Climate change is a question of scale

1200 km from the northern border of Kazakhstan with Russia - three days torturous drive across arid sands that stretch from curving horizon to curving horizon, past glaring white salt beds that once were water - you will find a dot of a town in the middle of the Kysylkum desert. The metal arch over the road will inform you that you have reached Aral. The first thing to catch your eye will be the gleaming modern fuelling station on your left - unfortunately today it is without diesel – a quick hands and feet chat to the manager will inform you that the diesel truck should be here in a few hours.
The next fuelling station is 150 km to the south so you might decide to wait and wander over the town square- no more than a dusty piece of desert- to the market. Here things hang off strings strung from corrugated iron shack to corrugated iron shack; as a normal sized westerner you will have to duck and dodge under bags and brooms as you make your way from stall to stall. You will find carpets and cloth in acid bright colours, freshly baked crusty bread, stubby knobbly desert cucumbers and sweet deep red tomatoes. You will find cheese- which comes in a barrel out of which they scoop great spoonfuls of white curdles- you will find balls of salty butter, potatoes and freshly slaughtered chickens. You will even find a bottle of Pepsi. But what you will not find is fish.

There is no fish in Aral. Why on earth should this bother you? Simply because the reason that the town of Aral exists is fish. Aral is - or more correctly - was a port or maybe it is still a port as the port is still there, it is the sea that is missing .Odd that. The Aral Sea started vanishing into itself in 1970’s and now the only indication that there is still a body of water somewhere out there - beyond the white chemical encrusted sand and shimmering lake mirage on the horizon - is the occasional seagull that incongruously floats above the heads of the pale camels that wander freely in the dusty streets.

The lack of fish and subsequent economic devastation of Aral is the direct result of long years of human abuse of the ecosystem around the Aral Sea. This abuse culminated in the Soviet ‘’Virgin Lands’ project in the 1950’s; this was the Soviet’s grandiose plan to green the desert by planting fields of wheat and cotton in the dessert which they would irrigate by diverting the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers . Rivers whose waters - according to the Soviets - were just going to waste into the Aral Sea. The Soviet collective farmers put the sand to the plough, they planted and sowed and irrigated and irrigated and irrigated and at some point they took just a touch too much water and unknowingly tipped the balance of the ecosystem of the region and started the irreversible shrinking of the Aral Sea.

The ecosystem of planet Earth is like that of Kazakhstan; a delicately balanced see-saw and every time we walk into a shop and buy something we really don’t need, every time we forget to turn off the lights, when we turn up the heat instead of putting on a jersey, when we drive to the corner shop instead of taking a walk, every time we do one of a hundred unthinking things we add to the unbalancing of the see-saw.
The problem is; by the time we noticed that the ecological see-saw of the greater Aral region had tipped, the Aral Sea was already dying and even after we noticed there was nothing we could do. The sea continues to shrink and the sand storms that now plague the region blow polluted sand far around the planet degrading agricultural land and water where-ever it lands. The Aral Sea disaster is proof that human activity can change the climate yet; as global climatic change is still too large and vague for us to measure, we continue to believe we are too small to each make a difference.

We accept however that a tiny bacterium that is transmitted by fleas caused the Bubonic plague; which between 1348 and 1353 caused the death of 25 million people in Europe. We accept that even in our times of highly advanced medical science we are unable to stop the AIDS virus which has killed 25 Million people since 1981 and 2 million in 2007 alone. Today we look with great concern at the spread of Mexican flu as we accept that this flu could turn into a global pandemic. With viruses and bacteria we are quite happy to accept that small could be potentially deadly. Human activity can be seen the same way.

From a vantage point where the whole of earth would be visible - say we were sipping sundowners on a deck chair on the moon- we would see a ball of green and blue suspended in a sea of black. From this distant vantage point we could see the smoke clouds of the burning rainforests we could see the giant pollution slicks in the air and sea but we would have to employ a pretty big telescope to see us; the 6 billion busy little microbes all destroying our tiny part of the greater organism and only then could we imagine how all our little acts of destruction eventually come together.

The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change); which was established in 1988, has been attempting to provide us with just that telescope. Since it’s inception it has gathered information from the leading thinkers in all fields that are suspected to affect -or to be affected by- climate change. By carefully reviewing and correlating all scientific papers and reports on the global climate issue the IPCC has allowed us to get an overview of the problem. Initially the IPCC reports came to very conservative conclusions that were easy to push aside to make way for more seemingly more pressing immediate problems. Recent years have seen the IPCC reports coming to a clearer and undisputable conclusion; in the last 50 years the speed of climate change has increased alarmingly and this is undoubtedly due to ecologically destructive human activity. Destructive activity that is on the increase daily.

As more humans move into the dead zones of cities they become disconnected from nature and no longer have any concept that they need the diversity of the planet to sustain them. In a city it is easy to believe that as long as there is a supermarket around the corner and a petrol station within driving distance all will be well. The connection between the weather and the produce that we buy in the supermarket is lost. Generations of children are growing up who will never pluck a dewy peach from a tree, who will never lie on their backs to stare at the stars or to find animals in the clouds. Yet they are the ones easy to convince to change their destructive behaviour. More difficult to convince are the generations of people who are already completely entrenched in a lifestyle that is the cause of climatic change. These people are unable to see life outside of their own private sphere let alone make the imaginary leap required to see how much we have to change our thinking to stop a problem we are collectively creating and have no way of controlling or predicting. When the global ecological see-saw looses its balance, the changes it will bring will spill over all our lives.

There are no borders and boundaries to contain global climatic chaos. We all breath the same air, we are touched by the same grain of sand and we all drink the same water; again and again. We are of Earth and the Earth we are unwittingly destroying is our only refuge. Despite the fact that we believe we are the masters of the universe, we cannot stop the flood rains from falling or divert a hurricane; we cannot bring back the river dolphins of the Yangtze. The rainforests that we cut down in an instant will not grow back in our lifetime – perhaps ever- the climatic chaos we are unwittingly creating is a sum of all these parts. When the global ecological see-saw looses its balance, the changes it will bring will make us look at the shrinking of the Aral Sea and wonder why we did not react to the future dangers it warned us of

do_no_evil

Hear no evil see no evil ….does it follow that you are doing no evil?

 

Google has a very snappy little slogan ‘do no evil’ ; I can just imagine a group of bright young things sipping their espressos at a slick table throwing ideas  around until finally ‘do no evil ‘ hits the shiny surface and *bing* a giant flashbulb goes off and everybody is simply thrilled with their cleverness.

 

A sexy and apparently very good slogan. But it must be asked why Google felt the need to give itself such a wide margin of error. Perhaps it is because those bright young things have never had the opportunity to face true evil and simply cannot imagine the amount of things you can do completely wrong before you are defined as evil. Evil is the last degree of bad; herein fall such deeds as raping babies, slow and brutal torture, the wanton destruction of the planet, Hitler, Idi Amin Dada and the Rwanda massacres ; these are things that fall into the realms of evil. I am very happy to know that my daily computer companion has taken it upon itself not to venture down these paths. But again - why are they giving themselves such a wide margin of error?

 

Perhaps it is sheer laziness or an increasing level of illiteracy or the need to always seem the best, and today 100% just doesn't’t cut it, it must be at least 120%. This trend in excess also sees us using the most extreme words to describe the everyday. We call just about every half way decent thing awesome, when last were you really awestruck? Do you even know what that must feel like? Hyperbole and sloppy language use in the everyday hides a multitude of sins, including a couple that can truly be called evil

 

I recently sent a PETS petition about the skinning of fur animals to my entire mailing list. The video is apparently horrific - I am a complete wimp when it comes to such things - I saw the first blow and was ready to stop but forced myself to watch a little longer, when that poor beast twitched as the skinner ripped the pelt from its living flesh that was me , done. It seems , although this petition is very well supported, the general feeling is that the blame is out there somewhere, anywhere but here. It is an easily dismissed fact that the Chinese would not be skinning those animals, in which ever way they do it, if we were not buying the fur. They do it, not because they have some sadistic need to torture animals, they do it because they need to feed their children, house them and hopefully send them to school with new cloths once a year.

 

The recent Chinese history is one of deprivation and hunger . The Chinese population aged 50 years and older lived through 'the great leap forward'- an event that I believe falls within the realms of evil-they can still feel that hunger and can still remember someone who starved to death. The generations that followed lived in abject poverty under the yoke of their oppressive communist regime. It is only the last two decades that has exposed the Chinese to the inconceivable wealth and waste of the West, and asking them to understand why they should not have it too is a bit rich. To waste is the height of cool in China; go to any fancy restaurant in China and you will be astounded at how much food the host will order for his table of guests. There is no chance that the food will be eaten, it is all just a show of money. This is the West ; Chinese style. To waste is to be super cool, to waste is to be sexy, to waste means you are getting to the top of the pile and the more you can waste the higher up you are. Fantastic for capitalists not so very good for the weather or for those poor furry beasts.

 

 I know for a fact that I cannot raise a chicken then chop its head off, rip it's feathers out, gut it and then roast it for Sunday lunch - it is a mental impossibility - but give me a nicely packaged supermarket chicken, squeaky clean and wrapped in glossy cellophane, well then I am capable of rustling up a large variety of delicious chicken dishes and eating them with relish. Most Chinese however, still know that an animal must die for it to be eaten or its fur to be used, they have unfortunately taken the killing thing to its blasé extreme; the wanton cruelty of humans to their fellow earthlings is legendary.  Humans seem programmed to be cruel to others, even within their own species . But who is more in the wrong; me in my cellophane wrapped hypocrisy or the Chinese who actually know exactly where their next meal is coming from.

 

If you are jumping about shouting  ‘yes but it is not about food but about the fur trade’ remember a time not so long ago when western men attacked tiny immature fur seals- those cute white fluffy ones-  with bludgeons to prevent their pelts from being damaged. These poor beasts were also skinned then and there. Were all those little seals well and truly dead? When you have a couple of thousand fur seals to skin in a week you are not going about taking the pulse of each one. The difference is they didn’t have mini-cams and internet in those days so the sins were more easily hidden.

 

Today we still want our furs. In the latest edition of ‘Intelligent Life’ a light hearted article about cocktail rings proclaimed that, as we can no longer wear a fur as we might have a can of paint thrown at us, we should indulge in cheap jewellery. Just there lies the hypocrisy; to not wear a fur because you fear the paint can is not the point and will not stop the Chinese from skinning living animals. What we have done to absolve our guilt is to move our atrocities to a place where we hoped nobody would ever see them.  It would be bigoted in the extreme to plead innocence and to blame the Chinese for something we have equal part in creating. It smacks of the same sort of thinking that makes one country believe it is better than another if not the best country on the planet. The point is debatable but what is true is that this is the best planet we are ever likely to inhabit so the aim would be to stop dumping our garbage in someone else’s backyard and then start pointing fingers.

 

 The West  has squandered the earths resources in a one- hundred- year-party in which we have used and abused every one of the planets resources. We have left the hangover and the mess to the developing world and they don’t really like us for it. They want a party of their own. How are we going to stop them and make them believe that they are having a better time than we did. This is going to make telling someone to go to hell in such a way that he enjoys the ride seem amateurish.

'"You have to work much harder than we ever did ,but you cannot have the big house, the smart car, the three hundred pairs of shoes, the swimming pool or any of the other thing that we demanded as our just desserts. In fact sorry folks, we had the dessert , the cake and the cake shop is bankrupt " - are there any good really really good diplomats out there?

There are no more easy outs, there is no more passing the buck because that buck comes from the west, and after it has paid for dirty energy, dredging of coral reefs and the skinning of live animals it is going to end up right back in your wallet, with all the stains of its wanton course around the world embedded in it.

Next time you step out to SHOP because you cannot think of anything better to do, think of those ‘f'ing’ Chinese skinning those living animals; hearing no evil and saying no evil does not mean you are doing no evil.

 

The_decline_of_art

The decline of art

 

In the city of Rubens – Antwerp Belgium – the work of that great master abounds in churches, public buildings and in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts where, in a dedicated hall, his finest pieces overwhelm the vast space. When looking at these giant glowing works of masterful composition, painterly craft and intelligent concept, I am sure that no Joe Public was ever moved to say disparagingly; ‘I could do that!’ These works inspire a sense of awe and wonder at what we humans are capable of achieving. When you walk away from them you are filled with a purpose to try a little harder.

 

Antwerp also claims to have discovered the - I quote from the blurb in one of the catalogues in the Xeno gallery - most famous female artist of all time, Marlene Dumas. The Xeno gallery is just across the road from the Royal museum; here fifteen Dumas works hang in a much publicised exhibition. Small paintings, modest in colour use and niggardly in craft. At the opening I watch the faces of the public viewing the work, they are blank masks, and no word is spoken. Is this a sign of silent reverie in the presence of greatness? Or simply one of complete incomprehension and the fear of seeming stupid if an opinion expressed might stand in opposition to the great reputation of this artist.

 

The images on display are of blotted vaginas in raw umber and blue, a bad copy of a Man Ray eye, portraits that are vaguely reminiscent of Marlene Monroe, a set of pouty lips and a portrait of her mother that sends me suddenly into “Physco” the scene where we finally discover the secret of the woman in the rocking chair. The craft of the work is questionable and the composition limited to placing a fuzzy object more or less in the middle of the canvas.  As the intellectual concept behind the work is always more difficult to fathom, I leave the gallery to try to find the meaning behind it all. Here is where contemporary art leads the public on a merry chase of the said and unsaid, by using mangled philosophies - expressed in words with far too many syllables - to describe meaning that is not there. My conclusion is that Dumas is in favour of the accidental in art. Sounds very philosophical but accidents happen; to leave the spill of coffee on the table claiming that it enhances the room is absurd, but in contemporary art this thinking is elevated to greatness.  It is also said she understands and paints the human condition with the sparse brushwork of a master. With this background information I decide to give Marlene Dumas’s art a second viewing.

 

In an empty gallery I open my mind to the experience I meditate quietly, surreptitiously glancing at the images out of the corner of my eye to try and catch that fleeting magic that defines a master piece. I employ every method of looking that I can think of to try and find some sense of achievement in these pieces but the magic eludes me.  All the while I have in the back of my mind the knowledge that the public was proven wrong in rejecting a host of artists that presented a new way of seeing in the past, and I could be missing something quite fundamental. But then I console myself with the fact that we - Mr and Mrs Joe Public - have also made vast advancements in our way of seeing the world and with the endless stream of visual stimulation that we are accustomed to processing every day I feel quite confident in expressing my opinion about the works of Ms Dumas.

 

The Dumas world is inhabited by sad somewhat scary individuals. Why is sad and suicidal so much more sexy in the art world than happy and joyous? Is it that the art dealers are just so numb to joy that they find it repulsive, or could it be that as soon as a thing evokes a happy emotion it could conceivable been seen as decorative, and that of course will never do. Personally give me happy and joyous any day and if the piece makes the room look pretty (I can just see the critics wincing at that word) so much the better. The Dumas works are relentlessly ugly and evoke only the feeling that the artist must be very sad or very bored .The accidental in her art seems to me to be reactive in that she splots paint about and then looks back and says; ooh that looks sort of like a Man Ray eye I’ll put that in my next exhibition. Compare this to Rubens who set out with a brilliant concept in mind and then was able to consciously sketch and compose and finally through the expert application of paint to imbue the concept with vigour and life. I am sure that within this process there were fortuitous moments when a small quirk of paint on canvas suddenly created the magic that makes a masterpiece. These moments are a gift; not the whole basis of an art form and in the case of Dumas they don’t bring magic but disaster. Dumas’s works inspire only irritation that I again took the time to come downtown to view them. To all the Dumas fans, you go roll about in the sludgy browns and blues of Dumas despair but spare me the eulogies; the woman needs help.

 

I try to imagine what Rubens would have made of the Dumas exhibition. It is a difficult task, especially if one were to try to explain to him that for the sake of the advancement of art we have dismissed his style in favour of that of Ms Dumas. I think the man would have me committed. I wonder also what he would have made of the constant comparisons that are made between him and the other superstar of the contemporary art world. Damien Hirst. Critics try to justify the fact that Mr Hirst never actually paints the paintings he puts his name to by comparing him to Rubens. Rubens was known to also use assistants in producing his works. But when one digs further and finds that Hirst uses assistants to glue dead butterflies onto boards painted in flat enamel colours, or to paint dots on boards ; producing an endless repetition of the same but slightly different thing, as compared to Rubens using highly skilled artists - masters in their own right - to help with specific areas of vast works, that took years to complete; and if one then stood in front of the original works of both artists one would surely have to be completely blind or somewhat addled not to find any comparison between the two men totally inappropriate.

 

But the comparison serves to underline how far we have regressed in thinking and craft .Today using assistants to produce endless coloured dots on board with the exulted claim that the same colour is never used twice, is presented as great art. To make the achievement of not using the same colour twice a measure of great artistic talent neatly illustrates the state of contemporary art. An act of insignificance that deserves the insult of; I can do that.  But of course Mr Hirst has a point when he says ; perhaps you can do that but only mine - even if I don’t paint them myself - are worth 600 000 pnds. The blame for this state of affairs has got to rest squarely on the shoulders of the rich. How stupid are these people . I can only imagine it is because today the rich are the Paris Hiltons of the world, these are the light brained twits who fall for the Damien Hirst scam and drag the whole concept of art into the worst neighbourhood of the capitalist state.

 

What Damien Hirst is, is glittering mirror ball  of everything that art has become in the last few decades, the making of money in which- lets give credit where credit is due - he does indeed stand at the pinnacle of the contemporary art world. A world where beauty and intellect have been disregarded in favour of the art of selling the emperors cloths at great price. But in order to justify this state of affairs there is a great wringing of hands and deep anguished discussion of whether Mr Hirst is an artist and whether ‘his’ creations will be considered great art tomorrow or the next day.

 

To my mind this addresses the wrong thing. Damien Hirst is the artwork, but not one of his own creation. He is the pinnacle of the creative abilities of the salesmen and woman who control the world of contemporary art. To end the discussion of where the art of Damien Hirst lies I would suggest that he be carefully preserved and floated precisely at the centre of a giant tank of acid green formaldehyde as a symbol of the perversity of the art world today. And hey Damien, as we all know you are not so good at thinking up your own ideas have this one, it’s on me.

 

 

Frieze Art Fair

My brain is melting;I thought I published this months ago. Ah well

London October 2008

 

The importance of the Frieze art fair was made quite clear to me while buying an online ticket to the event. Peevish instructions accompanied every step of the process. Do this, do that, under no circumstances may you do the following. I realise that art is important, but was all this schoolmarmish instruction giving really necessary. Fortunately, having bought the ticket online, I could skip the queue in Regents Park. Not really a huge advantage as, although signs were placed at carefully measured intervals giving waiting times , these were never in any danger of being used and the one stating ‘two hours wait from this point’ seemed a touch optimistic. The small group of art enthusiasts was considerably fleshed out with people in black suits employed to herd unruly art viewers. Walk here, keep left, stay right; I had unpleasant flash-backs to the people-herding one endures at Heathrow - but without the crowds - perhaps they would arrive later.

 

The people who were there were giving the art a good run for its money. Green haired Goths - with more buckles on their boots that the entire mounted brigade- rubbed shoulders with elderly ladies in exotic purple gear ,who peered at artworks through bejeweled wingtip spectacles. The serious buyer was the one who actually bothered asking after the prices. ‘Oh anywhere up from 11000euros’ the airy reply of a young sales lady wafted into the ears of less courageous onlookers.

 

The sales ladies were a revelation; who knew that so many gorgeous young ladies were simply passionate about art. Black seemed to be the only clothing colour option. Much like ramp models that may not smile lest they distract from the clothing they are wearing ,these young ladies were obviously under instruction not to distract from the art works with outlandish clothing. What to do then about the glut of all-black paintings. It must be the gloom of global economic meltdown influencing the art world. I confess to being in an all black mood myself.

 

Interestingly, despite the constant harping that painting as an art form is dead, the overwhelming majority of works were in fact paintings. Probably a bit of strategic thinking on the part of the dealers - in a down market - to put up art that can in fact hang behind the coach. It must make the sale a bit easier if the buyer does not have to consider remodeling the house to accommodate the new art acquisition. There were however two sculpted pieces that caught my eye. Both in clear substance, one a cubic meter of clear resin(perhaps) in the centre of which floated a galaxy shaped air bubble, ‘the laboratory of a new universe’ I think it was called. It certainly drew the crowds and the craft of the thing alone was worth applauding. The other piece was ‘a continual vortex’. A large sphere of glass with a whirlpool of water dancing in its centre, this was mounted on a plinth at eye level, so the hilariously distorted faces of other viewers were visible behind the vortex. An interesting, possibly meditative piece, or a gym for the Koi.

 

On the painting side what stood out were very graphic, very large pieces consisting of thin sinuous green and brown acrylic lines racing and swirling over snow white canvas. These paintings were presented by several galleries. Must have upset the galleries but great exposure for the artist. However -as with most abstract art- the artist had found a groove and kept repeating himself. The paintings were admittedly intriguing from the - how did he do it point of view- the problem with this sort of art is once the how’s it done is discovered what is left? There is nothing there except a computer playing with lines that have been enlarged to impressive size. Fun, but telling art, that will have weight in five years time let alone 500? I doubt it.

 

While I enjoyed the visual spectacle of realistic paintings of mini cars and trucks all balancing on top of one another or arranged in compartments that reminded me of keyboard tabs, all this in various shades of yellow, the possible deeper meaning of it all was - as is normal in the art world of today -  on a strictly need to know basis so who knows and frankly who’s got the time to try and find out? Nobody really, perhaps not even the artist. I caught another snippet of information from an oriental buyer interested in a medium sized framed photograph of a wave. 35 000 USD was the quoted price. The oriental chap did not seem fazed at all, and he and the sales lady withdrew to the small private room all the stalls had in place to conclude the business end of the deal.  Other than that there were the usual comers of inexplicable art, ugly art, badly executed art and odd photographs that on the whole reminded me of the first year efforts we all produced in art school. Goodness knows, perhaps that is where the galleries are finding their great artists.

 

Is it possible that only the worst of creatives stay in the fine arts, the rest being snapped up by the design and commercial art studios of the world? I think it must be so if one considers the woeful state of the art market or rather more precisely the horrible stuff that is for sale. The shape of the art market itself depends on whom you are speaking to. The Frieze organisers have pegged this fair as their best fair yet, but the critics say the sales tanked and the auctions were dismal. But then the modern art market is all about spin isn’t it?  A market in which clever sales men and women control all things ART, perhaps that’s the problem.

 

Eaves dropping once again I overheard an elderly couple discussing a fabulous piece with a sales lady. Deciding that surely I must be missing something, I took time out to stand and concentrate on the offering in question, a series of sloppy lines in various shades of purple and green mud. What was the point? Was it in the colours or in the line or was it possibly a representation of a three day old bruise? What did the couple find fabulous about this piece?  All I could see was inexplicable ugliness.

 

Perhaps that is what art has become? A fairly ugly, meaningless and completely uninspiring object that is sold for more money than can possibly be justified? I have this old fashioned idea that art should have a function.  I believe the function of art is to ‘kick against society’, or to communicate to society that which it lacks ,or to communicate a higher ideal ,to provide some inspiration, and I further believe that art should be executed with great attention to craft. But even craft it seems is now no longer a desirable part of art. It is as if the artists revel in the slovenliness of their creations.

 

Contemporary art perhaps shows a mirror to our faces and says – to paraphrase Picasso- the world is ugly and incomprehensible why should art be otherwise. This is just a slippery escape route. Society has always been brutal and the world inhabited by millions who cannot see other than to prevent themselves from walking into a pole.

For art to emulate life is to degrade us all. Art should be an act of intellect that should attempt to be arresting enough to issue an invitation to deeper thought. And the invitation should have sufficient clarity to allow the recipient to at least to arrive at the right time and place, if they then don’t enjoy the occasion when they get there, well that’s up to each individual.

 

I think the true art lover - that person who does not need a middleman to tell him that the thing he is looking at is beautiful or has value beyond money - must despair at the things that pass as art today. I wonder how our descendants will view this era of art. Will there ever be a museum 600 years from now to which people will flock to marvel at our creations. I think our descendants will not marvel at our art but will shake their heads at the sad folly of it all or worse, fall about laughing.

A crime against humanity

After a month of getting my daily news from French public TV - as bad and as inward looking as anywhere on the planet; it seems to be the stated goal of the public broadcaster too keep the masses as ignorant as possible - I bought three international (German English and American) newspapers today to get a more global view of the world. The story that was topmost in all the newspapers was the demand governments placed on banks that have been bailed out by public money to cut their bonuses to executives.

 

As can be expected the banking and investment sector are howling in protest, the argument being that the banks will loose their best and most talented people to other companies /countries. And that these talented people must be maintained and very well paid so that they can steer us out of the economic crisis we find ourselves in.

 

Considering that the people we are talking about are the same people who managed to plunge the world into the biggest economic disaster we have ever seen - I believe we have but started on this downward spiral - the sheer arrogance and lack of contrition of these sectors numbs the mind. For more than ten years banks and investment houses have been slowly and stealthy turning to more and more unsustainable if not downright dishonest business practices. In the short term this gave banks fantastic profits out of which they paid themselves astronomical bonuses, bonuses the bankers began to see as only natural in light of their great talent.

• The highest paid investment manager got  almost 4bn USA dollars in 2007 , this confirms something I have always believed about the returns of those investment vehicles for the masses, like the unit trust where you faithfully put your ten cents worth in every month only to discover at the end you hardly made any money. The investment companies always have a thousand excuses don’t they. Well next time you look (actually considering the state of the global economy I suppose this point is mute but anyway for what its worth) at your returns remember the amount 3.7bn per annum for one guy that money has got to come from somewhere, right?   

All along these talented individuals knew they were walking a tightrope and they knew it couldn’t last forever. But like the tightrope walker, once on the wire they had to keep moving forward and have faith in the system they built .That all worked just fine until one bank looked down into the abyss, and getting a little fright at what it saw started wobbling on that slender thread that was keeping everybody aloft. As the first bank took the plunge the stability of the system was lost and that was the end of that. Banks around the world were hanging on by a thread (sorry about this but it is too good to let go ;- )). But , as all the banks knew that they were all trading with fresh air, suddenly no bank wanted to trade with another bank knowing full well how fanciful all their balance sheets were. So there they were, dangling above the chasm with not a safety net in sight.

Okay I think I have worked that metaphor as far as it will go, time to move on.

 

With the collapse of trust in the banking sector the whole gravy train came to a very sudden and messy halt. They all knew you cannot make money from nothing no matter how artistically you arrange those figures on your balance sheet. But gluttony ruled the day and while they continued to drink champagne, governments were forced to intervene and to try to clean up the rather extravert mess the banks had made of the global economy. Not because the governments felt sorry for the banks but in order that all our bank accounts were not suddenly frozen like those of the poor people in Iceland. So governments used our money, that’s right, your and my public money to bail out the bankers and keep the banks open so that our private money was not swallowed into the gluttonous maw of the bankers.

 

And here is the sickening irony of it all. The bankers are now slowly forcing the entire world economy to a stop by refusing to loan our money back to us; this due to the lack of trust in the economy that they (the bankers) created.

 

These exceptionally talented individuals are now having a little hissy fit because they are required, not too forgo their bonuses, but just to cut back a tiny bit so the masses –that would be you and me - don’t get upset when we see our tax money being used to fuel some highly talented individuals jaguar while we stand in a queue to collect the dole because we have lost our jobs. That we don’t revolt at the fact that they go on skiing holiday while we pack our worldly possessions as the banks have repossessed our home. So that we don’t send out a lynching squad because they still eat caviar while a pensioner eats cat food because his entire lifesavings have been wiped out by unscrupulous bankers.

 

While all this is going on it must not be forgotten that there was nothing wrong with the world …well no more than usual. There are no more wars than normal, no great floods, droughts, rampant deceases hell didn’t freeze the sky didn’t fall. The world and all the normal folk on it were going about their business quite happily oblivious to the fact that a few greedy people were about to destroy their lives. Considering this cost and the cost this mess will continue to exact against the normal people of the world I think a more appropriate response to the bankers responsible would be not a little cut in their bonuses but a charge of crimes against humanity.

 

 

Through the looking glass ;capitalism

Yesterday  a male friend sent me an email of a beautiful naked blonde - don’t ask it’s a long story - later the same day another friend showed me an image of a blow up sex doll – I don’t know perhaps they see me as their drinking buddy. A hint to all men reading this ;  showing women images of other women - naked to boot -  is not the way to a girl’s heart. But back to my original thought.

What struck me about these images was the uncanny resemblance between the two representations of the female form. Both were the perfect modern image of female beauty, blonde, thin, big big breasts, wide Californian smile and a skin as perfect as plastic. This perfection in the doll was not surprising, but the photograph of the ‘real‘woman set me thinking about the impossibly high standards we have set for physical beauty as we understand it today, and how this concept of beauty has shifted through the ages as we have become more and more self aware, aided mainly by perfecting the manufacture of the mirror.

While an intimate acquaintance with our personal looks is today considered quite normal and consumes a vast amount of our time and budget, this was not always the case. In the progress of mankind it is only with the invention of the mass produced mirror and perhaps the theories of Freud and his concept of the inner id that the masses stepped onto the path of intimate self discovery. A path that we have trodden into such a deeply worn groove that today almost all of our endeavours are aimed in some way or another at our personal enhancement.

Before the days of the mirror ,when we were obliged to believe the words of others concerning our looks , the concept of beauty must have been far less regimented and severe than today. Diversity in the human perception of beauty would have been completely natural and also linked to animal fundamentals. In women, wide shapely hips, good teeth, strong hair and more flesh than any modern western woman would care to carry were considered the height of female attraction. A man was easily able to determine that he was looking at a healthy, fecund woman able to bear children with ease, a major consideration in the days when large families were essential to the survival of the clan. Woman looked for strong men, tall straight clear eyed and, in the days before mirrors, beauty was not just in the eye of the beholder but in the nose. A well developed sense of smell directly relayed to the human mind that the hormone load of the person in their presence was highly favourable for the procreation of the species.

Then the Phoenicians belly danced- flabby thighs a jigger- onto the world stage and started introducing perfumes into society. These scents were reputed to attract men but succeeded admirably in masking the real aroma of women. Was this advancement in sexual relations or perhaps a subtle form of female of self defence?

Soon the Phoenicians were shunted off centre stage by the Egyptians, who produced the greatest queen of antiquity; Cleopatra. She could not have known that she was actually fairly ugly. Being the ruler of Egypt she probably did not have many people around her willing to tell her ‘hey Cleo what’s with the schnozz and about time to do some squats what.’ But despite her obvious physical shortcomings she happily went forth and conquered the know world mainly by using her sex appeal.  I would like to bet that had she been in possession of a full length modern mirror she would have been somewhat more aware of her physical failings and history would have told different tale.

In the days of Henry the 8th the distorted reflection of a highly polished sheet of metal was our only view onto ourselves. Think of the simple task of the portrait painter whose clients had no intimate knowledge of their own features .To confirm the truth of that which the painter put down on canvas they once again had to rely on the opinion of others. Who was about to tell old Henry8 that actually no he was not quite as tall, muscular and handsome as the court painter had chosen to portray him . With his reputation for beheading people being fairly well known who was about to wager his head on a missing wrinkle or roll of fat. So as long as the court painter was adept at visual flattery his position was secure, but I digress.

 

The role of the mirror in the rise of capitalism.

 

The scourge of the glass mirror only came into being fairly recently and even then mirrors were so extravagantly expensive that only those rivalling Louis the 14th  in wealth could afford one that would reflect the entire body. Getting a total view of ones self was unknown for the bulk of humanity. In the days of tiny mirrors men who liked women still shaped the female ideal - happy days those - think of the robust wenches that inhabited the world of Rubens. Now those lumpy cellulite maidens could tuck into the endless middle age meals with relish ,secure in the knowledge that her man would be only to grateful for her sumptuous flesh into which to sink his fingers. The ideal female form of today would have been considered ugly and rather unhealthy. What the men of days gone by would have made of the exaggerated breasts attached to bony rib cages is anyone’s guess. 

 

By the 19th century the mass produced mirror had arrived and in tandem with the great leap forward of the mirror industry came the advertising industry. Suddenly the ideal image of women was decided by a small handful of men, with which the industry of reshaping the female form was born. With every bedroom, bathroom, lounge and hallway now blessed with the presence of a mirror, modern women were constantly treated to the hard reality of the lump, roll and wrinkle of their bodies .Which on the whole did not fit into the ideal as prescribed by those early advertising moguls. To add to the woes of the modern female, the fashion and advertising industries discovered they where a match made in heaven, or hell, depending on your point of view. These two henchmen to capitalism are today the greatest manipulators of the female and more and more often the male mind. Today a vast economy depends entirely on the ingrained belief of the average female that she is just not good enough. From the roots of her incorrect shade of hair to the laugh lines around her eyes, from her acrylic sculpted fingernails to the removal of every bit of body hair from the nostrils down and fairly recently the rebuilding of eyes, ears, noses and of course the exaggerated breast joined the never ending well of profits the female form represents for those who manipulate our thinking.

 

To keep women forever chasing an impossible dream the corporate world invented the ideal vehicle for the advertising and fashion industry; the woman’s magazine. At first marketed as a helping hand for the harried female who ; no longer was expected to only cook, clean, raise the children, do the laundry, and bring in half the household budget but she was to look like a Stepford wife while she was at it. These quaint women’s magazines have morphed into the ‘glamour magazine’ which under the control of the giant coporates prescribe to the women of the world what they should think and wear, what is in and out, how long how short. These magazines have insidiously convinced the modern woman that the only ideal for the female form is the waif thin, hipless wonder that graces the cats walks of the day, an ideal that the personal mirror belies in every home. This monopoly of the female mind has also has the less obvious effect of setting back the advances of woman’s lib by linking the value of the female directly to her form.

Big brother might be watching you but it’s big sis who is telling you what to think and do.

The advent of Photoshop further distorted the image of real woman. At this point the household mirror became an object of torture as how could anyone possibly live up to the computer enhanced images filling magazines. Linda Evangelista once famously said – no not the getting out of bed thing - but that she was surprised that woman strove to look like the advertising worlds’ image of her, when she herself didn’t even begin to look that good. A make up free un-retouched image of Ms Evangelista appeared some years ago in a tabloid magazine. I remember the dj’s –humans who underwritten by the advertising industry force their own singular class of stupidity down the throats of humanity– having a field day over this image. The overall consensus was; Linda Evangelista is a complete dog. Now there is a ray of light for us all and may all those djs right ears fall into their left pockets. So we see that with Photoshop anything is possible. I have personally discovered a few Photoshop tricks that I apply to images of myself, so don’t believe any images you might see of me on my website they are all half truths and lies- oh what a hypocrite I am!

 

This quest for the modern version of perfection is fantastic for commerce and capitalism. As through the brutal realty of the modern mirror women are caught in a destructive cycle, endlessly spending their hard earned cash on trying to achieve the impossible. Up to now this obsession with self-image and dissatisfaction has been restricted mainly to woman. Men on the whole have been free from this not so subtle tyranny. But changes are afoot as the corporations smile and rub their hands in glee. The aim has shifted. The marketers of capitalism have tapped into a whole new market. As women are slowly discovering that the pursuit of perfection is a short step to madness, men are filling their place with alarming enthusiasm.

 

The worst part of this incessant dissatisfaction with ourselves is the wanton destruction of the planet and the other creatures that share it with us. Furs are back in fashion, animal testing still goes on and chemical gunk floods the oceans. Our throw away society is the direct result of our adherence to fashion - a concept that in its most basic form states that which is perfect today must be discarded tomorrow - as only by this constant cycle of waste can commerce and capitalism as we understand it today be maintained.

 

My two bits of  advice to the world ; Stand in front of your full length mirror - butt naked - take a big  fat permanent market and write on that mirror;  I am beautiful ; I love you ; You look great. So that you will feel good every time you see yourself.

Next send all your glamour magazines to the recycling plant and for the sake of your sanity, personal happiness and the preservation of the planet don’t ever buy another one. Their content is fake, highly addictive and will destroy your soul not to mention the planet. With all the money you will save on not just the magazines but the constant revamping of the wardrobe, makeup drawer and body parts you can work your way out of debt; a debt free existence equals freedom and is a far more satisfying way to enhance your life than though chasing an image of virtual perfection.

 

I think thinking is a highly underrated activity and the problem lies in the way we think.

Currently the thing seems to be not to think. Endless lifestyle books on being in the ‘now’, in the ‘zone’ and Buddhist meditation books, all exhort you not to think but to be. To reside in the gap between thoughts. While this is certainly a highly recommended state when meditating-which is also highly recommended- it is hardly practical for day to day life.

I like to think, I feel good when I think and very good things come from my thinking. This was not always so, there was a time when my thoughts were pure poison to my life.

My quest for greater understanding of the inner workings of my brain started about five year ago when, on waking, I contemplated with despair yet another grinding day stretching ahead of me. I sat up feeling vaguely unwell, my head was groggy, my feet and back ached and frankly I felt old, tired and sad. But then one of those flashes of insight that should never be ignored hit me. I have still got at least half my life to live do I really want to wake up like this every morning?

In moments like this action is the only way, do not hesitate act now.

My first move was to phone a friend and get the name of the alternative healer he had been raving about. One week later I found myself on the healers coach with my brain, wrists and ankles strapped to a computer programme. This I did not believe but was prepared to be as open minded as possible. The healer, seeing my wide open mind, seized the moment and started probing gently into my inner world .Within minutes I was spouting forth previously untold secrets. Four hours and an entire box of tissues later, I found myself not only with thoroughly sluiced sinuses but also clutching a long list of chemicals that were severely depleted in my body and an equally long list of foods that my body really didn’t like.

The next step was a visit to the health store, then the book shop. “The power of Now” ‘was on my reading list and while I was there ‘Tired of being tired ‘caught my eye. (This book I recommend, ISBN 0-141-00680-3). Essential shopping done, I was on my way to a better life.

The main theme of ‘The power of now’ is living in the current moment, the past is over the future not yet here, now is all we have and on and on. As a creative, living in the moment is not the problem; it is a quiet refuge from the turmoil of the brain. Maybe that is why so many screwed up people create or so many creative people are screwed up. When they create they sink into a quiet, still place that I can only imagine is the gap between thoughts that the Buddhists value so highly. But back to my original statement; being in that space all the time is probably only practical for Buddhists in a temple with nothing else to worry about. For me, the thinking outside of those ‘now ‘moments was what needed to be addressed.

For this the ‘Now’ book recommended having a good close, no holds barred, look at my thoughts, this was not going to be pretty. Besides, I was not well, so I stalled and took to heart the advice of ‘Tired of being tired’. It was pretty hard in the beginning, especially giving up that glass of wine that was my reward for a hard days labour. But by visualizing the happy new me I kept at it. After about two months the daily popping of vitamins and minerals, cutting out alcohol, wheat, dairy products and fried foods started having the desired effect. I noticed I was waking up feeling positively squirrelly, my jeans fit beautifully , my skin glowed and I was receiving compliments for my sparkly clear eyes, oh joy. But the task I had been pushing onto the back burner was still ahead of me. The time had come to have a little look into the dark scheming corners of my mind.

Geared up in my gumboots ,heavy duty rubber gloves, gas mask and some industrial strength- environment be dammed this was an emergency- detergent. I hesitantly approached the attic of my mind.

The hinges creaked and flakes of rust fell to the floor as, with the application of a crowbar, the door opened a crack, letting out a smell of decay that made me nearly abandon the task. But with determination I pushed on. A cockroach scuttled over my foot ‘eee’, oh don’t be such a girl.

With the door finally open I stood staring into the musty gloom that cloaked a life time of thoughts. Swallowing hard I grabbed the first thought that came to mind; festering with decay it slithered its way around my head drawing me into familiar dark places. But no, my first shiny new thought was, why am I hanging onto this? Tossing it out into the light, poof it simply disappeared. Hugely encouraged I waded through thoughts in various stages of mouldering decay, spiders scuttled, cockroaches scurried, earwigs of the large and particularly shiver inducing variety ran up my legs. But I was not deterred, I cleared shelf after shelf in that musty old space until finally I was left with only a few neatly folded thoughts, freshly ironed and stacked in alphabetical order. Folding my arms in satisfaction I looked around at my newly cleaned head space and was in awe. It was a huge and filled with sunshine and optimism. Right then and there I made a vow that this was the way my mind would always look.

I confess that every now and then I still find a horrible old and warty thought hanging on for dear life in some forgotten corner of my brain. But with routine maintenance this problem should eventually be resolved.

Now finally I was ready to embrace the new culture of ‘Being in the Now’, ‘living in the ‘zone’. And do you know, even with my newly polished brain, it is still just not practical or very productive being in the zone all the time, there are times when one needs to think. The problem I discovered was not with thinking but how I was thinking. My head was simply doing what ever it pleased and most of it was not good a bull in the china shop image springs to mind.

I decided my newly cleansed head needed to go off to brain boot-camp, time to teach the grey matter just how to think. No more random thoughts flying in and out, buzzing round my mind like mosquitoes on a sultry night. If my abs were to get a daily work out so was my brain. My brain boot-camp consisted of less media more knowledge. I have always been a great reader so I upped the intelligence level of the books I was reading and now find myself drawing inspiration from books about the cutting edge of physics and science. Books that discuss string theory, scalar fields, the impossibility of an actual vacuum existing and the inevitability of alternate universes. Who would have thought; I am a rocket scientist after all. I have also become a great jotter down of thoughts and when driving I make use of a Dictaphone. These thoughts are then later evaluated, if they have any value they are allowed to stay, if not they get booted back into the great beyond and so I keep my head space bright-white and crystal clear.

The above is merely one experience out of a possible infinity of experiences. The crux of the matter is that thinking matters. How you think matters. Being aware that you think matters. Training your brain to think matters, and only when you have trained your brain to SiT! Stay! Will you be in charge of your life .When your thoughts run clear then you will discover that that inner silence, that creative , happy you.