Older, wiser - more credulous?

As I get older, my ideas mature, my views become more nuanced and sharper. My assessment of situations is clearer, more level-headed, my intuition proves to be correct more often than when I was young. Swap my 64-year-old me for a 34-year-old-me? With that level of wisdom? No. Happier where I am, thanks!

I retreat from materialism. Having attained a comfortable standard of life, I'm not looking for luxury. I have no need for a car - a sports car or classic would be nice to have, but there's a planet to save. I have no desire to visit the world, nor to boast about having visited it. My ego is also in retreat; my consciousness is in the ascendant.

As a 34-year-old, I'd generally look up to politicians with respect. Today - most of them are younger than me (Kaczyński and Biden being outliers) - and I sneer at the vacuous pronouncements of these junior politicians, who were still in school while I was already making a living. I can see through their obvious lies. With a handful of notable exceptions, they fail to impress me. The current British crop of Tories is a particularly shameful shower.

My understanding of the world around us is greater than ever - the science of the subatomic scale through to the cosmic - yet I am painfully aware of how much more I have yet to grasp. Electricity - the phenomenon of electromagnetic radiation described by James Clerk Maxwell 160 years ago - still remains beyond my comprehension. Biology - the inner workings of the cell, protein, DNA - again, my knowledge is sketchy, but at least I know what I know I don't know. What worries me is how many folk have even less knowledge of the natural world or economics than me - and are allowed to stand as elected officials! But my frame of reference is how much more I know today compared to, say, ten years ago, thanks to podcasts I listen to, and thanks to Wikipedia. This I do rather than wasting time watching football or soap operas.

Science too is more humble as it retreats from the certainties of materialist reductionism; problems that were once thought to be an equation or two away are now understood to be fundamentally intractable. Reconciling general relativity with quantum physics has been gnawing away at physics since Einstein's day - is quantum gravity the answer, or string theory? What happened before the Big Bang? And then - what is dark matter than keeps galaxies rotating faster than they should given the mass in them? And what is dark energy that forces galaxies apart faster than they should given the mass in them? And of course - what is consciousness?

With more and more holes becoming evident in what was until recently thought to be materialist-reductionist certainly, people are looking elsewhere for answers. With 16 different interpretations of quantum mechanics out there, why not include God as a seventeenth?

Organised religion no longer fits the bill for many people these days. Yet the spiritual yearnings that drive some to seek solace in religious practice also cause those who genuinely seek the truth that underlies reality to look beyond reductionist science.

Could consciousness be a universal property, underpinning matter rather than being an emergent property of matter? Indeed, can mind affect matter? Could beings from other worlds, with advanced intelligence, be visiting our planet? How much strangeness is real? To quote retired CIA officer, John Ramirez, 'embrace widely but hold lightly' theories that at first sight seem weird - are humans bio-engineered hybrids? Can the spirit world communicate with us? Is Planet Earth a living, conscious, organism?

Twenty years ago, I was into a rational, science-based approach; I would have roundly dismissed such ideas. Today, I'm more open than even when it comes to at least considering new and fringe-y concepts.

This time last year:

Powerless

This time two years ago:
Kilometres of new asphalt

This time three years ago:
One man went to mow
[three years with my scythe!]

This time five years ago:
My father's penknife and airport security

This time eight years ago:
Post-holiday detox diet starts today

This time nine years ago:
Cycle ride up and down the S2 and S79 before they open

This time ten years ago:
Kraków and back in a day by train 

This time 11 years ago:
Fountains by the New Town

This time 12 years ago:
Old-School Saska Kępa

This time 13 years ago:
The land, the light

This time 14 years ago:
Rainbow over Jeziorki

This time 15 years ago:
Previously in Portmeirion