of international reputation especially with the Targums. [A targum is an Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) written or compiled from the Second Temple period until the early Middle Ages (late first millennium)]. Needless to say he would know all the Biblical languages: Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek as well as being fluent in Gaeilge and German. He was keen that I inscribe for the S.T.L. and he even remembered having taught me at Mater Dei some five years previously. It was also through Martin that I got my first experience of lecturing. He invited me to talk on The Book of Job and the Literature of the Absurd for his evening Gaelic lectures at Milltown Institute. And so I prepared a long two-hour talk called in Irish, Leabhar Iób agus Litríocht na Díchéille, the Irish version of the English title given in the previous sentence.

Being a man of humility who wore his learning very lightly Martin showed up at my lecture and listened quietly. At the end he said to me that it was of such a good quality that it should be published in Irisleabhar Mhá Nuad, which indeed it was sometime in 1987. This was my first major publication in the Irish language. I will always be thankful to this learned and humble gentleman for encouraging me academically and for getting me into print in Irish.

And what's it all about, anyway 8?

2012-01-18T23:27:00.000Z

Wonderful Lecturers

Self with Noel Brosnan at a debs in 1977: we were both in 1st Year, M.D.I

We had many wonderful lecturers but the one who stood out by virtue of his passion for life and for his subject as well as for his erudition and eloquence was the late Denis Carroll, D.D. Now Denis was a priest at the time, but he later left to marry a woman he had met in one of the parishes in which he ministered. He was a brilliant theologian who in later life and as a layman lectured in Trinity College Dublin. He also wrote several books in the areas of both theology and history, and many learned articles. As well as a brilliant theologian he was an able historian. He also had a mastery of languages: German, French, Italian and Latin. Needless to say, he was widely read in literature, too. He was the first to introduce me to the writings of Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768 – 1834), the German theologian and philosopher. He also did courses with us on evolution and how through the work and thought of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ (1881 – 1955), the French paleontologist and mystic this could be reconciled with Christian thinking; on Bernard Lonergan SJ, another formidable Catholic thinker and a memorable course of lectures on the theological thought of yet another brilliant Jesuit philosopher and theologian Karl Rahner (1904-1984). However, it is his series of lectures on the thought of the French Catholic philosopher Gabriel Marcel (1889-1973) that really inspired me to go on to read other works by this great philosopher.

There were other wonderful lecturers from those years like Rev.Michael Paul Gallagher, S.J., then a lecturer in English literature in UCD. He did both English and Theology with us. He gave us a series on lectures on the novels of Saul Bellow, D.H. Lawrence and E.M. Forster, all novelists whom I really loved reading. In the area of theology he covered modern unbelief upon which he had written his doctorate in Queen's University, Belfast. He has a lovely site on the Web, which can be viewed here: MPG. Of course, there was also the wonderful and unassumingly clever philosopher, Rev Patrick Carmody, M.A., M.Phil., about whose influence I have written on many occasions in these pages. He had a wonderful mind and was widely read in philosophy. It was he who introduced me to possibly my most favourite author, Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Physical Fitness

I had better make at least a passing reference to physical fitness. I had never been good at team sports. In fact I was atrocious at them. One of the reasons I could never read a soccer game properly when I was playing was because I was short-sighted. At primary school I was always a substitute player and one that never got called on to play. Once when I did play, I remember a Bro. Casey, who reffing the match, calling me a "jelly bean." What he meant by it I don't know, but I took it to refer to my awkwardness. However, luckily I always had some ability at racket sports and was able to play to play, and did play for a short number of years tennis, badminton, squash and table tennis. In fact I was tolerably good at badminton and table tennis.

However, I remember a fellow Mater Dei student, one John Cunningham, a strong and gifted footballer, encouraging me to at least tog out for training with the Mater Dei soccer team, which was singularly lacking in men in those days. Over the four years I think I may have played at most two or three times when someone was badly injured. However, the twice weekly training did mean that I got fit. In fact I enjoyed it and it did manage to keep my sinusitis somewhat at bay. As an educator I have always subscribed to the concept of "mens sana in corpore sano."

These days I try to get to the gym twice a week in order to keep down my weight as I am on medication for my blood pressure and my cholesterol. Thankfully since I have reduced my weight by a stone my blood pressure has come down indeed. I am also fully conscious that I need to shed at least another half stone.

The World of Work and More Study

Self with Mum and Dad when I was conferred with my B.A., 1983

It was indeed good to get to work after four years of study. Being always work-driven and something of a dedicated student, I also inscribed for a B.A. degree at night in UCD. How I did that, I don't know. But I was young, a mere 22 years of age. An old Christian brother said to me, wisely, "Listen lad, Religion is a hard subject to teach. You'll never spent a lifetime at it. Go out to UCD and do Mathematics and Irish in the B.A." And that's what I did. I had always been at the top of my class in Gaeilge/Irish so studying it was never onerous. I was a fairly good C Honours student - never A or even B mind you - and I had to work hard at the Maths. However, after three years I did manage to obtain my degree at Pass level - as no Honours degree was then possible at night time. In those years there were two separate courses at UCD for some reason (indeed in all the NUI colleges, I believe) - a Pass B.A. course and an Honours B.A. course, and they only ever offered the pass degree at night. Nowadays, it is the one degree course and you either honour it or pass it, which makes perfect sense to me at this distance. I never did now why this early differentiation of courses was made. Overall, I was a happy man as I now was qualified to teach Religion, English, Irish and Mathematics all to Leaving Certificate standard in Secondary School. I was even qualified to teach history to Junior Certificate, given that I had taken History in first arts in UCD. Seven long years of hard work and study, but very well worth it as I had a very broad command of general subjects.

Looking back on my life, my first three years teaching were a trial for me. I was young and inexperienced and far too idealistic. As well as that, I had too many irons in the fire to be a really good teacher - spending every evening travelling by bus - two buses at that - out to UCD for lectures and not getting home until at least 11.00 p.m. after a hard day's work in the classroom. In those years I found discipline quite a hard task. In hindsight ,I believe I was a poor teacher then, but on the plus side I learnt much from my mistakes. I have known a few people in my time in the various schools in which I have since taught never to have learnt much from their experiences, as they went on unhappily making the same mistakes over and over again. Teaching is a profession which requires the teacher to think about how to handle classes, to reflect on where he or she went wrong in handling student X, Y or Z, and it is also a job which means that one must try new approaches all the time as the world changes its emphases. It also requires one to "connect" with the class - never an easy thing to do. However, over the years, I have watched those teachers who had the art of "connection" and have learnt from them. Another way of saying this would be to say that a good teacher has "presence," or indeed "fills" the classroom to put it metaphorically. These days I feel at home in my classroom and I like to feel that I "fill" it. Also, it does help if the teacher has a sense of humour as young people like that, and also it is a good tension reliever which can defuse possible conflict situations. Lastly, it pays to have a command of one's subject, to know what you are doing, to know the curriculum and examination system inside out. Now, after some thirty years or so in the classroom, I do some preparation for class, though not the level to which they expect it on H. Dip. Ed. or P.G.C.E. courses. However, I have always believed in preparation as the old adage puts it: I have long believed that if we fail to prepare we prepare to fail.

I taught in my first school, Scoil Uí Chonaill (where I had been a pupil myself) for a period of three years. I taught mostly Religion, but I also taught one class Mathematics and another Junior Certificate French. I had always a facility with languages, French and Irish having been two of my highest scoring subjects in my own Leaving Certificate. The Headmaster, the wonderful Bro Loughran, CFC, knew I had been a good French scholar and asked me to take that class to Intermediate Certificate level. I truly enjoyed the experience. This would not be allowed today as a teacher is not allowed teach a subject in which he or she is not qualified, and rightly so.

Teaching in O'Connell's (Scoil Uí Chonaill) was a good experience professionally, though personally it was rather trying for me because I felt as if I was still a pupil as all my old teachers were then still on the staff. I know it was my own personal problem insofar as that was the way I felt, probably being way too shy, and not at all self-confident enough to really call my former teachers colleagues. And so I moved on after three years at the bosom of my alma mater, feeling a somewhat neglected child who never did get quite sufficiently well fed at her all too cold breast.

What's it all about, anyway 7?

2012-01-17T19:56:00.001Z

Starting Out on Life

Self upon graduation, October, 1980

I was eighteen years of age when I entered college to study to be a teacher of English and Religion. A four year course stretched out ahead of me as I entered the hallowed gates of Mater Dei Institute of Education in 1976. I remember remarking to myself that I had a long way to go until I would graduate. When one is young the years always appear to drag, but now that I'm older they appear to fly. A friend of mine remarked at a recent gathering for the New Year that this was quite logical because after all when one is four years of age a year is a quarter of your life, but at fifty a mere fiftieth. This was not a surprising comment for Joe to make as he is a mathematician of distinction and an engineer by profession. On reflection, this was a singularly good observation.

During my first month or so at College I got offered a job as an Executive Officer in The Irish Civil Service, having attained the marvellous distinction of coming 32nd place in that exam in the country. I remember my father encouraging me to take this job as it was paid well and had great promotional prospects. However, as I had always dreamed of being a teacher and as I really loved the college where I was, I decided to stay put and study. I felt that a third level degree would give me a better, or at least a more personally satisfying start in life.

Range of Subjects

Mater Dei at the time was very broadminded, and really did not push the orthodoxy of the Roman Catholic Church too much. The then Director of Studies was Rev. Dr. Patrick Wallace, just recently returned from C.U.A. with his doctorate. This man was a visionary in the true sense of the word, a sort of mystic to boot, who always maintained that asking questions was better than offering simplistic answers. He maintained that even if one did not get a good answer, one often ended up with a better question. The hierarchical church did not impinge too much on his intellect, his spirit or his sensibilities. We studied many different subjects at the time, though not all to degree level of course. We did Philosophy, Moral Theology, Systematic/Dogmatic Theology, Scripture, Education, Religious Education, Liturgy, English Literature, Drama, Creative Writing, and Rhetorical Composition (Rhetoric and Composition). The range of subjects and lecturers was broad which led this student to appreciate Newman's idea of a liberal education. Indeed, I believe I truly learnt how to think in Mater Dei. Our ultimate degree after four years was called a Bachelor of Religious Science and was awarded from NUI Maynooth, the University with which Mater Dei was linked at the time. The subjects I majored in were Religious Education, Education and English Literature. The above list of subjects were subsets if you like of Religious Education. Indeed one Scripture scholar Rev Dr. Michael Maher gave us an introductory course to Hebrew. Years later I also studied Biblical Greek in Milltown Institute. Being introduced to such a diversity of subjects not alone made us think, but also made us very broadminded, I believe.

High Points, Low Points and Peak Experiences

There were several high points during my time at college. One was being elected student representative in fourth year college when the recognition for our new degree was coming through. We were the first class through Mater Dei to have been conferred with a degree - before that there was a diploma only. Another was being chosen to reply to the Archbishop's commencement speech. Again meeting various inspirational lecturers and speakers like Michael Paul Gallagher, S.J. were also high points, or even being "moved" on a spiritual retreat. Another was being published in several theological journals under the guiding hand of our Rhetorical Composition lecturer Fr. Bernard Kelly, CSSP, D.D., D.Litt. It was he who truly gave me the writing bug that led to my eventually publishing many articles in various journals over the last thirty or more years. These were all high points, but there were low points too. Other highs were the many supportive relationships we had with one another, given that the college was so small.

One of the lowest points was the suicide of one of my classmates - a lovely girl named Paulene in her 21st year. She was quite a gifted student. Another low was the death by traffic accident of two college students returning from a badminton match.

Some (or all) of these experiences enumerated above could be called "peak experiences" (depending of course on the depth of the person's apprehension of the experience, or religious/spiritual outlook) which is a term coined by the great psychologist Abraham Maslow in his 1964 work Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences. "Peak experience" is a term used to describe certain transpersonal and ecstatic states, particularly ones tinged with themes of euphoria, harmonization and interconnectedness. Participants characterize these experiences, and the revelations imparted therein, as possessing an ineffably mystical and spiritual (or overtly religious) quality or essence.

What's it all about, anyway 6?

2012-01-15T12:35:00.001Z

On Acquiring a Course and a Compass

Self all dressed up for my debs, Oct. 1977

I have been a Bob Dylan fan for the last forty years or more ever since my brother Gerard bought his then latest LP. The old rocker's songs run to hundreds if not thousands at this stage and each song can be read as a poem, for Bob is as much a poet as he is a song writer. His lyrics are nothing short of brilliant. Anyway, one of the things we desperately need in life is direction. I have already written in a more recent post about being lost and quoted in full William Blake's short lyric Little Boy Lost. When we are growing up, especially in our teens and early twenties, one of the pressing concerns any of us has is finding our direction in life. Indeed, it is so easy to lose one's direction, to go off course, and worse still to founder on the rocks of our own destruction. Anyway, I have always liked these lines from Dylan's song Like a Rolling Stone which refer to being lost:

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone ?

Existentially, I think we all know only too well what its like to be rootless, lost, unanchored - call it what you will. Needless to say, very few of us know what it is like to be homeless in the literal sense without a roof over our heads. Writers like George Orwell in Down and Out in Paris and Jack Kerouac in his famous On the Road wrote from personal experiences of homelessness to great effect because their reflections were based on lived experience. But, it is to the existential sense of alienation and rootlessness that I am referring here. What we need, then, is some kind of compass to keep us on a steady course. We also need someone to point out to us what course we should follow.

What Course should we follow in Life?

This is a hard question for anyone in life. Some people are very lucky in finding a career which is essentially their vocation and a job they truly love. When I left primary school as a young boy just gone thirteen years of age, I knew that I wanted to do one thing only in life and that was be a teacher. If, good reader, you have been reading these more recent posts you will have learnt that I was lucky to have had two wonderful primary school teachers - one, a Mr. Murray and the other an equally old man, called Seán Ó Sé. Both of them had teaching down to a fine art, and learning was so easy under their skilled tutelage. Outside the fact that I wanted to do what they had done for me - to make learning and the love for learning easy for others - was all I knew as a little boy.

Ireland in the 1970s was beginning to throw off, albeit slowly, the chains of repression whether of the State or of the Church or of a very conservative Society. The Roman Catholic Church still gave/gives good guidance in social policies and in looking after the poor, though its moral teaching on matters concerning sexual issues was/is, to say the least, arcane, if not silly and injurious, especially to women. Be that as it may, the Church did lay down good parameters of general behaviour. At this stage in my life as a non-practising Catholic of more than twelve years now, I still admit that much of what I learned from the Church did give me a sense of direction in life, even if I did abandon it in later years. My point here is, that as a youngster, one needs to look to others like parents, teachers, youth leaders, trainers to have some sense of a course in life. Otherwise, one is rudderless. As a youngster one has no other option but to follow the lights of direction given by these adults. In the years since I have followed my own lights, but only when I had been given the stabilising assistance of my elders. A friend of mine puts it well when he says: "I have always brought my children to Mass on a Sunday as I wished to give them some symbols in life, some sense of mystery, some sense of ritual even if they go on to reject that religion. They have to have something to reject, I feel. Otherwise they'll be totally lost!"

And so you could say we were educated well academically. I did my Intermediate Certificate as it was then called through the medium of Irish or Gaeilge, and my Leaving Certificate though English, because in 1974 the Christian Brothers no longer had enough teachers able to teach all subjects through Irish. I did well academically and learnt much under the watchful eyes of wonderful teachers. I cannot think of one dud teacher we had at secondary. Perhaps, the best teacher we ever had was a Bro Martin Collins who taught us Mathematics and Latin. Practically all us us got an A in both subjects in our exams. To this day I owe my deep knowledge of both subjects to this wonderful teacher. I also maintain that my facility with languages such as Italian and French is due to the fact that my knowledge of Latin was so well acquired.

I have got to admit that I did not enjoy secondary school as well as I had primary school. That was because every youngster who leaves primary school leaves the watchful and caring eye of one teacher and then is "subjected" to a system where s/he has some ten different teachers during the course of any one week, and perhaps at least eight different teachers a day. The secondary school pupil now has some ten different captains on his ship of education, if I may use a rather tortured metaphor here. Hence, it is easy to be confused and confounded as regards which leader to follow, which course to steer one's ship by.

Self as a student, about 19 or 20

When I was a secondary school pupil, life was painted in a very black and white way by society and by the church. There were few options of career unlike today, and there was precious little variety of courses to follow at university. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I did well in my Leaving Certificate and accepted a scholarship to college from the Christian Brothers to study English and Religion (Theology) in Mater Dei Institute of Education, and then return to my alma mater to teach. I was also accepted for courses in St Patrick's, Dromcondra for Primary school teaching, UCD for Science and also for Arts and Trinity College Dublin for Medicine. Now, I hated the sight of blood and did not want to be a doctor, so that ruled that one out. I certainly would have accepted UCD, but given that my parents would not have had the money to pay for me there, that ruled that one out, too. Then, given that my fees would be paid for the four years at Mater Dei and that I really wanted to be a teacher, and that I was guaranteed a job at the end of my college career, then that was the course that was somehow the only one I could possibly follow.
To be continued

And what's it all about, anyway 5?

2012-01-14T21:37:00.001Z

Knowledge is the Key

Self as student, having just grown a beard!

As I intimated in my last post I had a relatively happy or content childhood, even though we were quite poor by any monetary standards. However, poverty in material things need not necessarily be poverty as such. After all we only need a certain amount of the world's goods to survive anyway. However, we in the West have been brought up with an obsession with things, with having material objects, with amassing a collection of X, Y or Z. It would seem that the vast majority of us in the West have swallowed whole this lie, bought into it and have based the trajectory of our little lives upon it. However, there are riches which cannot be accounted for in the numerical sense. These, I believe are spiritual values, and I use spiritual here in its broadest and most holistic sense of connecting with the inner self, with others and with some meaning in life which draws us ever onwards outside our egos.

When I was young, both my parents believed in the value of education. Neither of them had attended secondary school, not because they did not so wish, bur simply because their parents had not the money to send them, and anyway they had to go to work to support their younger siblings. This was the norm in the late twenties and early thirties when my parents were growing up. They both desired that their children would do better than them in life and so we went both to secondary school (which by then was free in Ireland) and on to third level (for which we had to pay). It is a truism, almost a cliché now, when we use the following saying: "Give a man a fish and he will live for a day. Teach him to fish and he will live for a lifetime." Quite simply education is the key to power over one's life. That's, in part, why I became a teacher. I am teaching in a working class school in the north inner city of Dublin, and I see myself very much in the role of enabling and empowering young boys (I teach in an all-boys school) to take their lives in hand and reach their full potential. That's the greatest gift one generation can give to the next - that is to empower them through education.

The Love of Books: Bibliophilia

Self at Máire Duffy's debs, 1977

In the last post I mentioned my obsession with books. I suppose that today modern youngsters have the Internet and a plethora of video games and what not to keep them amused. They certainly have more of the world's goods than we ever had when we were their age. My friends' children often leave their bicycles behind them, not alone at school, but on the local green of their housing estates. Indeed, one man's young lad did this twice, and on both occasions, needless to say, the bicycle was stolen. For our youngsters, it would seem material things come very cheap. We have taught them that having is more important than being, about which I will say a little more further down. Books are never really stolen, are they? Unless, of course, they are rare books which carry a monetary value beyond their literary or information merit.

However, be that as it may, there are some few diligent readers among our boys at school. They have a rare gift, which I believe will stand them in greater stead than an obsession with computer games. One boy whom I teach told me lately that if he had children he would call them after characters in some computer game or other. Now, I smiled and said "great," as I noticed he was deadly serious. When I was young my mother bought us a huge dictionary, which I still possess, that came in weekly parts - The Webster Dictionary. I still use it sometimes, believe it or not. She also bought me - again in weekly parts - a wonderful encyclopedia of science called All About Science. Once again, these books still adorn my bookshelves. They carry within their covers not alone knowledge, but rather articles my young mind read as well as the love and concern my mother had for our education. Again, she gave me more than just the physical gift of a book. With a mother's love, she bought these books, which came in weekly parts each week unfailingly. Indeed, that's what any mother, or indeed father or guardian should do.

Competition

We all know that competition is no bad thing. When I was in primary school I fifth and sixth class I normally came second place to a guy called Liam Coffey who has long left Ireland. He was and is a genius and according to my researches on Google he is a Associate Professor of Physics at the Illinois Institute of Technology. (see IIT ) That he achieved so much does not surprise me as he was a brilliant student and a nice guy. Anyway, I only say this as when I got into O'Connell's secondary school I always then came in the top 10 students or so, never again achieving a very high place in class, that is in the top three or four. Anyway, that does not disappoint me at all as I have always achieved what I was capable of - in other words, I achieved my potential, not what X, Y or Z or even Mammy or Daddy wanted for me. I achieved what I wanted for me, and that was and is enough for anyone.

However, healthy academic competition amongst us as young lads led to our achieving better results all along the way. Needless to say, competition can also be singularly unhealthy if it is obsessive, and if my self-esteem is only based on achievements either on the sports field or on the academic front. If you are constantly comparing yourself to another or to an idealised other (after all, good psychology teaches us that virtually all others are idealised in our little minds which project these images out onto them!) then you will end up very sad and disappointed, rather like how Shakespeare felt in his famous sonnet Number 29:

When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,

I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Having and Being

It is to Erich Seligmann Fromm (1900 – 1980) that we owe a debt of gratitude for his drawing the important distinction between having and being. He was a Jewish German-American social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist and humanistic philosopher. He was associated with what became known as the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. Fromm used an interesting word, or indeed neologism, coined by himself called biophilia, that is the inherent psychological orientation within any human towards humanity and nature in all its splendid diversity. For example, in an addendum to his book The Heart of Man: Its Genius For Good and Evil, Fromm wrote as part of his Humanist Credo:

I believe that the man choosing progress can find a new unity through the development of all his human forces, which are produced in three orientations. These can be presented separately or together: biophilia, love for humanity and nature, and independence and freedom. (See here: EF )

Now biophilia as a characteristic of the human person is an orientation which renders the person happier when s/he is in a state of just being themselves. Somewhere or other Erich Fromm wrote the following which I believe contains no little wisdom, and I'll finish on this quotation because I thoroughly subscribe to its import: "If I am what I have, and I lose what I have, who then am I?" Now, that's a good question, is it not?

And what's it all about, anyway 4?

2012-01-14T00:10:00.000Z

Little Boy Lost

Self, around 6 or 7 years of age

The tenor of this series of notes, dear reader, is existential. What I am doing here is attempting to get in touch with the lived experience of being human in this oftentimes sad world of ours. I always return instinctively to literature for inspiration, solace and no little comfort. Poetry is often a refuge I seek out. I find a lot of inspiration and comfort in the lines of that wonderful pre-Romantic poet, William Blake. Like all good poets, he seemed to cut through the superficial and hit the "human" nail on the head as it were. As a young boy I often felt lost, and indeed I was literally lost on several occasions as a little boy in the frightening crowds of Dublin city. Here is a very relevant poem which sums up neatly how I experienced my lostness then as a little boy:

Little Boy Lost

“Father, father, where are you going?

O do not walk so fast.

Speak, father, speak to your little boy,

Or else I shall be lost.”

The night was dark, no father was there,

The child was wet with dew;

The mire was deep, and the child did weep,

And away the vapour flew.

(William Blake 1757–1827)

A Personal Memory

I attended a primary school called St Canice's primary school on The North Circular Road in Dublin which was run by The Irish Christian Brothers. For the most part, it was a good and humanising establishment and not a place of physical or sexual abuse as far as I was aware anyway. I was happy there, if lost as I have explained in my opening lines. I am talking about the dreary and poor nineteen sixties in a working class community in north inner city Dublin. The only bright light in our lives was our education. I entered St Canice's in September 1966 at the age of 8, having spent two happy years in North William Street school run by the French Sisters of Charity (Sisters of St Vincent de Paul). I often think that we can be singularly lucky or unlucky in the teachers we have at school. I count myself fortunate to have had several wonderful teachers. As it happens these teachers were coming to an end of long careers in the teaching profession. My first great teacher was a Mr Murray who taught me both in class 3B and 4B. He explained things so clearly that I always understood everything on first explanation. I never remember having to work very hard, even though I was a diligent student. Things were seemingly very easy. Under Mr Murray's good care I came first place in my tests at Christmas and summer over the two years I was with him. I remember him calling me up at the end of fourth class to tell me that there was nothing more he could do for me, and that I was now ready to be transferred up to the A stream class. After that I was always in the A class right up until I left school at eighteen years of age.

However, it was the habit of reading that Mr Murray inspired in us children that left an indelible mark on my young mind. The prizes we received for doing well academically in those years were books for the most part. I remember getting Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe for one of those prizes in class. I was really delighted with myself, and ever since then I became hooked on books. Since then, this obsession with books and with reading has never left me. It was as if there was a whole world of delight to be discovered within the covers of a good book. As I have already intimated, I in no sense experienced a childhood of poverty or deprivation as we always had enough to eat and enough clothes to wear, and got a least a week's holiday back in Tipperary each year, outside that we just played football in the local park and on the streets. My brothers and I read to escape into the wonderful world of the imagination. We were, looking back on it, escaping from relative poverty. Indeed, again in hindsight, I realise that we were rich in imagination as a result of our love of books. Now, while my parents were readers of newspapers and magazines they were not book readers as such. It was rather the schoolteachers and the local libraries that encouraged reading in us youngsters. I always loved going every two weeks to the local library to take out yet another two books to read. Hence, I have always believed that not to give a young person "the gift of reading" by either example or encouragement or by buying books for him or her is almost tantamount to neglect in my book, to use a rather pun-like cliché, but let it stand. To this day I love bringing some of my small resource classes to the local library to explore the shelves and dip into whatever book strikes their fancy.

Always at Home

Self on left with my father (before he got polio) and my brother Gerard

In my last post I wrote about Peter Berger's definition of "the homeless mind," and I proposed my own concept of a healthy mind as that which is essentially always at home and comfortable with itself. If one is comfortable in one's own mind, then one is essentially happy, or at least relatively content. I have also always loved the concept of "mental furniture" which I found mentioned many times over the years of reading all types of books devoted to good and clear thinking. I also loved such phrases or descriptions like: "He or she was/is possessed a well-stocked mind." The image of one's mind being either a book-lined sitting room or a book-lined study I always found highly appealing and indeed highly satisfying and even relaxing. Good books and good literature are great companions. As I am growing older, I find that the number of books about me are expanding almost exponentially, although that is, of course, a gross exaggeration, but I'm sure all book lovers will forgive this excessiveness of description on my part. Write it down to passion or to love. I was struck recently when struggling with some article or book by the contemporary Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor that one of the faults he finds with modern civilization is its singular lack of passion. I'm heartily in agreement with the learned gentleman. The passion here, of course, is a passion for truth - as opposed to some doctrinaire or dogmatic sense of the Truth in capitals - by which I mean the personal truth of integrity, wholeness, congruence and authenticity.

And what's it all about, anyway 3?

2012-01-13T00:09:00.000Z

A Child's Innocence

Post Office where my father worked - Roscrea

I suppose, if there is one attribute of childhood that we wish to protect, it is that of its appropriate innocence. Undoubtedly, there comes a time when innocence must be sloughed off in a timely and natural fashion akin to a snake its old skin. However, every child, we believe needs its appropriate innocence protected, and when those barriers are breached by abusers of one form or another we are justifiably outraged and we punish the offenders in accordance to the severity of their crimes.

However, we live in a world that all too often forces children to leave behind their natural innocence all too soon. Often, because of unsupervised access to media, children become sexualised before their time and their innocence can be lost. As a teacher I have long believed that it is here that parents should and must play a more active and "hands on" role. It is not the job of teachers to dictate to parents how to bring up their children. With the decline in the influence of religion, which did/does set moral parameters, more parental moral education is required.

The Fragile Mind

I suggested in a recent post that one possible answer to who we are may be the formulation that we are a compendium of our memories. Who we are is a question that has preoccupied humankind for as long as it has been self-conscious. Indeed, it is our self-consciousness or self-awareness that marks us out from our fellow animals. Not alone do we live, but we know that we live. Not alone do we have experiences, but we can reflect on those experiences. Not alone do we know, but we know that we know. Indeed, not alone does humankind suffer but it knows that it suffers. Indeed, we all know that we will inevitably suffer even if we are not suffering now at this moment in time. As well as that, we are aware of our past and our future as well as our present. We are also painfully aware that our dying and our death are inevitable. Knowledge is a great thing indeed - it gives us a certain limited power over our destiny, and I use the adjective "limited" purposely here. However, with knowledge also comes the price we pay for experience and wisdom, namely the knowledge of our own eventual personal extinction.

What the mind is has always interested every thinking person. Our concern with our identity, that is with the question, "Who am I?" has long been a central concern for us human creatures. In a sense our cultures in all their multiple layers of customs, traditions and values are attempts to help the human person identify themselves as groups primarily and secondarily as individuals. Indeed the concept of individuality only came to the fore with and after the Enlightenment. Before that the individual's identity was subsumed within that of the group.

In those last 300 or so years when humankind has turned its attention to the concerns of individual identity, it has invented the new sciences of psychology, sociology and psychiatry, among others, to try and pin down that identity somewhat more objectively. The science of psychology, which takes its etymological roots from the Greek word "psyche" which means "mind," has attempted to define what "mind" means and indeed what "personality" is. Questions of interest here are: What is the mind? Is it the same as the personality? Is it what the ancients understood as the soul? Does it dwell solely in the brain? Was Descartes right when he suggested that the mind was sort of a ghost within a machine (i.e., body) Does the mind cease to be when there is much brain damage? Is there a sense in which the mind can be said to be more than co-extensive with the physical parameters of the brain? Or a question, which hit me like a hammer over the head when I had a mental breakdown when I was 40 years of age - a topic I have discussed many times in these posts over the years, and have since called my mental break-through - Am I just a psychopharmacological or even a pharmapsychological entity or a mere biochemical substance as such - is that all my personality is? After all, those psychopharmacological interventions at the time seemed to suggest that this is so?

The Fragile Mind of the Child

If an adult's mind, as I well know, can be so fragile, how much more so must that of a child be. As a teacher I am constantly reminded of this when I interact with my students, some of whom come from very unstable home situations where mental health problems abound. That their sensitive minds are formed or ill-formed by these genetic and indeed poor social circumstances is beyond doubt. These children are often tormented souls in their own way.

When I was about 3 or 4 years of age my father contracted poliomyelitis which necessitated his having to leave the small town of Roscrea where I was born and where I lived with my family until I was 6 years of age. Without a doubt, I can say that the phenomenon of the absent father had a lasting effect on my life. Thankfully, my father was not too badly paralysed, losing only the use of his left arm and hand. There were many other victims of the polio epidemic both in England and Ireland who lost the use of their legs and even some ended up in the horrendous "iron lung" machines which enabled them to breathe and stay alive. However, after some months in hospital he managed to get a job as a security man in the Central Post Office in Dublin. I can remember going with my mother and brothers to the local railway station to bid goodbye to my father after he had spent the odd weekend with us in the country and was on his way back to his job in the city. For years after I always found railway stations to be very lonely and sad places. I don't now, of course, because having long ago traced the origins of those feelings to their source led to their eradication. But our young minds are sensitive and are formed and shaped by our experiences.

Being at Home

Main Street, Roscrea, Co. Tipperary where I was born

One of the most traumatic experiences in any one's life is to be made homeless. There is nothing as sad and as depersonalising as being left without a home. Home is more than just a roof over one's head. It is more than just a place where one lives. It is the place where your loved ones live with you. It is also a place where one can feel safe and untroubled; safe and protected from the alien outside, and often hostile, world. It is often a place to which most of us at some stage in our lives like to escape. One of my favourite Romantic poets and philosophers is Samuel Taylor Coleridge who argued that the Enlightenment thinkers had "untenanted" creation of its God, a marvellously powerful metaphor. In like manner the sociologist Peter Berger argued some two centuries later that the modern secularised mind of the middle twentieth century was one which he dared called "a homeless mind," one which was bereft of meaning, thrown out from home on to the meaningless streets of modernity. He argued in a book of that name that the scared canopy of religion no longer offered the security of home to modern minds. They were literally cut adrift on the modern sea of chaos and meaninglessness.

However, I believe that there is no little truth in Berger's contention here, but I also believe that we can use Berger's metaphor in another and more personal sense. I believe that the truly integrated person (Dr Anthony Storr), the truly individuated human person (Dr. Carl Gustave Jung) or the truly self-actualized individual (Drs. Kurt Goldstein, Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow) is a person who is at home in his/her own mind. I will repeat here what I said above about home: Home is more than just a roof over one's head. It is more than just a place where one lives. It is the place where your loved ones live with you. It is also a place where one can feel safe and untroubled; safe and protected from the alien outside, and often hostile, world. It is often a place to which most of us at some stage in our lives like to escape. In like manner, I firmly believe that my mind can become my true home. In a sense our loved ones also live therein. It is also a place where we can feel safe and sound. It is also a place where we can escape in the safety of our own imagination. In that sense, we can never be alone when we are truly at home in our own minds. In that sense also, we can never be lonely when we travel, because quite simply we are always at home.

And what's it all about, anyway 2?

2012-01-11T18:54:00.002Z

Observers

Many people become observers of life in order to answer the question posed in our title. There is so much happening right before our very eyes to keep us busy indefinitely. That's why most people love teavelling - wanderlust brings with it an ever-increasing canvass of activities to observe. Then, different races and peoples, even communities, do things differently. To my mind, the Northern Irish poet Louis McNeice put this beautifully and aptly in his poem Snow:

World is crazier and more of it than we think,

Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion

A tangerine and spit the pips and feel

The drunkenness of things being various.

(You can read the poem in full here Snow )

I have often crossed O'Connell Bridge in my native city here in Dublin, Ireland, and mused on the sheer variety of the incredibly numerous lives crossing all about me. Why all this activity? Who are all these people? Where are they going to? Where are they coming from? That's why, I suppose, I was always smitten by the short definition of philosophy which says that it begins in wonder. Plato in his Theaetetus wrote that: the origin of philosophy is "wonder." However, this is not the wonder of the poet, as we have, say, in Patrick Kavanagh's wonderful poem, A Christmas Childhood. Rather, the wonder here spoken of is 'wonder' in the sense of 'puzzlement' or 'perplexity,' not in the sense of 'awe'. For me, my sense of wonderment here is of the philosophical, or of the Platonic, rather than of the poetic kind. Having said that, I must admit that the wonderment expressed by the Anglo-American poet T.S. Eliot in a section of his great poem The Wasteland, lines 60-68, is also of the Platonic rather than of the poetic sense of wonderment as expressed in Kavanagh's lines. These lines of Thomas Stearns Eliot always get me thinking, and have for many years rattled around in my mind:

The Halfpenny Bridge, Dublin

Unreal City,

Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,

A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,

I had not thought death had undone so many.

Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,

And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.

Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,

To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours

With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.

One can literally feel the burden of life as it weighs on both the people's shoulders and the poet's as they make their way across London Bridge. To put this in existential terms I can feel the angst of these people - the very burden of the human condition.

Why is there something rather than nothing?

This is a question I have long been concerned with? Why does anything exist at all? Needless to say, it is cognate with the overall title of these personal musings on the trajectory of that little life that happens to be this writer. I remember years ago a rather learned old De La Salle Brother, named Patrick - I forget his surname - who lectured in the Philosophy of Education in St Patrick's College, Maynooth, always quoting this philosophical question for us as young students: Why is there something rather than nothing? It was one, he said, that Martin Heidegger posed throughout his life and whose work was an attempt to answer that question. And Bro. Patrick maintained that this was the ultimate question for a philosopher. As a good Catholic Christian he would have said that, anyway, you reply. Indeed, it is more of a metaphysical question, than a philosophical question in the narrow sense of that term where some philosophers would rule such questions out of court completely as not belonging at all to the field of philosophy.

Why is there something rather than nothing? Well, why not? Why expect nothing rather than something? No experiment could support the hypothesis ‘There is nothing’ because any observation obviously implies the existence of an observer. However, I still feel this weighty question posed by my learned teacher and by thousands of others over the history of time needs to be asked. Why? Well, we are essentially and indeed existentially questioners. We reflect on our lives and especially on all the joys and pains we experience during the course of our little lives. In other words, we try to make sense of what's happening to us, try to put a pattern and shape on our experiences. In short we are meaning-makers and pattern-shapers.

There comes a time when we grow tired of cerebral questioning, that is, questioning things in a logical way all the time, because such is so dry, so life-denying, so soul-destroying - a machine-like approach to life. This is not to say or deny that we don't need such a cerebral approach to life to tackle X, Y, and Z problems. It is to say that pure logic will only bring the human animal so far. We need to come to grips with our emotions and feelings as well as with our ideas and thoughts. Likewise, we need to come to grips with how each one of these phenomena affects the other. I remember years ago when I used to look at snooker on the T.V. and when Steve Davis, the wonderful snooker player, was at the top of his form and simply kept winning national and international competitions year after year people calling him "The Machine." For us humans, machines while they may produce the "goodies," are heartless and soulless. We want heroes who cry, who have a little chink in the armour now and then, who break now and again, but who generally win. And yet we know, in the game of life, there are no winners as none of us gets out of life alive. We all have to die in the end. We all have to lose the game in the end in other words. And that's why meditation as advocated by Buddhists, Hindus, Christians and other more enlightened agnostic philosophers and psychologists is so attractive and life-enriching - it takes as its province getting a handle on life and death and on death and dying not as the end of life but as part of life.

The Crunch of Gravel

I can even hear this sound in my ears as I type. This aural image of gravel being crunched by black shoes - always black in my mind's eye - is part of me. It brings me back to the Churchyards and graveyards of my childhood. It was the crunching of the gravel as those great black newly-polished shoes of the mourners made their way up to the graveside. This is where life touches us - at our very heart's core. As I write these lines I am transported back into the graveyards where we buried my uncles, aunts, cousins and my father over the last forty or more years. Dying and death are the shadows which we seek to repress at our very peril. They are so much part of us that the only healing thing to do with them is acknowledge, accept and incorporate them into the overarching pattern or shape or form or meaning we construct for our little lives.

Once standing by the graveside as my Uncle Pat's coffin was being lowered I spied a small white coffin down among the rotten timbers and lumps of clay. To my boy's question, my father replied, "that's your older brother Thomas who died many years ago."

The above gravestone is a family one, weathered by the passing years in Roscrea Graveyard, Co. Tipperary.

And what's it all about, anyway 1?

2012-01-08T19:15:00.000Z

Introduction

Street artist, Taormina, La Sicilia, Agosto, 2006

That's the question I was posed many years ago when I began my working life as a brand new, very much "green about the gills" teacher. And the poser of that very relevant question was a man called Ger Smith, another teacher, dead now for over twenty years, RIP. I don't know what I said by way of answer to Gerard on that particular morning, but I'm positive that it was a vacuous retort as I am never the sharpest in the mornings. The same could be said for these postings in this blog here - that is, what are they all about? As I review the six and a half years I have been writing in these pages, I can ask the same question of myself with respect to the musings that make up this blog. In othe words: What am I all about?

Like everything in my life. I seem to have just stumbled upon blogging totally by chance and then grew addicted to it! Why? A good question, that, but so is the question, Why not? I suppose no writer really knows the exact answer to these questions, because the task of writing is itself the answer, if not the therapy, the very shaping and moulding of one's own soul.

And has it been worthwhile? Another good question. Definitely, yes.  It is also quite humbling to know that there are others out there, practically all personally unknown to me, reading these meanderings as indeed, that is what they actually are - literally my mind wandering here and there all over that rather interesting patchwork quilt which anyone's life seems to be. Indeed, there has been no plan with these posts outside I suppose getting to know myself (cognitively) and getting more acquainted with the deep down inner self (a conative or an affective knowing in this case) which resides within.

Looking Back

For most of my working life I have taught the Irish language (mostly) and Life Skills and Religious Education (to a lesser extent). As a young man I sat my Intermediate Examination through the medium of Irish (Gaeilge), but sat my Leaving Certificate through English because the school I then attended did not offer that examination through the medium of ou first language. Be that as it may, a language contains so much of the culture of which it is an expression, as well as being one of its communicative mediums, that I have always carried deep Gaelic-Celtic sensitivities within my heart. When I was growing up for instance when a native speaker would ask your name they would often use an expression like "Cé díobh thú?" which translates literally as "whose are you?" So if I were to reply, "Is Tadhg Thomáis mé," they'd know not alone that my name was "Tim," but also that Tom was my father. This was and is the way today in most Gaeltachtaí," that is regions in Ireland where Gaelic (Gaeilge) is spoken as a working language.  What I am getting at here is that I was and am very much my father's son and indeed he was his. Obviously, I could say the same with respect to my identity and its relationship with my mother.

And who are you, anyway, little boy?

This is a question that has rattled around in my mind ever since I was lost as a three year old in Rosemary Square in the small town of Roscrea, Co. Tipperary where I was born on January 5, 1958.  I remember a stranger's strong manly arms around me trying to stop from running out into the square and his kindly voice asking the question that forms the title to this paragraph. And in a way, I have been attempting to answer that question since then - over the past 51 years - in various ways.

Who am I now, or who are we now?  And in that first person plural I include you, dear reader! In a sense we are layers and layers of memories laid down upon one another in our brains. In other words, perhaps we are just a compendium of all the memories and of all the people we have met and all the experiences that have gone to make up our own particular lives over the years. The sort of wisdom behind this speculation, which, while I subscribe to a certain truth in it, is not obviously our full identity. However, having visited my mother (who is practically 100% demented of recent months and is almost 95) and having witnessed that horrible, gradual diminution of both her memory and cognitive skills over those last ten years, I am often convinced that that's all we are, merely a large memory chip which will eventually be wiped clean one way or another. This is more an existential feeling than an argued philosophical point, I admit, as this is the result of reflecting on practical lived experience and the concomitant pain.

All Biography is Autobiography

I have heard the expression that forms the above subtitle many times in my life, and it is true indeed. After all, we do see the world, and all the people in it, including the subject of any biography, not as it is in itself, but rather as we are. Philosophy and indeed lived experience have taught this writer here that it is an almost impossible task to be objective as my lived experiences, including all my presuppositions and indeed prejudices keep dulling my vision. The challenge always is to question my objectivity about X, Y or Z and indeed to question sharply and critically my motivations in doing actions A, B or C. Not alone is all biography autobiography, but all creative writing, in a very special sense, is, too. After all, the experts tell would-be writers to write about what they know, to mine their own experiences, to reflect on their own lives and find plots and characters there.   In a sense, also, all literature is biography.

Learning How to Die

I remember reading a book entitled On Literature by Umberto Eco wherein he opined that the function of stories, as indeed of all literature, is to teach us how to die. It is hard to disagree with this contention. Having experienced the deaths of several uncles as a young boy, I was well accustomed to the profound mystery which death, and indeed suffering, pose for every thinking person. Luckily enough I never experienced hugely tragic deaths in my younger days. Readers of these pages will be familiar with the fact that I am a lover of general and popular psychology and read widely in both those areas. Freud had said that sex with many of its associated desires were the ultimate subjects or indeed objects of repression, but with Irvin Yalom I thoroughly agree that death and dying are now indubitably the modern repressions par excellence. In coming to grips with the profound existential questions that dying and death pose of the human animal, the ground breaking books of Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Elizabeth Kubler Ross, On Death and Dying and Death The Final Stage and Dr Michael Kearney's wonderful Mortally Wounded, all of which I have mentioned at one stage or another in these pages, are must-read books of pofound influence.

We are Story Tellers

The Irish have always been good story tellers. Having studied and taught Irish language and literature, I have long been aware of the oral nature of many of our greatest legends and folklore stories. We identify ourselves through the stories we tell. Mary Robinson, the first woman president of Ireland pledged herself to listening to the stories of others in her inauguration speech, and true to her word, that she did do. Everywhere she went she listened in solidarity. After having spent one term of office (7 years) in Áras an Uachtaráin (as our President's residence is known in Gaelic) she went on to listen to the stories of the poor, the starving and the suffering all around the world in her role as High Commissioner for Human Rights. That our stories tell a lot about who we are is a truism if ever there was one. That your unique story tells a lot about you is similarly true. That we can learn to creatively tell our life stories is also true. Each one of us is a project or work in progress. Each one of us is a person in search of a unique identity and in search of an original way to tell the story of that unique identity.

Who can tell the Singer from the Song or Dancer from the Dance?

In the eight and final stanza of Among Scool Children, our great Nobel Poet Laureate William Butler Yeats wrote:

Labour is blossoming or dancing where

The body is not bruised to pleasure soul.

Nor beauty born out of its own despair,

Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.

O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,

Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?

O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,

How can we know the dancer from the dance?

There are times, and we all know this, when our very identities become fused with our activities or functions. Sometimes the dance dances the dancer, the song sings the singer and the poem writes the poet - all creative artists have stated this phenomenon in some words or other. Our identities are often fluid realities, deep and intricate, always in the making and far from any defined or precise formulation of it that the all too recent phenomenon of individuality would have us believe.

To be continued.

A Gem of a Book 4

2012-01-03T01:10:00.000Z

Answering His Critics

Labrador, Howth Summit, Feb, 2007

Professor Rowlands does answer his critics well – that is, those critics who accuse him of taking a wild creature out of its habitat. Firstly, he tells us that his wolf, whom he named Brenin, was not born in the wild, but rather in captivity. Also he is quite adamant that he gave the creature far better care and attention than he had had heretofore. Also, as a passionate animal and dog lover, having been reared in a family that owned two great danes, he knew that he was more than capable of training the young wolf and rearing him effectively and sympathetically. This wee memoir, The Philosopher and the Wolf, testifies more than adequately to his success in this matter.

I am quite at one with Rowlands where he criticizes his would-be critics as being for the most part “middle class liberal academics with green pretensions.” (Ibid. p.36) Better to “walk the walk than talk the talk” as the cliché rightly puts it. This memoir is primarily about “walking the walk,” with the philosophical musings coming by way of reflection on those lived experiences.

What Nature Intends

I am also singularly at one with Professor Rowlands also where he states that “what nature intends” is very far from a closed question. In fact, it is so open that it admits of many possible answers. Therefore, those who throw off opinions as to what nature intends need to be wary and to have questioned what they mean by this statement in the first place. Now, that is true philosophy – the heart of which is a radical questioning of assumptions, presumptions and presuppositions.

Demeaning Animals

Many years ago I attended a debate between liberal theologians and scientists (biologists, geneticists and physicists) on the topic of evolution. One of the theologians was personally known to me and a brilliant liberal theologian he was and is. However, on this occasion, the biologist got the better of him in a certain argument about whether apes can love or not. This theologian had fallen captive to the categories of his own discipline and his lack of experience of working with animals. As an animal lover I know “on my pulses,” as the Romantic poet John Keats so aptly put it, that animals can love not alone one another but us as well. Every farmer knows that. However, on this occasion the theologian was simply wrong. In other words, I completely concur with Professors John Gray and Mark Rowlands that we have over-estimated our human worth to the sheer disadvantage of our brother and sister animals. That foxes, wolves, dogs, horses and dolphins are both clever and capable of love virtually goes without saying today. As Rowlands wittily puts it: “Try telling the urban fox that it should be engaged in its natural behaviour of hunting mice. Try telling the fox that its essence precedes its existence, and that, unlike me, it doesn’t have its being to be.” (Ibid, p. 39) [Rowlands is here referring to existential categories, especially those invented by Jean-Paul Sartre, that ultimate existentialist, who described that particular philosophical view as the contention that existence precedes essence for all humans and that essence precedes existence for everything else including animals].

I’m totally in agreement with Rowlands here that this is the height of human arrogance. It is interesting for this writer to note the almost totally unconscious acceptance by these so-called modern philosophers of many of the presuppositions made by more orthodox Christian philosophers before them, e.g., that humankind stands at the pinnacle of creation and can lord it over other creatures as a result. Sartre argued that humans were beings-for-themselves or pour-soi, while lowly animals were mere beings in themselves or en-soi. In other words the human being can define himself or herself, create their own project in life or choose a particular path or vocation of their own. In other words humankind is essentially free – or condemned to be free as Sartre would put it – while the mere animal is anything but free. Once again this is a very arrogant and condescending view of animal life by humankind.

The Hand of Cards

I have always loved a good image or a good metaphor. Here is another good one – the hand of cards. That life is a game or at least is composed of people who play psychological games as well as the more common ones, I have discussed in these pages before with reference to the brilliant book The Games People Play by Dr. Eric Berne. (See here) On a similar note I remember reading a biography of Stephen Hawking written by two of his early Ph.D. candidates and later collaborators where he the world-renowned theoretical physicist uses the same metaphor for life. He told his interlocutors that he never felt a shred of self-pity because he was burdened with such a catastrophic disease that left him wheelchair-bound and voiceless relatively early in life, quite simply because as a physicist he understood the sheer chance that is nature. He simply believed that there was no use in getting upset by something which he could do absolutely nothing about. He also spoke about playing whatever hand of cards fate dealt you in life to the best of your ability. That is all we can do, all that is humanly possible. Rowlands is in agreement with this and uses the very same metaphor for the parts we ourselves can play in life. It is the same, our philosopher argues for dogs, wolves, foxes and more intelligent animals. In short, our esteemed Professor writes, and I am in agreement here: “A wolf, no less than a human, can play the hand it has been dealt. And what is more, you can help it to do this. As it becomes better at playing this hand, it becomes more confident. It enjoys what it’s learnt and wants to learn more. It becomes stronger and consequently happier.” (Ibid, p. 41)

That Rowlands is using a metaphor, and using it in its anthropomorphic sense to boot, goes without saying. One must allow for leeway here, dear readers, if not for what Samuel Taylor Coleridge so perspicaciously called “a suspension of disbelief” if we are following the professor’s reasonable argument in this short memoir.

A Gem of a Book 3

2012-01-01T21:32:00.000Z

A Timely Lesson

Friendly Labrador, Howth Summit, Feb 2007

As well as philosophical insights, Mark Rowlands offers us insights into how to train dogs and, indeed, how to remain safe in their company. The most typical reason for a dog to bite, he informs us, is when they lose track of your hand. People reach around to pat the back of the dog’s head or neck. When it loses sight of your hand, the dog becomes nervous, suspects you might be attacking it and consequently bites. Also, he tells us to never pick the alpha male in any litter of dogs as one could expect trouble taming him. We also learn that wolves have yellow eyes. Rowlands also informs us about the laws with respect to owning wolves – pure bred wolves are illegal to own while you can buy, sell and own wolf-dog hybrids, and the highest ratio of wolf to dog allowed is 96%.

Battle of Wills

Our author goes on to inform us that good dog training is never a battle of wills, as it simply has nothing to do with the ego. Training a dog can never be seen as anything too personal – indeed, it is not personal at all, and he recommends the animal training manuals of the expert William Koehler. His key piece of advice was always to get the animal to watch you, the trainer.

Canine Intelligence

Dogs, as man’s best friends, are often seen as very intelligent, and indeed they are. Psychological tests show that wolves do better than dogs on problem tasks while the latter beat the wolves on training tasks. The reason for this difference is that wolves need to be quick and sharp at problem solving as they must learn swiftly to avoid trouble and danger on an hourly basis in their lives in the woodland, mountains and forests. Therefore, the environment of the wolf selects for mechanical intelligence.

Rowlands’ Contribution to Philosophy

Our author informs us that he is professionally probably most known for being one of the architects of a view of the mind that sees it as essentially embodied and embedded in the world around it (see ibid., p. 30ff.). As he explains lucidly himself:

Mental activities do not just take place inside our heads – they are not just brain processes. Rather, they also involve activities we do in the world: in particular, the manipulation, transformation and exploitation of relevant environmental structures... The forerunner of this view was the Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky, who, with his colleague Anton Luria demonstrated just how much processes of remembering and other mental activities had changed with the development of the external device for storing information. The outstanding natural memory of primitive cultures gradually withers away as we relay more and m9ore on written language as ways of storing our memories. (Ibid., p. 30)

Unlike the wolf, the dog, who is a close relative and descendant of the wolf, has learnt to rely on the human animal. More than that, still, the dog has developed the ability to use us to get his needs met. In short, we are the information-storing and processing devices that the dog has. In other words we humans are part of the dog’s extended mind. When a dog wants to go out to the garden it will stand by the closed door till we open it, or bark if we are not looking in that direction.

A Final Note on Training a Dog

Training dogs, even wolves, is never cruel, Rowlands argues, in the hands of qualified and humane trainers. Animals need to be disciplined if they are to live somewhat freely with us humans. Indeed young, and sometimes not so young, humans need to be disciplined if they, too, are to live in human society. After all, that’s why we have prisons – to incarcerate those who cannot live in society without wreaking havoc on themselves and others through their crimes. However, we would all be at one with Professor Rowlands where he argues that we must discipline our animals, but never ever break their spirit. The same apples to our human offspring. To really appreciate our freedom we have to have learnt good discipline in our lives. The exercise of real freedom requires real discipline. I’ll finish this post with a quotation from Friedrich Nietzsche: “Those who cannot discipline themselves will quickly find someone else doing it for them.”

A Gem of a Book 2

2011-12-31T12:35:00.000Z

A Gem of a Book 2

I have already alluded to the similarities of view between The Philosopher and the Wolf and Straw Dogs. It comes as little wonder that John Gray should endorse the first of these books once on the cover and once on the flyleaf. He lauds this book as a work of depth that calls on us to re-evaluate our view of “the human animal.” This last phrase is central to Gray’s understanding of humankind by situating us firmly in the animal kingdom. It is also a timely and subversive work – and indeed we need subversion as well as scepticism these days when capitalism has been let wreak untold damage on the fabric of the world’s economy through naked greed – which makes us question our unquestioned suppositions and presuppositions not alone of humans in general but of philosophers and scientists in particular.

Our Peculiar Stories

I use the adjective ‘peculiar’ in the sense of ‘particular to’ in the above subheading. Rowlands argues that we humans have a simian or ape-like soul. He continues thus:

I am going to try and show you that, for the most part, each one of us has the soul of an ape. I’m not investing too much in the word ‘soul.’ By ‘soul’ I don’t necessarily mean some immortal or incorruptible part of us that survives the death of our body. The soul may be like this, but I doubt it. Or it may be that the soul is simply the mind, and the mind is simply the brain. But again, I doubt it. As I am using the word, the soul of human beings is revealed in the stories they tell about themselves: stories about why they are unique; stories we humans can actually get ourselves to believe, in spite of all the evidence against them. These, I am going to argue, are stories told by apes: they have a structure, theme and content that is (sic) recognizably simian. (The Philosopher and the Ape, p. 5)

Animal Metaphors

A Young Mark Rowlands with his pet Wolf Brenin

Because language fails us miserably in its literal designations we have long been forced to forge metaphors to carry the weight of meaning we wish our words to carry. More often than not they are strong enough to carry this weight. Professor Rowlands uses the metaphor “ape,” and indeed, the corresponding adjective “simian” to refer to our tendency to understand the world in “instrumental terms.” For us humans the value of everything is judged by what it can do for us, that is, we are creatures prone to “instrumental reasoning” as the Canadian philosopher, Charles Taylor so neatly puts it. We see the world, quite literally as a collection of resources to be exploited for our own benefit, and more often than not for our own selfish purposes and aggrandisement. Once again, instrument reasoning can be summed up nicely in Oscar Wilde’s witty dictum that its possessors “know the price of everything and the value of nothing.” According to Rowlands, the ape has the tendency to think that everything can be summed up, including the most important things in life, by a cost-benefit analysis.
However, over against the metaphor of the ape in us, Rowlands suggests rather obviously the metaphor of the wolf to balance things out for us. In every story told by the ape, our professor argues, we shall find a subplot or sub-story told by the wolf – that is, if we train ourselves to look carefully enough for this story. The wolf is howling away, if I may sustain the metaphor in a rather crass fashion, to remind us that the values if the ape are rather “worthless.” (ibid., p7) Our author argues that it is at our peril that we allow the wolf to die in us. Or to put it in more poetic terms as Professor Rowlands is wont to do:

But the most important you is not the one who schemes: it is the one who remains when the scheming fails. The most important you is not the one who delights in your cunning; it’s what’s left behind when the cunning leaves you for dead. The most important you is the one who rides your luck; it is the you who remains when the luck has run out. In the end the ape will always fail you. The most important question you can ask yourself is: when this happens, who will be left behind?” (Ibid., p. 8)

The lessons that Mark Rowlands learned over his eleven years spent with his pet wolf were visceral or gut-level ones, lessons which were essentially non-cognitive, lessons one might say of the heart, or even beneath the heart (my metaphor here). Indeed, in general, while I may have some reservations here and there which what our author contends, I am in broad agreement with him. I agree readily that life is indeed far “too slippery” for “premises and conclusions.” These are singularly Newmanian terms, though I’m sure our author does not realise this. As I have quoted many times before in these pages John Henry Cardinal Newman never tired of reminding us that the “whole man moves; paper logic is but a record of it.”

If you would like to hear Mark Rowlands discussing this book with a fellow professor at Miami University see WolfPhil

A Gem of a Book 1

2011-12-30T23:00:00.002Z

A Gem of a Book

Picture of a Wolf - in public domain

I have always liked making discoveries, whether that is of a personal sort or of a simple fact like some interesting piece of scientific knowledge. However, few discoveries are as pleasant and pleasurable as that of a good book. The book in question, which I have just finished reading, is called The Philosopher and the Wolf: Lessons from the Wild on Love, Death and Happiness (Granta, London, 2008)

Good books are well written, and then as well as that they leave us richer for having read them. Mark Rowlands (professor of philosophy at Miami University) writes clearly and with an almost incredible lightness of style for a philosopher. There is nothing heavy, whatsoever, in this memoir of ten years he spent with a huge wolf in tow as a pet. Indeed, most memoirs are quite light, because they claim to be nothing less than that, that is, reflections from a certain angle, or from some point of view or other, or to be dealing with a particular theme in the life of the author. Rowland’s theme here is just that: life lived with a wolf as a pet and what he learned from that relationship on the meaning of life and death; love and hate; happiness and pain – all topics which have graced the works of literati, artists, theologians and philosophers over hundreds of years.

However, what struck this reader was the author’s conversational style which literally brought one into Rowland’s confidence immediately. One felt, when reading this short memoir that one was being regaled by a good storyteller. What better praise could one give any memoir worth its salt? Also, what struck this reader was the author’s honesty of intention and style and his often strong self-questioning. Indeed, one would not have expected anything less from any philosopher indeed, or from anyone who would wish to call themselves such, as surely self-questioning and scepticism, especially with respect to one’s own motivations, are the sine qua non of philosophy qua philosophy.

I do not keep a dog or a cat and so I cannot be accused of coming to this book with an animal lover’s bias, nor am I vegetarian like Mark Rowlands. While I have no overtly strong biases towards animals, I do consider myself a dog lover insofar as I had a dog for a number of years as a boy and adolescent. I have refused to keep one since as I am not at home long enough in Ireland each year to keep one and kennel expenses and loneliness would be other factors I’d rather not endure. However, when I retire, I have promised myself the benefits of keeping one because then I would have more than enough time to care for the poor animal in question. I abhor, consequently, the idea of animals as presents at Christmas time (or any time) if the receiver isn’t fully committed to the implications of ownership. Thoughts of abandoned puppies distress me as no doubt they do you!

Over the years, I have always noticed the difference in children raised with animals from those who are not so raised. I believe such children appreciate life more and begin to learn about life and death all the more quickly through having pets. I have also noticed how different dogs have different personalities and that they can be sad and lonely as well as happy and convivial. I have always believed that we have much to learn from our animal friends.

I have mentioned in these pages before my respect for and admiration of the writings of the philosopher Dr. John Gray who wrote the wonderful little classic, Straw Dogs, a book I also reviewed in these pages. I have long thought that we human beings have suffered for generations immemorial from a huge ego problem, both at personal and group or nation level, and that central to most, if not all, the crises to hit this planet has been that same ego. Professor Gray was the first modern philosopher I read to have put words and indeed serious thought and reflection into these gut feelings and sporadic thoughts I have had with respect to humankind’s flaws over the years.

Gray’s argument is that humankind has indeed over-rated itself. I don’t remember this author mentioning anything about the gender balance in his arguments about this egotistical over-rating, but it appears to this writer here that men are the greater culprits with respect to ego-inflation. After all, practically all the builders of human society have been men - in the structural sense solely, I mean. Perhaps women have been the real builders in terms of the rearing of the young? However, let me leave the feminist reading of this phenomenon of over-inflating and exaggerating the importance of the place of humankind in the scheme of things one side for the moment. It is a topic I could possibly revisit at some future time in these pages.

It appears to me that Rowlands has a lot in common with Gray on this issue of humankind’s gross self-inflation. I really appreciated the latter’s disabusing my mind of the careless use of the term “human being,” which over-ontologises, if I may coin a word or indulge in a neologism here, the very nature of his existence as such. “Being” (qua ontology) is a loaded word in that sense. We never speak of canine beings (dogs) or feline beings (cats) because we reserve “being” in that sense to the higher species alone, that of Homo Sapiens, God or whoever or whatever help us! In this regard, I have always, consequently, loved the Dalai Lama’s, and others from the East indeed, use of the wonderful phrase “all sentient beings.” And so Professor Gray humbled me with his term “human animal” which I fully endorse and am beginning to like much.

Now, let’s not forget here that wonderful lover of animals himself, the great St Francis of Assisi. He called all the animals his brothers and sisters and composed prayers with these endearing terms in them. No animal lover could possibly forget the example of this great little saint. Indeed St Francis also called his own animal body his brother. This showed, I believe, a wonderful understanding of the centrality of the body to the human condition. Unfortunately, Western Christianity and indeed Western Philosophy, strengthened by Cartesian dualism of the ghost (soul) in the machine (body) sundered body and soul in so radical a way as to lead to the complete despising of the latter and the exaggeration of the importance of the former.

As I grow older and my body is beginning to fail me in little, but unfortunately accumulative, ways I am learning that I am a human animal as well as a human being. Human animal as a term brings with it an appreciation of all the sufferings that go with the animal body, as well as the good points too, of course, like its achievements in sport and so on. That the body grows old and dies is a central lesson that pets can teach us, and, goodness, if we are willing learners, they teach us much. Mark Rowlands is a dog-lover, vegetarian and philosopher. But, more than that, he is a humble and willing learner. I will write some more reflections on this book over the next several days, but I will finish this post with this short quotation from the book in question:

If I wanted a one-sentence definition of human beings, this would do: humans are the animals that believe the stories they tell about themselves. Humans are credulous animals.” (Op. cit. supra, p. 2)

The Web of Life 17

2011-12-26T15:45:00.001Z

Final Post on Systems Thinking

Systems Thinking 3

This will be my final post on Fritjof Capra's The Web of Life. I wish here to resolve the dilemma I left readers with in the last post: that of a living world unfolding towards increasing order and complexity (evolution), and that of an engine running down, a world of ever-increasing disorder (Second Law of thermodynamics). Who was right, Darwin or Carnot?

Fritjof Capra points out that the great Ludwig von Bertalanffy could not resolve this dilemma with the mathematics then available to him at that time (1940s). However, he (L. v B.) did differentiate between what he termed closed and open systems. He contended that all living organisms are open systems that simply cannot be described by classical thermodynamics. He called such systems open because they need to feed on a continual flux of matter and energy from their environment to stay alive. Closed systems settle easily into a state of equilibrium. Open systems, on the other hand maintain themselves far from equilibrium by continual flow and change. These systems were in "steady states" far from equilibrium. Classical thermodynamics was only able to describe closed systems, not open ones like organisms.

The New Thermodynamics described mathematically by Ilya Prigogine

In the 1970s Ilya Prigogine developed a new mathematics to re-evaluate the second law by radically rethinking traditional scientific views of order and disorder. He thereby resolved the dilemma inherent in the clash between Darwin's and Carnot's theories described in my opening paragraph. In the succinct words of Dr. Capra we read:

Bertalanffy correctly identified the characteristcs of the steady state as those of the process of metabolism, which led him to postulate self-regulation as another key property of open systems. This idea was refined by Prigogine thirty years later in terms of the self-organization of "disippative structures."... However, during the last two decades after his [Bertalanffy's] death in 1972, a systemic conception of life, mind and consciousness began to emerge which transcends disciplinary boundaries, and, indeed, holds a promise of unifying various fields of study that were formerly separated. Although this new conception of life has its roots more clearly in cybernetics than in general systems theory, it certainly owes a great deal to the concepts and thinking which Ludwig von Bartalanffy introduced into science. (Op. cit. supra, pp. 49-50)

Conclusion

How far this systemic conception of life has gone to unify various fields of study is unknown to this author who is neophyte in this area. However, it is the drift and direction of systems thinking and its thrust to unity and to that elusive unifying principle of life that enthralls this author. One hopes that this is no utopian dream, illusion or delusion even, or even that it might not be as futile as Dr Casaubon's (George Eliot's Middlemarch) "key to all mythologies" fixation. However, I take great consolation from the ever questioning and sharp approach of all good philosophy in the Socratic sense of that word and also from the reluctance of all good thinkers worth their salt to engage in silly reductionist thinking which places the findings of their narrow science alone on a single foundation they believe to be the sole arbiter of truth. Hence, my disappointment, nay impatience, with such reductionists as Dawkins, Hitchens et al who continue to argue so fundamentally and reductionistically from the narrow viewpoint of science or, at least of their conception of what science is, or from their own ideas solely (an arrogant stance I believe!). Let us be open to knowledge from all sciences and all areas which pursue truths in a sincere, congruent and authentic manner.

The Web of Life 16

2011-12-24T17:32:00.002Z

Systems Thinking 2

Tektology

This is a totally new concept for the present writer. However, it is always great to discover something new. Alexander Bogdanov (1873 - 1928) was the inventor or originator of this interesting concept. He was quite a polymath with a political interest as he was a Russian physician, a philosopher, an economist, a science fiction writer, and a revolutionary of Belarusian ethnicity. As well as all that he was a key figure in the early history of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, being one of its co-founders and a rival to the main man Vladimir Lenin until being expelled in 1909. This system of Bogdanov remains largely unknown outside Russia, according to Dr Capra. This Russian polymath called his theory 'tektology', from the Greek "tekton" meaning "builder." In other words, here we have a return to the epistemological theory of building as a metaphor. Another way of putting this is to call tektology "the science of structures." Once again, in keeping with the overall systems approach to knowledge in any field, Bogdanov's main goal was to clarify and generalize the principles of organization of all living and even nonliving structures. In the apt and succinct summary which Dr Capra offers us we read:

Tektology was the first attempt in the history of science to arrive at a systematic formulation of the principles of organization operating in living and nonliving systems... (The Web of Life, p. 44)

In this he prefigured the systems theory of Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901,Vienna – June 12, 1972, Buffalo, USA) and even the cybernetics theory proposed by Norbert Wiener (1894, Columbia, Missouri – 1964, an American mathematician) and Ross Ashby (1903 – 1972, an English psychiatrist and a pioneer in cybernetics, the study of complex systems. That a mathematician and a psychiatrist could have put forward a similar theory is nothing short of extraordinary, and exciting indeed, given the disparity of the subject area pursued by both sciences.

Using the terms "complex" and "system" interchangeably, Bogdanov outlined three different kinds of system: (i) organized complexes where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, (ii) disorganized complexes where the whole is smaller than the sum of the parts and (iii) neutral complexes where the organizing and disorganizing principles cancel each other out. Now, the development of systems can be studied and understood, according to our Russian scholar, by examining two basic organizing mechanisms: (i) formation and (ii) regulation.

Bogdanov even allows for crises which, he believes, lead eventually to transformation into a more complex system. Here, Dr Capra argues, that our Russian scholar anticipates the concept of catastrophe developed by the French mathematician René Thom (1923 – 2002). Capra expresses considerable surprise that Ludwig von Bertalanffy who published his world-renowned General System Theory in 1968, and who was the leading scholar in his area should not have come across the ground-breaking work of Bogdanov called Tektology which was published in parts between 1912 and 1917. Also, it is important to note that Marxist theorists of the day were hostile to Bogdanov's ideas.

Eventually over the decades of the twentieth century systems thinking became quite fashionable in scientific circles. With the subsequent strong support from cybernetics, the concepts of systems thinking and systems theory became integral parts of the established scientific language. Indeed there is talk today of systems engineering, systems analysis and systems dynamics and so on and so forth.

Ludwig von Bertalanffy was a biologist with a strong interest in philosophy who belonged to the Vienna Circle . He believed strongly that biological phenomena required new ways of thinking. He set out to replace the mechanistic image of the foundations of science with a holistic vision. Indeed he stated that its nearest approximation in the science of the late twentieth century was that of the mathematical field of probability.

Now, Capra informs us, and as a non-scientist I am somewhat baffled here, that as the new theory of evolution entered into general science as such, there was need for a new way of thinking to incorporate this complex notion of change, development or evolution. One new way of thinking that was invented, our learned author informs us, is the new science of complexity. When this new science of complexity was invented two new laws were proposed therein: viz., The First Law of Thermodynamics: This law is an expression of the principle of conservation of energy.
The law states that energy can be transformed, i.e. changed from one form to another, but cannot be created or destroyed. The Second Law is the law of the dissipation of energy was formulated first by the French physicist Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot (1796 – 1832) who stated, having observed and studied the technology of thermal engines, that there is a trend in physical phenomena from order to disorder. To express this tendency to breakdown or disorder the physicists invented the new quantity of entropy. In short, entropy is, then, a measure of disorder. Let me here return to the succinct words of Dr Capra:

With the concept of entropy and the formulation of the second law, thermodynamics introduced the idea of irreversible processes, of an "arrow of time" into science. According to the second law, some mechanical energy is always dissipated into heat that cannot be completely recovered. Thus the entire world machine is running down and will eventually grind to a halt... At the end of the nineteenth century, then, Newtonian mechanics, the science of eternal, reversible trajectories, had been supplemented by two diametrically opposed views of evolutionary change - that of a living world unfolding towards increasing order and complexity, and that of an engine running down, a world of ever-increasing disorder. Who was right, Darwin or Carnot?

To be continued.

The Web of Life 15

2011-12-23T14:50:00.000Z

Systems Thinking 2

What is the Truth?

Francis Bacon, scientist and statesman

I have touched on this topic many times before, and those first few lines from Francis Bacon's (1561 –1626) famous essay keep surfacing in my mind: "WHAT is truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer." I have often questioned in these pages as to whether there is one singular truth or rather many different truths. I have also questioned whether it is more correct to speak about the Truth, that is truth with a capital letter or to speak of the plural truths in lower case letters. Many times have I written the often-quoted assertion in these posts that we see the world not as it is, that is objectively, but rather as we are, that is, subjectively. I'm rather cynical, then, as to whether we can arrive at the objective truth at all. And yet to live in this matter-of-fact world, we have to accept many facts as given truths if we are to survive at all. The great Victorian churchman and academic John Henry Cardinal Newman said something similar to my contention in the last sentence here - that the human mind has to accept ascribed certainties in lfe, otherwise we'd never make decisions.

My opening remarks lead me on nicely to the following words from Dr. Capra:

Therefore, scientists can never deal with the truth, in the sense of a precise correspondence between the description and the described phenomenon. In science, we always deal with limited and approximate descriptions of reality. This may sound frustrating but for systems thinkers the fact that we can obtain approximate knowledge about an infinite web of interconnected patterns is a source of confidence and strength. (The Web of Life, p. 41)

Process Thinking

Alfred North Whitehead in pensive mood!

There are two strands of system thinking, viz., contextual thinking, which we have already discussed, and process thinking. It is to this latter that we now turn our attention. It is possible to trace elements of process thinking back to the ancients, especially back to Heraclitus who authored the famous dictum: "everything flows" as well as the saying that "one cannot step into the same river twice." No wonder we speak of flow diagrams or flow charts when we discuss process thinking. During the 1920s, the English mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead formulated a strongly process-oriented philosophy. In opposition to the classical model of change as purely accidental and illusory (as by Aristotle), process philosophy regards change as the cornerstone of reality–the cornerstone of being thought as becoming. In physics Ilya Prigogine (1917 – 2003) distinguishes between the "physics of being" and the "physics of becoming". (See here and here)
Homeostasis

Another complementary concept is that of homeostasis. The biologists Claude Bernard and Walter Cannon promoted the principle of the constancy of the organism's "internal environment" and refined it into the concept of homeostasis - which essentially is the self-regulatory mechanism that allows organisms to maintain themselves in a state of dynamic balance with their variables fluctuating between tolerance limits. Metabolism of the individual cell combines order and activity in a way that cannot be described by mechanistic science. Indeed, it requires thousands of chemical reactions - in short, it is a continual, complex and highly organized activity.

The Web of Life 14

2011-12-21T12:44:00.001Z

The Settled versus the Unsettled Mind

We humans like to be sure of things - we delight in certainties. However, there are few certainties in this life, indeed, apart from such certainties that we shall all grow old, get ill sometimes and eventually die. Insurance companies make money, and lots of it, on the back of the uncertainties that are part of life. I remember a priest friend once summarising the Christian message for his congregation thus: "Jesus came into this world to comfort the disturbed and to to disturb the comfortable." Whatever about one's religious stance or even lack of it, this sentence just quoted contains no little wisdom. When we are too smug, we do need something to disturb us or wake us up from our indifferent slumber. In like manner, Fritjof Capra is correct in his contention that traditional science based on the old reliable scientific method is all too comfortable insofar as it has a solid foundation. As we have pointed out in the preceding post this building or architectural metaphor is just that - one metaphor among other metaphors. Systems Thinking suggests another metaphor - that of Network(s). "For some scientists such a view of knowledge as a network with no firm foundations is extremely unsettling, and today it is by no means generally accepted." (The Web of Life, p. 39)

The Beauty of Philosophy

The beauty of philosophy for me, and for so many others, is that it is a restless questioning, a questioning which never stops and even ruthlessly questions our own assumptions and presumptions, and hopefully our prejudices. It also seeks to question our motivations as individuals and as a society. The philosophy of science must do the same. Indeed, as one who studied mathematics for some three years at university, I am well aware that there are many areas within that subject and each of those areas has its own specific axioms (or unquestioned assumptions or fundamentals upon which that area is based). I am also aware that, when one changes one's basic axioms or, say, changes from one geometry to another, the resulting mathematics will be different. Each of these geometries is logical and sound within its own area and according to the axioms on which it is built (I am, of course, using a building metaphor here!). However, when we transfer axioms from one specific area into another distinct area, they can be simply meaningless. The beauty of philosophy, too, then, is that it trains the mind to think outside the box and it enables the mind to change from one " box" to another with a certain ease or facility.

Objectivity

Objectivity has always been a concern for humankind. As a student I remember that we used to hand up the same essay to different teachers to see what score we would get and to see how accurate or objective our teachers really were. Oftentimes the results differed, but, thankfully not markedly. Also as a teacher who has done a certain amount of official corrections, I have always been scrupulous in taking the chief examiner's and other more local examiners' advice into consideration. In other words, we have to work hard at being objective, that is, objectivity is not a given at all. Scientist believe that the twin approaches of empiricism and the scientific method are totally objective. And yet, philosophy can raise questions about how objective such so-called objectivity really is. Returning to the words of Fritjof Capra, we read:

Another important implication of the view of reality as a inseparable network of relationships concerns the traditional concept of scientific objectivity. In the Cartesian paradigm, scientific descriptions are believed to be objective.i.e., independent of the human observer and the process of knowing. The new paradigm implies that epistemology - understanding of the process of knowing - has to be included explicitly in the description of natural phenomena." (Ibid., p. 39)

We see things not as they are, but as we are:

Some sources tell us that this piece of wisdom is written in the Talmud. Shakyamuni Buddha said the same thing, in different words: "All existence is conditioned." As a result of that conditioning, our perception is skewed, and as a result of living based on skewed perception.

Some years back, the great musician Joshua Bell played incognito in a metro station by way of an experiment that was organized by The Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. He played some of the most intricate pieces ever written, on a violin worth 3.5 million dollars. Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell had sold out at a theater in Boston and the seat price was $100. The outlines of this project were: (i) In a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour do we perceive beauty? (ii) Do we stop to appreciate it? (iii) Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context? Very few people noticed his brilliance at all, or that this was a world-famous musician. Most passed by and he was acknowledge by some 32 $ in his hat!

One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing? Is it because 'We don't see things as they are but we see things as we are?'

Capra once again returns to Werner Karl Heisenberg (1901 – 1976) who was a German theoretical physicist who made foundational contributions to quantum mechanics and is best known for asserting the uncertainty principle of quantum theory. In addition, he made important contributions to nuclear physics, quantum field theory, and particle physics. This wonderful theoretical physicist said: "What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning." (ibid., p. 40)

Paradigm Shift

In 1962, Thomas Kuhn wrote The Structure of Scientific Revolution, and fathered, defined and popularized the concept of "paradigm shift" which basically can be seen as a change from one way of thinking to another. It's a revolution, a transformation, a sort of metamorphosis. It just does not happen, but rather it is driven by agents of change. The same can be said, I believe, about the change to Systems Thinking: "[t]hus systems thinking involves a shift from objective to 'epistemic' science; to a framework in which epistemology - 'the method of questioning' - becomes an integral part of scientific theories." (Ibid., p. 40)

Big Question

As I have been literally singing an encomium to the importance of philosophy above, we must now ask a very big question. If everything is connected to everything else, how can we ever hope to understand anything? Well, while there may not today be the Cartesian idea of the total certainty of science, there exists today what we may term "approximate knowledge." In the new paradigm of science - that of interconnection, connectivity and networks, it is recognised that all scientific concepts and theories are limited and approximate. Science can never provide any complete and definitive understanding. For that matter neither can theology or philosophy or literature or any other human enterprise.

The best way, dear reader, to end this post is surely with the great declaration of Socrates that the beginning of all wisdom lies in our declaration of our ignorance. Only from there can we hope to learn anything.

The Web of Life 13

2011-12-20T14:37:00.000Z

Systems Thinking 1

Gravestone and Cobweb, Roscrea Cemetery, 2007

These days I am pursuing an interdisciplinary course in Human Development at a local college and one of the subjects we have studied is Feminisms and Theories of Care. Therein, we have discussed the traditional hierarchical nature of societies. Capra et al inform us the nature itself does not work in a hierarchical fashion. Rather it works in a network fashion, with networks resting within networks. In the insightful words of Dr Capra we read: "We tend to arrange these systems, all nesting within larger systems, in a hierarchical scheme by placing the larger systems above the smaller ones in pyramid fashion. But this is a human projection." (The Web of Life, p. 35).

So in nature, the, Capra et al argue that there are no "aboves" or "belows" and no hierarchies. Instead there are only networks within networks.

Central Points of Systems Thinking

The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Living systems are all integrated wholes that cannot be reduced to a sum of its individual parts. It's the interconnections and interrelationships between parts that really matter. In other words , we might say that the function of the parts is in fact "systemic."

Systems thinking is the ability to shift one's attention back and forth between systems levels. Capra argues that when stress is applied to an organism, a city or an economy we will gain insight into how that particular system works.

While there is no hierarchy within systems thinking there are different levels within a system that represent levels of different complexity.

Works in an opposite way to Cartesian thinking which believed that in any complex system the behaviour of the whole could be analysed in terms of the properties of its parts. Systems science shows that living systems cannot be understood by analysis. The properties of parts are not intrinsic properties, but can be understood only within the context of the larger whole. In other words systems thinking is contextual thinking.

Ultimately, there are no parts at all, Dr Capra argues (ibid., p. 37). What we call a part is merely a pattern in an inseparable web of relationships.

The traditional metaphor for science has come from the building or architectural world, and no wonder, indeed, because all human beings (indeed all animals) need to construct a shelter in which to live. Hence we speak of fundamental laws, foundational principles, basic building blocks etc. Descartes spoke about "the shifting foundations" of philosophy upon which no solid science could be built.

Yet, three hundred years later Heisenberg could say that these very foundations of physics (indeed of all the sciences) were themselves not very solid. In fact the foundations were shifting: "the foundations of physics have started moving." (Heisenberg as quoted in Capra, ibid., p. 38)

In the new systems thinking, the metaphor of knowledge as a building is being replaced by that of the network. This attention to metaphor, here, and our use of them, indeed our almost unconscious or unthinking use of them needs to be re-visited and thought about quite seriously as they do highlight our unthinking presuppositions. In some old rabbinical tale or other I read over the years, I remember an old rabbi telling one of his disciples that what he had learned from a long life was that one should always question one's motivations. Brilliant. We should constantly question our motivations and indeed our presuppositions, and consequently our unthinking use of language. This is where philosophy comes in and where poor old Descartes went wrong!

Interestingly, Capra alludes to Geoffrey Chew's famous concept of "bootstrap philosophy" where the notion of scientific knowledge as a network of concepts and models, in which no part is any more fundamental than the others. This "bootstrap philosophy" abandons the idea of fundamental building-blocks of matter and accepts no fundamental entities whatsoever, whether equations or otherwise. The universe itself is seen as a dynamic web of interrelated events.

Now all of these points above imply that physics can no longer be seen as the most fundamental level of science. Since there are no foundations in the network, the phenomena described by physics are not any more foundational than those described by biology or chemistry or psychology or any other science.

The Web of Life 12

2011-12-19T13:12:00.000Z

The Power of Images

Roscrea Graveyard, September'07. Spider's web on cross

Every writer, indeed every human being one could say, is well aware of the potency of images. Images speak louder than a thousand words. Indeed, our memories are crammed packed with myriads of them and, in a sense, we are our memories. No wonder we are suckers for good images. Likewise, when Dr Fritjof Capra was choosing a title for his wonderful book a central image shot to his mind, viz., that of the web. The idea of "The Web of Life" is a very ancient one indeed. It has been used by mystics, sages, poets and philosophers throughout the ages to convey their sense of the unity - nay, interwovenness and interlinked nature of all phenomena. Indeed, Capra informs us that he chose his image from the marvellous speech attributed to Chief Seattle. Hence, it may not be too inappropriate to place a copy of the full text of that speech hereunder. Even though the provenance of the speech has been disputed, this point need not delay us here as we are merely (or, more properly, wholly) concerned with the spirit and power of the words and images that with the true identity of its author. It is likely that the following words are not those of Chief Seattle.

"The President in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy or sell the sky? the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?

Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people.

We know the sap which courses through the trees as we know the blood that courses through our veins. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the dew in the meadow, the body heat of the pony, and man all belong to the same family.

The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water, but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you our land, you must remember that it is sacred. Each glossy reflection in the clear waters of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father.

The rivers are our brothers. They quench our thirst. They carry our canoes and feed our children. So you must give the rivers the kindness that you would give any brother.

If we sell you our land, remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life that it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also received his last sigh. The wind also gives our children the spirit of life. So if we sell our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow flowers.

Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth.

This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

One thing we know: our God is also your God. The earth is precious to him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator.

Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? The wild horses tamed? What will happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills is blotted with talking wires? Where will the thicket be? Gone! Where will the eagle be? Gone! And what is to say goodbye to the swift pony and then hunt? The end of living and the beginning of survival.

When the last red man has vanished with this wilderness, and his memory is only the shadow of a cloud moving across the prairie, will these shores and forests still be here? Will there be any of the spirit of my people left?

We love this earth as a newborn loves its mother's heartbeat. So, if we sell you our land, love it as we have loved it. Care for it, as we have cared for it. Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you receive it. Preserve the land for all children, and love it, as God loves us.

As we are part of the land, you too are part of the land. This earth is precious to us. It is also precious to you.

One thing we know - there is only one God. No man, be he Red man or White man, can be apart. We ARE all brothers after all." (See here for text: Inauthentic Version )

There does exist a truer version of the original speech by Chief Seattle and it can be found here: Authentic Version.

Sammis' portrait of Chief Seattle.

It is the first version or the inauthentic one that contains the image of the "web of life." It is a far more poetic version than the original authentic speech. However, one can see how the former is based on the latter as foundational text. There is much we moderns can learn from the simplicity of ancient religions, or more specifically from ancient spiritualities which certainly had a high respect for nature and for the life of planet Earth, for the sacredness of her soil, and indeed for humans whom they saw as just another part of nature. It was Christianity, following on the Jewish preoccupation with being the "chosen" or favoured "people of God," that placed humankind (or mankind as Judaism/Christianity puts it) at the topmost point of that creation. That such beliefs led, not alone to hubris and pride, but also to the torture, enslavement and murder of what they would have seen, and possibly still do see still, as "less important" races.

The Web of Life 11

2011-12-18T20:39:00.002Z

Suspended wheel outside a tyre business near me.

Encountering Wholeness

Way back in 1994 as part of my S.T.L. degree I wrote a thesis on Faith and Theological Method in the Works of John Henry Newman. Cardinal Newman (1801-1890) was one of the foremost minds of nineteenth century England as well as being the greatest stylist of the period in the English language. In short, he wrote angelic prose. Anyway, in that thesis I adverted to Newman's obsession with wholeness or holism, somewhat way before holism was known as a way of perceiving things or of approaching problems. Here, in summary, is what I wrote then:

From his experience of life Newman was deeply conscious that our permanent convictions and beliefs are reached, not by the intellect alone, but by the whole person functioning as a thinking, feeling and willing unity. This he calls our 'compound nature.' He found it simply impossible to be a reductionist, to think otherwise than in continual reference to the whole. In all his writings Newman was continually aware of the partial character of his viewpoint on any specific subject... [In the Apologia] he insists that in any controversy in which he was involved that he had 'a great impatience, whatever was the subject, of not bringing out the whole of it, as clearly as I could' Nowhere did he express this basic vision with greater force than in the following often-quoted passage from the same book: 'For myself it was not logic then that carried me on... It is the concrete being that reasons; pass a number of years and I find myself in a new place; how? the whole man moves; paper logic is but a record of it.' (Tim Quinlan op.cit. supra, p. 41)

The Holism of Ecology

In summary, then, organismic biologists came across irreducible wholeness in organisms. Thereafter, quantum physicists encountered it in atomic phenomena and Gestalt psychologists found it in perception itself. Then, along came the ecologists and they encountered this thrust to wholeness in their studies of animal and plant communities. As Dr Fritjof Capra puts it so succinctly: "The new science of ecology emerged out of the organismic school of biology during the nineteenth century, when biologists began to study communities of organisms." (The Web of Life, p. 33) The German biologist Ernst Haeckel (1834 – 1919) coined the term "ecology" in 1866 and defined it thus: 'the science of relations between the organism and the surrounding outer world.' (Ibid., p. 33)

The War of Terminologies

The word "Umwelt" or "environment" was used for the first time in 1909. One Charles Elton (1900 – 1991) introduced the concepts of food chains and food cycles. Another called Frederick Clements (1874 - 1945), an American plant ecologist introduced the concept of viewing plant communities as 'super-organisms.' A British plant ecologist, one A.G. Tansley (1871 - 1955) countered this concept with the idea of the 'ecosystem.' He maintained that his new term was more accurate and more precise than Clements' concept, and that it characterised both animal and plant communities.

The term 'biosphere' was first used in the late nineteenth century by the Austrian geologist Eduard Suess (1831–1914) to describe the layer of life surrounding the Earth. A few decades later, the Russian geochemist Vladimir Vernadsky (1863 – 1945) published a fully researched book called Biosphere. Capra informs us that of all the early writing and research on the living Earth Vernadsky's comes closest to the contemporary Gaia theory advanced and developed by the modern scientists James Lovelock and Lynn Magulis in the 1970s. I have written about the Gaia hypothesis before - see here and following posts. James Lovelock's own web page can be accessed here - Lovelock )

Enriching Systems Thinking

Ecology enriched Systems Thinking with two other concepts - those of community and network. Returning to Dr Capra's own words, we read:

Today we know that most organisms are not only members of ecological communities but are also complex ecosystems themselves, containing a host of smaller organisms that have considerable autonomy and yet are integrated harmoniously into the functioning of the whole... Over billions of years of evolution, many species have formed such tightly knit communities that the whole system resembles a large, multicreatured organism. Bees and ants, for example, are unable to survive in isolation, but in great numbers they act almost like the cells of a complex organism with a collective intelligence and capabilities for adaptation far superior to those of its individual members. Similar close coordination of activities exist also among different species, where it is known as symbiosis, and again the resulting living systems have the characteristics of single organisms. (Ibid., p. 34)

In brief, then, my argument here, drawing on Newman (theology) and modern science with Dr Fritjof Capra, is that the thrust to wholeness or unity is perennial with respect to the human quest for meaning. On the one hand, those who want to figure out how things work are fundamentally concerned with parts and how these work, even with atomism, that is attempting to continually divide things to arrive at foundational bricks as it were. On the other hand philosophers, literati and others are concerned with striving to see the whole picture in whatever they are investigating at a particular time. In sum, then, I should like to finish with the words of one of my favourite Romantic poets and philosophers and critics, viz., S.T. Coleridge, words which get to the essence of my intentions in this post. Coleridge once said that the human thrust to meaning could best be summed up in the words "to see the unity behind the multeity."

The Web of Life 10

2011-12-17T17:20:00.000Z

Atomism

Some children like to break their toys up to see what they are made of, and some few of these like to see if they can get them back together again. Breaking things down as well as building things up have always been preoccupations of humankind. I was never one of those boys who liked to break his toys - this combination of words sounds distinctly like the start of a poem, does it not? Be that as it may, we often wonder literally how far we can say keep cutting a piece of wood in half. In other words what we are searching for here is an answer to the question: Is there an ultimate, indivisible unit of matter? The WIKI gives us the following insight into the history of atomism:

In the 5th century BC, Leucippus and his pupil Democritus proposed that all matter was composed of small indivisible particles called atoms, in order to reconcile two conflicting schools of thought on the nature of reality. On one side was Heraclitus, who believed that the nature of all existence is change. On the other side was Parmenides, who believed instead that all change is illusion.Parmenides denied the existence of motion, change and void. He believed all existence to be a single, all-encompassing and unchanging mass (a concept known as monism), and that change and motion were mere illusions. (See Atomism )

Beyond Atomism to Quantum Physics

We are firmly in the age of Quantum Physics. We have left the atomistic world of Democritus and even of the more recent pre-Quantum physics times behind us. Indeed Dr. Fritjof Capra tells us, should we need reminding, that subatomic particles have no meaning as separate things or entities in themselves. He informs us, rather, that they are "interconnections, and these, in turn, are interconnections between other things, and so on. In quantum theory we never end up with any "things"; we always deal with interconnections." (The Web of Life, p. 30). In short, this means that we simply cannot break down or decompose the world into independently existing elementary units. This is a huge idea to get our minds around and we need to comtemplate it because there is deep mystery at work here. Contemplating on this we arrive at interesting insights like the fact that the further we penetrate down we come across no basic isolated building blocks but rather we encounter a profound and complex web of inter-relationships and suble connections and interconnections that somehow make up a unified whole which we might call the reality of this world. As a virtual neophyte in the world of sub-atomic physics it is interesting to read the following from Capra:

In the formalism of quantum theory, these relationships are expressed in terms of probabilities, and the probabilities are determined by the dynamics of the whole system. Whereas in classical mechanics the properties and behaviours of the parts determine those of the whole, the situation is reversed in quantum mechanics: it is the whole the determines the behaviour of the parts. (Ibid., p.31)

Gestalt Psychology

"Gestalt" is the German word for "organic form," and this much discussed area was known as the "Gestaltproblem" in the German language. By "organic form" is meant animate or living form as distinct from inanimate. The philosopher Christian von Ehrenfels was the first scholar to use the word "gestalt" in the sense of an irreducible perceptual pattern and this led to the founding of the school of gestalt psychology. It was Ehrenfels who coined the well-known sentence that "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts." This famous saying has now become the mantra or motto of systems thinkers everywhere. It was Max Wertheimer and and Wolfgang Kohler who set the Gestalt Movement going, and they maintained that the existence of irreducible wholes was central to perception. Hence, the notion of pattern was always to the fore in this school of psychology. Like the organismic biologists, these psychologists saw their particular take on perception as a third way beyond mechanism and vitalism. Capra reminds us that there a complete holistic zeitgeist reigned supreme during the entire Weimar period of rule in Germany.